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June 7, 2013 - The Joe Rogan Experience
02:55:24
Joe Rogan Experience #365 - Kelly Starrett, Glen Cordoza
Participants
Main voices
g
glen cordoza
14:11
j
joe rogan
57:48
k
kelly starrett
01:38:56
Appearances
Clips
b
benjamin jaffe
00:02
b
brian redban
00:39
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Speaker Time Text
joe rogan
Hey everybody!
This is a special late night episode of the Jailroving Experience Podcast.
And we only have one sponsor.
It's on at O-N-N-I-T. If you've heard this podcast before, you've heard these fucking commercials before.
You don't need this again.
Alright?
You don't need this aggravation in your life.
You don't need this shit.
So I'll leave it at that.
On it, O-N-N-N, O-N-N, two, just two N's.
O-N-N-I-T, use the code name ROGEN, save 10% off any and all supplements.
It's not just supplements there.
It's basically a human performance website.
If you've never been there before, go check it out.
Fitness equipment, all kinds of cool supplements, hemp protein powders, and good shit.
Go check it out.
All right, that's it.
Boom.
This weekend, too bad, sold out.
Ha ha.
Tomorrow night.
The Ice House.
Other dates, go to deathsquad.tv.
Brian will have all of his future comedy shows up there, as well as friends of ours, and my website, joerogan.net.
There's a tour section, and it's got all the stuff over there.
Alaska sold out.
Sorry, bitches.
You snoozed.
You loosed.
Alaska.
And Winnipeg sold out, too.
So I can't wait to go to Canada again.
unidentified
When are you going back to Texas?
joe rogan
I want to go to Texas so bad.
I know you do.
Well, you should probably schedule a gig.
unidentified
I know.
joe rogan
Why don't you get a night at the Houston Improv?
unidentified
I would love to.
joe rogan
Yeah, or Addison.
Do Addison.
Get a night at Addison.
unidentified
Addison's fucking great.
brian redban
I want to do a week of Houston, Dallas, Austin.
joe rogan
Wouldn't that be awesome?
You can do it.
Dude, you can do it.
Book it up.
Just make some calls.
All right.
Kelly Starrett's here, and we're going to get cracking.
Cue the music.
unidentified
The Joe Rogan Experience.
What are you doing?
joe rogan
Is that your new mix?
You are not a DJ, you fuck.
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
Kelly, how are you, sir?
kelly starrett
I'm good, man.
joe rogan
Thank you very much for doing this, man.
I really appreciate it.
kelly starrett
Absolutely, my pleasure.
joe rogan
Forrest Griffin recommends you.
That's good enough for me.
And your book is fascinating.
I started looking into your book, and as I was telling you before the podcast, I've been having some back issues myself.
I have like a bulging disc in my neck.
The name Becoming a Supple Leopard, where'd you come up with that name?
kelly starrett
A couple ideas.
One is I have some tactical friends who are scary, and they're always stiff and messed up.
And, you know, he told me, Kelly, the leopard doesn't stretch.
And I was like, well, that's good.
I'm glad you're using that leopard defense, because A, you're not a leopard.
Two, you don't know how a leopard feels.
But then I started thinking about it.
Leopard can sort of attack and defend at full physical capacity.
You don't see the leopard activating its glutes or warming up or prepping.
It's just awesome.
So why the hell don't you have full physical capacity?
Why are you in pain?
You know, the resting state of the human being should be pain-free.
You're designed to be 110. What's going on?
joe rogan
Why is that?
kelly starrett
It's because you suck at moving.
And you're a human being.
You make a ton of movement errors.
No one ever gave you the software for your beautiful hardware.
You know, you're beat up.
You take some injuries.
You eat like crap sometimes.
joe rogan
That's a big one, isn't it?
The software for you, beautiful hardware, that goes with the mind as well.
Like, just managing being a human.
It's difficult.
It's not that easy.
kelly starrett
Well, who says it should be, like, not an easy skill?
So, the bottom line is that we've been sort of kind of sold this horrible mess that, like, you can just get on the treadmill.
You don't even have to think.
Bullshit.
Like, you are a very, very skilled human being.
That skill takes work.
Probably work every day.
joe rogan
So, meaning that you can't just get on a treadmill and be a healthy person with no pain.
Like, you have to do physical, real physical work.
You have to do real workouts.
kelly starrett
Well, I think we've moved beyond.
I think everyone knows you need to probably put the time in under some weights.
You probably need to breathe really hard.
What we're really talking about is being a skilled human.
Can you do everything that a human being needs to be able to do?
Yes or no.
Can you squat down with your feet together like you're in Thailand having dinner?
Yes or no.
If you can't, you don't have flank or range of motion.
Why not?
That's why you have plantar fasciitis.
That's why you tore your Achilles.
This is why you have back pain.
So the thing is that you should be very, very skilled in your thinking.
Very, very skilled in your...
and cultivate the practice.
350 years ago, Musashi writes the book of the Five Rings.
He says, your combat stance is your everyday stance.
And you're like, whoa, that's so deep.
Where the short sword goes, your belly needs to be firm.
He's talking about your core, you know?
From your feet to your knees, you need to be able to create tension.
He's probably talking about torque and having your feet straight.
So, we're not the first people to take a crack at it, but we are the same people who've made the same mistakes over and over again, and you should be skilled.
We don't teach the skill.
You've been spending your genetics, and then you wake up one day and you're herniated disc, and you're like, what the hell happened?
joe rogan
So your skill in movement, like you need to know how to stand.
You need to know the correct posture, is that what you're saying?
Like that kind of thing?
kelly starrett
Well, look, my life's work as a dream as a child was not to lecture adult men about posture.
Like this is not the apex, but it turns out Good standing position in yoga is called Tadasana, right?
You should know how to do that, yes or no.
And it's also the setup position for the deadlift.
The problem is that it's hard to kind of understand what positions you need to be in, what is full range of motion.
Finally, we have a language, and that language is the modern language of strength and conditioning.
If you can press and pull and roll, you know, we, you know, you hear the debunked, thinking about the old strength coaches, say like bench press, it ties the shoulders to the arms, and you're like, what the hell does that mean?
It turns out if you teach kids to create torque off of a fixed object and explain what the purpose of that is, you need to be skilled, well then, it turns out in guard, you can create torque off of any position.
You can grab the shopping cart and Be in a stable shoulder position.
So it turns out that the posture that we adopt day to day, like right now, are you in a good position or a bad position?
unidentified
Horrible position.
I'm always in a horrible position 24 hours a day.
That's right.
kelly starrett
So is it okay to be unconscious in a zombie and turn your abs off?
joe rogan
You've already scared him so much that he'll never work out for like the next month.
He's not going to work out now.
You're freaking him out, man.
brian redban
No, I just have this thing every time, like I know I slouch.
unidentified
My whole life is slouching.
brian redban
If I sit like this, it looks like I'm trying to show off my delicious boobs.
joe rogan
But you should.
That's how you should think.
unidentified
I know.
joe rogan
Is this how you want to be healthy?
Just tell the world, here's my delicious booze.
unidentified
I don't like it.
joe rogan
But I've been doing that lately, man.
And I'm telling you, there's been a bunch of different things that I've done lately that have mitigated my back pain.
But one of them is I've been really, really cognizant of my posture.
For like the first time in my life, I have a horrible slump.
And I just didn't think it was no big deal.
I thought it was like, so I don't like standing up straight.
What do I give a fuck?
But I didn't think it had like health repercussions.
I don't even think the damage it can do for your discs.
kelly starrett
Well, let's look at it.
So, you know, you get away with it.
You're a pretty good athlete.
You have been an athlete your whole life.
You know, you're a black belt.
You know how to train.
You take care of yourself doing these things.
And all of a sudden, something's not working, right?
And the type one error that we make as humans is that, hey, I've always done it.
And I could be the best in the world.
I know so many gold medalists and so many world champions, world record holders who have terrible positions and bad mechanics and pain.
They're still the best in the world.
So, you can't use that I'm the best in the world excuse.
The issue is, are you optimized?
Are you in the best position possible for you?
Are we going to maximize your potential?
Comma, we use pain as a lagging indicator.
I wait until I have pain, swelling, numbness and tingling, loss of range of motion.
Then suddenly, oh, I have a problem.
That's like driving your car around until it blows up and then being like, I should put some oil in.
joe rogan
Yeah, I know I fucked up in not getting regular massages.
I know I fucked up by not doing enough yoga.
I know.
I know I fucked up.
kelly starrett
No, no, no.
This is the problem.
unidentified
Really?
kelly starrett
Yeah.
So, massage is great.
It helps you down-regulate, take care of your tissues, you know, having someone's hands up.
joe rogan
It's really a good idea, right?
kelly starrett
It's a great idea.
joe rogan
And stretching?
kelly starrett
So, but the problem with stretching, we'll talk about that.
Stretching doesn't work.
Stop stretching.
joe rogan
After you work out?
kelly starrett
Stop stretching.
joe rogan
Well, how do you get really flexible?
kelly starrett
Well, we take a systems approach that doesn't include the word stretching because stretching has sort of been co-opted by thinking about lengthening your muscles.
So let's take your neck, for example, right?
One of the things we look at is, you know, is your spine in an optimal position?
Yes or no?
And what we see is that if you're rounded in your thoracic spine, we'll get that little hunch, right?
Which is easy if you're texting or sitting all day long.
Your head ends up a little forward.
For every inch in front of your center of mass your head is, it's plus 10 pounds.
So your head weighs 11 pounds.
Plus an inch, it's another 22 pounds.
joe rogan
It's probably 8. Shit.
My head is super thin.
It's not a lot going on in there.
kelly starrett
So let's extrapolate that out.
So running 400 meters, it's 330 steps, right?
That's 330 loads.
If you look at sort of the flexion load moment on your neck, extrapolate it out times 4. The bottom line is that your nervous system isn't optimized.
The physiology of the human being is no longer debatable.
We know what the best position is.
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
If I put your head in this position, I can decrease your force production instantaneously.
joe rogan
When did everybody sort of come to a consensus on this?
Like when did people really start understanding like real physical training and how do you correct bad posture and issues like what you're talking about?
Is this like fairly recent information?
kelly starrett
I would say this is very recent.
And the reason it's recent, when did the book come out, right?
When did we start mobility-wide?
The issue is that for the first...
joe rogan
What is WOD? Workout of the Day?
unidentified
Is that what it is?
joe rogan
All those CrossFit fuckers and their acronyms.
kelly starrett
Hey, we'll do thrusters later.
joe rogan
Thrusters?
kelly starrett
Look, the bottom line is...
joe rogan
The guy who's got a book about being a supple leopard and then he wants to do thrusters.
What is this show?
Fill in the blank.
I'm from San Francisco.
I lived there as a child.
It's a great town.
unidentified
Confed thrusters.
joe rogan
Okay, buddy.
Settle down over there.
kelly starrett
I don't remember where we were.
joe rogan
He's a grown man.
We were talking about how long this information has been out there.
kelly starrett
So look at what's happened with the onset of the internet.
We have literally kind of hit some kind of threshold where for the first time, in real time, we have the best practices, test-retests being shared, platforms, coaches are talking to us, strength coaches talking to nutritionists.
Let's use your own show as a model.
Look at the people you've brought on, right?
Experts in their fields.
Legitimate.
And for the first time we start to kind of tie in these very disparate systems.
You know, suddenly nutrition guys are talking to gymnasts, talking to physios.
And we were able to connect the dots in ways that we wouldn't.
I mean, 2,000 years ago the yogis figured out that putting your arms over your head didn't align the chakras.
It put the shoulder into a stable position, you know?
And so it's not like we haven't taken a crack at the human condition before.
But for the first time, we can sort of integrate the fields.
Well, it turns out that that shoulder position is the same position you should have your shoulder if you're pressing or if you're a young gymnast blocking.
It's the same shoulder.
The motor control technique has been worked out for us because humans are obsessed with performance.
They're obsessed with lifting heavier weights and going faster.
When we start to kind of underlie the physiology and match that up with the principles, now, like, look, if you go into any gym on the planet, people are front squatting and running and Olympic lifting and swinging kettlebells.
I mean, my mom brags about her deadlift PR, right?
She has an artificial knee.
unidentified
You know what I mean?
kelly starrett
Like, cats are sleeping with dogs.
joe rogan
Your mom has an artificial knee and she does deadlifts?
kelly starrett
Who doesn't deadlift with an artificial knee?
Why not?
joe rogan
That's a gangster.
kelly starrett
Right, and she's gluten-free, right?
joe rogan
And gluten-free.
kelly starrett
That's right.
joe rogan
I could eat your grandmother.
kelly starrett
No, you can't.
joe rogan
I want to definitely get to the gluten issue.
That's a very controversial issue.
kelly starrett
No, it's not controversial.
joe rogan
I mean, amongst a lot of people.
Maybe not to you, but amongst a lot of people it is.
kelly starrett
So, the issue is suddenly we can tie these fields together and because we have The way to share the information.
Maybe you've noticed we're in the center of a human epoch.
This is a renaissance.
joe rogan
For sure.
kelly starrett
Look at the MMA movement.
People are like, hey, I should probably learn how to fight and rule.
The self-empowerment.
I'm not going to have a pension.
I'm going to have a 401k.
I'm going to manage it myself.
It turns out I'm responsible for my own health care.
The center of responsibility has definitely shifted back to us.
Nutrition information is sort of distilled down and shifted back to us.
You can start making better decisions about your life and realize you have to because everyone else is going to do it for you.
I think we're in a culture of people waking up and for the first time now People are engaged in real strength and conditioning systems.
They are front squatting.
They are working hard.
I mean, I think in Pavel, in one of his first books, there was a Brazilian fighter who did the 10-minute snatch test with a kettlebell and he almost killed him.
And it took him like 10 minutes or something, right?
And he waves about it.
I have like 14-year-old kids who can do that in four minutes.
unidentified
Wow.
kelly starrett
So the work capacity model is out.
So everyone now is realizing, hey, I need to work better.
I need to work harder.
I mean, everyone shows up super fit now, right?
They really do.
I mean, everyone's got pull-ups and they're working hard and doing Tabata.
We've done a really good job, but we're not still telling people what the best position is.
We're not kind of connecting the dots because we can get away with, write a lot of bad checks until we get injured.
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
And then you're...
The reason...
I think the reason we're having good success with the book and with our video stuff is that I'm going to see you either because you're broken or because you're losing.
And both of those things are the same conversation.
And one of the real problems is that This information has been mired in the injury prevention, you know, do this and you won't get injured, but you're like, I'm not injured now, I feel great and I'm the best in the world, so why should I give a care?
Now we can start to say, hey, by the way, this conversation is about where you're dumping torque, where you can't get into good guard position, where you're bleeding force on the wall, where you're, you know, and then we start having that conversation.
And it turns out that the shoulder is the shoulder.
So if you start to understand the principles of movement, you understand what we're trying to do in the gym, then you can start to translate that stuff instantaneously to whatever sport you're doing.
joe rogan
So it's more of like a physical intelligence sort of an idea?
That you're trying to impart physical intelligence, like moving correctly?
kelly starrett
Well, it's moving correctly.
So think about position.
Position is a skill.
Can you do all the things?
Like if I ask you to keep your spine flat and reach over and grab a case of beer, can you do that yes or no?
Like I don't need a bunch of tests on your lumbar spine to look at instability.
Do you know how to brace?
Can you get into a good position and maintain that stability?
Or something simple like we used ankle range of motion before because people are getting blown up running poorly with these new shoes, right?
joe rogan
These motherfuckers.
Those new shoes are no good?
kelly starrett
No, they're amazing, but you don't have flank range of motion, your feet are weak, you run like a duck, and you don't know how to run.
joe rogan
How rude, first of all.
kelly starrett
I mean, the royal you.
joe rogan
I understand what you're saying.
kelly starrett
What's happening is that we have...
joe rogan
Like another to confirm nor deny.
kelly starrett
What's happening is we've got to basically say, you know, if position is a skill, do you possess the motor control?
Do you have the skill, the technique to be able to do this?
Yes or no?
And then also do you have the biomechanics?
And the problem is we've gotten pretty good at the motor control.
We're figuring that out.
But people's biomechanics are wretched.
It takes some maintenance.
You should, A, know that you probably take 10 minutes a day to work through your crap.
You need 10 minutes of preventive maintenance on the car every day.
You've got to put gas in.
Just the way your nutrition is sort of dialed during the course of the day.
You develop a practice of 10 or 15 minutes of some basic maintenance.
And then that allows you to deal with the things that are up front.
Like, hey, my neck's killing me.
My back's killing me.
I have these problems.
Or it's just hunting.
So we look at Kobe, tears his Achilles.
How much did that cost him?
What's that cost his team in revenue?
What about A-Rod or Lady Gaga, tears her hip.
Poor Lady Gaga.
She had to refund $30 million.
joe rogan
Those other guys are guys.
Those guys are guys.
kelly starrett
You don't understand.
joe rogan
It feels like Lady Gaga could just roll out there and they'd still love him.
kelly starrett
$30 million hip.
$30 million is how much she had to refund.
joe rogan
Damn, that bitch is powerful.
Thirty million dollars if you hurt your hip.
What's the word if you hurt your hip?
Not that much.
kelly starrett
How much does your back pain cost?
Right.
I think the real question is...
joe rogan
What's causing these issues?
kelly starrett
Well, it's a human right to know how to move.
There should not be a physical therapist.
And let's be clear, I have a clinical doctor in this thing.
I should not be standing between you and knowing how to move more effectively and you and knowing how to fix it.
This stuff is so simple.
It's a human right.
That's what we're trying to do.
Spread the love.
joe rogan
When you see some people that have, like, ridiculous natural intelligence with their bodies, and that's what I'm calling...
kelly starrett
That's right.
joe rogan
Athleticism.
There's a natural intelligence.
And it's much like some people are just way better at doing whatever, singing.
Some people can just fucking sing.
And some people just know how to move their body.
But other people, man, there's some dudes, like, you just can't teach them certain things.
Like, I remember when I was teaching Taekwondo, there was always these kids that would just learn everything so quick.
And there was always some people that, for whatever reason, their body just didn't move right.
kelly starrett
100% right.
joe rogan
Now, when you see a guy like that, how do you correct that?
kelly starrett
Well, the real issue is, you know, at what point do we start to develop skills in kids, right?
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
What's that athletic language?
joe rogan
Okay.
kelly starrett
It's not about recess.
You know, think about you're wired to move correctly as a human.
So my daughter, age 11 months, squats like Westside style, like she does, right?
Because it turns out all the conduits are there.
You still got to run the wires through the conduits.
And that's why we get kids who came out of fighting.
Some kind of martial arts early on.
Kids came out of gymnastics early on.
Some kind of movement system dance.
They all move better, right?
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
And that was because there were some basic primary shapes that we taught kids.
And then all of a sudden you have this language onto which you can sort of layer athleticism.
But suddenly there are some kids who figure it out early on.
And it shouldn't be in happenstance.
Like every kid should know how to jump and land.
So how about this?
ACL injury rates in kids under 12 up 400%.
joe rogan
Wow.
kelly starrett
Don't you think we should have cured that?
joe rogan
Is that because of more competition?
Is it just because of poor movement?
kelly starrett
I think we don't teach kids how to move.
I think we expect that this is a natural thing.
unidentified
Kids sit.
joe rogan
People injure themselves though in athletics.
I mean, I've torn two ACLs and it wasn't because of bad movement.
kelly starrett
Okay, fair enough.
Let's take all the orthopedic injuries on the planet.
Let's divide them into a couple categories.
The first category is pathology.
Something wrong with you, right?
You have kidney infection or Lyme disease, right?
There's something sketchy going on.
One of my wife's friends, mothers, had back pain, constant back pain.
They'd seen her, everyone was treating her for back pain.
Turns out she had spinal cancer, right?
She had metastasized cancer.
There's a pathology there that happens once in a while and that's why you're like, hey dude, You're my training partner.
Something's wrong with you.
Go get checked out.
This is our physicians.
We handle pathology beautifully.
The second is catastrophe.
Sometimes I work with every branch of the government, all the tier one assets.
They're going to be parachuting downwind at night and land on a stump and break their ankle.
You're going to get swept and have someone, some fat guy, roll into your ACL. That's going to happen.
Those are 2% category problems.
The 98% is totally preventable.
It's you working in bad positions until you spondy, until you tear your labrum.
That's it.
joe rogan
And it's also fatigue.
Fatigue causes your body to buckle under you occasionally, causes you to have poor form.
kelly starrett
That's true.
So the issue is, can you maintain a position Under the duress of cardiorespiratory demand, right?
I heard you say a couple times, you're like, CrossFit, you know, like, give me a fighter.
Because the expression of being able to hold these shapes and fight and wrestle under huge metabolic demand and cardiorespiratory demand is what makes fighting really good.
And people have really done a good job of taking the conditioning off the table now.
These athletes are so conditioned, right?
But if you lose position because you're breathing hard, because you're under metabolic demand or load, right, or you're stressed, then what you see is you see incomplete training.
And the whole point of the training is to exceed your capacities so that you can maintain the robustness and fluency of your positions so that when it comes time to dance or do what you need to do, you can do those things and you don't end up giving position.
joe rogan
So you're saying that understanding human movement and understanding how to do anything correctly sort of will lead to an improvement in athleticism across the board?
kelly starrett
100%.
One to one.
So if you walk like a duck, let's just say this.
joe rogan
Okay.
kelly starrett
If we take a pole in this room.
joe rogan
How about Tim Sylvia?
Do you know who Tim Sylvia is?
kelly starrett
No.
joe rogan
Tim Sylvia is a former UFC heavyweight champion, a great fighter, just a big giant dude, but he always had like a pigeon-toed thing going on.
kelly starrett
Okay, so...
joe rogan
I think that was, is that a genetic thing, or is it just...
kelly starrett
Well, genetic is in his mom walk like that, and his dad walk like that, and he pattern like that.
So, in the NFL, for example, they won't draft you.
Dude, you wear flip-flops, there's a culture of wearing flip-flops.
What happens to your ankle if I take away your capacity to flex your ankle?
You're not going to be able to walk through the ankle.
So what do you do?
You walk around the ankle.
So this is the mechanism for bunion.
If that navicular bone starts to collapse and you see that foot collapse down, then that's a tell.
It's called a pathognomonic tell for ACL injury.
In fact, the NFL scouts look for that fallen navicular drop, the navicular drop, and they Downgrade you because they think you're more likely to tear your ACL. What is it called again?
Navicular drop.
joe rogan
Navicular drop.
kelly starrett
The navicular bone is flat on the ground.
joe rogan
Well, it totally seems like you'd be more likely to tear your ACL. It looks like your knees are kind of going in towards each other all the time.
kelly starrett
No kid, every child is born with flat feet, but no kid actually has flat feet.
And what ends up happening is it takes a couple years, arches develop, we see it around two.
But it turns out that your ankle works best When it's straight up and down, walking straight.
So the problem is that when you walk with the foot out, you can still create a ton of torque and the stability.
You can kick people really hard.
You can run really fast.
But as soon as that leg comes behind you, then what's happened is that your hip is in an unstable position.
You've added a little twist into your knee.
Your ankle has collapsed.
And you're starting to dump torque so that that back foot, if you're pushing off that back foot to kick someone or hit someone, you've lost a little force there.
It's a little force bleed, a little force dump.
So imagine that you walk around like That position with your feet turned out and you take 10,000 steps a day because you're an average person.
10,000 steps.
So just do the math on that.
70,000 steps a week.
Quarter million steps a month.
Three million steps.
And suddenly you've practiced this foot turned out position.
The jumping and landing with your feet turned out is not okay.
That's the mechanism for so many of the ACL injuries, all the foot injuries.
And is it preventable?
unidentified
Yeah.
kelly starrett
Your first thing is your coach is like, hey, stand with your feet straight.
If we test you right now, How'd you jump up from the bottom position, up onto your feet?
If your feet were out, I can sweep you so easily.
If your feet are straight, you have options.
You can cut left, you can cut right, you can jump.
But if you turn your feet out, you lose this position.
I can also look at your hip function.
If I turn your feet out and your knees come in, that's what happens.
You shut your hip musculature off.
It's not that you have a weak hip, but your hip is functionally muted.
You've basically put yourself into a mechanically bad position.
I lose hip function, which means I lose power.
joe rogan
So it's not a genetic predisposition.
It's a training early on that was incorrect.
kelly starrett
Practice, practice, practice.
So I was at Disneyland with my friend.
And my friend's family is like, this girl's walking like a duck.
I mean, we've talked about it.
You know, he's like, oh my god, what do we do?
You know, do we see an orthopedic surgeon?
joe rogan
She's looking for dick.
That's what that is.
Just cutting a big wide path.
She doesn't want to close it off.
Conservative girls will close it off.
They'll deal with the pigeon style.
kelly starrett
But you're not thinking that through because women are generating more torque in that position.
joe rogan
They're just letting you know what's up.
kelly starrett
Do you want to be loose or do you want to create torque?
joe rogan
I don't think they're thinking like that, man.
kelly starrett
You don't have to think about it.
That's the problem.
It needs to think about that.
This kid is like...
So my friend is like, hey, what do we do?
I'm like, well, have you asked your daughter not to walk like a duck?
Because it turns out you need training and coaching.
And this is why you have training partners.
And he's like, hey, Eva, can you make your feet straight?
She's like, sure, Dad.
And the problem is fixed from then on.
joe rogan
Wow.
So a guy like Tim Sylvia, who's in his 30s, do you think you could fix that?
Like if you got with Tim, is it too late?
unidentified
Sure.
kelly starrett
No, well, here's the deal.
My wife has this great saying.
She's like, make a better decision.
She looks at me and she's like, that's a bad decision.
joe rogan
I have a hard time believing that the way that guy's frame is.
Tim was a great fighter in spite of his genetics.
kelly starrett
So what you're saying is how do I optimize my genetics?
How do I take the best athletes in the world and make them better?
And this is the revolution we're in right now.
It's not just about injury prevention.
I know that if I put you into a better position where you can squat more, jump higher, cut harder, punch harder, kick harder, Chances are that sort of aggregates into better performance, right?
Well, imagine if it's someone jumping down from a wall with a 100-pound pack in Afghanistan.
Do you think that that's a good position or a bad position?
Or if I have to sprawl or get up and change directions for my officers, this is the same deal.
The problem is we don't sort of connect the dots.
Look, Daniel Coyle wrote this great book called The Talent Code.
Have you guys read that?
Well, it turns out skill is a complex biological phenomenon.
That's it.
So, what ends up happening is that when you practice a skill, and we know it takes 10,000 hours, a million reps, right?
A child has to do something six to 10,000 times before it becomes functional, right?
The key to adult learning is repetition.
You've heard all of this before.
Well, it turns out that when Neurons that fire together wire together.
What happens is that Schwann cell, that oligodendrocyte, comes in and myelinates that pathway.
So practice doesn't make perfect.
Practice makes permanent.
So who you are right now is who you're going to be under stress, who you are right now.
So why wouldn't you start cultivating a better position all the time?
Because it's free money, right?
And it starts to show up.
The greatest thing about competition, especially fighting, is that we're going to find out who you are.
We're going to find out what your conditioning level is.
We're going to find out what your skill is.
We're going to find out where you go mentally when it gets tough, right?
That's the point of why we train and why we fight because it helps us self-actualize and see the problems.
When we start turning this all into performance, and it's got to be measurable.
We can measure that.
I was having a call today on the way in with one of my Tour de France cyclists.
Unbelievable, phenomenal athlete, right?
His foot was a little stiff in the ankle and his knee used to wobble.
And you think, oh, that's not good.
Would you imagine if I was walking and my knees wobbled every single time, or I kicked you every single time and your knee would wobble?
unidentified
Right.
kelly starrett
Well, it turned out his ankle was stuck.
And I showed him how to free up his ankle, and guess what?
His wattage went up and he won the Tour de Suisse.
So it's not an accident.
joe rogan
His ankle was stuck?
kelly starrett
Stiff.
joe rogan
Oh, just stiff?
Just needed to be worked out?
kelly starrett
Imagine if you, um...
It's not just stretching, right?
Think about your calves, for example.
They take tons of abuse.
Running, it can be upwards of five, six times impulse body weight.
Think about kicking.
If your Achilles is straight up and down and is designed to pull straight up and down, what happens when that ankle collapses a little bit?
Now your Achilles is off axis, right?
Pulls laterally.
This is the mechanism for the Achilles rupture, is that I take this very powerful tissue, load it sideways.
Well, not only am I likely to injure myself, but that tissue doesn't work very well, it gets stiff.
So if I just pull on it, you know, let me just stretch.
Oh, that didn't change anything.
I'm just pulling on the kind of contractile features.
We're not dealing with the stiffness of the sliding surfaces, the fascia, the muscle stiff, the joint capsule.
You just have to start thinking in a systems approach.
And the thing is, it's stinking easy.
We use jump stretch bands and lacrosse balls.
This information has just been kind of kept in this dark closet.
You know, oh, I have knee pain.
I can rear naked choke 17 people and fight and do all these things, but I don't know what to do with my knee pain.
That's ridiculous.
You're an incomplete athlete, incomplete human.
joe rogan
So, what do you do to people that are fucked up like that?
Like, when a guy comes to you and he's got knee pain, you just correct the way he moves?
kelly starrett
Well, that's the first thing.
And the reason we all have to go after movement first is that the movement often, if we correct your movement patterning, and then the gym is not just about getting stronger or fitter.
It's about perfect practice, like the formal language of movement.
Like, the gym is like the best expression of modern human ballet, right?
It's the formal.
But we are freestyle dance battlers.
That's what we do.
joe rogan
I don't like where this is going.
kelly starrett
I'm a dancer, you can't keep me down.
The issue is that, one is how do I make the invisible visible?
How do I take a guy like that?
I can see it.
I'm really good.
You can see it.
And pretty soon what's going to happen is, honestly, if you pick up this book, and I'm not trying to pitch this thing, but you can see it.
You start to get the vision, and it's so bad.
You can see how people are moving.
You go to the Olympics, and you just watch the Olympics, and you're like, that guy could go faster.
Why is his knee wobbling?
Why is that shoulder incomplete?
So the first thing we do is we prioritize the movement.
Can you correct the formal language of that?
Because especially in a pattern that I've done a billion times, like let's take my Olympic rowers, right?
These Olympic rowers have pulled 30 or 40 strokes a minute for 200 kilometers a week for as long as they've been rowing.
It's insane.
The patterns.
So how am I going to break that pattern?
Am I going to mess with them?
No, that's your coach's job.
Your coach teaches you technique.
My job as a strength and conditioning coach or as the training partner is to give you a new pattern in this very formal language called front squatting, swinging kettlebells, doing the basic language, finding the problems, Addressing the problems, practicing the movement, and guess what?
Every single time our athletes can put it back into the field more effectively.
joe rogan
So what you're saying essentially for the layman is when you're doing something like rowing, it's a very specific movement, so you essentially provide movement in the opposite direction or like if you're pulling, pushing...
kelly starrett
So here's what you're doing.
We've basically confused people because there's all of these movements, right?
But mainly, the spine has a few shapes.
Needs to be able to pick something up with my spine braced, right?
joe rogan
Which is straight, straight up and down.
kelly starrett
Straight up and down, braced correctly.
joe rogan
Okay.
kelly starrett
You probably need to be able to do a somersault, don't you think?
A forward roll?
Yeah, forward roll is probably pretty standard.
That's a globally flexed position.
Can you do that, yes or no?
unidentified
Right.
kelly starrett
And if we had you do that, we would see that you had a little dead spot in your thoracic spine where it's stiff, right?
We're not getting good rolling.
If I was gonna, you know, swim or block a net, you know, a ball at the net as a volleyball player, we'd see the same thing.
You need to be in that globally flexed and globally extended positions.
Do you have fluid fluency?
Like Ido Portal, great thinker about this stuff.
He's like, what do you mean you can't roll backwards and roll off your back?
Like, that's how you fall a lot, backwards.
So why haven't we taught people this basic tumbling skills?
Oh, that's what gymnastics is.
So your spine only does a couple of very serious things.
You know, and we can make some nuance changes, but that's the basic language.
The shoulders have a couple basic laws, that when your shoulders are in front of your body, right, from your hands up to your head, they have a stable position, and that position is external rotation.
It's trying to break the bar.
You know all these cues.
Screw your feet into the ground is a cue to create torque and stability at the hip.
Well, it turns out, if you understand the movement principles, Then when you're in these shapes, you're climbing, you're in a bad shape, you can always create a stable position or a position where you're going to generate the most force.
Practicing that in the gym and also making it easy to understand because when you're fighting, it's hard to see where you're giving away torque and power.
It's hard to see how your limited hip function, right?
You're missing hip flexion, like bringing your knee to your chest.
You can't do it.
How do we know?
Well, that's the mechanism for hip impingement and torn labrum and all the problems we see.
But if I ask you to squat, can you get into the bottom position of a pistol, for example?
That basic shape.
It's not an accident that the sazen, the kneeling position, a lot of people can't kneel.
That's a full range of motion of your ankle.
These are the basic shapes.
The formal languages of movement, fighting, gymnastics, all of these things, people have worked this out.
Yoga.
And so you don't need to do yoga if you lift heavy weights and you understand what you're doing.
If you're putting your arms over your head and snatching, you probably are doing muscle snatch or swinging a kettlebell.
Chances are you understand yoga without understanding yoga.
You don't need to do yoga.
joe rogan
I think people do yoga for other stuff, too, right?
kelly starrett
Well, this is also...
We've got to get into this.
joe rogan
They do it for their head.
unidentified
Girls' butts.
joe rogan
Girls' butts.
But dudes do it for your head.
kelly starrett
Do you think girls do it for girls' butts?
joe rogan
Yes, they do.
unidentified
That's awkward.
joe rogan
They want to build their butt up.
That's what you say.
kelly starrett
It's weird how it never works, though, isn't it?
Strange.
It never works.
We have to be a skinny fat girl.
joe rogan
A skinny fat girl who do yoga?
kelly starrett
Let me tell you a story.
joe rogan
Oh, please do.
kelly starrett
I was in Australia with my family.
We're staying at the Byron Bay.
I don't know if you've been there.
It's beautiful, and there's a spa, and my wife's like, hey, there's a yoga class.
You should take that, you fat guy.
It'll be good for you, and it'll be entertaining for them.
So I show up.
There's like 20 girls already in their yoga costumes, and the woman sees me, and she looks at me just like I look at you, and you're like, fuck, this girl, this guy is huge.
He's going to be inflexible.
He's going to take up all my resources.
But I understand.
What the stable shoulder position is in any sport, in any platform, because it's the same shoulder.
We understand the physiology.
Can you get into that shape, yes or no?
Can you make your spine stable, yes or no?
unidentified
Right?
kelly starrett
Punching is the same thing as being a downward dog, basically.
joe rogan
Punching is?
kelly starrett
Well, I mean, do you understand what the stable shoulder position is before you unload?
It's the same thing, right?
Are you organized?
Are you in a bad position when you punch?
joe rogan
In some punches, especially uppercuts and hooks, you're in a very weird position.
kelly starrett
Weird position, but can you express the full physiology?
So there is a good position.
So the issue is, if you're limited range of motion, let's take Forrest, right?
You know he's got a bad wing, right?
He's missing some range of motion on that shoulder, right?
Some things he's been working on for a long time, right?
He got dumped in a bad shape.
The question is, you know, that limits his movement language down to very few.
He has a few ranges he's very effective in and some ranges where he's not very effective in.
Sorry, Forrest, I'm giving away the keys to the castle here.
But it had to be Forrest Griffin in a bar fight.
But the real issue is that if you have...
One of the basic archetypes for the human being is you should be able to put your arms straight up over your head.
Rib cage down, armpit forward.
As if you're holding a dumbbell over your head.
Kettlebell gives you a little bit more breathing room.
But can you hold two 55-pound kettlebells over your head, yes or no?
That's full range of motion, right?
But you need to be able to be stable here and stable here, still overhead, stable here, stable here, stable here.
What happens is if I have full range of motion and I train in these formal ways of creating torque off these objects, right, I'm swinging kettlebells, I'm breaking the bar, I'm bench pressing, I'm pressing, I'm doing push-ups, all the things we do, then that gives me movement possibilities where I can still be in a tenuous position and still generate force.
joe rogan
So I see what you're saying.
So being able to press overhead is equally important to be able to press sideways.
kelly starrett
That's right, because it helps me know what the stable shoulder position is, and that gives me options.
joe rogan
Is it really possible to generate the exact same amount of strength through the entire range of like kettlebells, extended 90 degrees?
kelly starrett
No, but we can still know what the stable position for the shoulder is.
joe rogan
So you strengthen it as much as you can.
But there's always going to be gravity and leverage.
kelly starrett
Right.
So, you know, the front rack, for example.
And listen, like the good coaches, like Dan John, great coach, says something like, hey, you should be able to pick something up off the ground.
You should be able to carry it around and put it over your head.
Like, that's pretty elemental.
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
Well, picking up off the ground, deadlift, right, that's a basic archetype.
Reaching into the crib, grabbing my baby, picking up the keg, you know.
Someone is jumping on you in guard, right?
They wrap their legs around you when you're in standing position.
That's a deadlift, yes or no.
So, can you do that?
Picking something up is kind of this hang position.
This is one of the archetypes of the shoulder, which is, what, Kimura?
I'm not just a crappy fighter, but I get it.
So do I have full range of motion in my shoulder?
And if I don't, in this position, I'll compensate because I'm a human being.
And now my shoulder is forward, and now I'm in a bad position.
So what ends up happening is that I start fighting and organizing, and Jerry DeForest, like Chuck Liddell had that, you know, John Hackleman, he called me up one time, he's like, oh, my shoulder's killing me.
I'm like, well, he can't punch.
With this totally internally rotated crappy position forever and not expect your shoulder to ache, right?
And how did he fix it?
Well, he started restoring his range of motion, cleaning up the movement mechanics in this other formal thing called training, and then that allowed him to express better mechanics.
When you start to see the breakdowns, and it's part of it, like, how do you make the stimulus for adaptation to become a better human being, to be a more effective athlete, to train...
We put our kids under load.
Like, my daughter deadlifts.
She deadlifts 20 pounds.
unidentified
How old is she?
Eight.
kelly starrett
She's a monster.
My second daughter...
joe rogan
Deadlifting.
unidentified
Deadlifting.
kelly starrett
We actually have a 200-pound stone.
joe rogan
That's awesome.
kelly starrett
In the front yard, and the boys have to be able to pick that stone up and date my kids.
It's the first step.
joe rogan
Wow.
kelly starrett
That's the first test.
Then there's an intellectual writing test.
joe rogan
To take her on a date, they have to pick up a 200-pound rock?
kelly starrett
Seems fair to me.
joe rogan
Dude.
unidentified
Can I try?
joe rogan
That seems like she's going to have issues.
kelly starrett
You can try.
Men have tried and failed and tried and died.
I'll just say that.
joe rogan
That's hilarious.
A 200-pound rock.
Man, I don't know if I could pick up a 200-pound rock.
kelly starrett
Of course I could.
joe rogan
That shit has got to be really hard to do.
kelly starrett
No.
joe rogan
But is it shaped like?
I think that's important.
kelly starrett
Smooth, round, so...
unidentified
Wait, how old is she?
kelly starrett
She's eight.
unidentified
Yeah, she should weigh a lot.
brian redban
Why would you want to let your eight-year-old date somebody?
joe rogan
Who the fuck is going to be able to pick?
Yeah, that's true.
kelly starrett
That's messed up.
joe rogan
That's true.
Good point.
kelly starrett
That's a very good point.
joe rogan
That's got a good point.
kelly starrett
We have to use a little external load to teach people shapes.
That's why you can do boot camp and never learn how to move and still move like crap and still get injured.
Look, I mean, the Army has a million non-combat related orthopedic injuries every year.
This is my shout out to all my kids in the military who listen to this podcast because there are a ton of them who listen to you.
85% of Marine Force Recon retire in full disability.
Why?
Because they have, it's not just the IEDs, it's because we're putting kids in bad positions.
We don't train them for these basic shapes, basic iterations of how to protect their body, and we don't do the maintenance.
You can't be a Marine, carry a 100-pound pack in a bad position, be dehydrated.
Your body is going to get stiff.
So what do you do about that?
Well, we know how to fix it.
We know how to re-optimize, reclaim the positions.
joe rogan
So you're saying that guys that don't even get wounded in combat wind up being debilitated just because of injuries?
Is that what you're saying?
kelly starrett
Just because they move poorly at load.
Or they just move fast.
Who taught you to run?
unidentified
Me?
kelly starrett
Yeah.
joe rogan
I don't remember.
It was probably a long time ago.
kelly starrett
Right.
That's the problem.
You just figured it out.
And we were like, good, you can run.
And you're either fast or you're slow.
joe rogan
Do you believe in running on the toes or do you think you should run heel first?
kelly starrett
Because I know there's a debate about that.
joe rogan
I'm so happy you're happy.
kelly starrett
If you take your shoes off and run around here naked, which happens in this show...
joe rogan
Every now and then, you gotta run around naked.
kelly starrett
No one will heel strike.
joe rogan
It's true.
kelly starrett
Why is that?
joe rogan
Because it hurts.
kelly starrett
Oh, weird.
So you mess up the laws of biomechanics and you get this feedback that you're in a bad position.
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
So you stop heel striking.
So every single person...
Now, let's just take the animal of the human as like an evolutionary machine.
You've been evolving for two and a half million years.
Over the last 10,000 years, you really haven't changed.
It's the same.
You're a little fatter.
My femur's a little longer.
It's the same body 10,000 years ago.
Do you think, and keeping in mind that you're designed for adaptation, right?
You can suck up bad diets for decades and then it blows up in your face, right?
I know world champions who eat little chocolate donuts and smoke and they're still world champions.
joe rogan
Especially Thai guys, right?
kelly starrett
Especially these freaky Thai guys.
Let's be honest.
joe rogan
Dude, they gotta get hammered, smoke cigarettes, and kick your ass.
kelly starrett
And they can, because they're...
Look at their little bodies.
Like little knives and bamboo sticks, right?
I lived in Thailand for a month as a kid and was terrified of every little skinny Thai guy.
joe rogan
It's a very interesting style of fighting they developed.
If you look at the actual martial arts in an isolated form, Muay Thai is one of the best ever.
It's like...
I mean, their grappling is not as good as a grappler, but the real Muay Thai guys are awesome in neck manipulation as well.
What a lot of people don't realize is there's a lot of wrestling involved in that.
kelly starrett
So look at that.
I go after your nervous system, right?
I change your head back, and guess what?
I own the head, I own the body, right?
The bull goes where the head goes.
That's not an accident.
joe rogan
No.
Anderson Silva's the master at that.
kelly starrett
That's right.
joe rogan
He pins that shit down, and people don't even realize he ragdolls really strong guys with that.
kelly starrett
I wrestled in high school as a terrible wrestler, and I had a coach who wrestled at Iowa, and he would get my head against his head, and then I was like, okay, take my lunch money, get my girlfriend.
I was over.
And a guy like Silva figures that out early on as part of his fighting strategy.
Maybe he's conscious of it.
Maybe he's not.
Maybe he has a Zen master who's like control the head, control the world, you know?
joe rogan
Well, he's awesome at everything, but he's also awesome at that.
kelly starrett
He is awesome at everything.
And a lot of that is he's that genetic guy who figured it out early as a kid.
What we need to do then is be able to go back and say, what are the conditions that made him?
How do we teach kids not to work harder, right?
But how to teach kids the skills of being a human.
If you want to mandate and get rid of diabetes and obesity, mandate an hour of walking in schools a day.
But P.E. isn't about dodgeball, it should be, but it really should be about teaching the skills of jumping and landing and lifting things up.
joe rogan
Physical education, what it used to be called.
kelly starrett
Here's the language.
Here are the skills.
You have to read and write to be able to get out of second grade.
You should also be able to demonstrate that you can keep your back flat when you pick up your backpack.
joe rogan
It really is funny that it's the one thing you're allowed to fail.
unidentified
That's cool.
joe rogan
You're totally allowed to fail it.
kelly starrett
You know what a noun and verb is?
You don't have to put them together.
unidentified
It's cool.
kelly starrett
You don't have to read.
joe rogan
It is kind of amazing that no one really cares if you ever get good at any sport.
You can get right through school without any proper use of your body at all.
kelly starrett
That's funny.
That crazy PE teacher, a guy who made you climb the rope.
joe rogan
You just have to show up.
kelly starrett
You have to show up.
And you just dress, right?
And you pass.
So, the humans are designed for adaptation.
You're designed for survival.
You can take the scratch and keep going, right?
And you know this, because if you've ever been in a fight, yes.
Did you feel anything in the fight right away?
No, it's the dirty secret about fighting.
You feel things afterwards, right?
You know?
I mean, why would Forrest Griffin keep fighting if people are using his face as a punching bag, right?
This is my question to him all the time.
He's like, well, I don't feel it right at the time.
joe rogan
Well, he's an animal, too.
But how about Jon Jones?
That's a perfect example.
After his last fight, his toe had been completely torn and, like, rotated sideways.
And he didn't even realize it.
Until he was talking and he looked down and saw it.
kelly starrett
Right, and then he blacked out.
joe rogan
Then he sat down and, you know, he kept the interview going.
It was amazing.
kelly starrett
So, here's the deal.
The pain pathway in the brain is the same pathway as a movement pathway.
So when you're moving, you do not get the pain signal.
You just don't hear it.
joe rogan
Because you're in constant motion.
kelly starrett
Because you're in motion.
And your brain's not hearing the pain signal.
So by the time pain is punctured into your consciousness during movement, we have a serious problem.
The brain is like, whoa, bro.
And this is why everyone who knows who's ever exercised, you lay down at night and then you start to relax and downregulate and chill.
And all of a sudden, your knee starts throbbing.
You're like, what's wrong with this bed?
Did I twist my knee when I was brushing my teeth?
What's happened is you're not moving.
If you've been waking up in the middle of the night because your back is killing you, your neck is killing you, what's happened is you've stopped moving, you've stopped flooding the brain with that movement signaling, and all of a sudden you're just getting the pain signal.
You're getting the raw, unattenuated signal in the back of the system.
So, that's one of the problems.
The second problem is that You maniacs have spent your lives practicing being in pain.
So maybe really the best athletes can just suffer worse.
We know, like those athletes who can suffer, like they just, they can work harder than everyone else, they can generate more water than everyone else, they can just They get through fights with broken hands.
Well, and then that's the third piece, that once the adrenaline is going, you are not going to feel it.
So we can't use that pain as a signal that you're in a bad position because you'll always override that every single time.
I mean, who's the Gracie grandfather who's like, I just watched him tear my arm apart.
And I was like, well, big deal.
You couldn't feel it.
I'm sure you watched it.
joe rogan
But you feel a lot of shit, man.
Like left hooks to the liver, you always feel those.
Those fucking hurt, man.
They shut you down.
kelly starrett
So it's so bad pain, right, that you can take a shot to the face.
But it's interesting that people go for the liver shot.
Why?
Because it punctures through that little wall, right?
And do people feel pain in the first round, or do they start feeling pain in the sixth or seventh round, or the fifth round, or when they're starting to really break down, starting to get fatigued.
There's time for that stuff to set in.
Right.
joe rogan
Leg kicks as well.
That's another thing.
You fucking feel those, man.
You feel those.
unidentified
Truth.
kelly starrett
Truth.
A little shin to the...
joe rogan
Wham!
You feel those, dude.
Those you feel.
It doesn't matter if you're moving or not.
kelly starrett
You know, Glenn is the...
Glenn Cardoza's here.
He's the co-writer.
He's the guy who helped me...
joe rogan
Powerful Glenn.
kelly starrett
Glenn.
He's the guy who helped me corral the brain and took all these photos.
And Glenn has this thing where he walks around the house with his pants pulled up really high.
And it's awkward at first.
Until you understand that he feels like he gets stressed out.
If he can't just kick you in the head spontaneously, he feels like the genes are limiting him, he gets a little stressed out.
See?
He's actually wearing stretchy jeans.
joe rogan
I used to wear those Chuck Norris jeans that had the gusset built into the crotch.
I wore those bitches.
kelly starrett
You can move, right?
joe rogan
Action jeans.
kelly starrett
Have you ever blown out a pair of pants moving?
Squatting down?
joe rogan
Yeah, definitely.
On stage I've done it before, a couple times.
kelly starrett
How awkward is that?
joe rogan
Pretty awkward.
kelly starrett
These are designer jeans.
They're so designer that I can't move functionally.
I can't move correctly.
It's like wearing an exoskeleton.
So you start moving poorly.
You don't hear the signals.
You're designed for adaptation.
So the issue is that you can – like kids with damaged motor control systems have a diagnosis of cerebral palsy.
That's what it means if you have CP as a kid.
If the part of your brain doesn't work, the motor control part, yet those kids walk around fine.
They're cognitively totally intact.
They're totally bright, geniuses, but they just have this one part of their brain that doesn't work.
But those kids figure out.
They turn the foot out, collapse the ankle, becomes stable.
They let the knee come in like a valgus knee, like a torn ACL knee, become stable.
Internally rotate the hip, boom, become stable.
Overextend the back, become stable.
Internally rotate the shoulder, These are kind of the body's secondary positions of stability.
joe rogan
So it's that weird posture that they develop.
kelly starrett
It's a position of mechanical stability.
joe rogan
Wow.
And it's because they don't have full control of their body.
kelly starrett
That's right.
joe rogan
So they adjust, and that's the position they adjust to.
kelly starrett
They default to this stable position, which is exactly the position you default to.
joe rogan
Can you teach someone who has cerebral palsy how to be stable?
unidentified
No.
kelly starrett
Well, they're already stable.
The question is that we know they're going to wear out their knee, they're going to wear out their hip.
It's the same set of problems we see with people who jump and land wrong at speed.
The same people when you see a bad front squat gone wrong, right?
When the knee comes in, the back overextends, the hip impinges.
This is the exercicio, the exercise, the training, is basically the exaggerated reality of what sport is or movement in life.
If you're holding your baby and your shoulder's forward, this feels stable, but this is the position that a lot of my tactical athletes have to spend time in.
They're weapons in this position, shoulders forward.
So it turns out if I'm missing my internal rotation on my shoulder, because I'm designed for survival, my body's got a backup plan for me.
joe rogan
Boom!
kelly starrett
Shoulder comes forward.
I can still fight.
I can still move.
But this is why my shoulder starts to ache.
It's not working.
Look, my pec doesn't even work like a pec anymore, right?
It's destabilizing my chest.
I'm living off this front delt.
That's how I tore my biceps tendon.
So what ends up happening is that I get away with it for a while until I can't or until I have catastrophic injury or I start to get stiff in that position.
Then when I go put my arm over my head or do something bad, you know, I get hammered on it.
joe rogan
That's interesting because, you know, in a lot of positions, the correct defensive position puts you in a very awkward place, like the way your body's rotating.
The correct defensive position, especially, you know, for kickboxing, like you're all hunched in and your shoulders are pressed to your chin.
kelly starrett
That's okay.
I can still be stable here.
So look at this position, right?
joe rogan
One arm forward?
That's not bad?
kelly starrett
No, no.
joe rogan
Okay.
kelly starrett
So, but look at my shoulders.
I can still create a stable position.
joe rogan
What I'm trying to get at is that there's some techniques, especially martial arts techniques, where they require these crazy movements, like wheel kicks, things along those, axe kicks.
kelly starrett
But the issue is, is that done under high load or is it done under high speed?
So like punching, for example, and jump me if I'm wrong, right?
I typically start in a very stable shoulder position.
Hands are up protecting the face, right?
And I can punch as hard as I can.
The shoulder is mechanically very stable here where I can transmit a lot of energy from my shoulders, from my hips.
But then the arm unwinds, right, for this moment.
And what happens is it unwinds, I create a little capsular slack, which allows me to create high impulse speed, but not a lot of force.
joe rogan
So in being smooth with the movement, you develop more power because It's faster, and it torques in, and you got a lot of extra snaps going on.
kelly starrett
What I'm saying is that this is in a very stable position at the end for my shoulder, but I don't have to be in a very stable position.
If I grab you then in this position, what happens?
joe rogan
This is a very different thing.
Then you turn and twist.
unidentified
That's right.
kelly starrett
So why is it that you're grabbing a gi or shirt, you come into this position.
Well, it turns out this is a stable position for the shoulder, right?
That grip.
joe rogan
Incredibly stable in comparison to this.
kelly starrett
You do that judo, right?
You got that hand in there.
That guy gets you here.
And this is this flexion and external rotation.
joe rogan
And what we're saying for folks who are listening to this on iTunes, Kelly's just basically showing your hand in your fist sort of sideways in front of you.
And that's a very stable position.
kelly starrett
If you were holding a bag of cat litter, this would be the position of what you're showing.
Two hands, yeah.
Cat litter holds.
joe rogan
And you're holding it up to your mouth.
kelly starrett
The cat litter bag of death.
joe rogan
I don't know why you would be doing that.
You know, if you were doing it that way.
kelly starrett
Same position.
Or if you're holding your baby, right?
joe rogan
Right.
No, I don't hold my baby like this.
kelly starrett
That's fucked up.
The front rack baby position.
joe rogan
The kid would be like, put me down, you freak.
kelly starrett
What's the Saturday Night Live?
He spikes the baby.
Don't do that.
joe rogan
I want to ask you this before I forget, because I think it's really important.
When you were talking about people with awkward movement, what do you do for someone, like say, that didn't do any athletics as a kid, and then they're 30 years old and they want to try jiu-jitsu, and they really don't know how to move right?
kelly starrett
So there's a local MMA school in our neighborhood.
One of my friends is a Sambo fighter and teaches it.
And these kids come in and they're like, this is going to be awesome.
And he's like, oh lord, you can't even absorb force in this position.
So he ends up teaching the fundamentals of movement, which look a lot like, can you squat, yes or no?
Ask kids to get in a good position of wrestling and guard.
What is this position?
What we have to do is give people the context and the language The language cues to be able to express that in that form of fighting.
For example, I can say things like, your shoulder isn't normal unless you can jerk.
For those of you who don't know jerking, in the Olympics everyone knows jerking.
But in the Olympics, when you're putting your arm over your head, you stop because your triceps get weak and you drop down underneath the bar.
So if you were picking up something really heavy, like a log, you would jump it up and then drop underneath it and stand back up.
So that's the jerk in the Olympic lift.
But what I'm teaching you to do is be able to create a stable shoulder and lengthen from both sides at the same time.
The same thing you would do is if you're pushing someone and had to create distance away from them.
So I grab you, I push like in football and I have to create distance.
You have to be able to kind of express this complex movement and the problem is We jump people into sport and hope they do it without having any of the tools to be able to functionally, maybe they might even have the range of motion to do that, and they definitely don't have the motor control to express that.
And kids who figure that out because they, you know, if you ever did a backbend, right, as a kid, that turns out to be a globally arched position, right?
That's what your spine should be able to do.
And it turns out you're teaching kids what the stable front rack position is.
Which is the position where they would Olympic lift or create shoulder position or this protected head position, right, or I'm grabbing you is the same expression as climbing a rope or, you know, doing that back bend back roll.
joe rogan
So it's just all about stability in these positions.
kelly starrett
Do you have the fluency, the language of the human movement?
And the key is that you're seeing your shoulder as this very complex system.
You're like, it has a rotator cuff and a labrum and I don't even know what that is but it has one, right?
But your brain is wired for movement.
It's not wired for musculature.
You can't test a manual muscle test.
Your brain is wired to move.
So this phone, right?
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
Do you need to understand the technology behind the crystal and how temperature affects battery life and how the interface of the software affects?
No.
joe rogan
I do if I'm high.
unidentified
Okay.
joe rogan
It's true.
I want to know what the fuck's going on in there.
I'm like, this is crazy.
Who figured this shit out?
kelly starrett
I can take your phone apart.
I can take it apart by 4 p.m.
Get your toe.
So the issue is you need to be a master at using the phone.
Right.
You need to turn on and off.
You need to move your apps around.
That's all you need to know.
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
Your body is so complex that you don't need to know the engineering.
It's nice.
Someone needs to know the engineering.
You need to know the operation and the operation is brutally simple.
joe rogan
Well it's really fascinating the idea of physical intelligence and it's fascinating that it was always called physical education.
I think what you're saying makes a whole lot of sense and even more so than teaching kids sports.
Like, teaching kids to use their body first is probably the most important thing before they even engage in sports.
kelly starrett
The Russians and the Chinese figured this out, didn't they?
joe rogan
They figured out a lot of shit, man.
They figured that shit out.
kelly starrett
Right, so they did figure that out.
They figured out this front rack position is a stable position, right?
Putting your arm overhead in the snatch, stable position.
Of course they figured it out because we're human beings and we're obsessed with figuring it out.
Olympic lifting has been around for a hundred years, maybe, right?
A little more.
Do you think how many people blew out their shoulder were learning the technique and then all of a sudden we figured out what the best technique is?
And now we live in an age where You can go on the internet and figure out how to Olympic lift from the best Olympic lifters.
People are showing that out.
joe rogan
Watch it on your phone.
kelly starrett
It's amazing.
So people show up now at the little MMA studio and they know a lot about MMA, right?
And they're fit.
And that's because we're starting to see best practices come apart.
People are kind of coming together in In systems approach, right?
The nutrition is dialed.
You know, you talk to the average person who takes care of their body and they're like, yeah, I'm gluten-free and I drink, I put MCT oil in my coffee, what about it?
You know what I mean?
Like that's...
joe rogan
That's me, dog.
kelly starrett
That's right, because it tastes better.
It does.
So, but you're right.
I think the question then is, where do we...
joe rogan
Yeah, can you take a guy who's 30?
If you're teaching them a sport, like say if you're teaching them a martial art or something like that, should it almost be required to teach them how to move first?
unidentified
Well, we...
kelly starrett
It would be nice.
At some point, though, don't you do some conditioning every single time you're fighting?
At the end of wrestling practice or fighting practice?
joe rogan
No.
Not jiu-jitsu.
Jiu-jitsu, you go over drills.
Then when you're done with drills, you just go to war.
unidentified
So what are drills?
kelly starrett
Wait, what are drills?
joe rogan
They're just going over the technique.
unidentified
Uh-uh.
kelly starrett
There's no...
joe rogan
Uh-uh.
kelly starrett
The technique.
And the technique has been worked out about what the position...
joe rogan
I'm saying there's no lifting weights or anything like that.
kelly starrett
Oh, there is.
It's your body, right?
Let's just say one of my NFL coaches that I know, he's a strength coach, right?
He's like, how much pressing do my guys need to do in the season?
All they do is out there and press.
So we take young gymnasts.
One of our kids at our gym was a former national champion gymnast at UCLA. She is a machine and she understands innately what some of these really good positions are because she's been doing them her whole life.
So now I take that skill set, throw it into a sport, and she's a monster.
So the question is, what's the best way To create these athletes with this ready state where then they can start picking up sports.
Can I remodel people?
You betcha.
I've done it a thousand times.
We take people who are the best and we make them better.
We take people who are not the best and we break them into world record holders.
We take people who are injured and messed up and we set world championships.
The testing ground for this information is at the highest level of sport and performance.
That's how we test it.
Then we take those principles and drills and it has to be able to scale from the injured athlete to the Olympian, from the mom and dad to the kid to the fighter, it's all the same.
joe rogan
So what you're essentially saying is that people who are not fit and not well-rounded in their athleticism are successful, if they're fighters especially, in spite Of their ability, their physical ability.
But enhancing that physical ability and balancing, they would take them to the next level.
kelly starrett
That's right.
So we look at someone, you know, why is that foot flat?
Well, it's because no one ever made them an Olympic lift or practiced jumping and rounding or consciously said, when you jump up from the bottom position, you know, out of guard, jump up, I want you to hit and screw your feet into the ground.
So, the key is, how do I develop these skills?
And I can do it in my laboratory, which is the gym.
Because the gym isn't just about working harder.
When you're working out, it's not about working out.
It's about re-producing the skills.
So let's take some of my tactical guys, right?
The ninjas I get to work with.
They go in and clear a room.
They're taught to have feet straight because they need to sweep from side to side and they need to have movement options, right?
Just watch O-Dark 30. It's legit.
Or Active Valor.
Those guys walk in.
Feet are straight.
They can clear the room side to side.
They can move.
So if I come in and one of my foots turned out, well, I can't turn.
My sweep is off, right?
Where did I sweep my weapon?
If you jump and land, and you sweep from my legs, and when my legs has turned out, I can't move as efficiently than that.
So, how do I develop that practice?
Because, even when I'm cleaning a room with terrorists, or I'm in the middle of a fight, the last thing I'm thinking about, or should be thinking about, is my foot position.
That happens automatically.
That's why we do so many drills.
joe rogan
But in kickboxing and Muay Thai, there's a lot of times when you're in really awkward positions and that's where you're supposed to be.
How about kickboxing when you have to stand sideways?
There's a lot of times when you're throwing front leg techniques, you're standing very awkward.
kelly starrett
So don't confuse the formal language.
Because my body can twist and contort.
If we teach rotation, for example, we don't spend a lot of time teaching rotation because it happens.
We spend a lot of time training the resisting of rotation.
Yet when it comes time, if the athlete is mobile, they can twist and resist that twist.
So you end up in these bad positions and my goal is to create a movement library With as much capacity in that as I can, so my athletes are positionally strong.
They can be strong and stable and generate a lot of force in those bad positions because you're going to be in bad positions.
So how about this?
joe rogan
So let's stay in good positions if you can, but if you're in bad positions because you do so many good positions, you'll have more strength.
kelly starrett
That's right.
And you'll be in a more optimized position.
joe rogan
So even in awkward movements like wheel Yes.
Front leg side kicks where your body is completely twisted.
You're still going to have much more stability.
unidentified
That's right.
kelly starrett
And you still won't compromise because we're still assuming that you can do everything that a human should be able to do.
joe rogan
Full range of motion meaning.
kelly starrett
But that's nebulous.
Because people are like, what is full range of motion?
joe rogan
I don't know what nebulous is.
kelly starrett
No, you know, unclear.
joe rogan
Do you know what nebulous is?
I thought it was like something to do with space.
kelly starrett
Like the ceiling.
So the idea is...
joe rogan
Just Google it.
kelly starrett
Sorry.
brian redban
Is it that stuff inside the girl where it feels like cauliflower or like a brain?
joe rogan
No, that's warts, bro.
In the form of a cloud or haze.
In the form of a cloud or haze, unclear, vague, or ill-defined.
kelly starrett
Nebulous.
joe rogan
There we go.
kelly starrett
Like a nebula.
unidentified
Yeah.
kelly starrett
Like the girl nebula.
joe rogan
Full of space.
kelly starrett
So, you know, I don't even know where we're going now.
joe rogan
Well, we're just talking about athletes.
We're talking about teaching people movement.
kelly starrett
So if you can create a...
joe rogan
Library of human movement.
kelly starrett
Library of positions and mechanics.
Then what ends up, you teach this formal language, then athletes have the capacity, they can be in these shapes.
So what I was going to say is, you know, the physiology is known to us.
So if you're missing range of motion in your shoulder, because most of us are.
Why?
Because you live in this environment, you're designed to be able to create torque on your little laptop all day long in these bad positions.
And so you end up getting stiff.
Your body adapts to exactly what you threw at it.
So if your nutrition is crap, it's going to look like that and reflect that, right?
The animal reflects the reality.
I had this great PT instructor, pediatrics instructors, like, muscles and tissues are like obedient dogs.
You just have to have the will.
So what I'm saying is...
joe rogan
That's what posture is all about, right?
kelly starrett
Well, posture is about...
Are you in a good position?
joe rogan
I'm in the fucking will to stay on my face all the time.
This is what, Brian, you've now coined this.
This is, look at my delicious breasts.
unidentified
I know.
It's perfect.
It sucks.
I'm in so much pain right now.
joe rogan
It's a perfect way to describe it.
kelly starrett
So look what you've done.
Sitting, for example, is one of the most...
joe rogan
You're teaching someone who will never learn.
He's not gonna listen to you?
brian redban
Well, I think my injury is, honestly, it happens once or twice a year.
I crash at somebody's house.
kelly starrett
You sleep in a weird position.
brian redban
And they have too many pills.
unidentified
It's usually older black men.
brian redban
I'll wake up because I've been drunk so much that my neck is like this.
kelly starrett
I've been sleeping the whole night.
That can be called Saturday Night Palsy.
People fall asleep on their arm and they kill a nerve and they actually end up with long thoracic nerve damage.
You wake up with pins and needles and your body's freaking out.
But if you pass out in a bad position, that's why you put people in a recovery position.
Not only for the vomit so they don't numb their hands.
So what I'm saying is, we'll get back to the shoulder in a second.
You've adopted a sitting position right there that's wise.
It's basically laying down.
brian redban
Yeah, I'm trying to lay down as much as possible nowadays.
kelly starrett
So there's three positions that help you stabilize your back in standing.
One is that your butt squeeze sets your position of your pelvis relative, right?
And you can hear this cue.
Squeeze your butt overhead.
Point your toes in the air.
The gymnast will say, if your butt's not squeezed, you're not in a good position.
You can tell.
joe rogan
I love gymnasts.
kelly starrett
What a great attitude.
joe rogan
Most of them are 12. The ones that are older than that, dude.
You don't have to go there.
I assume you're not taking advice from 12-year-olds on how to move.
I just assumed it was a 30-year-old.
At least 18. I'm thinking dirty over 30. That's what I'm thinking.
unidentified
Hey, I'm not the one who spent all the time in Thailand.
kelly starrett
Sorry.
My apologies.
So if your butt sets your position in your pelvis, right?
And you squeeze your butt.
Can you squeeze your butt right now?
That's awkward.
joe rogan
Don't do it.
kelly starrett
You're not going to last more like 10 seconds there, right?
So it's impossible.
The second stability system is your abs.
And I'm talking about your trunk.
You know, it's the whole core, right?
The whole system, the sleeve.
All of that integrates to create high intra-abdominal pressure and stability, including your pelvic floor, right?
Sphincture to belly button.
Well, the reason you ki-eye and shout is to create intra-abdominal pressure so you can stabilize the system.
joe rogan
Maybe you, not me.
kelly starrett
You silently ki-eye?
joe rogan
I use magic, bro.
When I'm ki-eyeing, I'm magic.
kelly starrett
You throw fireballs?
joe rogan
That's right, in my mind.
kelly starrett
So...
The third thing is that we create, we screw the feet into the ground.
This torsion of creating grip through the same grip.
Is that good?
joe rogan
Do you go towards?
No.
kelly starrett
Externally rotate, right?
joe rogan
So that's right.
kelly starrett
Wax on, wax off was teaching what?
Steven Seagal always throws in the same position.
Screwing the light bulb in.
joe rogan
Look at the way he runs, son.
unidentified
Look at the way he runs.
joe rogan
You ever see him run?
That's a perfect example.
Pull up Steven Seagal running.
It's a perfect example to see if Kelly can fix the way Steven Seagal runs.
And this is no disrespect to Steven Seagal.
Steven Seagal is an excellent martial artist.
He's very good at Aikido.
I mean, he was one of the first Japanese-Americans, rather, to teach in Japan.
kelly starrett
That's right.
joe rogan
At a legitimate, respected dojo.
kelly starrett
Now, Aikido, they figured out, to throw people, you're winding the shoulder up into what position?
This external rotating position.
joe rogan
Yeah, and then you have a tremendous amount of power with that, as well as with Judo.
kelly starrett
Same positions.
joe rogan
Grabbing a hold, getting yourself in a position.
Look at him running.
Tell me what's wrong here.
kelly starrett
Everything is wrong.
joe rogan
He has a lot wrong there, right?
We taught him how to run.
Look at this.
Look at how he's running.
kelly starrett
Actually, you know, it's not bad.
He's running on the ball of his foot.
Is that why he looks weird?
joe rogan
Let's back that up.
kelly starrett
Now he's getting older and he's getting overextended.
joe rogan
Oh, he got full of fat.
This is a different movie.
kelly starrett
This is a guy who started to get stiff and fly around and play a little bit too much music.
joe rogan
Everybody talks shit about him, but the dude is a legitimate martial artist.
He knows a lot about martial arts.
kelly starrett
I wanted to be a Navy SEAL cook after I saw one of his movies.
joe rogan
Lyoto Machida legitimately takes advice from that guy.
Everybody thinks it's bullshit and they think I'm just trolling.
Lyoto Machida respects that guy enough to take instruction from him and to listen to him talk.
unidentified
Why wouldn't he?
kelly starrett
He figured a lot of things out.
The key is that a lot of us don't have the metacognition or meta awareness.
joe rogan
I want to see if he runs on his toes though.
I need to see that.
kelly starrett
Ball of the foot.
So let's tie a couple conversations together.
joe rogan
Ball of the foot is good.
kelly starrett
So let's be clear.
joe rogan
Okay, let's see how he's running.
kelly starrett
There is either running or not running.
joe rogan
No, he's hitting heel first, man.
brian redban
Yeah, but he's got his breasts out.
joe rogan
He's hitting heel first.
unidentified
No way.
kelly starrett
No way.
unidentified
His arms are real crazy.
joe rogan
That guy is flat-footed when he's landing.
He is running terrible and you're crazy.
kelly starrett
Flat-footed is okay.
What's not okay?
Ball of the foot strikes first.
joe rogan
That's not okay.
kelly starrett
That's okay.
joe rogan
Oh, that's okay.
kelly starrett
There's some variation there.
joe rogan
That's not what he's doing.
Well, it's hard to tell.
I'm talking shit.
kelly starrett
It's not hard to tell.
joe rogan
He's moving really fast.
I'm talking shit.
I mean, it might have been the ball of the foot first.
kelly starrett
Here's what I would think.
unidentified
It's his hands.
His arms are...
kelly starrett
That's less efficient.
joe rogan
What's going on there?
What's all that about?
kelly starrett
Unstable.
joe rogan
Unstable.
kelly starrett
So unstable.
And that's what he's looking for.
joe rogan
Well, that's how he uses his Aikido, though.
He's like whip-like.
kelly starrett
Oh, so you mean practice makes permanent?
joe rogan
Is that what it is?
kelly starrett
He practices that a whole bunch and that's the only way?
joe rogan
So even when he runs, he's got that sort of whipping motion going on with his arms?
That kind of makes sense.
That totally makes sense.
kelly starrett
So when we teach people to run, we say, hey, pretend like you're grabbing two chips.
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
Put your shoulders in this position.
This external rotate position makes your shoulders stable.
It creates stability in the head.
joe rogan
How are you carrying your chips, man?
kelly starrett
You have two potato chips.
Don't crust the chips.
joe rogan
Two of them.
kelly starrett
Imagine that you're grabbing something else and you want to be gentle.
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
Can you say my name like Coco?
joe rogan
I don't understand.
Coco.
Put your elbows tight with the chips.
kelly starrett
No, no.
This is how you should be running.
joe rogan
You're just holding on the chips.
This is how you run to protect those chips.
kelly starrett
So where are his hands going?
Across his body.
So how much force is he giving away all that?
So if my hand's coming across, I've got to stop it.
It's a big heavy load.
I want to minimize that.
When you see kids run with their elbows out, like R2-D2, that's a test that C-3PO runs with his arms out.
joe rogan
Yeah, what is that?
kelly starrett
R2-D2 doesn't have arms.
joe rogan
I'm just letting you talk, dude.
Don't try to test me.
kelly starrett
Just seeing if you're here, bro.
Just seeing if you're here.
I'm fine.
brian redban
So rewinding, you were talking about squeezing the butt earlier.
kelly starrett
We're coming back.
unidentified
We're coming back.
kelly starrett
So the issue is, do you know how to run?
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
If you take people's shoes off, they run the same way.
People were designed for evolution.
That means you probably have one running pattern that you would do slow and fast.
You wouldn't have one running pattern that you would do slow and a completely different movement pattern that you would do when you sprint.
You would be able to cycle up and down.
We know what the injury running rates are.
You can't heel strike.
Every kid is born with their heel flat on the ground, not in tight shoes.
So running is running the way you would run barefoot.
joe rogan
So you can get away with heel striking if you're running on soft surfaces?
kelly starrett
Why do you have to run on a soft surface?
Right.
Yeah, right.
If I can make all these conditions, if I have my $150 shoes and my inserts and I run on a soft surface or a treadmill and I can run like this until I can't.
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
You should be able to run.
You're designed to be 110 years old when you're designed to be pain free for that 110 years.
That's it.
So, when you start to wear a hole in your kneecap, because you've been heel striking, and that heel comes down, the whole quad loads, knee comes forward, creates a ton of shear, you wear a hole in your kneecap, and you see your doctor, and the doctor's like, uh, you should stop running.
And you say things like, well, you know, you're the worst doctor ever.
You're not allowing me to express myself through my running.
This is BS. Well, and it's the same thing.
Well, the doctor's saying something very reasonable.
Hey, you're moving like crap.
You've destroyed your body.
Something's gotta change.
joe rogan
How did that heel striking happen because of a shoe design?
That's right.
kelly starrett
That's 100% right.
joe rogan
That is so strange.
If you really stop and think about that, how many people run like that?
Heel down first and it all came about because of a shoe design.
kelly starrett
Check this out.
Kids don't heel strike until about the first grade.
No kid under the first grade, until Christmas, heel strikes.
They all run beautifully.
Then they go home at Christmas break, and half of them ask for a heel strike for Christmas, and what happens is they've started sitting long enough.
You know what sitting does to your body.
It feels wretched, but it's okay for our kids to sit eight hours a day.
We talk to all the coaches who coach young kids, and they all say the same thing.
They're so short in the hip.
They all move like crap.
We have to undo the sitting from the day before we can even get any work done.
We also start to shorten their heel cords.
We make this joke about Chinese foot binding.
It's archaic.
But you're designed with your feet flat on the ground.
And what we do is we start to systematically lift that heel up.
Like the shoe I'm in has a four millimeter drop, a three or four millimeter drop.
That's still a high heel shoe.
It's not flat.
So if we look at some people's Nikes or some of these other shoes, they have upwards of a centimeter and a half, which is basically a high heel shoe.
So we're walking around shortening the heel cord.
unidentified
Yeah.
kelly starrett
Right?
Which means I take away your ankle range of motion, and suddenly you start to figure out, oh, I can walk with my feet turned out a little bit.
It makes my ankles more effective with this shortened heel cord position.
If I take that body and I said, okay, here's a stable young kid with a brilliant spine, right, young, we're doing gymnastics, and I just can't the whole thing forward a centimeter and a half from the bottom...
That projects out over the spine of the kid, maybe two centimeters, three centimeters, so the whole kid's center mass is forward.
And because you're a human being, you'll just compensate for it.
So we start to adopt these patterns.
The same patterns that if I'm texting in this crappy position, my upper back is rounded.
That means when I look up, so if I look at like a simple position, like if I just kind of round and text, I pick my head up.
My head's naturally level because my eyes are going to always get to the horizon line.
But if I sit up, look what position my head is in.
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
I didn't change my neck position.
I changed my upper back position.
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
So now I'm having this kind of car accident in my cervical spine, my neck, where I get lower cervical flexion, upper cervical extension.
And not only does this wear out discs and cause osteophytes, But it's less effective position when you take a shot to the head or you need to generate force.
Your body prioritizes that nervous system above all other things.
And you know this, when you injured your back, how stoked were you to have wild sex?
You still wanted to have wild sex, but you weren't stoked, right?
Because your back hurt so bad.
You injure your nervous system, my athletes go down, I got, like, it takes me It's gonna take me two days.
If it's just a stupid spinal fault, a little tweak, two days to turn the whole thing around.
I've lost two days of training.
Most time it takes a couple weeks, right?
Before you start feeling like you want to giant force again.
unidentified
Three weeks.
kelly starrett
Now you're behind.
You're behind all of my other athletes.
Tweak your nervous system for real.
Have your leg go numb.
Your body is shutting you down because it's such a primary threat to who you are as a human being.
You have a brain to move you through the environment.
So you can interact with your environment.
That's the whole reason that the nervous system developed in the animal, to just reproduce itself.
You can feed, you can fight, you can run away.
When you trash that nervous system, your body prioritizes it in a big way.
In fact, cognition, all of the higher-order thinking of the human being, it's called the neocortex, has been bootstrapped on top of the movement brain.
So it's not an accident that like, hey, I have a meditation practice and a movement practice, right?
I have to be a really good thinker.
I have to also train hard.
Well, it's because these systems are totally integrated and to disintegrate them, to get away from the movement and just go be a piece of meat on the treadmill or the elliptical machine, does human beings a disservice.
joe rogan
So that's saying essentially that really brilliant people who don't take care of their body are brilliant, again, in spite of the fact that they're not reaching their full potential.
kelly starrett
The engineering is so good.
joe rogan
But what about the amount of time that it takes to develop skill as opposed to the amount of time that it takes to spend doing physical training, like teaching someone a martial art, for example?
No, you only have like four days a week to train.
How many days a week would you train this guy or this gal in physical movement and how many days would you let them go to kickboxing class or go to jiu-jitsu class?
kelly starrett
Well, the idea here is that those aren't disparate, separate systems.
It's the same movement, right?
joe rogan
But it's not in a lot of positions like rubber guard.
There's triangles.
There's a lot of like weird You know, positions where these are very odd positions with your feet tucked under people's chins and pulling on your foot sideways, you know?
kelly starrett
But it's really not that weird.
If I teach you, like, we're not doing pull-ups.
I'm teaching you to create a stable pull off of the bar, right?
That's what this is really good for.
joe rogan
I don't think you can quite get what I'm saying.
What I'm saying is that the amount of time that it takes to get awesome at that, the amount of time to get that shit laser sharp is repetition in the technique over and over again.
kelly starrett
I totally got it.
joe rogan
But you're saying it could be better still.
kelly starrett
Well, I'm saying that the skills I'm teaching in the strength conditioning, as a side effect I become fit, as a side effect I become stronger, should integrate and support 100% of the training you're doing on the other side.
The problem is we're like, oh, this is my training, this is my conditioning and strength work.
It's the same work.
And then what ends up happening is that you'll have a stronger trunk, you'll be able to generate force from these worst positions, you'll be able to recover more quickly.
It takes a long time to develop.
So what we're asking is, you know, are you skilled?
Where are you going to put your eggs in the basket?
You should probably be skilled in all of your movement and that all of those movement skills translate in.
How many times do you need to...
People definitely get this messed up.
The most important thing to do to get good at a sport is your sport.
If you're going to be a fighter, you better do a lot of fighting.
Then I just need to do enough strength and conditioning to fit in the holes.
If you go fight and wrestle and fight and do other things, your conditioning is pretty stellar.
You probably don't need to do a whole bunch of extra conditioning.
Because you just did that on the ring.
All I have to do is fight a bunch of people once and you understand how conditioned you need to be.
But I do need a systematic way to uncover your limitations and that's why today we're going to deadlift.
And so some of the things we do even three times a week or twice a week is enough to sort of recover Or uncover the positional missing so I can see it.
How do we make the invisible visible?
Well, one thing is that these master coaches can see you fight and be like, that guy's really good.
I don't know what it is.
Let me give you an example.
I have a six-year-old daughter we call Bear.
She is the most legit human being I've ever met.
And she's wired the way I dream about being wired as a kid.
She's just like...
And so there's this old school Olympic lifting coach named Mike Bergner who is the man.
He lives down in San Diego.
He's been Olympic lifting longer than dinosaurs.
He saw Caroline move at an early kid, and he's like, you will send me Caroline.
She will live at my house in the summers.
She is an Olympic champion.
How did he decide that?
Well, she stands forward.
She creates a lot of torque automatically.
She's organized well.
Her head's balanced.
She moves in the same way that your coaches would walk down the hall and be like, hey, you play soccer, kid?
We should play.
Or someone grabbed you because you do these things.
So What I'm saying is we've got to keep developing these skills and uncovering the problems because if you just fight all the time, you're going to end up looking like a fighter and you'll adopt these positions and it's hard to sort of systematically uncover the problems.
So come back to the shoulder.
If you're going to be in a wretched position but you're missing range of motion, you don't have the control and the positioning, you will sacrifice position in that bad position and that's where you start to get injured because you get dumped on your shoulder.
That's where you're generating torque.
That's where the guy breaks your grip.
Because you're in these untenable positions and you're compromised in those untenable positions.
joe rogan
That's very fascinating.
How would you figure out how to schedule the time?
What would be most important?
Most important is skill.
And then right after that would be strength and conditioning.
So you would limit it to one out of four training sessions?
Say if you only had four training sessions a week.
unidentified
Perfect.
kelly starrett
One out of four.
joe rogan
Three of them should be...
kelly starrett
Or let's divide them up and give me two.
Give me two 20 minute sessions.
joe rogan
And how would you organize it?
Would you do like the really hard physical training like the first day of the week and then do the other three days skill?
Or would you do the opposite?
kelly starrett
Well, I think that's the conversation between your coach and you.
And that's really why you need coaching.
joe rogan
Right.
But what I'm getting at is should you be exhausted while you're learning the physical movements?
unidentified
No.
kelly starrett
Well, when you do skills, when are you best learning those skills?
When you're totally exhausted?
unidentified
When you're fresh.
kelly starrett
When you're fresh.
So if we're going to do high value...
I've got to look at the volume.
This is the art of coaching.
My job, especially as a strength and conditioning coach and physical therapist, is to enhance the strength, the fighting, or the sport of my athlete.
So if you're blown up and you can't fight, then what am I doing?
joe rogan
There's also skill to learning how to train when you're exhausted.
And that's one of the reasons why some people like to put guys through physical training first, and then take them through skill contests.
kelly starrett
What'd Hackleman do?
Rolling and wrestling, right?
Row 500, have a fresh guy beat the crap out of you.
It's a good idea.
joe rogan
It seems like it's not a good idea, but it's a good idea.
kelly starrett
It's a great idea, and then do it again and have another fresh guy beat the crap out of you.
joe rogan
It also teaches you how to keep your shit together when you're falling apart.
When your body's physically falling apart, it teaches you how to at least conserve enough energy and distribute it to know, like, Okay, we can't go full blast right now, but I can go right now at 40%, full clip, and then in 30 seconds I'll be back.
kelly starrett
So in my gym, my laboratory, there's always some stimulus load combination where I'm going to exceed your capacities.
Is it going to be so heavy, or so long, or so many reps, or so you're going to be breathing so hard that you start to break down.
And the job is to spend the time at the margins of those experiences.
joe rogan
So to not go fully in where you're not in control of your body and you're going to get hurt.
kelly starrett
Well, I mean, is that how you're going to be successful?
joe rogan
No.
kelly starrett
If I blow myself out, I'm going to get my ass kicked.
joe rogan
I agree 100%, but why is it that there's a lot of meathead thinking when it comes to that?
Like, you're supposed to just fucking keep going, pussy.
unidentified
Pick it up.
joe rogan
Meanwhile, your legs are malfunctioning.
kelly starrett
By the way, pussies are awesome.
We should really take that word back.
If you call me a pussy, it should be like, thanks man, I'm a pussy.
joe rogan
No kidding.
It is a weird thing.
How did that ever get to be bad?
kelly starrett
We start saying Sally.
We're changing it.
We're taking the word pussy back.
joe rogan
It's the same with dick.
Girls love dick, but they don't like a guy who's a dick.
It's basically the same thing.
kelly starrett
That's why we say cock.
joe rogan
We're so weird with that.
You're right.
unidentified
I've held on to Pussy the whole time.
kelly starrett
We need to be skilled.
We talk about training age.
It takes a long time to know your capacities.
It takes a long time to know yourself as an athlete and have a coach know you.
That's the balance.
That dynamic between trainer and athlete, between coach and athlete.
joe rogan
I think what you're saying, too, is you keep saying trainer and athlete, but I think what you're saying really is applicable for just human beings.
I think that's one of the most important aspects of Yeah.
kelly starrett
competition so 100% right like you have to be stressed yeah we have to put you if you don't ever compete or fight or perform music like stand-up comedy is the same thing as fighting it's It's the same thing as competing.
Stimulus is the same.
Mental state is the same.
Conscious.
joe rogan
I've got to stop you right there.
unidentified
You're crazy.
You don't think so?
joe rogan
No, it's not even close.
kelly starrett
You don't think being aware of the room and what's going on?
joe rogan
No, no, no.
It's not even remotely near as scary.
It's not remotely near as dangerous.
It's not remotely near as chaotic.
Take fighting out.
kelly starrett
How about any competition?
joe rogan
When you're in stand-up comedy, you can essentially control the entire situation.
If you're prepared and you have your material together, you control the entire situation.
kelly starrett
Oh, doesn't that sound like exactly what you're trying to do?
joe rogan
You don't always control the entire situation in a fight.
kelly starrett
It's scarier.
I agree.
But don't you try to control as many things as you can control?
unidentified
Yeah, sure.
joe rogan
You try to keep all your ducks in a row and get your conditioning together.
But if you're fighting a bad motherfucker, you're in for some danger.
There's no getting out of that.
In stand-up comedy, what's the worst thing that happens?
You don't laugh.
The ideas are completely different.
For a lot of people, they have this weird thing...
kelly starrett
You don't think the mental state is the same?
No.
joe rogan
It's absolutely not.
It's absolutely not.
Because you can think about a lot of other things before you go on stage.
I can pal around with friends.
I can joke around with people.
I've competed before, and I was in a world of my own before I went out there.
I knew that I can't have people talk to me.
I'm visualizing what I'm going to do.
I can't be having little bullshit conversations and then go out there and fight, because you'll get kicked in the face.
It's a completely different thing.
I don't need to go loose, relaxed, you get good at it, you know how the fucking thing works, you just get out there and do it.
kelly starrett
Well, okay, so pull that aside.
Let's say that you got loose, you have tons of reps, but performance is performance.
And the idea, though, is we should put kids in these stressful situations to teach them about their own heads.
They should sing.
They should learn how to compete because they find out about where they break down.
That's part of the reason we do sport in the first place.
joe rogan
To learn how to compete.
I think the worst people to be around are people that never learned how to compete.
Because they also don't learn how to lose.
They don't learn how to learn that you need more to learn.
Like, you could be fucking amazing at chess, but not even know how to play Go.
You know, when someone brings this thing out and you're like, what is this?
kelly starrett
You get your ass kicked and go.
joe rogan
You've got to know what you know things and you don't know things.
And the only way to find that out, to really find that out, is through competition.
To really be told, boom, you just got crushed at this video game.
You don't know how to play this shit at all.
kelly starrett
Let me hit you back on it.
So if you're really funny with your friends and someone's like, you should be a comic and you start speaking, you're not really a comic until you stand up in front of a bunch of strangers and do it.
joe rogan
You're not really a comic until you get banned from the comedy store.
That's when you become a real comic.
They ban you at least once.
I was banned twice.
kelly starrett
So if you're a kid, though, or at some point, if you're a musician and you never play, what is that?
joe rogan
I hear you 100%.
You must put yourself through some stress to figure out what to do when it happens, because otherwise it's an overwhelming amount of stimuli and energy and adrenaline, and it's hard to manage.
kelly starrett
Do you watch the tapes of you performing comedy afterwards?
joe rogan
Sometimes I do.
I listen to them more than I watch them, but I do sometimes.
kelly starrett
So some of that's after action.
Some of it's your pro and you're really good at it.
But what about, do fighters look at their tapes after they fight?
joe rogan
I think a lot of them do.
Yeah, a lot of them do.
kelly starrett
Because there's a lot of data there.
This is my most stressed out self.
I got to see what I did when I was tired and getting my ass kicked.
There's a lot of data there.
joe rogan
Yeah, without a doubt.
I think a lot of guys look at videos of their training as well, and that's very beneficial.
There's a lot of times you realize that you're doing something funny and you didn't realize it.
I know what a guy looks like when he's really good at Muay Thai.
I know how he moves.
But if I looked at myself, I'd be like, oh, I'm moving kind of goofy.
I would be able to see in a video just through training, like little errors that you can't see while you're actually doing it.
kelly starrett
So I feel like...
Let's take this back to the pain.
Let's spin it back to common stuff.
Do you have an understanding of what your process is with your spine?
joe rogan
You're talking to him?
He doesn't understand shit.
Trust me.
unidentified
Do I understand?
kelly starrett
No.
So what ends up happening, it's like fighting and fighting, getting the same result over and over again.
Twice a year I get my ass kicked.
joe rogan
I'm good, thanks, man.
kelly starrett
Twice a year I get my ass kicked, but I'm not really paying attention to the details.
What I'm telling people is that we can resolve a lot of crap.
joe rogan
Is that beer?
unidentified
Apple cider.
joe rogan
What is it?
glen cordoza
Cider.
joe rogan
Oh, cider.
kelly starrett
We can resolve a lot of the crap.
We can take a lot of the crap off the table.
joe rogan
I thought it was an energy drink.
kelly starrett
Sorry, I'm sorry.
joe rogan
We take a lot of crap off the table.
I apologize.
I'm an asshole.
Twice this week I've done that shit.
kelly starrett
Sorry, Everlast.
If you can make the invisible visible.
So one of the things that I want coaches and athletes to understand is that it's hard to see some of these things.
It's hard to see some of these things.
In the gym, if I expose you to some of these movements, I can tell where you're giving away force.
I can tell where you're being inefficient.
Because the hip is the hip.
Whether you're kicking or squatting, it's the same, similar position.
joe rogan
So you think you could enhance someone's kicking and bunching power?
Even a guy who's really good?
kelly starrett
Yes.
I mean, I have met only a couple people who have been what I consider in the 90%.
Like, who are just wiring and not a lot of efficiency left to be gained in the system.
And I'm not talking about skill.
You've still got to train, you've still got to be conditioned, you've still got to show up and perform.
But I'm not saying this is a done deal.
But harping back to our kids thing, how do we create this ready state, or this kid with a set of skills?
So my daughter's swim, right?
It teaches them so much about positioning.
They do gymnastics, they swim, they do a ball sport.
This is the language, but also there's some formal movement training in there.
That's in the gymnastics.
The formal movement training in the swimming.
We have to create a language and archetype so that kids can understand whether they're aware of what the shoulder needs to be doing at age, but they still know how to turn the iPad on and off.
joe rogan
Yeah, that totally makes sense, you know, because I'm not a very good athlete at all.
Like, I'm a black belt in taekwondo and a black belt in jiu-jitsu, but, like, I don't know how to do other sports.
Like, I don't do them well.
I can't ice skate.
Like, you put me on some ice skates, I fall.
You put me on some skis, I look retarded.
kelly starrett
Well, that's about training.
But it is.
joe rogan
It's about my whole life.
I didn't do any sports.
All I did was martial arts.
So my body developed that way, and it knows how to move that way.
kelly starrett
But if...
So...
I mean, there's nothing natural but ice skating or skiing.
joe rogan
My kids can fucking skate the shit out of it.
They're spinning around behind me.
Did my two-year-old learn how to fucking ski like that, dude?
I'm all awkward and shit.
kelly starrett
Two, plastic.
Figuring it out, right?
joe rogan
My posture sucks.
kelly starrett
Look at the neuroplasticity of the brain.
When does it become difficult to pick up new skills?
joe rogan
When you're old and fucked up like me.
kelly starrett
Especially with bad motor patterns, right?
It's hard to undo the BS. So, if you tell me, hey, I have this fighter, this is what he does, he goes to Muay Thai, I mean, I drive past with ice cream, get my ice cream for my kids, drive past that MMA school every single day, people in there, That's probably pretty great all-around healthy fitness, breathing hard, gonna feel great sort of things.
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
Until, what?
You break.
So let's just say that...
joe rogan
So you have a lot of imbalances, especially when you're doing boxing.
There's so much left side.
Your left side gets like literally 50% more work than your right side.
kelly starrett
That's 100% right.
My golfers who turn one direction for a living, the fighters who lead with the left a ton, that shouldn't be a surprise.
I should start looking for more dysfunction on the left side, stiffness on the left side.
The hip doesn't turn as effectively on that right side because I'm punching off it over and over and it gets stiff.
So, if you can understand the positions, you can Program to it and that's the sort of the second half is that sometimes people's biomechanics gets messed up your tissues are just stiff your joint capsule stiff you physically can't get into the good position because you're doing it a lot then what do you do about it and so if we give people the basic tools They can turn it around.
joe rogan
It's weird how, like, you'll have one side that's, like, tightened up.
Like, you'll be able to throw a kick with your right leg, and it's just real smooth and easy.
But then when your left leg, there's, like, this herky-jerky, like, it's awkward.
It doesn't turn over all the way.
kelly starrett
So if I watch you squat, I'd be like, that's the side that's all messed up.
joe rogan
Right, you'd be able to see right away.
kelly starrett
I'd get into a pistol.
I'm like, oh, look at that hip.
You can see it.
So the formal language of strength conditioning makes things easier to see.
If you recognize that left side to right side and try to mobilize that position, right, address all the systems and you're moving correctly, well chances are you can probably fix it without even doing that squatting.
The squatting makes it easy to see.
It also builds efficiency in the system.
joe rogan
You know, it's also weird.
When you practice something left hand, it actually shows you, there's actual data to show that you get better with your right side as well.
Like there's something about practicing opposite handed in certain things that actually allows your mechanics to improve With your dominant hand.
kelly starrett
It's because it's called deep practice.
joe rogan
Yeah, I've heard that with throwing.
Pitchers who throw with their left hand, it actually improves their right-handed pitch.
kelly starrett
Because you're so conscious of the thought patterning and how it feels.
You've thrown a million times with your right hand, you throw snowballs at me, you're not even paying attention to me.
You're watching over here, right?
Your left hand is fucked up.
The left-handed.
joe rogan
I'm that way with pool.
I can play the shit out of some right-handed pool, but I get it in my left hand and I barely know how to move my arm.
I've been playing pool all my life.
My right arm is loose and fluid.
My left arm is all fucked up and I can't get it to go straight.
It's amazing.
kelly starrett
Practice.
Go to the shooting range.
Go shoot with your right hand.
Go shoot with your left hand and see how bad you are with your left hand.
unidentified
That's terrible.
joe rogan
But it looks so gangster.
Just be shooting something.
I don't even want to use my right hand, son.
kelly starrett
So some of our ninja friends tried that.
They went like, they're para-rescue guys, and they're like, you know, they just emptied out, and they're like, they can't hit anything.
They're like, if someone shows you a pistol like this, you're pretty safe.
joe rogan
Yeah, unless he's like right in front of you.
Yeah.
They miss a lot, those guys.
That's a problem, right?
That's a problem in the hood.
kelly starrett
But look what this position is.
Check this out.
joe rogan
Solid as fuck.
kelly starrett
Right.
Well, what position is that?
Well, that's the rope climb position.
Same as Jiu-Jitsu.
joe rogan
It's the collar choke.
kelly starrett
So if your head is neutral, And I'm controlling the area.
There's my lock-off position.
X-train rotate, X-train rotate, X-train rotate.
unidentified
Boom.
kelly starrett
And I can reload.
I'm right in here.
I can see what's going on around me.
This is how the queen waves.
She waves in that same position.
Why?
It's stable.
You can wave like this all day.
joe rogan
She goes like that.
kelly starrett
No, she doesn't.
joe rogan
She gives you knuckles?
That's like, bitch, I don't even have to turn my fucking hand around.
I'm a royalty hooker.
kelly starrett
We call this the backhand high five because you can backhand high five someone.
It's more stable, and it's sanitary.
joe rogan
She really waves like that?
That is rude.
unidentified
Unless you poop on your hands.
joe rogan
Rude.
Wouldn't you feel like, first of all, you'd feel so fucking lucky that you were the queen.
I mean, who gets to be the queen?
You didn't, like, go to school for it.
kelly starrett
You could wave all day like that.
joe rogan
You're just the fucking queen.
unidentified
Try it.
joe rogan
Try it.
kelly starrett
Everyone at home, wave like this.
joe rogan
You should feel so lucky.
kelly starrett
You're all stable.
joe rogan
In a second, it'd be so rude.
kelly starrett
Now, wave like this.
Wave like this, and you're going to be tired.
It feels unstable and weak.
joe rogan
You should be so happy if you're the queen.
You should be bowing.
You should be so happy.
Blowing kisses.
kelly starrett
Check this out.
If you grab, you know, drinking with your pinkies up, right?
We say pinkies up.
joe rogan
What's that from?
kelly starrett
What is that really a cue to do?
joe rogan
Yeah, that's what it looks like.
It looks like a girl's about to give her a hand.
kelly starrett
Here, take this.
So, if the sprinters run with their hands out wide, Right?
With the fingers out.
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
Because it creates stiffness at the elbow.
joe rogan
That makes sense.
kelly starrett
What's the extensor stuff, or Tony Blauer's extensor?
Like, if you have extensor power, if you put the hand out, you create stiffness.
Well, that's what you're really doing with the pinky.
So people have figured it out over and over again.
That pinkies out creates stiffness.
Next time you're drinking high tea with the queen, put your fingers in, you'll be all shaky.
Fingers out, legit.
joe rogan
That's interesting.
You know, it's such a fascinating thing, like learning how to stabilize and put the human body into the optimum position.
And thinking of that as something like an education.
Think of that as a...
Something that can be taught to people.
kelly starrett
Oh, it has to be observable, measurable, and repeatable.
If you work with me and we get better, the only way we can measure it is we can measure wattage and poundage and output, do your fighting positions.
unidentified
That's right.
kelly starrett
We can measure it.
And if it doesn't improve that, then what the hell are we doing?
joe rogan
Let me ask you this.
If you were allowed to organize children's athletics in schools and physical education, you think you will?
Are you really?
What's the plan?
What would you do once you got in there?
Would you just teach kids proper ways of movement?
Would it require one-on-one with kids?
kelly starrett
No, no, no.
And here's the deal is that we've somehow mystified all that.
So we've gutted your school.
My kid's school gets 9 out of 10 stars.
We live in Marin County.
It's a dope school.
joe rogan
That's a beautiful place.
kelly starrett
It is beautiful.
We live in San Rafael.
And it's 9 out of 10 stars, but she gets a half hour of PE once a week.
Like 9 out of 10 stars.
That's okay.
She comes home and she's like, Dad, we did dodgeball today.
You would hate it.
I didn't learn anything.
joe rogan
Bam.
They're allowed to do dodgeball, though.
I like that.
They're trying to take that shit away.
kelly starrett
No, but that's called recess.
Dodgeball is not teaching skills.
So what we teach is this really rudimentary stuff.
Can you?
And there's some basic archetypes for the body.
Can you bend over and pick something up?
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
Can you squat correctly?
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
Can you run correctly?
Boom.
Can you lunge?
I mean, those are the basic shapes of the hip.
joe rogan
So let me ask you this.
If you had a guy like Tim Sylvia, again, we established a great fighter in his 30s, and he has this way of standing with his toes pointed in.
kelly starrett
Oh, toes pointed in.
Why did he figure toes pointed in?
What did that allow him to do?
Create even more torsion off of the ground.
So when his toes are in, he can create even more grip and torque in those basic shapes.
He's figured out that that toe-in position allows him to be more stable and functional.
joe rogan
So how would you fix that, though?
What would you have him do that would correct something like that?
kelly starrett
Well, the issue is, is he doing that because that's the only reason, only way he can move?
And boy, if he didn't have full range of motion in his hip, for example, that's the problem.
So as soon as you give...
If you teach athletes, and they're doing their skill, wait, hang on.
If you teach skills, because this messes with people's minds.
If you're a skilled athlete and you're training and doing all the drills and all the things, if I improve your range of motion, you instantaneously use it.
You'll suck it up and use it.
And I did this with some fighter's hips.
They were in guard.
I gave them, showed them how to mobilize, and I mobilized them into better positions in guard.
And literally, they ended up in a stronger position because they used it right away.
So hands in, internally rotates you and puts you into an unstable position.
joe rogan
What you just said, I just started thinking about it.
If you point your toes forward, it does open your hips up a little bit.
kelly starrett
It allows you to create a little bit bigger grip.
If you stand up and see how stable you are, it's a wretched position with your feet turned out.
That's not a good athlete.
Louis Simmons, best powerlifter on the planet, coaching, he would choose athletes.
He'd be like, ugh, look how that guy's walking with his feet straight.
He's going to be a good athlete.
unidentified
Wow.
kelly starrett
And how simple is that?
Walk with your feet straight.
If you're listening to this, tomorrow, wake up and walk with your feet straight.
joe rogan
So any guy who has his toes or any gal who has their toes pointed forward, it's not, they can turn it out.
unidentified
Yeah.
kelly starrett
Well, sometimes.
So we go upstream.
We look at his pelvis.
If he's in a bad lower spine position, then that's the only position he can get his feet if his pelvis is overextended.
So one of the things that we've got to teach people is what do you prioritize first?
We prioritize nervous system for the reasons we talked about.
Which includes the relationship between your pelvis and your spine, which is the best position to kick in.
I was just looking at a great tennis player, and he's just completely straight up and down.
Organized, toes pointed in the net, or he slams the ball.
It's because he figured out that was the most efficient position.
So if we organize the hip, what we see is that if your trunk is disorganized, and people out there have a ton of shoulder pain, If you're rounded through your upper back, you cannot control your shoulders effectively.
You lose power, you lose position, you lose mechanics.
For example, I work with a lot of pitchers.
joe rogan
But that's how a lot of guys punch.
kelly starrett
That's fine.
joe rogan
A lot of guys punch like that.
It's different, you think?
Glenn, pick up that mic, Glenn.
Is that on?
glen cordoza
Yeah.
joe rogan
Tell me what you're talking about.
kelly starrett
Let me just say first that punching, so fighting is not necessarily the best expression of human movement, right?
But I need to be able to go in and out of these positions.
And I can still generate force from this position, but if this is the only position I can be in, then my shoulders are going to be compromised.
joe rogan
Okay, so you're saying that not doing it occasionally is fine.
unidentified
That's right.
kelly starrett
It has to be.
Go ahead and swim or jump off something.
You need that capacity.
I'm not asking people to walk around like ballet dancers or deadlifters in this formal position.
That's the best way to teach the principle.
joe rogan
I thought you were saying was never go into that position.
kelly starrett
No, that's ridiculous.
I need to be able to come into that position and out of that position, right?
But if I'm stuck and I have one choice, which is that position, then I've limited my capacities, I've limited my abilities, I've limited my options.
So if you jump and land and your knees come in, you can't go any lower, you can't change directions, you can't jump higher.
joe rogan
So when someone says a guy's pigeon-toed, oh, he's got poor genetics, that's incorrect.
kelly starrett
I would say that that's incorrect.
joe rogan
So even though families will be pigeon-toed, it's really just them watching each other walk and choosing to walk?
kelly starrett
It's the mirror neuron, it's the thing.
joe rogan
I never even want to consider that.
kelly starrett
Kids walk exactly like their dads.
joe rogan
I always thought it was a genetic thing.
unidentified
What about flat feet though?
joe rogan
Flat feet is a genetic condition.
kelly starrett
Is it?
joe rogan
It's not.
kelly starrett
Why is it flat?
joe rogan
Because my mother has it and I have it.
kelly starrett
A lot of people have it.
I have it.
It's like the clap.
The flat.
So, here's the deal.
joe rogan
But I mean, I can move on the balls of my feet.
I move on the balls of my feet well.
That's not the problem.
kelly starrett
I bet.
joe rogan
I've always...
kelly starrett
I've got a hundred bucks.
I've never seen...
I've never not been able to create an arch in someone.
So how do you train an arch?
The system, the whole body, obeys these basic principles.
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
That when my foot's on the ground...
And I create torsion through the hip, the whole system winds up and becomes stable.
So, for example...
joe rogan
I see what you're saying.
You have shitty posture of the feet.
kelly starrett
Yeah, right.
So if you squat or run and you collapse your arches, is that a win?
No, that's a fundamental breakdown.
And patterns that take long time to change.
It takes two years to turn over all the connectivity in your body, all your fascia.
Two years.
So if I screw my foot into the ground, then the mechanics, the fascia, the arch, the bony structures pick up the arch, and the whole system becomes more stable.
So if you take your middle finger, put it over your pointer finger on your right hand, And put it down.
That's your ACL in the front.
Got it?
ACL. So your ACL comes in, that's anterior cruciate ligament, attaches into your tibia.
If I externally rotate that thing, anchor down, no, it becomes stable.
joe rogan
Oh, externally rotated like this.
kelly starrett
It winds up and becomes stable.
What happens when I turn your foot out?
joe rogan
Okay.
kelly starrett
So if I'm like this and I actually rotate, BAM! The thing becomes tighter.
If I turn your foot out and move that, what happens to your ACL? It unwinds and becomes more slack.
If your knee comes in, what happens to your ACL? It unwinds and becomes more slack.
So the question is, what's the best position to create the most force?
And that's usually a lot more straight foot.
I have a little breathing room in there because I can move around and I'm adjusting to the universe.
But we know that when the foot starts to turn out past that, I can measure your hip function.
I can squeeze your knees in.
You can't create any torsion in that position.
And it exposes you to more injury because your mechanics start to fall apart, including the structures of your feet.
joe rogan
Wow.
So what do you do to get a guy like me who's had flat feet for his whole life?
How do you get me to...
unidentified
High heels.
joe rogan
What do I think?
High heels?
What color?
unidentified
Red.
joe rogan
You had a picture of me.
My shiny and my glittery.
unidentified
You're so trashy, dude.
joe rogan
What do I do?
kelly starrett
Girls don't want red roses.
joe rogan
I'm a dirty bitch.
If I was a chick, though, come on, seriously.
unidentified
What?
joe rogan
Red glitter?
unidentified
No, I would like you in a blonde wig, I think.
brian redban
Pink lipstick and red heels.
joe rogan
So are there any specific exercises that develop...
Yeah!
Okay, what's the best?
Punching?
kelly starrett
I mean like jumping and landing, screwing my feet into the ground, squatting, teaching deadlifting.
That's why it's so easy to teach these very formal movement principles under high load, and I reinforce them.
The drills that people do, so this is I think a good case.
Think about when you were in high school how many drills you did before you were actually allowed to scrimmage.
College, it gets worse.
Like you do drills, drills, drills, drills, drills, right?
And if you're lucky, you get to scrimmage.
So what that really is is practice, practice, practice, practice.
Well, let's just take the practice idea down, not did you complete the task, yes or no, but were you in the best position possible, yes or no?
Well, the coach has this discrete amount of time to get something done.
It's hard to teach the basics.
Sometimes we have to.
We still teach elbows into kids when they're blocking because we don't want to get their arms taken off.
Well, it turns out when we do air squats or squat, for example, warming up, we teach to keep the arms in because it becomes the default motor pattern.
So this is my stable position.
joe rogan
It's also funny that that's a dominant position in wrestling.
I mean, it's essentially double underhooks.
I mean, you're getting a guy under like this.
You can control the body clamping down like this way better than you can clamping down the arms.
kelly starrett
And what are you doing?
You're creating external rotation, torque off of both of those things.
joe rogan
Instead of being up here, like if you have overhooks, that's why when a guy has double underhooks on you and you have overhooks and you still flip them, you must be a bad motherfucker.
There must be a big disparity in the grappling ability.
kelly starrett
Well, either that kid has really got his positions.
joe rogan
John Jones will do that shit to people.
He'll double overhook people and then send them Sailing!
glen cordoza
But that guy's timing is unreal.
joe rogan
He's insane.
kelly starrett
So, right, so...
joe rogan
It's physical intelligence.
kelly starrett
Physical intelligence.
And some of that is, you know, the train, train, train, train.
joe rogan
It's also his form.
He's got a very strange body.
You know, I mean, he's a very, very strong kid, but he's 6'4", you know, 230 before he begins his cut, and long as Texas.
He's long as fuck.
So he's doing shit and getting, like, leverage.
You just can't, you can't compete with that shit.
glen cordoza
But...
joe rogan
It's too hard in certain positions.
kelly starrett
Who says position before submission?
Doesn't that sound familiar?
joe rogan
Everybody.
kelly starrett
What is position then?
joe rogan
Well, it's leverage.
It's being in the right spot.
Which is what?
Depending on where you are, it's the correct technique that's been assumed after You know, hundreds of years or decades or whatever it has been of testing and competition.
And it changes all the time.
kelly starrett
And it matches the physiology.
It matches the best position for the body in that shape.
That's what it is.
joe rogan
It sort of does, but sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes it's an awkward position, but it works to get a guy, him in a vulnerable position.
Like, there's a lot of submissions that are very odd angles.
unidentified
I understand.
joe rogan
Like, how about, you know, like, guillotines?
Like, that's a fucking weird angle.
kelly starrett
Okay, but how are you still creating torque there?
glen cordoza
Yeah, but a guillotine is more powerful if your shoulder's back in a stable position, like I was saying, versus being out here all awkward.
joe rogan
Yeah, I guess guillotine's not a good...
You know what's a great one?
kelly starrett
Let me give you an example.
joe rogan
I was thinking of clock jokes, but I'm like, no, that's actually kind of the same thing.
kelly starrett
How about a real example from my firefighters?
We've got firefighters listening out there.
One of the dirty tasks of the firefighters is to pick people up off the ground after they've fallen off the toilet.
And one of the guys at our gym is the medical examiner for San Francisco.
So he goes around the world and picks up dead people.
That's his job.
He had a 350-pound woman die on the toilet.
She falls between the toilet and the wall.
I love it.
He's still...
So the question is, can that guy get into a perfect position to pick that woman up off the ground?
Yes or no?
No way.
But what he can do is he can optimize his positioning as he tries to deadlift that dead body up, right?
What about my first responders carrying people down the stairs?
You can't be in a good position with a stretcher down the stairs, but they know how to protect themselves.
joe rogan
Stay straight.
unidentified
Always.
kelly starrett
They do the best that they can because that's the positions that have been reinforced.
So the same thing happens.
You start to adopt these fundamental understanding shapes because they just become rote and they also happen to match the physiology.
joe rogan
Well, you know, I disagree with you, but then in practicing the techniques, now I agree with you, because there's like certain shit, like I was thinking about guillotines, but the choking arm is this arm, and essentially that's exactly where it goes.
It goes into that kind of a position.
I mean, it's an awkward, especially if you do the Denny Propagos.
unidentified
Sure.
joe rogan
Denny Propagos loves this grip.
Jake Shields likes this grip, too, where your palms are facing outward.
kelly starrett
So what's that allow you to do?
Create a ton of torsion.
joe rogan
Let me explain this to people.
If you're watching on iTunes, if you're a right-handed choker, Your right palm is facing outward and your left palm is facing inward as you do the choke.
It's a weird, odd position, but what it does is the way it sets the bone up on the neck, it's perfect.
It's like the perfect, but it's odd as fuck.
That's an odd as fuck feeling to have your hands like this in this weird position.
But if you get that, it's incredibly strong.
But I was disagreeing until I saw this.
kelly starrett
The physiology is the same.
glen cordoza
What Kelly is saying is if your shoulder is in a good position, then you're stronger from that position.
So if you've got a guy in a guillotine, right, and your shoulder is forward, your shoulder is rolled forward, you don't have as much squeezing power.
You don't have the same amount of leverage put into that versus If your shoulder's back, and then you get your chest over their head, right, and collapse it, and you're able to get that.
That's a more stable position.
That's a better position.
joe rogan
So a person with a comprehensive understanding of how the human body should move like you, when you could actually probably accelerate their ability to pick up skills.
kelly starrett
100%.
And I'll tell you, like Forrest Griffin...
is a ninja about his own systems.
He understands, hey, I lifted heavy on this day before I trained.
I start sleeping in my bedroom.
I have to be up.
I'm going to fight at 11 o'clock.
He starts shifting his sleep patterns.
He's up at 11. He's exercising at 11. All of those things are the same language.
Can I do the basic maintenance on myself?
Can I do the basic diagnostics on myself?
How do I measure these things?
That's the embodiment we're talking about.
And what's happened in the world now for the first time is that we have the convergence of these systems.
And, like, it's all there.
It's really remarkable.
joe rogan
So, alright.
I have an injury.
I have a back injury.
I have a disc in, like, C6 or C7 that's bulging.
It's been way better over the last couple months because I took off with jiu-jitsu.
But all the other things that I do don't bother.
The only thing that seems to bother is jiu-jitsu.
What can I do besides trying to stand straight?
I've been doing that.
Fucking...
I'm working on my posture hardcore.
kelly starrett
It helps.
So we get the pain out of your nerves.
So the first thing is we've got to get people out of pain.
joe rogan
I'm totally out of pain.
I have zero pain.
When I wake up in the morning, I'm a little stiff, but I take lacrosse balls and I bridge on lacrosse balls and I roll them.
kelly starrett
Where did you hear that?
joe rogan
I found it online.
Is it you?
Is it your idea?
Was it?
Congratulations?
Or thank you, rather.
Congratulations.
kelly starrett
I have a jet with a lacrosse ball in the back.
joe rogan
Listen, man.
I read about it on some fitness forum.
I don't even remember, but I didn't give credit given to you.
So thank you, because that has helped me so much.
It's painful as fuck, but I love it.
It's like a beautiful pain, because I know the relief that it's going to give me.
kelly starrett
How do you know tissue is normal?
This is a good question.
joe rogan
It doesn't hurt when you roll a ball on it.
kelly starrett
That's right, at all.
It doesn't hurt.
You start to compress my bicep, I don't freak out.
You're compressing my bicep.
It shouldn't feel like beef jerky, and it shouldn't hurt.
So if you push on a tissue and it hurts, it's not normal.
joe rogan
This is how I can prove that your system works.
My left side was where I got injured.
I have this weird left tweak.
And it's not serious.
Right now I have zero hand pain, nothing.
But when I get up in the morning, it's very stiff.
And sometimes when I move forward, I can feel it.
When I take the lacrosse ball and I bridge and I roll it on, I don't feel shit.
I mean, it's relaxed.
It's loose.
Everything feels like it moves good.
And I always do it right before I train.
But I always do the left side.
So the other day, I did the right side.
The right side isn't even injured.
And I was like, ah!
My right side was so fucked up.
It was more fucked up than the side that has a disc injury.
It was all knotted up and tight.
kelly starrett
Trying to stabilize that side?
joe rogan
Trying to stabilize.
Trying to compensate for the left side being so fucked up.
kelly starrett
One of the problems I have is that people have made this voodoo.
Well, your left foot is off, and so your pelvis is through the crease.
joe rogan
Yeah, what is that about?
kelly starrett
It's misplaced precision.
Like, we measure all these bullshit.
Rolfers.
joe rogan
You ever talk to a rolfer that hits you with that?
They want to rub your ribs, straighten your toes out?
kelly starrett
This is...
Look, I understand the connective tissue web.
All my fascia kids out there, this is a little known fact about Kelly Starrett.
I got married when I was 25 to a girl I dated in college.
joe rogan
We should be playing music while this is going on.
kelly starrett
She was a rolfer.
joe rogan
Don't do the Hulk theme.
That's when the Hulk walks away.
kelly starrett
I married a rolfer by accident.
joe rogan
Nothing wrong with Rolfing.
unidentified
No, no, no.
kelly starrett
Don't get me wrong.
The key about understanding that is that it operates on one system, and that's that connective two-shoe fascia system.
It doesn't teach you how to move, does it?
joe rogan
No, it does not.
kelly starrett
Does it work on the joint capsule?
unidentified
No.
kelly starrett
Does it work on the muscle stiffness?
No.
So the reason Rolfing didn't cure squatting knee pain cancer is that it's still incomplete because it doesn't still revolve.
You have to teach people to move first, and you have to take this approach.
When you're on the ball, You're working on the soft tissue, but you're also working on the rib joints.
You're also working on the thoracic joints.
So what happens is that you're stuck stiff because your T-spine gets stiff.
That's what happens.
You start to improve that mechanics.
Your head positioning changes.
The whole system upregulates.
I have been in surgeries where they have literally, like they look at a guy's knee.
And the knee looks like a bloody cave.
Like there are stalagmites and stalactites and there are boulders in there and there's blood and there's no ACL. And the physician is like, what the hell?
They pull out rocks and it pops out and everyone laughs.
Well, it turns out that guy doesn't have knee pain.
So the issue is that you're designed to be ridden hard and put away wet.
You are designed...
When you just get a picture...
I know so many world record holders and so many world champions who have herniated discs that are asymptomatic.
They just don't hurt.
You'll recover that thing.
What you've lost is the right to be in shitty positions.
You've sort of kind of given up that right.
You've used your get-out-of-jail-free card, and now you're going to be more positional sensitive.
As you open up that thoracic spine and heal that disc, one of my friends told you...
joe rogan
How does it heal the disc, though?
If I just stand up straight, it'll heal my disc?
kelly starrett
Well, the discs heal over time.
They're poorly perfused, which is a reason why you can't be inflamed all the time and run around.
You've got to set up the conditions for healing.
But theoretically, You can't regrow an ACL or a bloody bone, but you're designed to heal until you die.
So the real question is, how are you optimizing that healing situation?
I have this little formula.
Right lifestyle means you're dealing with your stress, you're getting enough sleep, and the people out here know they don't get enough sleep.
Sleep less than six hours a day, you can be 30% immune compromised, and your fasting blood glucose is up, it's elevated, you're pre-diabetic, like you had plus 30 pounds on you instantaneously.
If you have right lifestyle, sleep, nutrition, hydration, you're doing all those things, plus correct movement, you should be pain-free and continue to get better.
So we take that, our athlete Silva, right, who's 30 years old, No, he's a bit older.
joe rogan
Who?
Anderson?
glen cordoza
No.
joe rogan
Who?
Tim?
glen cordoza
Tim Sylvia.
joe rogan
Tim Sylvia.
kelly starrett
Oh, sorry.
Tim Sylvia.
joe rogan
Yeah, Sylvia is in his late 30s.
kelly starrett
Okay, so one of the things that I'm interested in is how do I extend the careers of these great athletes?
Because it takes a long time to become a good fighter.
Young kids in their 20s are genetic monsters.
They're metabolically super fit, freakishly talented and fast.
But by the time you're sort of in your 30s, you have fought a lot, you have a lot of experience, but that's when your body starts to break down.
But you're really good when you're 34. You're really good when you're 35. Why have you been fighting for 25 years?
You're a soldier, you're a Tour de France guy, you're a powerlifter.
How do I extend your career How do I optimize your positions?
Because you can do it until you physically can't do it anymore, right?
Until you decide that I'm too slow or I'm not worth the training versus taking out because my neck hurts or my back hurts.
And we're having this luck.
We're being able to extend guys' careers because we resolve their positions, we get them into these better lifestyles where they're not eating the gluten, they're drinking more water, they're sleeping better, et cetera.
joe rogan
A lot of MMA fighters is just damage, just damage to the body.
kelly starrett
That's 100% true.
Like that sport is going to accumulate some trauma.
But if I know how to kick correctly, let's just say, then when I kick you, I turn the leg over, one of the things that happens is the hip ends up in a more stable position.
joe rogan
Let me ask you about a guy that I know that just retired recently, Shane Carwin.
Who was a great fighter, a really beautiful guy.
Just a really friendly, brilliant guy.
He was actually an engineer before he ever got into MMA. He had to retire because of back injuries.
He's got stenosis and he's started to have an impingement on his nerves and he's had a couple of operations.
And he feels that a lot of this he got during football, the heavy collisions.
kelly starrett
So, completely.
So now he's stenotic.
And for those of you who don't know what stenosis is, it means you're extension sensitive.
If you put your butt back like a cheap stripper, not a classy stripper, but like a cheap stripper.
joe rogan
We don't judge on this show.
kelly starrett
I'm not judging.
When I'm in that position, I'm the biggest stripper in the room right now.
No one's cheap.
joe rogan
Nothing cheap.
kelly starrett
I'm just going to college.
So when I overextend my pelvis to the lumbar spine, what I'm doing is I'm closing off those facet joints.
I'm locking down bone on bone.
joe rogan
What is the facet joint?
kelly starrett
It's the weight-bearing doorstop of the spine.
joe rogan
So at the bottom, is that what it is?
kelly starrett
Well, it's in the back.
So what happens is if I take your elbow and slam it into extension over and over again, right?
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
Eventually, you can handle that, but after a while, boom, that starts to hurt, doesn't it?
You jam it into extension.
joe rogan
That's one of the problems with jiu-jitsu.
You're always getting an arm bar.
kelly starrett
That's right.
Always getting an arm bar and you get serious arm problems.
That's right.
So it's the same thing for your back, except the problem is that your back is set up to take billions of oscillations.
So it doesn't happen overnight.
And sometimes you're gonna get dumped on your head and that's called sport.
That's that catastrophe.
joe rogan
Now let me ask you this though.
When you see a guy that gets a serious back injury and then goes through surgery, do you think that's a mistake?
kelly starrett
Not always.
joe rogan
Not always.
kelly starrett
No, not always.
joe rogan
How often is it a mistake?
kelly starrett
Well, if the guy's moving poorly, still is moving poorly, we don't have to address the reason why he's had that problem.
It's not just catastrophic.
You just didn't, you know, get crushed one time, dumped on your head.
Like, you know, you can get dumped on your head and a herniated disc.
That's not your fault.
unidentified
Right.
kelly starrett
But the stenosis, you know, happened.
So he's saying, hey, it happened in these high collisions.
What position was his back in when he collided in these other kids?
We teach chest up to tacklers, right?
Yeah, kids can't perform some of these basic squats, and so they overextend in this shape because they don't have this language of keeping the spine straight, and they basically...
End up defaulting to this bone-on-bone position.
joe rogan
Okay, in all fairness, though, he's getting hit from the side by fucking gorillas.
This is not as simple as a guy having poor form.
kelly starrett
But it's a lifetime of this.
joe rogan
Right.
kelly starrett
But he's playing football.
joe rogan
They're just fucking slamming into each other.
I mean, that's chaos.
kelly starrett
So position matters more.
unidentified
So, I mean, I have a bunch of kids in the NFL. I agree.
joe rogan
It does if you can control the situation.
But sometimes you can't.
When you're a football player, you've got dudes coming at you on the side.
kelly starrett
Do you think it's that one shot that takes them out?
Or is it the repeated shots that make sense?
joe rogan
I think that happens a lot, though.
You've got to take that into consideration when you're talking about 300 men who can run, you know...
They can do the hundred in, what, like four seconds?
These are giant freak athletes.
kelly starrett
Giant freak athletes who also fracture their backs, just blocking.
What about, let's scale it down, because we see kids in high school have that stenosis.
joe rogan
Listen, man, you're obviously the expert in this physical movement thing, but I think you've got to take into consideration the physical trauma of the 300-pound guys running at you.
glen cordoza
Well, I think this is what he's trying to say, is if you're having that drama in a bad position, then it's going to have higher consequences.
So, So if that same person, say, for example, understands how to squat, understands how to deadlift, understands the proper organization of the spine, and then that motor pattern is ingrained, right?
So that's just a part of their wiring.
And then they go out on the football field and they're hitting in those good positions, their chances of getting injured are a lot lower than, say, if they've developed these bad positional habits, right?
kelly starrett
All the running overextended.
glen cordoza
So I'm overextended.
Now every time I get hit, boom, now that's...
That's the bone-on-bone collision.
joe rogan
But there's also times where they get scissored.
glen cordoza
That you can't control.
joe rogan
That's a lot of times how guys get really badly injured.
glen cordoza
Yeah, and that's fighting.
That's like Bo Jackson, right?
Just stepping wrong.
You can control that, right?
You can mitigate that by being in a good position or training your body.
joe rogan
But there are unusual and unique moments that you can't control, which is sport.
But I'm not saying that in defense of shame.
kelly starrett
If I grab him, oh yeah, here's the deal.
This is the key understanding.
No one is being an ass here.
Everyone's working the limits of their understanding.
joe rogan
No, no one's saying you are.
kelly starrett
No, no.
Wait, I'm saying...
I don't want to be an ass.
I want to make sure that people understand what I think is that people are working at the limits of their understanding.
We have burnt athletes at the stake of performance that we didn't understand all the ramifications of.
You got the job done.
We lived on the clock.
Let me use an analogy for you.
I learned this from you.
This is one of the...
joe rogan
From me?
kelly starrett
Yes.
This is one of the, swear to God, guiding forces of my life.
Don't hang tough.
joe rogan
Okay.
kelly starrett
Fear factor.
This guy had to eat like a foot-long horse cock in like an hour.
joe rogan
Okay.
That never happened, but go ahead.
kelly starrett
Well, hang tough.
He had to eat something.
So you, that guy's eating, and he's making jokes, and you're like, hey, bro, watch the clock.
It was like in The Best of Fear Factor 2. You're like, watch the clock, watch the clock.
You're trying to help him.
You're coaching him.
He's making jokes.
He's flirting with the girls.
And he swallows the last bite at the last second.
joe rogan
Mm-hmm.
kelly starrett
And you're like, sorry, bro.
You timed out.
And the guy freaks out.
joe rogan
Yeah, I remember that, dude.
I was trying to tell that guy, I know what you're doing, but you can't do it.
Don't do it.
Don't fucking waste your energy talking and having fun.
I'm like, you got a lot.
I've been there before.
I've seen a lot of people eat dick.
It takes some time.
It takes some serious fucking time.
And you think you take the first couple of bites, you're like, I'm fine.
You got five minutes to eat that whole dick.
It's not that easy.
unidentified
Goblin dicks.
kelly starrett
You gotta watch the clock.
You gotta manage the details.
joe rogan
You also have to have chewing endurance.
That sounds so crazy, but there's shit like livers and kidneys.
Kidneys is a perfect one.
Somebody tells you, hey, I'm gonna make a bet with you.
Listen, you wanna make some money?
Tell a motherfucker he can't eat a kidney, like a cow kidney.
Tell him that he can't eat it in an hour.
Because he's not gonna fucking eat it.
Just make sure he can't have any water.
You can't wash it down with shit.
You just have to eat it.
It's not happening.
Okay?
It's not gonna happen.
kelly starrett
It shouldn't happen.
joe rogan
You know how I know?
I'm an expert on that.
unidentified
I know.
I know.
joe rogan
I've seen a lot of people.
I've seen PAs do it for a hundred bucks.
I've seen contestants do it.
You can't eat it.
It's too hard.
You're chewing the shit out of something.
It's like you're running uphill sprints with your jaw.
That's what it's like.
kelly starrett
That's right.
joe rogan
You're wrestling Corellin with your jaw.
kelly starrett
Can't train for that.
The kidney is insurmountable.
You have to control what you can control.
joe rogan
Right.
So you learned that from me?
kelly starrett
Got to control the clock, bro.
So let's say that I'm teaching kids to do like a, what's like a, not a whizzer, but like a, you know.
joe rogan
Suplex?
kelly starrett
Suplex, there you go.
And if I don't teach kids to get stiff and brace against that, the same way we teach our young throwers, we teach them to arch as hard as they can.
Well, the arching harder they can is me cranking on those joints over and over.
This pattern was set up from him in high school, in middle school.
Billions of reps accelerated under big loads with 300 pound guys, accelerated in the ring.
So, could we have extended his career long enough?
And more importantly, I want these fighters to finish their careers and not be disabled.
I want them to finish their careers and have some aches and pains, and hey, they tore their ACL, but they shouldn't be disabled.
The same thing with our firefighters, the same thing with our kids in the Army.
You know, in your 40s, you should still be able to train, you should still be able to pick up your kids, and what we're seeing is that that guy has rung the bell on his back, seriously, because maybe he played pro ball and had some unfavorable things.
How do we maximize his positions?
unidentified
Brian, what the fuck are you putting on the TV? Buffalo penis.
joe rogan
Buffalo penis?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Oh, everyone's so happy.
Okay, stop, Brian.
unidentified
Stop.
joe rogan
This is goddamn Ustream, okay?
This isn't your house.
We can't just be showing that shit.
I don't even think it's legal.
kelly starrett
Buffalo penis makes me gag all the time.
joe rogan
I forgot what I was going to say, you fuck.
What were we just talking about?
Where were we at?
Where did you do that?
kelly starrett
How do we extend the careers of our best athletes?
And when they're finished, how do we do it?
So, I love...
I mean, you should be able to wrestle your whole life, right?
joe rogan
Oh, Jesus Christ.
Are you crazy?
kelly starrett
Can you do the jiu-jitsu?
What, old guys don't do jiu-jitsu in Brazil?
joe rogan
Yeah, you do, but you've got to flow roll.
Those old dudes, they do jiu-jitsu, but it's a different thing.
glen cordoza
You only roll with guys that know what's up.
Yeah.
You can't just...
Pick out this hungry kid.
joe rogan
My friend Yoshi is 63 years old, and he's a black belt under Jean-Jacques Machado, and he's very technical, but he's a little guy.
He's a Japanese man.
He's 63 years old, and he's only probably 145 pounds at the most.
He's not a big guy, and he'll find the guys to roll with.
He's smart now, but he's, you know...
kelly starrett
Does he move really well?
joe rogan
He knows jujitsu very well.
I mean, John Jack Machado doesn't give out any fake black belts.
If that guy's giving you a black belt, you're legit.
So if Yoshi's a black belt, he's a real black belt.
His movements are, you know, he's just smart.
He doesn't want to tax his body.
He's 63 years old.
So when he rolls...
If the shit hit the fan and he had to choke you to sleep, he could choke you to sleep.
But he doesn't want to have to do that every day at 63 years old.
unidentified
Fair enough.
joe rogan
He wants a flow roll.
kelly starrett
He's lost some of the tissue tolerance.
I think.
We're in an epoch.
joe rogan
He's retired.
He's retired.
What is retirement age?
glen cordoza
35 usually is typically what?
For...
joe rogan
What's retirement age for people?
unidentified
For what athletes?
joe rogan
For people who work at the post office.
Is it 65 or is it 55?
unidentified
Yeah, it's like 65. It used to be younger and they extended it.
joe rogan
Was it like 59 at one point or am I making that up?
kelly starrett
It's going to be so bad, no.
brian redban
Yeah, I think it's longer now because of people's health.
joe rogan
I'm talking about just people in general who retire from jobs and this guy is going in there doing jujitsu.
Physical practice, master, takes care.
kelly starrett
But also look at some of the...
joe rogan
The management of training opponents is very important.
kelly starrett
That is important.
joe rogan
Yeah.
kelly starrett
Those young kids shouldn't be, you know, you can ask a lot more.
joe rogan
It's not that at all.
There's young kids I 100% trust.
What it's all about is not rolling with yahoos.
Not rolling with anybody who doesn't know what they're doing.
They dive on shit that doesn't really work.
They just land on your ankle or something.
glen cordoza
Just cranking on limbs for no reason.
joe rogan
Grab your fucking wrist.
kelly starrett
We call it, we have a technical term for it called hanging on the meat.
We see those kids all the time.
And they do the same thing.
joe rogan
They also get really excited about tapping you too, which is like, Settle the fuck down.
You're trying to tap someone too hard.
You're not in a position where you're really effectively utilizing that technique.
You're squeezing the shit out of it in a bad spot.
You're actually wasting effort.
Because all that guy has to do is survive that, and then you're done.
You're done.
All he has to do is get through this one squeeze, just count to 20, don't tap, and then dominate you.
glen cordoza
Yeah, and flow rolling, like you said, is an art in and of itself, right?
joe rogan
And it's an art of trust as well, as is flow kickboxing.
You know, you know that as much as anybody.
glen cordoza
Which is even way harder.
joe rogan
Way harder.
glen cordoza
To control strikes and impact, and you see the times.
You mean you have any skills?
So I spent a lot of time in Thailand, and they don't spar...
At all, really.
joe rogan
No, it's all pad work.
glen cordoza
It's all pad work.
It's all clinch work.
So like 50% of their training is clinch work, like you were saying earlier.
I mean, not a lot of people realize that.
joe rogan
Very underrated grapplers.
unidentified
Oh, huge.
glen cordoza
Like, I mean, most of my grappling comes from Muay Thai, and then I'll go in and wrestle Division I wrestlers, and that all applies.
unidentified
The trips.
glen cordoza
The trips.
unidentified
Out of this world trips.
joe rogan
Yasun Klai, all those guys.
Bukau.
That guy has incredible trips.
glen cordoza
Well, because of Bukau, they outlawed clinching in K1. Exactly.
joe rogan
And because of Alistair Overeem, too, they wouldn't allow the double hand.
He's so strong.
He's a fucking gigantic powerlifter, dude.
He gets a hold of that double hand.
Just boom!
Those thunder knees are coming.
glen cordoza
With the sparring, you watch the Thai spar, no knee pads, no nothing, and they know what's up.
joe rogan
Yeah, they're tapping each other, man.
glen cordoza
Yeah, and it's super relaxing.
joe rogan
When you can find a training partner like that, it's a beautiful thing.
You'll progress.
You'll meet at 2 o'clock and you both know that neither one is going to do anything stupid.
glen cordoza
It's quality numbers.
You're able to get in some quality numbers.
joe rogan
Then you develop those instincts where you don't even know you're doing the movement until it's already over.
glen cordoza
See, and this is what's brilliant, really, with Kelly's system.
For example, let's take the squat.
Like, if you understand some of the underlying principles of the squat, what he's talking about.
unidentified
Glenn Cardova on the mic, ladies and gentlemen.
glen cordoza
Creating torque, creating stability, right?
You see that same rules applied in jiu-jitsu or in fighting, right?
So you know when you throw a cross, you, you know, turn your foot into the ground.
Well, that...
All that is is a mechanism of stability, right?
You're just creating stability through the hips so you can transfer that force up through the ground, through your body, out through your hand.
So if you're practicing that in strength and conditioning, right, say we're practicing a split jerk or a squat or whatever it is, we're able to practice those mechanics so then when you go into your sport fighting, whatever it is, it's transferable.
All of a sudden you see it.
joe rogan
Even windmills.
glen cordoza
Exactly, exactly.
But it's all the same ideas.
kelly starrett
Now throw in the fact that these guys have cultures around massage and sleep and these weird recovery things.
joe rogan
And getting jerked off.
glen cordoza
Oh, ties are big on me.
unidentified
Nico Chan, Paro Paro.
joe rogan
They don't fuck around, dude.
kelly starrett
So check this out.
Let's go here for a second.
One of the problems that we have with athletes who are...
In a very sympathetic state, right?
You're fighting, training, it's a very high sympathetic state.
So your sympathetic nervous system is up and going.
You're in this fight or flight kind of pounding.
We measure this with heart rate variability in our athletes.
We can put our heart rate monitor on you in the morning.
When you breathe in, your heart rate accelerates.
When you breathe out, it decelerates.
Kids who are not recovering, their heart rate stays the same.
Boom, boom, boom, they're driving.
You lay down at night, you can't turn off.
I know good coaches who've worked with NBA players, the only way that NBA player can come down after the game or from training or practice is to smoke a bowl and roll out on the foam roller.
And that really is about tricking the body into Accessing the parasympathetic nervous system.
It's not an accident.
I think some of those cultures around, physical cultures, have some of these things built in about bringing you out of that sympathetic state and bringing you into that parasympathetic state, which is about adaptation and recovery.
So that's that state where you can...
So, I mean, how weird is that, you know, getting a handjob in a tie place after you fight is really also about...
joe rogan
It's relaxing.
kelly starrett
Oh, it's relaxing.
So guess what?
You start to recover.
You sleep better.
One of the things we are, how are we systematizing that?
How do we give people access to their diaphragm?
One of the things that I'm interested in right now is some of my ninja special forces guys come back from the GAN. They've been in long deployments.
joe rogan
If you call them ninjas one more time, you're officially Mike Goldberg.
kelly starrett
I don't want to say who they are.
Scary guys.
unidentified
Okay.
kelly starrett
Their testosterone comes back and their testosterone is really low.
Their testosterone is like 170, which is that of like a nine-year-old man.
unidentified
Man, that's high.
kelly starrett
Coco!
joe rogan
He's all drained.
kelly starrett
So if you, if these guys are caught in this sympathetic outflow state, right, they're just, you know, the dirty secret of pro sports is Ambien.
Like, that is such a dirty secret of guys getting on the bus back up from after plan, they take an Ambien, all the soldiers surviving, start sleeping, they take an Ambien, they take two Ambien, they wake up and take another Ambien.
This is how they're trying to sleep again.
So we start measuring all of this stuff, yet we're in bad position.
So if I'm overextended, which is where most of us are living, where most of us are living in this overextended position, not this uber flexed.
Your lower back is overextended, your upper back is slightly flexed.
This is like when you're sitting up in the car, when you're standing with your feet turned out, your pelvis is dumped forward a little bit.
When you are in a bad position of your spine, your body doesn't work very well.
The whole thing, just like in your bad position of the foot, you can't kick as well, you can't move as well.
Well, the same thing happens with the musculature of your trunk, so that if you're in an overextended position, your pelvic floor doesn't turn on, which means you can't create as much intra-abdominal pressure.
This is why you see overextended women exercising and they pee when they jump, right?
They do double unders and pee comes out.
When they're in that bad position.
joe rogan
Who are these women?
kelly starrett
It's not pretty.
unidentified
I got a website for you.
kelly starrett
It's a genre.
Don't go to Olympicliftingprolapsevowel.com.
joe rogan
Don't do that.
I've been there.
Too late.
kelly starrett
But also the same thing happens.
joe rogan
Your warnings are in vain.
kelly starrett
So when you're overextended through your pelvis, your pelvic floor doesn't turn on.
When you're overextended in your rib cage, your diaphragm doesn't work very well.
And so you start doing this breathing in their neck.
And so I don't have good access to your diaphragm control because it's just in a bad position.
So you start making VO2 compromises, right?
You're not putting out the same VO2. Your breathing is inefficient.
That diaphragm has attachments onto your psoas.
Like the whole system starts to get away.
unidentified
Why?
kelly starrett
Because you're just in a bad position.
joe rogan
So in that sense, yeah, that's really interesting.
kelly starrett
Look at where the Muay Thai guys take the shot.
Are they here?
No, they're really straight up and down, right?
Breathing out, managing that breathing, because that clinch is so aerobic.
joe rogan
In that sense, it's actually very important to never overextend yourself.
It's important, especially during training, to extend yourself to the brink, never overextend yourself, never get yourself in a position where you're using shitty form.
kelly starrett
Well, that's going to happen automatically.
It happens because it's called training.
And your coach is like, that was shitty.
It happens because you're improving.
That's right.
The practice of that.
Learning with your left hand, you made a ton of errors.
You integrate.
You're making major feedback.
How do we give you more feedback?
I want you to make errors.
If you do it more than once, it's practice.
That's the difference.
joe rogan
What's up, brother?
Yeah, sure.
Whatever you got there.
You got more of those ciders?
Those are goddamn awesome.
kelly starrett
I brought you a bottle of champagne, too.
Oh, thank you.
That's what we drink.
joe rogan
I had a cider in England and in Ireland.
Those are the only times I've ever had cider.
They love it over there, man.
They say, you want a cider?
I'm like, I thought we were drinking.
And then they give you a cider, and you're like, oh, shit.
unidentified
Shit!
joe rogan
This is delicious!
kelly starrett
And it gets you fucked up!
You're still thinking of Zima.
That gave you the bad cider rap.
joe rogan
Let me tell you something.
I fucking drank Zima until the day they pulled it out of bars.
I didn't give a fuck.
I remember I was at the Improv and John Henson.
Remember John Henson from TalkSoup?
He was like, I can't believe you're drinking Zima.
I was like, God damn it, John Henson.
I enjoy a fucking Zima.
I'm going to drink this Zima.
I'm going to do it with pride.
I'm not scared.
kelly starrett
The bottle was like a little bottle of Miami Vice.
It was Art Deco.
It had a black label.
I know, I'm telling you.
That's what gave it an ad.
Remember that ad?
I'll have a Zement to please, I believe.
joe rogan
I didn't give a fuck about that ad.
That shit tastes delicious.
Ad's don't confuse me, okay?
That's why I get mad when people get shitty with advertisers.
Listen, man, that is one of the easiest con games of all time.
That's three-card money for blind people, alright?
And you're getting mad?
You're getting mad at advertisers?
How dare you?
They are weeding out sheep.
If you can't figure out that if you buy that car, that girl will not fuck you.
If you can't figure that out...
Then you deserve to lose every penny your stupid ass figured out how to squirrel away.
kelly starrett
That's Macklemore popping tags.
glen cordoza
It's true, right?
You've never seen a fat person on a McDonald's commercial.
joe rogan
That's what I'm talking about, dog!
You don't get excited about that car thinking this girl's coming.
kelly starrett
You know, you brought up something that we're starting to see is that culturally there's this shift going on where some of the big corporations Some of the best thinkers are saying, hey, stop blaming the corporations.
It's not McDonald's fault.
It's your fucking fault.
We don't train kids.
joe rogan
It certainly is that.
And it is also, look, there's nothing wrong with having corporations, even if the corporations are bullshitting people in that way, with advertising, rather, not lying.
But it's also, it's us that are not accepting responsibility for our own diet and getting together and figuring out the same amount of time you spend pursuing your career.
You should spend that amount of time pursuing your diet.
unidentified
Truth.
joe rogan
100%.
Consider what you're taking into your body.
Make sure you're getting the proper vitamins.
How many vitamins are you getting in a day?
How much phytonutrients?
How much water are you drinking?
How much sleep are you getting?
And if you think about all the other shit in your life, like your career and your fucking school and Starcraft, you think about all that shit, but you don't think about your body, you're fucking up.
glen cordoza
But people are taking responsibility for nutrition.
joe rogan
More so now than ever.
glen cordoza
More so now than ever.
You see it everywhere.
Documentaries, books, whatever.
But what hasn't been done, this is what I've really taken from Kelly, is he's put movement on the table.
joe rogan
Movement.
glen cordoza
Position as a skill.
unidentified
What?
kelly starrett
Eating as a skill?
Sleeping as a skill as a skill?
You teach your kids how to sleep, right?
Didn't you?
You gotta cry it out, you gotta sleep.
joe rogan
No, I drug them.
They fucking scream and shit.
You gotta drug them.
kelly starrett
Stun dart?
That's what we do.
Stun dart.
glen cordoza
Like you were saying earlier, Joe, like, oh, I mess around with a crossbow and I feel better.
Like, everybody should know that.
But everybody knows now, like, oh, I should eat real food as opposed to industrialized food, right?
That's just, like, common knowledge.
It's becoming common knowledge, you know what I mean?
It's not common knowledge that you should roll around a lacrosse ball.
Or that I should understand that I should sit or stand or be in these better positions.
They don't get that.
They're like, oh, I'm in pain.
They wait until something's wrong and then they go to the doctor and they're like, oh, you know, do this.
joe rogan
Dude, Musashi's my whole right arm.
That's Musashi versus a tiger.
When I was a kid, man, the Book of Five Rings was one of the most important things I ever read.
I remember I was reading it and I was like, in my mind, I was like, this guy fought with fucking swords.
Listen to him.
He learned some shit.
kelly starrett
That's what I mean.
Like, was he jerking off when he was like, hey, organize yourself.
Be in a combat stance all the time.
If you took Musashi, you're a fighter, and you take Musashi's word at it, is your combat stance your everyday stance?
Is that how you're standing when you cook eggs, yes or no?
joe rogan
For me, no.
I cook eggs naked, with a heart on.
kelly starrett
That's a good position.
No, no, no, that's a good position.
I lean back.
joe rogan
I cook eggs with one hand in my ear like I'm picking my ears.
It's a terrible combat stance.
Musashi was a bad motherfucker.
I mean, he wrote a lot of amazing things, and one of the most amazing things he wrote was the need for balance, the need for art, the need for philosophy, the need for calligraphy.
kelly starrett
Dude, he carved the oar on the way to kick Kojira's ass.
joe rogan
Exactly.
But what you're saying is it sort of balances that.
It makes sense.
Because what you're saying is that you need to balance your body out.
And what he's saying is your body is just a part of your whole.
You need to balance the whole thing out.
Your mind, your personality, everything.
All of it needs balance in order to perform at your optimum level.
glen cordoza
Exactly.
So movement is the missing piece, right?
So like nutrition, sleep, people get it.
People understand they need to be hydrated.
They understand they need to exercise.
But do they understand what those good positions are?
Do they understand what, like, if I have knee pain, it's not just out of nowhere.
It's because I gave myself that knee pain through bad mechanics and bad movement, right?
kelly starrett
Unless I have pathology or catastrophe, right?
glen cordoza
Unless you have, yeah.
joe rogan
Pathology or catastrophe.
kelly starrett
But take Kujuro.
He was probably a better swordsman than, right?
He fought with a longsword.
He understood how the longsword met.
I use this analogy for our really tall athletes.
I'm like, quit fighting or quit moving like a little short guy.
You're not.
You're 6'5", so be like a longsword.
But he wasn't integrated.
He didn't bring mindfulness to all the things.
Why are you practicing this training?
Why are you lifting weights?
Why are you fighting?
The whole point of this, ultimately, don't barf, Self-actualization.
That's what it's about.
joe rogan
Yeah.
No, it's not a barf word.
It's a word that's been co-opted by people who are barf-worthy.
kelly starrett
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's the problem.
It's like people who say spiritual.
I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual.
Well, you know what that means to me?
unidentified
Wrong!
joe rogan
Run!
That's what it means.
Run!
Because you're about to get in a stupid fucking conversation about crystals.
Someone's going to tell you about, you know, experiences they've had.
My grandmother was there with me.
I felt her.
Shut your mouth.
You don't even know what you're saying.
kelly starrett
Anytime there's a girl named Crystal in them, I'm usually...
unidentified
Crystals.
joe rogan
Those crystals.
They pretend that they give you power.
God damn it.
kelly starrett
Totally.
This whole conversation and literally the people you're bringing on is saying, what is the optimized self?
How much more capacity do I have?
The metaphor for saying the training, what if I didn't ever fight or express this, but I should still be a skilled human when I pick up my kids or when I'm cooking or when I'm lifting my groceries?
It's the same thing.
In physio, we have this test.
It's called the timed up and go.
You'll like this, the tug test, right?
joe rogan
Why are you pointing at him?
kelly starrett
No, come on.
Because he keeps pulling up the horse cock on the TV. You do it again, you fuck it.
If you get out of a chair, you walk three meters, you turn around, you sit back in the chair.
That's the test.
If you can do it fast, you're less likely to fall and kill yourself.
They can measure that.
There's a famous hammer thrower named Litvinov who had a squat workout he did on Mondays.
He would front squat 200 kilos for 7 reps and then run 400 meters.
Those things are scaled.
What we have to do, it's the same thing, getting out of a chair, walking, front squatting, running, same.
Our thinking has to be integrated enough.
This is Buckminster Fuller talking about integrated systems, right?
Mutual economy systems.
It has to scale for my kids.
What you need to eat is the same thing your kids need to eat.
How you take care of your body is while your kids take care of their body.
It has to scale up and down.
I have to be integrated in all those systems, and if I don't, No wonder we see so much wasted effort with all the kind of BS problems we're dealing with.
Let's take that off the table.
We have a chance to get it right this time.
unidentified
I'm serious.
kelly starrett
I mean, this is the message of hope.
But literally, you should be empowered because there are people talking about it and putting the information out for free.
And if you don't understand how it's not impacting the quality of your life, you're leaving it on the table.
joe rogan
No, I think you're making a lot of sense, and I think this is the first time where this kind of information has been so freely distributable.
Using the internet, using Twitter, using YouTube videos, I know you put out a shitload of videos, right?
How many videos did you put out?
It's like 560. Yeah, and you just slammed them out there, and people...
Eventually took notice.
I mean, that's just how it goes when you have quality ideas.
And that's the beautiful thing about this world is that all Kelly Star needs is one dude to find that video and say, hey man, check this shit out.
And that dude sends it to another dude and he goes, man, I've been having a problem just like this.
And hey, send that shit to Lenny.
And then boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
And the next thing you know, it just takes off like it's on fire.
kelly starrett
You had Baz on not too long ago?
joe rogan
Boss Rootin, you mean?
kelly starrett
Yeah, Boss Rootin yesterday, sir.
joe rogan
Don't you call him Baz.
He'll fucking find you and liver kick you.
He will live or kick the shit out of you.
His left side is still good.
He's a guy you could talk to because Boss has had some serious neurological issues.
unidentified
And guess what?
kelly starrett
He started using my stuff on his neck and he started sleeping better.
joe rogan
I bet he did.
kelly starrett
He figured it out.
joe rogan
His right arm, he was talking about it on the podcast, is like his wrist all the way up.
He lost amazing amounts of muscle tissue, massive atrophy.
Pinching of the nerves, and he's had two neck surgeries so far.
And you know what man, for a dude like that, like former UFC heavyweight champion, if a guy's an accountant and his arm turns into a noodle, you know, it freaks him out.
But a guy like Bas Rutten...
glen cordoza
A guy, a heavyweight guy that could do a one-arm pull-up.
You know, that's serious.
joe rogan
Oh, he was an animal.
kelly starrett
That video of him, I mean, he's an animal.
Animal.
joe rogan
Animal.
When he fucked up Koshaka for the title, when he fucked up TK, just teed off on him.
Bas Rutten was like one of the best strikers in that day.
He was one of the first guys to really incorporate like a high-level athletic striking style.
unidentified
Totally.
glen cordoza
He was the pre-Cro Cop.
joe rogan
Yeah.
But even more mean.
unidentified
He was a mean motherfucker.
kelly starrett
Dude, you've ever been slapped to the ear?
joe rogan
And it was also the thing about Boss, he could take it.
Boss took it with Kevin Randleman.
He won the title off his back.
unidentified
Off his back.
glen cordoza
Yeah, the first time judges got it right.
joe rogan
And people say, you know, hey, he doesn't deserve that.
Like, Gene LaBelle called me up, right?
unidentified
That's the biggest piece of bullshit I ever seen in my life.
joe rogan
But Gene LaBelle is a grappler and he's a judo champion.
glen cordoza
But at the same time, was Randleman trying to advance position?
joe rogan
No.
glen cordoza
Was he throwing strikes?
Was he throwing strikes?
No.
I mean, I mean...
joe rogan
Boss Rutten was fucking him up from his back.
glen cordoza
Oh, downward elbows.
And he was trying to advance position.
He's trying to sweep.
He's trying to get up.
Randleman was just using his superior wrestling to keep him on the ground.
joe rogan
And he took it.
He took a lot of shots.
A lot of people didn't...
Here's the rub, though.
He did not want to be there.
And that's why a lot of people think that Randleman won that fight.
It's because Randleman put him where he wanted to every single fucking time.
He just was unable to do anything other than keep him there, and Boss was throwing these strikes off the bottom.
The question is, how effective were those strikes, and what dictated the fight more?
Honestly, I say Randleman's wrestling dictated the fight more because he took him down whenever he wanted to.
And he held him down whenever he wanted to.
Boss fucked him up from the bottom, but he only fucked him up from the bottom because Randleman got tired.
glen cordoza
See, and this is where I think that judges need to start taking into consideration damage inflicted.
Like, you look at it, you need to be able to assess...
joe rogan
I totally agree.
glen cordoza
You know what I mean?
Like, you look at a guy...
What was the fight?
Like, Campman Sanchez, for example...
Where it was a close fight, but you look at both fighters, and Cantman looked pretty clean.
You know, they had just been in a war, but Diego looked like Elephant Man.
He looked like he had fought a dude with a machete.
Not that Diego's a bad fighter, the guy's a fucking beast, obviously.
But, I mean, the point is, you gotta be able to take into account the amount of damage done.
unidentified
Unquestionably.
glen cordoza
Even if the guy's on the bottom, like, you see it sometimes.
Right.
You say it all the time.
Guy's going for submissions.
Who's attacking who?
The guy on the bottom is attacking.
joe rogan
Yeah, and in that sense, Boss Rutten clearly won.
glen cordoza
Exactly.
joe rogan
No doubt about it.
And I agree with that.
I think it has to be sort of an accumulative thing, and I also think we should take into account more what happens at the end of the fight.
This is going to sound stupid.
glen cordoza
This is how Muay Thai is judged.
I don't give a fuck.
In Thailand, they don't even judge the first two rounds.
And people who have been to Thailand and understand Muay Thai know that they play music during the fight.
Yes, exactly.
So as the fight progresses, that tempo increases.
joe rogan
Yes.
glen cordoza
And the idea is that as the tempo increases, they're going to increase the tempo of the fight.
They're going to fight harder.
joe rogan
And that's the tradition.
It's also based around betting.
glen cordoza
Yeah, exactly right.
But they don't even start judging the fight.
And granted, the judging is pretty corrupt and not balanced.
But the point is, they don't even start judging until the third round.
So these guys have fought for six minutes already.
And the fight doesn't even start according to the judges until the third round.
And then the fifth, so every subsequent round is judged higher.
kelly starrett
And that's why it can't just ever be about who's the best physical specimen, whose training is the most complete.
This is why Rocky beat...
joe rogan
It's will.
kelly starrett
Right?
glen cordoza
It's will.
kelly starrett
And that's why competition keeps us in, especially fighting, keeps us in.
Because what you're really seeing is, let's get to the heart of the human spirit.
More importantly, how do we take all the other BS off the table?
Because if you're out, because of your knee, your back, you can't express...
joe rogan
Well, we all know that one guy that's like super talented in the gym, but can't put it together when he fights.
There's certain guys...
kelly starrett
Incomplete.
Yeah, right.
I totally agree.
joe rogan
There's certain guys that in the gym, they're the most frightening people on earth, and then something happens to them when they compete and they fall apart.
It's really strange.
glen cordoza
I know some guys.
joe rogan
We all know some guys.
glen cordoza
Yeah, you all know that guy that just kicks the shit out of them.
joe rogan
Everybody knows some guys.
And we know some guys the other way as well.
We're guys that aren't physically talented, but they're just fucking ferocious.
And they find a way to win, and you're like, this motherfucker is fighting above his head, where everybody's fighting 10-20% below their capacity.
It's like his expectations have been lowered so much by his own physicality that he goes in there and says, I don't give a fuck, I'm gonna fucking fight with what I've got.
Whereas everybody else is like, don't fuck up, don't make a mistake.
It's almost like he benefits from being the underdog.
glen cordoza
Yeah, I would say that.
There's less pressure on the underdog.
All the fighters say that.
They're like, I'd prefer to be an underdog.
joe rogan
That's legit.
glen cordoza
All the pressure is on the guy that's expected to win.
You're like, dude, all I got is show up.
I'm not going to disappoint anybody if I lose because everybody expects I'm going to lose.
joe rogan
And that's a subject that's been covered.
Psychological management.
unidentified
Totally.
joe rogan
It's been covered much more than your ideas, which are physical movement.
Physical movement hasn't been discovered or really tuned on the same level.
kelly starrett
I think it has been discovered.
joe rogan
I shouldn't say discovered.
I mean, more like adopted.
glen cordoza
People don't understand that how they squat will have a direct effect on how they punch.
People haven't connected those dots.
What Kelly was trying to say earlier about making the connection between strength and conditioning and fighting, for example, is that if I understand what the athlete needs to do when he's squatting, Then I don't need to be a fighting coach to know that he's going to lose power when he punches.
So I can watch you squat and I can tell already based on how you're squatting.
Say your knee is caving in and your ankle is collapsing and you have a shitty squat, right?
Well, I can tell right away that that's your motor power.
That's your default movement, right?
unidentified
Yeah.
glen cordoza
So if you take that movement and you transplant that into a fighter, a guy that's throwing a punch, Well, I can deduce that that's going to be the same motor pattern.
So it's easier to fix that movement pattern when you're squatting.
Like, okay, let's get you to understand the correct mechanics of the body while you're moving in a controlled environment.
And then hopefully over time that becomes ingrained.
And then when you throw a punch, then it's like they start to make the connection.
They're like, oh shit, you know, like.
I tore my ACL because I was squatting with my foot out and my knee was caving in.
That was my brain.
When I needed to be in that position, my brain was like, this is your position.
This is where you need to be.
Does that make sense?
kelly starrett
It has to scale.
So if we look at the science of chronic pain, for example, The pain pathway, and this is important for athletes who are in chronic pain, especially people who are engaged in high contact sports, these bad positions get mapped with the movement pathway.
So your brain starts to think, even if the pain stimulus isn't there, your brain starts to think, ah, you're moving this way.
That's been painful for the last six months or the last year.
I know it's going to cause pain.
So if I give you a brand new motor pathway in your brain, boom, I get this clean motor pathway.
I'm able to get athletes out of painful positions.
That's like, I mean, that's check yonder thinking right there.
joe rogan
I wanted to ask you about two things.
We've got to get to gluten before we end this thing.
And the other one is head trauma.
You were talking about how the body has the ability to heal itself, but it seems like it doesn't with head trauma.
Is that the case?
kelly starrett
Head trauma is super gnarly.
I think what MMA has done for decreasing head trauma for boxing, I don't want people to understand, it's so much better.
joe rogan
I don't know if that's true.
unidentified
Is that really not true?
joe rogan
Look, I support MMA, obviously, more than anybody, but I think that that's actually been disproven.
I think that there's concerns.
Impact is impact.
kelly starrett
Impact is impact.
joe rogan
It doesn't really...
There's more possibilities in MMA to defend yourself than boxing, but impact is impact.
And we have to mitigate that.
kelly starrett
Yeah, absolutely.
So if we look at leaky brain and the inflammatory response and the quality of your tissues, how do I optimize those things?
Can I change that?
Can I limit the damage?
You know, one of our friends, his name's John Wellborn, played in the NFL for a bunch of years, part of that big brain study, and they basically went in, looked at his brain, afterwards, and they're like, you played left tackle, you can play in the NFL for 10 years, we can tell by the head trauma that you have.
They took us tests.
And he was like 99th percentile in analytics and he was maybe 10th percentile in emotional IQ because of the brain trauma.
joe rogan
Oh no, a big strong dude with shitty emotional skills.
unidentified
Weird.
kelly starrett
Well, we look at some of the NFLers guys, these head trauma guys.
joe rogan
Boxers as well.
kelly starrett
Boxers.
So anterior pituitary gets damaged too in there.
It's not just the brain that gets rattled.
So suddenly I throw off the neuroendocrine axis.
You're not making HGH. You're not making gonadotropin.
You're not making testosterone.
joe rogan
You're not making sense.
kelly starrett
Your tissues start to fall apart.
You start to lose your sense of self-identity.
So can you optimize that?
Well, you know, are there mouth guards that change some of the force?
We're working with the University of Texas right now on looking at concussions with mouth guards.
joe rogan
Good luck with that if you get crow-copped.
That shin to the dome doesn't give a fuck what kind of mouthpiece you're wearing.
glen cordoza
It's accumulation of blows.
kelly starrett
But how many...
joe rogan
Well, it's also, you know, we're seeing this higher impact of blows when it comes to kicks.
And that has to be taken into consideration as well.
There's some things that are happening right now with wheel kicks, with Vitor...
With Edson Barbosa.
Edson Barbosa started it off.
glen cordoza
Terry Adam, right?
joe rogan
Yeah, he knocked out Terry Adam, and then it was Uriah Hall, and then everybody's like, what the fuck is going on?
And then Vitor, and everybody's like, what the fuck?
And then, goddamn Junior Dos Santos, the first time he's ever thrown in a fight, he knocks out Mark fucking Hunt.
glen cordoza
So Bruce Lee was right.
joe rogan
Well, that technique is a motherfucker.
kelly starrett
So why, when your pants are up in my kitchen, I stay away from you.
joe rogan
The amount of force you could put on the end of that heel bone is insane.
glen cordoza
And what's awesome is it's a half beat strike.
Meaning that the time it takes for the person to turn actually gives a flinch response.
Where some guy's like, oh shit!
joe rogan
He doesn't know what it is.
He doesn't think it's a kick.
glen cordoza
And what a perfect time.
If you're a young guy training MMA, practice this shit.
Because people aren't used to it.
This is the thing.
They're trained...
To an MMA. It's been...
Now guys are training pretty conventional.
That's why you get a guy like Pettis.
Or you get a guy like Vitor and Dos Santos.
Those guys, I guarantee you...
joe rogan
That's not even their background!
They don't even throw kicks!
Vitor throws so few kicks, and all of a sudden he's got two head kick knockouts in a row.
It's fantastic.
kelly starrett
So you have this thing that's a disaster, hard kick to head.
What are you going to do about it?
So you're throwing, hey, I'm going to be an MMA fighter.
I'm going to try to make a life as a professional fighter.
I'm going to pay a price physically.
I'm going to knock out a whole bunch.
joe rogan
Vitor really supports your ideas, man.
I've got to tell you that.
Because Vitor is a fucking tremendous athlete.
glen cordoza
And he always has, man.
joe rogan
He moves so well in every form and look how quickly he's picking up this wheel kick shit.
kelly starrett
That's right.
One of our definitions of best athlete is who's the kid who can pick up the new skill the fastest?
How fast can you learn a new skill?
I mean, you probably, you know, you see those kids that, you know, could just be like, you show up, they're like the hobby sport kid, and all of a sudden they're back flipping off the trampoline, and then they're better at you, your sport, you know, that, you know, so how do you create the athleticism?
But also, I think one of the things that we're talking about with the gluten is how do you measure lifestyle?
How do you measure nutrition?
joe rogan
Measure it by your T-cell count.
kelly starrett
Can you optimize those things?
Can you optimize the healing response from being knocked out?
We have all this amazing supplementary medicine.
A lot of guys go on the gear because they need to go on the gear, should go on the gear in their 40s when they're starting to break down between them and their physician.
joe rogan
Are you in favor of that about testosterone replacement therapy amongst combat athletes?
kelly starrett
What I think...
glen cordoza
Mind you, combat athletes.
joe rogan
Yeah, combat athletes.
glen cordoza
Because it's different.
joe rogan
It's also damage to the pituitary gland.
glen cordoza
Well, I mean, I think it depends.
Like, if you take, for example, you have a guy that's experienced, say he has been fighting for 30 years, right?
And he gets, now he has the same testosterone levels as a guy that's 20 years old.
That hasn't been fighting more than two years.
joe rogan
Right.
glen cordoza
Then I think that's unfair, right?
You know what I'm saying?
So it's just so subjective depending on the situation.
joe rogan
Here's what's weird.
How often are they being tested?
And what are their levels during training?
And are they leveling off to a normal level when they're fighting?
And what the fuck are they doing during the week?
kelly starrett
The normal is not optimized.
How does it even work?
glen cordoza
Are they testing them throughout the training camp?
I don't think so.
joe rogan
With some guys, that's how Alistair Overeem got busted.
glen cordoza
Yeah, because they randomly surprise.
kelly starrett
This is what my friends who know about these things say.
Look, they've never seen gear make a crappy athlete a great athlete.
It allows good athletes to train harder and to recover faster and get more work done.
And whoever does the most work and remains the freshest wins.
glen cordoza
That makes sense.
kelly starrett
So if I'm also looking at you afterwards and you're not making tea and your life sucks, are you kidding me?
Like, we have ways to manage it.
joe rogan
That's a really cute, romantic version of the idea, but the reality is it improves you drastically.
It improves your ability to perform work.
I said that.
It also improves your explosiveness.
It improves your speed.
It improves your power.
It improves a lot of things.
kelly starrett
Hand-eye coordination, being able to track a punch, being able to track a ball?
joe rogan
No, it doesn't do that.
But if you already have those things, it will make you better at those things.
kelly starrett
No, no, T does change the way you can perceive the ball.
joe rogan
Okay, I see what you're saying.
Because of the power and the...
kelly starrett
Just the change in nervous system.
joe rogan
Especially the hyper-levels.
glen cordoza
I really want to do testosterone right now.
joe rogan
Hyper levels at some of these super...
Let's go back to the pride days, okay?
I'm not alleging that anybody did steroids, but goddammit, it looks like a lot of people did steroids.
glen cordoza
People did steroids.
joe rogan
And the people that were over there told me people were doing steroids.
Do I know people did steroids?
I do not know that people did steroids.
But let's just assume.
Let's not name any...
Nationality.
Let's think about some certain fighters that just looked insanely jacked to the gills.
They didn't even look fucking human.
They would come out with veins on the tip of their nose and just be berserkers.
And fucking roar when they won.
And you would be watching that and you'd be like, that is barely a human being.
glen cordoza
Stomping on heads.
joe rogan
Stomping heads, man.
glen cordoza
Shoving referees.
unidentified
Macho man.
joe rogan
If you are an MMA fan and you have not seen Pride, you are doing yourself a disservice.
I would suggest start with the Vandele Silva collection.
Because that is the quintessential Pride fighter.
glen cordoza
And if you don't know who Fedor is, shame on you.
unidentified
How dare you?
joe rogan
Shame on you.
glen cordoza
Not the Fedor of today, before Christianity.
The Fedor pre-religion.
joe rogan
I think he always had Christianity, man.
glen cordoza
I think you just caught up to him.
I visited Fedor and I didn't see any of that.
unidentified
Oh, really?
glen cordoza
Yeah, dude.
joe rogan
So when did he take that on?
glen cordoza
I don't know, man.
It was definitely post.
We worked on a book with him, and it was definitely post-book.
joe rogan
You know what I'm stressed, though, that that guy must have been going through?
glen cordoza
Dude, he's carrying the weight of a nation.
joe rogan
And destroying kids.
glen cordoza
Killing monsters, by the way.
joe rogan
How about the way he put Arlofsky away?
glen cordoza
Arlofsky comes at him with a flying...
And Fujita and Cro Cop.
joe rogan
And Fujita after Fujita fucking rang his bell.
unidentified
Oh, how about Ferrandelman's body sign on...
Fuck yeah!
glen cordoza
...or suplex him on his neck.
kelly starrett
There's a book over there, Fringology.
I mean, like, that's fringe.
That guy's out loud.
joe rogan
Well, you know what that guy was?
That guy was bulletproof in the brain.
His brain was just ferocious.
glen cordoza
They called him the Terminator.
That's how they all refer to him.
joe rogan
What an interesting study in not wasting energy, too.
You never saw him with his face tensed up.
You never saw him like crazy little allies.
It was always like...
glen cordoza
Really relaxed.
And it's probably because the guy trained eight hours out of every day.
You know what I mean?
Those guys trained hard.
joe rogan
He was smart as fuck.
kelly starrett
Yes.
Put it back into the realm of human performance.
Let's say that you're actually eating right.
Let's say you have a great coach and you're moving right and you're actually eating right and sleeping right and managing these things, then your augmentation choices matter even more.
But we see people covering up bad lifestyle, bad nutrition, and that's the problem.
That's my biggest problem with that stuff.
joe rogan
Can you make a guy who doesn't have punching power, can you give him punching power or is that a certain innate thing?
glen cordoza
I mean, I think...
That's a big argument.
Yeah, we've all met those guys that just have that, like, they touch you, you're out power.
joe rogan
You can never give a guy that.
You can't give a guy thunder, right?
glen cordoza
But you have...
I don't know, man.
And I've talked about this a lot with, like, fighter friends and coaches and whatever, because you always know that guy.
unidentified
Like Julian Jackson.
glen cordoza
That guy that just has weird...
There's a guy, Liam Harrison.
He's a Muay Thai fighter.
Probably not too many people know who he is, but everybody should.
They know a Muay Thai.
I mean, he's got that just weird, I touch you, you're out power, right?
And I think a lot of it is, one, mechanics play a lot, have a lot to do with it.
Like, if you understand how to be in good positions and understand the transfer of energy through the ground, up through your body, all that stuff.
Are you that there's just some of those weird guys out there?
You can accelerate fast.
Joe, you sparred with those guys where you get hit by them and you're like, that should not have hurt as much as it did just now.
joe rogan
You ever see Lucas Matisse?
You see that boxer, Lucas Matisse?
glen cordoza
No.
joe rogan
He's this new guy.
He's just KOing people left and right.
It's amazing to watch him.
glen cordoza
What do you think about that?
Do you think some guys...
joe rogan
I think it's a bone thing, for one.
glen cordoza
Just density?
They just got more weight?
joe rogan
The size of fists.
Some people have very large fists, like George Foreman.
You ever see George Foreman's fists?
They're like hams.
They're like canned hams.
There's also Tommy Hearns had this shoulder width thing.
I think shoulder width has to do with leverage, and it has to do with the amount of extra travel that's going on before your punch lands.
If you have very narrow shoulders, you're not getting as much rotation into your punch, but if you've got some Tommy Hearns type shit going on, by the end of that punch, there's a lot of torque.
unidentified
What did the Russians do?
kelly starrett
They developed all of these skills.
We have a coach in our gym who's Russian who was plucked out of the Ukraine to be in a Russian swimming program when she was five.
unidentified
Basically they just trained her GPP, GPP, GPP, GPP. They identified her.
kelly starrett
General physical preparedness.
Skills.
They taught skills to these kids.
And then guess what?
They decided, oh look at that kid has huge shoulders.
He's going to be good at this.
This kid is upright, has long torso, short legs.
He's going to Olympic lift.
This girl's going to swim.
joe rogan
They start making decisions and it's serendipitous for some of these guys who kind of find their calling It's interesting because it really always becomes a disproportionate battle because if a guy has perfect genetics and he's intelligent and he's disciplined and he's hardworking,
he's going to beat the guy who's just hardworking.
And has shit slow genes.
We all know dudes.
Especially when it comes to striking.
Striking is when it becomes apparent.
There's something about Jiu Jitsu that allows you to be technical.
And if your positioning knowledge is two or three moves ahead of the other guy, and you roll long enough, it seems like eventually you catch him.
For the most part.
Unless the guy is really defensively minded.
But dudes are helpless when it comes to striking.
When a guy has that fast twitch muscle fiber, and the good conditioning, and the skill set, You're fucked.
glen cordoza
And that's what people don't realize.
Striking is just different.
joe rogan
Like Roy Jones Jr. is a perfect example of that.
glen cordoza
What do you mean?
joe rogan
When Roy Jones Jr. was in his prime, he had such incredible athleticism that it doesn't matter how crisp your boxing is, you're fucked.
glen cordoza
So how do you think he just got knocked out?
And then he got older, and his reaction slowed a little bit.
joe rogan
I wanted to talk to you about that, because I wanted to talk to you about steroids.
Because there's two things with Roy Jones Jr., okay?
And I say this in all due respect, I'm a huge Roy Jones Jr. fan.
But he changed the John Ruiz fight.
It was, in my opinion, the turning point.
Because he went up to fight John Ruiz, and he fought John Ruiz at heavyweight.
He was big.
He was like 200 pounds.
And then he dropped back down to fight Tarver at light heavyweight, and he looked like shit.
Physically.
He looked drained...
His musculature was deflated.
He had a hard time making that weight.
He dehydrated the shit out of himself making 175. And guess what?
kelly starrett
All of his mechanics changed.
So we know this from our powerlifters.
I have a friend, Jesse Burdick, who did an elite total at 219 pounds and then six months later went up to 318 and powerlifted there.
And when there's a weight component, when you have this natural weight and all of a sudden you drop a whole bunch of weight, your mechanics and leverage changes.
Your proprioception changes.
The game is different.
I have a friend, Mark Bell, great powerlifter.
His brother Chris Bell did the documentary Bigger, Faster, Stronger.
So Mark was a heavyweight.
joe rogan
So you're sort of adjusting as you're moving now.
kelly starrett
They've got to relearn it all.
So Mark's now at like 242 and he had to figure out how to bench again.
He's like, nothing was stable.
I don't know where I am.
And so we don't even think about that with our fighters.
joe rogan
Carrying all that weight, moving it around.
kelly starrett
How about this?
Part of the game is water management, right?
And if we look at just being dehydrated or just salt, being down, just total salts, you can slow that reaction time coupled with being dehydrated, coupled with challenge to the nervous system, you're not sleeping very well because you're stuck in weight, and then all of your positions change, all your mechanics change.
Kicks don't feel the same.
To change your weight class is legit.
joe rogan
It's so hard to do.
It really is.
It's really...
And also, the elephant in the room is the gear.
You know, I think you have to...
If you're in your 30s and you're gaining 30 fucking pounds, you're on gear.
Okay?
Let's just be realistic.
Let's be realistic.
You're doing it within six months.
glen cordoza
What do you think the percentage is of pro athletes?
Let's just be safe and say that...
joe rogan
Lance Armstrong...
Fuck that debate sideways, okay?
Because now it seems like almost everybody.
glen cordoza
You'd think like 80%.
If you're going to put a percentage behind it, what would you think?
Like a global, like all sports?
joe rogan
I think, yeah, I think that might...
glen cordoza
MMA might be like 80%.
I think MMA is actually lower than I think most professional sports, in my opinion.
joe rogan
Because there's guys like Roy Nelson, guys like John Fitch, BJ Penn.
glen cordoza
That are just outspoken against like, hey, you know what, fuck, and they've taken a stance and now they're not going to...
joe rogan
And it's an honor and a valor thing as opposed to basketball.
glen cordoza
It's combat.
joe rogan
No disrespect to basketball.
glen cordoza
No, no, no, not at all.
But in basketball, you're not hitting another person in the face on purpose.
joe rogan
I couldn't agree more.
And I think that it's also there's a reality of the sport itself, the impact that you take over and over and over again just in training where you're going to get the kind of traumatic injuries that almost don't heal naturally.
It's a natural occurrence.
kelly starrett
Don't heal under the parameters of still have to train.
I still gotta get work done.
How do I excel like that?
glen cordoza
This is the condition of the fighter.
In MMA specifically, you have so many variables that you have to cover.
So you're constantly pushing to train every single variable all the time.
And it's very difficult, right?
So you're always over-trained.
I think most MMA fighters nowadays are over-trained, and then they look for something like, hey, how can I recover so that I can fit all this fucking wrestling and boxing and Muay Thai and skills into a day session?
Dude, I've trained for fights.
I've over-trained.
joe rogan
It's fucking horrible.
Not do it.
kelly starrett
Not impossible.
So how do we look around then and say, okay, I'm a fighter, this is my main thing.
How do we look around and say, someone has invented this wheel already.
What are the best practices elsewhere?
joe rogan
Well, I think with fighters, when I say it's impossible to not do it, what I mean is it's impossible to not do it if you're not approaching the whole situation knowledgeably with a heart monitor and someone who knows what the fuck is going on.
And I think that's really what's important about it.
glen cordoza
But Joe, what's crazy about this, and this is what we're...
So just...
A little bit of background.
So like Rob Wolf, Paleo Solution, nutrition genius, right?
joe rogan
Great guy too.
glen cordoza
Great guy, yeah.
So I was lucky enough to be under his wing, strength and conditioning.
joe rogan
Bacon aficionado.
glen cordoza
Yeah, exactly.
But like what's great about what Kelly brings to the table is everybody knows, like all the fighters know, like, hey, I need to eat correctly.
I need to sleep.
I need to train.
I need to do all this stuff.
But none of them, and I guarantee this because I didn't know it, None of them understand the movement blueprint.
Like, hey, what's the master blueprint?
What are the key fundamental principles that I need to know to optimize movement function?
So, for example, if I'm going to optimize my nutrition, I know if I'm taking a paleo stance, I know that I need to get rid of gluten, right?
I need to maybe in some situations lower my carbs or...
Ditch dairy.
Ditch dairy or...
joe rogan
Both of them?
glen cordoza
Goddammit!
Hold on, hold on.
You're human.
kelly starrett
You can still buffer it sometimes.
glen cordoza
So, but people know this.
My point is, is, like, fighters know this, but not a lot of people understand, hey, what's the movement blueprint?
Like, okay, I'm in pain.
I know I'll be in less pain if I don't eat gluten, but why am I still in pain?
joe rogan
Okay, we keep saying that without even explaining it.
So let's get into that, because we've got to wrap this bitch up in about five minutes.
What's wrong with gluten?
kelly starrett
Gluten causes inflammation disproportionately for different people.
Some people have a small reaction to it, some have a big reaction to it.
That inflammatory, constantly inflamed state, that means that you do not adapt as well.
You don't recover as well.
It's like always running a low-grade infection.
joe rogan
I had a chiropractor just tell me that.
She was talking to me about an inflammation, and she was recommending the McKenzie protocol.
It's a bunch of different kinds of stretches.
kelly starrett
Test, retest.
Kill the gluten.
Do you feel better, yes or no?
Did your times go better, yes or no?
joe rogan
I feel better except when I'm eating.
That's the problem.
glen cordoza
Because it tastes so damn good.
benjamin jaffe
Linguini with clams is one of my fucking weaknesses, man.
glen cordoza
But you can get gluten-free pasta, man.
joe rogan
I am mostly Italian.
You can eat shit, too, if you want.
If you want to sit down with a bowl of dicks, you can.
kelly starrett
Hey, mom.
unidentified
Hey, mom.
kelly starrett
This isn't gluten-free.
You're dead.
joe rogan
Somebody tried...
Who the fuck Tate was trying to tell me?
Well, you can have a little spaghetti squash.
I'm like, how dare you?
Compare your fucking shitty spaghetti squash to lasagna.
kelly starrett
Who the fuck are you?
joe rogan
What if you're telling my friend Tate?
kelly starrett
If you're eating right, you should probably be able to have lasagna at mom's house and not mess you up.
joe rogan
Sundays, right?
What you should do is have a day, right?
glen cordoza
Well, not even a day.
Listen, if you're at a wedding, you're at your daughter's wedding, you should probably eat the fucking cake.
kelly starrett
Don't be an ass.
If I make you bread, it's homemade bread, eat the bread.
glen cordoza
Don't be an asshole.
joe rogan
That's a unique event unless you have 365 daughters.
glen cordoza
Yeah, well, Joe, here's the deal.
Everybody's on a spectrum, right?
You might be on that one end, like Kelly was just saying, where you can eat it and not feel sweet-fuck-all, but you can be on the other end where you have celiac disease and you eat too much of it.
joe rogan
Same with the alcoholics as well.
kelly starrett
So how about this?
We measure.
We ask all our athletes to get a good blood panel.
We work with a company in our gym that's kind of started out of our gym.
And we don't just take your cholesterol, we fractionate your cholesterol.
We look at the inflammatory markers because suddenly you're like, I'm gluten free, I don't eat dairy, but I'm eating bacon every day.
And we saw people's cholesterol like triple, quadruple.
Turns out like you're not actually, I'm not set up to run that much saturated fat and eat nuts.
joe rogan
You poor bitch.
Because let me tell you something.
I fucking float through bacon.
I'm like a surfer on the bacon fat highway.
unidentified
It's okay unless there's a million dollars on this fight.
It's cool.
kelly starrett
Go right ahead.
joe rogan
What's beautiful is I get my cholesterol checked and it's perfect.
And yet I'm floating on a fucking river of bacon fat.
kelly starrett
You handle it.
joe rogan
And the...
kelly starrett
Hanging 10 on bacon.
But the key is, how do you know?
Well, you measure it.
So you said exactly what we need to be doing.
How do we know what we know?
It's observable, measurable.
joe rogan
I'm completely bullshitting.
If I have bacon once every four weeks, it's a lot.
I try to eat pretty clean.
I try to eat only things that grow in the ground.
I try to eat grass-fed meat as much as humanly possible.
kelly starrett
Who's that fighter who has a hunter for him?
glen cordoza
What's that?
kelly starrett
There's a fighter who has his own hunter.
glen cordoza
Cowboy.
Cerrone.
joe rogan
He has his own hunter for him.
glen cordoza
Is that what you're talking about?
joe rogan
Tim Sylvia, again, is a big hunter.
He eats only.
glen cordoza
Or Brock Lesnar.
That guy chokes out deer.
kelly starrett
Yeah.
joe rogan
If you, Hunter, do you eat meat?
unidentified
Oh yeah.
joe rogan
Do you go hunting?
Do you ever eat venison?
Yes.
I have crazy theories about food when it comes to especially things that are fast.
I think things that are really difficult to catch.
They make you faster.
I think they're better for you.
That's why they're so slippery.
I think we figured out how to beat the whole fish thing with hooks, but try catching a fucking fish without a hook.
And meanwhile, fish are nutritious as shit.
You know?
I mean, they're, like, really fucking good for you.
kelly starrett
What did Forrest say?
You know what you eat?
You're what you eat eats.
unidentified
Yeah.
What you eat eats.
kelly starrett
What is what you're eating?
glen cordoza
So if you ate a lion, you'd be, like, super healthy?
joe rogan
What a deer eat.
They eat a lot of grass and, like, leafy vegetables and delicious nutrients are in their protein.
You know?
You eat them and they're...
They taste so much better.
kelly starrett
It's concentrated vegetables right there.
unidentified
Africans eat flies.
glen cordoza
What's your question with gluten?
joe rogan
They eat fly hamburgers.
You ever seen that show?
unidentified
Yeah, and look at their eating system.
joe rogan
That is the most fucked up thing.
They eat mosquitoes and flies.
They'll take a bucket and they whip this bucket through a big cloud of flies and bugs until they get it at the bottom of the bucket and they scrape it into patties and make burgers out of it.
But it's protein.
I mean, you're fucked.
You're in Africa.
You've got to do what you've got to do.
unidentified
That's right.
kelly starrett
And the human being is designed for survival.
joe rogan
My question, because this is going to end really soon, and thank you very much for doing this.
This has been beautiful.
We've got to do it again for sure.
The issue with gluten, is it just our bodies are not designed for it?
Is it had to do with genetically modifying the actual weed itself, which did happen in the early 1950s or 60s, I believe?
I forget which one, but look it up.
I don't have time to Google.
The people that were making wheat in this country, they sort of engineered it to be a stronger, hardier wheat, and that's when people started having real issues as far as digesting it.
Some people didn't, some people still don't, but for a lot of people, it's a big issue.
kelly starrett
She's super sensitive.
She won't eat the birthday cake.
She'll eat some frosting.
joe rogan
Your kid's a freak.
I don't care how to talk to you.
You're a goddamn alien.
kelly starrett
She's cruel.
joe rogan
I just had a five-year-old birthday party at my house.
Kids were eating cake like it was fucking going out of style.
How dare you?
How dare you lie to the children?
kelly starrett
Hey, you're a terrible father.
joe rogan
No, I'm a beautiful father.
If your daughter got some real cake and you weren't around, she would go crazy.
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
The problem is...
kelly starrett
She would eat the ice cream.
She'd go crazy for the ice cream.
joe rogan
Just teasing.
I'm sorry.
I don't even remember what we were talking about.
We were talking about gluten.
kelly starrett
Here's the deal.
You should never take our word for it.
You should test and retest yourself.
Don't take anyone's word for it.
Go ahead and dump a bunch of medium-chain triglyceride oil into your coffee with some butter and tell me if it doesn't taste better.
Yes or no?
Do you feel better?
Do you have more energy in the day?
Yes or no?
This is the only thing that matters to us.
You are your best experiment and you have the right to experiment with yourself your whole life.
glen cordoza
Sorry, like you were saying with the lacrosse ball.
You do that, right?
And this is the brilliance behind Kelly's system.
You do it.
The test-retest is immediate.
Like, oh, my shoulder feels better immediately.
joe rogan
Really, literally immediately.
glen cordoza
So you asked earlier, what do you do about knee pain?
And it's just like, one, you correct your mechanics.
You understand what is the movement that's causing knee pain.
And then two, what can I do on a tissue level that's going to improve the pain immediately?
Upstream, downstream, you should...
joe rogan
What is actually going on?
What is the lacrosse ball doing?
What's the technical explanation?
kelly starrett
It has this material that absorbs your pain.
What's happening is you are stiff.
You're improving the function and the congestion and the hydration of the tissues, one.
Two is that you're undoing this stuck pattern of fascia, so you change that until it moves again.
Three is that you probably get your ribs moving.
Four is that you change your thoracic mobility.
You change that orientation of thoracic spine and the whole system upregulates.
You're in a better shape.
joe rogan
Alright, last question.
What is it about gluten?
Because I don't think we totally covered this.
What is it about it that makes your body inflamed?
What's going on when you eat?
kelly starrett
It irritates the small intestine.
joe rogan
It irritates it?
Is it because it's a foreign thing that it's not normal to the human diet?
Is that what it is?
kelly starrett
It's like having a root canal festering in your mouth.
That's your small intestine.
unidentified
Really?
joe rogan
God damn!
But it comes in the form of spaghetti.
glen cordoza
Well, you really have to understand.
Gluten is just a protein, right?
Your small intestine.
unidentified
Donuts?
joe rogan
Donuts are gluten?
unidentified
What the fuck, man?
glen cordoza
Fried in sugar.
Bam!
kelly starrett
Cat sleeping with dogs.
joe rogan
I'm out of here!
unidentified
Waffles.
joe rogan
Oh my god, waffles.
kelly starrett
The Belgian waffle at the...
joe rogan
And even sometimes chicken, because fried chicken is made with bread.
glen cordoza
You're in denial, Joe Rogan.
You will never go gluten-free, because you just can't let go.
It's like a heroin addiction.
joe rogan
You're right, I'll never...
unidentified
Convince me to stop smoking cigarettes!
joe rogan
I'll go low-gluten, not gluten-free.
glen cordoza
I only have one cigarette a day.
joe rogan
How many servings of gluten would you recommend in a week, for a man like me, of obviously robust character and strong genetics?
kelly starrett
The justification begins.
unidentified
How much heroin can I have?
joe rogan
Is it that bad?
unidentified
Is it a drug?
joe rogan
Dave Asprey thinks it's a drug.
He thinks gluten is a drug.
glen cordoza
Dude, it has an opiate effect on your body, right?
unidentified
It does, right?
glen cordoza
So it has a similar effect, maybe not to the same degree, but look, what you have to understand is, are you trying to optimize your life, your function, whatever, whether it be movement, sleep, whatever it is.
kelly starrett
Listen, listen.
Are you making your money from your body?
Are you making your money from your body?
If you do, why aren't you playing those corners?
joe rogan
If you're making money from your body, but most of the people you're talking to aren't.
But even for them, optimization, and also there's a reward for that discipline.
When you eat on Sunday, if you have a cheat day on Sunday, if you eat six days of good food a week, and then one day you go off like a rocket.
kelly starrett
You're probably a human being.
You're a human being.
joe rogan
Or you might be The Rock.
You can go to The Rock's Twitter.
He's got the greatest cheat days of all time.
kelly starrett
You can buffer a bunch of stuff.
You should.
And you should live a life.
Mark Sisson has some really reasonable ideas about this.
He puts a little sugar in his coffee.
He's like, you know what?
My life is better when I put sugar in my coffee.
Sue me.
joe rogan
That guy's a pussy.
For the record.
kelly starrett
That's a compliment.
That's such a nice thing to say about him.
joe rogan
It is.
It's a good thing.
We already established that.
And that's how we're going to end this.
We're going to go full circle.
Thank you, sir.
I appreciate it.
That was awesome.
Kelly, you're a bad motherfucker.
If people want to get Kelly's book, it is called Becoming a Supple Leopard.
Do you have a copy of it, Brian?
unidentified
I should put it up in front of the camera.
joe rogan
Look at that.
Becoming a Supple Leopard.
Dr. Kelly Starrett, you are a bad motherfucker, sir.
And I appreciate you coming here.
unidentified
Thanks, guys.
joe rogan
And I hope we sell you some books.
I really think it's going to help.
And I'm so glad that you were the guy that invented the lacrosse ball.
Because that thing, I'm telling you, has helped me more over the last couple months.
kelly starrett
Demons out!
joe rogan
It's so hard to get a person to massage you that hard, you know?
kelly starrett
Yeah, and you're not going to get a massage every day.
You don't have time.
glen cordoza
Exactly.
You only know where your bullshit is, right?
joe rogan
Exactly.
Clan Cordova.
glen cordoza
Doza.
unidentified
Doza.
joe rogan
Dova.
Doza.
kelly starrett
Whatever.
glen cordoza
Same thing.
joe rogan
Change your name, son.
It's not as catchy as the Mexican version.
kelly starrett
Hola!
unidentified
I'm Glenn.
joe rogan
Glenn Cordova.
Ladies and gentlemen.
Shout out to Arish.
Thank you everybody for tuning into the podcast.
Thank you Onnit.
Go to O-N-N-I-T. Use the code name Rogan.
Save 10% off any and all supplements.
And please follow Kelly on Twitter.
It is MobilityWOD, which is Workout of the Day.
So MobilityWOD on Twitter.
Glenn, you got a Twitter, man?
That's gangster as fuck.
That's gangster as fuck.
Do you have a Twitter?
No, I do not, sir.
glen cordoza
I have a Twitter, but yeah.
joe rogan
We'll be back on Monday with Bobcat Goldthwait, ladies and gentlemen.
Bobcat returns to the podcast.
Big kiss.
And we're going to work out something next week for Kevin Smith.
We're going to go to his place and do his podcast.
Brian, you want to come?
Yes, of course you do.
Alright, he wants you to come too.
Alright, we'll see you guys Monday.
Jihad, praise Odin.
Big kiss.
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