Who can be an athlete? Dr. Hill sits down with elite athletes and peak performance and movement coaches Brian Makenzie and Erin Cafuro Makenzie. They talk about Erin’s training during the Olympics as well as Brian and Erin’s goals to help people understand their fitness and movement abilities.
Episode Summary
Movement Training for Human Performance: A Neuroscientist's Perspective on Athletic Development
Movement is a window into the brain. Every squat, every stride, every stroke reveals patterns of neural control that extend far beyond the gym or playing field.
I recently spoke with Brian McKenzie, a human performance coach and movement specialist, and Erin Cafuro McKenzie, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in rowing, about their quality-over-quantity approach to athletic training. Their insights reveal fundamental principles about how the brain learns, adapts, and optimizes human performance.
The Neuroscience of Movement Quality
Brian's career began with a crucial insight: traditional high-volume training often creates more problems than it solves. "I became very adept at movement and understanding movement in relation to injury," he explains. This isn't just coaching philosophy—it's applied neuroscience.
When you move poorly, you're not just risking injury. You're training inefficient motor patterns into your brain. The motor cortex and cerebellum learn whatever you repeat, whether it's optimal or not. Poor movement quality literally becomes hardwired through neuroplasticity.
Here's what happens at the neural level: The primary motor cortex (M1) sends commands to muscles, while the cerebellum fine-tunes these movements based on sensory feedback. The basal ganglia help select which motor programs to execute. When you practice poor movement patterns, these circuits become increasingly efficient at producing... poor movement.
Erin experienced this firsthand as an elite rower dealing with chronic injuries. "I was going implementing hence a lot of my injury history," she notes. The solution wasn't more volume—it was better movement quality with expert feedback.
The Progression Principle: Building Athletic Foundations
Both Brian and Erin emphasize something that contradicts popular fitness culture: elite athletes don't start with elite challenges. They master fundamentals first.
"Very few people want to actually spend time getting good at running 5Ks, which is where most great marathoners spend a lot of time," Brian observes. "They became really, really good runners at the 5K... and they got really fast and then they extended that."
This reflects a fundamental principle of motor learning called "hierarchical skill development." The brain builds complex movement patterns on top of simpler, well-learned foundations. When you skip steps—going from couch to marathon, or sprint triathlon to Ironman—you're asking your nervous system to manage complexity it hasn't prepared for.
The prefrontal cortex, which governs executive function and decision-making under stress, becomes overwhelmed when managing too many variables simultaneously. This leads to movement breakdown, injury risk, and performance plateaus.
Beyond the Box: Environmental Context Matters
Brian's evolution from traditional gym training to outdoor, nature-based movement reflects emerging research on environmental enrichment and neural plasticity. "How often are you actually getting out into nature?" he asks.
Training outdoors isn't just more enjoyable—it's neurologically different. Natural environments provide:
- Variable sensory input: Wind, terrain changes, temperature variations challenge proprioception and balance systems
- Unpredictable demands: Unlike gym machines, natural movement requires constant neural adaptation
- Reduced cognitive fatigue: Nature exposure activates the parasympathetic nervous system and reduces cortisol
The brain's spatial navigation systems—including the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex—evolved for complex, three-dimensional environments, not linear gym machines. When you train outdoors, you're engaging these systems as they were designed to function.
The Movement Assessment Revolution
One of the most important insights from our conversation was about movement observation and feedback. Erin describes the transformation when Brian began coaching her: "He was like, 'No, that's not a squat, that's not a push-up'... and actually would show me visually what I was doing and how to change it."
This highlights a critical point: internal body awareness (proprioception) is often insufficient for movement correction. The brain's internal model of movement frequently differs from objective reality. This is where expert observation and real-time feedback become crucial.
Modern technology is revolutionizing this process. Video analysis, motion capture, and even neurofeedback can provide objective data about movement patterns. But the key insight remains: you can't improve what you can't accurately perceive.
The Role of Cross-Training in Neural Development
Both guests emphasize the importance of movement variety. Erin's background includes not just rowing, but CrossFit and movement-based training under Kelly Starrett's guidance. Brian's expertise spans running mechanics, physics principles, and aquatic training.
This variety isn't accidental—it's neurologically essential. Different movement patterns activate different neural circuits:
- Strength training: Primarily motor cortex and corticospinal pathways
- Endurance work: Involves brainstem respiratory centers and autonomic regulation
- Skill-based movement: Heavily engages cerebellum and basal ganglia
- Balance challenges: Activate vestibular system and proprioceptive pathways
Training multiple systems creates what neuroscientists call "cross-modal plasticity"—improvements in one area enhance function in others.
Practical Applications: Quality Over Quantity
So how do you apply these principles? Here are the key strategies Brian and Erin advocate:
Start with movement fundamentals: Master basic patterns (squat, hinge, push, pull, carry) before adding complexity or load. This builds strong neural foundations.
Seek expert feedback: Your internal sense of movement is often inaccurate. Video analysis or coaching can reveal patterns you can't feel.
Progress systematically: Build from shorter to longer distances, simpler to more complex movements. Let your nervous system adapt at each level.
Vary your environment: Include outdoor, unstable, and unpredictable training conditions to challenge neural adaptation systems.
Monitor quality over quantity: If movement quality degrades, the session should end. Poor practice literally trains your brain to move poorly.
The Injury Prevention Neuroscience
Erin's injury history as an elite athlete illustrates a crucial point: high-level performance without movement quality awareness often leads to breakdown. "I was a hard subject. I ask a lot of questions," she notes, describing her work with Kelly Starrett to address chronic issues.
From a neuroscience perspective, injuries often result from faulty motor control patterns, not just tissue weakness. The brain develops compensatory strategies around pain or dysfunction, creating new movement patterns that may solve short-term problems but create long-term issues.
This is where movement specialists like Brian become essential. They're essentially "motor control debuggers," identifying and correcting dysfunctional neural patterns before they cause tissue damage.
Future Directions: Technology and Movement
The conversation hints at exciting developments in movement training technology. While Brian emphasizes outdoor, natural training environments, he also recognizes the value of objective measurement and feedback systems.
The future likely involves hybrid approaches: maintaining the neural richness of natural movement while incorporating technology for precise measurement and feedback. This could include:
- Real-time movement analysis via wearable sensors
- Neurofeedback systems that monitor brain states during training
- Virtual reality environments that combine natural variability with controlled progression
- AI-powered movement analysis that provides instant coaching feedback
The Bottom Line
Movement training is brain training. Every rep, every run, every practice session is literally reshaping your neural networks. The question isn't whether you're training your brain—it's whether you're training it well.
Brian and Erin's approach prioritizes movement quality, systematic progression, and environmental variety. These aren't just coaching preferences—they're applications of fundamental neuroscience principles about how the brain learns, adapts, and optimizes performance.
Whether you're an elite athlete or weekend warrior, the message is clear: slow down, move well, progress systematically, and remember that your brain is the ultimate performance organ. Train it accordingly.
The path to peak performance isn't about doing more—it's about doing better. Your nervous system will thank you, and your results will reflect the difference.
Full Transcript
[Music] Welcome to another episode of HeadFirst with Dr. Hill. Today's guests are Brian McKenzie, who is a human performance coach and movement specialist, and Aaron McKenzie, who is a twotime gold medalist in uh rowing. So, I uh welcome guys. Thanks for being on the show. Thanks for having us. Uh my pleasure. Uh why don't we start by having you actually introduce yourself, give us a little bit of uh your perspective on what you do day-to-day. Start with Aaron. All right. Um I uh yes, so I was a professional athlete for about 10 years and um now I am working for a company called Powers Speed Endurance, which uh was is owned by Brian McKenzie, but I am running behind the scenes. It's a endurancebased uh programming and educational source for endurance athletes and coaches. And so we are basically trying to cover all of our bases from running to, you know, triathlons to rowing. Um it's mostly for working professionals. Okay. So not just professional athletes. No. No. Yeah. So we're trying to to uh you know now that I am a uh working professional myself and no longer professional athlete I I see that that is the need you know there's a much bigger need for attention to giving um you know education to everybody not just the elite athletes like we had we were fortunate enough to get so much information and you know have access to so many people um but the every de everyday Joe that's out there slogging miles, running marathons, uh, triathlons, doing crash bees, everything. Uh, they need help, too. And, uh, absolutely. Even more so. Yeah. I mean, don't have all the same degree of dialing everything in with a lot of attention sometimes. So, Exactly. Great. And Brian, tell us about about you. Um, I I'm I my career kind of started with a more quality versus quantity approach, and that's basically where I've stayed. Um although many things have changed uh I I became very adept at movement and understanding movement uh with with people in in in relation to injury uh that in in working with a lot of athlete athletes that were endurance athletes like runners. Um my specialty began in running. I worked with a guy by the name of Dr. Nicholas Romangh very early on in my career. um which catapulted kind of my learning curve into other areas versus sticking to traditional formats. Um going through traditional schools, things like that. Uh I I kind of and inevitably exited out of that to get more of a a broader understanding of things that weren't being taught. Um and and and a lot of that has to do with physics or uh not that I'm I I'm doing physics or anything uh but understanding physics and and things like gravity and how it works with you know and how how it's a very underutilized or or underderstood you know not a very well understood thing. Um that has transpired into more or less just the human performance world. Okay. Um now most of my work is done within uh XPT uh which is my business with Lared Hamilton and Gabby Reese which is more of a lifestyle approach. So it's a whole entire holistic deal where we're looking at not only hey what are you doing for training but hey are you getting outside? Um, you know, as we've seen with the CrossFit revolution where, you know, a lot of people just go, they work, then they go into a gym and they're inside and it's like how how how often are you actually getting out into nature and understanding this stuff? So, moving from box to box isn't like a life goal. No, I I it it I'm I'm kind of uh I'm a little I try not to get into the gym too much anymore. I do get into the gym, but it's just I try and stay out of it as much as I can and try and focus out outside more often. Um I I more more often than not, you're going to find me in the water, okay, these days. Um just because I my love of the ocean and what I'm doing there and obviously with a relationship with a guy like Larry Hamilton, it's very easy to do since that's where he's most of his time is. Sure. Sure. Um, at any rate, uh, we've, Aaron and I have really always kind of looked at things from a more qualitative standpoint, especially for her, like when she she dealt with a lot of injuries and stuff, and I'm sure we'll get into it. Um, to really going, hey, there's something going on. There's something else I could be doing here. Um, uh, you know, and Aaron was a very very early pioneer adopter of a lot of the stuff we were doing. And not not just me, I mean from her own side of stuff where she was going and implementing some CrossFit or even some movement based stuff. Um I mean she was mentored by Kelly Starretette. Um so you know there's a lot of uh you know crossover with what we've done and how we've built that. Did that lead into your guys getting married? Did you have that uh the congruent interest before uh uh getting together or I'm just curious. Yeah. No. Well, I Kelly was I started uh working with Kelly back in 2007, so right before the 2008 Olympics. And um yeah, I think I I was a hard subject. I ask a lot of questions and um awesome and I think it was around 2010. Um, you know, I was going in my into my second uh Olympic cycle and Kelly had he was just having his his second kid graduating from PT school and he was like, "Hey, I have this friend down in Southern California." He was trying he's just pawning me off on Brian. No, but it worked really well because there's some things that you can learn and read about um and you know, research, but the biggest piece was the hands-on. like there was nobody actually watching and giving me feedback on what I was doing. I was just going implementing hence a lot of my injury history. But um yeah, so that was the big turning point once uh Kelly introduced Brian um to me and he prefaced it with don't make out with him. Okay. So, um, yeah. So, once he introduced us, uh, I he he was working, you know, like, no, that, you know, that's not a squat, okay? That's not a push-up. Like, let's and actually would show me um visually what I was doing and how to change it. And so, that was that was a huge thing for for me. So, this is that movement specialist thing that you're that you're f. So, can you when we say movement, what do you mean by movement? Moving, sitting, walking, squatting. picking things up. I I just kind of it it morphed from, hey, I was looking at how people ran to, oh, these specific exercises we're doing to, oh, it's just what they're doing every day. Okay. So, you started as a runner. Yeah. Um, I I come from a family of marathon runners. I'm one of these people who's not I don't think I'm built to run. I'm sort of a stocky Scottish guy. I'm built for climbing up mountains, you know, and and falling off cliffs. But, yes. Um, my little sister runs marathons. My dad's a long-term runner. Yeah. my body's never felt like it could handle running and uh I wonder what do you think about that? Can anyone be an athlete of any sort of these movement, you know, cycling, running, swimming or Well, I I think running is a a basic human function. Okay. Um, and I think pe and and but there's variations of that like, hey, am I a big guy who's probably better at climbing up something and throwing something or, you know, fighting something versus going and just running for days or or or, you know, 26.2 miles or hunting an animal, you know, and it's like, you know, certain whatever. There there are very spec there's very different uh approaches to things but I think by and large and and we've seen this with CrossFit as well which you know and I'm only speaking this because my I spent 10 years teaching you know as a subject matter expert for CrossFit. Okay. Um I think human beings in general like to look at what the elite or what the professionals are doing and then they want to mimic stuff like that. So they hear of something like a marathon and they go damn I want to go run a marathon. Okay. And it's not I want to go win a marathon. It's I I just want to go participate in a marathon. And participation is a very big. And the reason I'm using this analogy is because very few people want to actually spend time actually getting good at like running 5ks, which is where most great marathoners spend a lot of time. Oh, interesting. You know, they became really, really, really, really good runners at the 5k. Actually, they started well before that. They were doing it at less than 3,000 meters. Gotcha. And they got really fast and then they, you know, extended that a little bit and then they extended a little bit more. And you know, one of the anal, one of the people I'll use is like somebody like Haley Gabber Salasi or even Ryan Hall who's recently retired. But both climb the ranks through those basic 5K, 10K, half marathon, then marathon. And then you see the same you see the same types of things that happen with worldclass iron manners. Mhm. There's no such thing as a world class iron maner who started iron maning right they started doing sprint distance they were world class they started doing Olympic distance they were world class then they actually moved up to iron and we as a people like and I'm as guilty as this as anybody because I have literally went and sign did a sprint triathlon and was like up got my ass handed to me there I am going to go sign up for an iron man now. So I went from smallest to I'm going to go do you know and then I ended up doing ultramarathons. Um, the only thing I had in favor for me was the fact that I was looking at movement and understanding a lot of this stuff, which is where a lot of the training methods came from. The ideas on training and and even what was happening with our my athletes at the time was we were seeing people who could actually participate in these things, but they weren't necessarily doing as well as they wanted to or they were just getting worse over time. Okay? So, they had hit that plateau and then they started to taper off and it started to become less and age was a factor. or whatever. And um you know, we found that that was not the the reality of it. We when you just train one specific way, let's just take the long slow distance approach, you're basically training for long slow distance. Nothing's going to be fast. So you're it's going to take time to get there. The only issue the other issue with that is that when you ingrain bad habits in long slow distance that is a very long period of time that you have now taken where and think you know your mind hey how many how many shitty habits do I create you know and how many do I stick to how many this neurotic behaviors have I associated which now has a physiological loop in it where I have emotional responses I have all these things attached to it and I can't get out of this thing, right? This is the exact same thing that I've dealt with and and it's happened within CrossFit, too, because people in CrossFit saw what guys like Rich Froing, who's won the games four times, who continues to ch, you know, uh compete at the um team level, who who can handle a ton of volume, who worked his way up to developing all that volume, took the time to get good at the volume, lost the championship, you know, not having a lot of val volume under his belt, then came back, you know, and it's like they see what he's doing and they want to do what he's doing and it's like Rich figured out what worked for him if worked out for him and it was like this was the difference between what Aaron did in 2008 versus what Aaron did for 2012 and Aaron figured out what worked for Aaron. Okay. And and if other people come in and start to replicate what it is you're doing that worked for you Sure. Don't expect to get any better Yeah. than them. Right. Right. You know. All right. So, so um I I did run in high school. You know, I had this identity as a running family and I thought I'm going to run and so I did distance running in high school and I was slow and you know ponderous. Yeah. And ended up developing really bad shin splints to the point where it sort of like you say got caught up in this baggage, you know, from then on like in in college I was in on the fencing team at UMass. Yeah. And we they would go run and I would go bicycle because I just couldn't pound my shins into the ground anymore. Yeah. Um interesting. And so eventually I stopped running completely because I had this identity of well if I run it's going to hurt and I never was able to get the mechanics right to not develop painful shins when running. So how would you deal with somebody like that who you know I mean I'm 45 I haven't run in 20 something years. I mean I I've dealt with that you know I used to deal with that weekly you know um it injury is nothing more than a movement fault. Okay. the catalyst becomes whether it's intensity. Yeah. Whether it's volume or whether it's load. So those are the exposers of it. It's kind of like a stressful situation with with the mind, right? Like look, we might all be just fine right now being in a very calm environment and making it safe and protective, but what happens when the hits the fan? Yeah. You know what happens if we take you out since, you know, Lar Hamilton's, you know, somebody I work with. What happens when we go out into 60 plus foot surf on jet skis? What are you what what's going on with you then? Yeah, exactly. And and so we start to see things that start to change and it's like how do we train to get to the ability if this is what you actually want to do? I you know and Lar has a Lar has a an analogy about all that and he goes look you can't make an eagle out of a chicken but you can make a super chicken. So, so you know, you can you can train yourself to want to be to to be able to handle certain situations, but if you really don't want to be there, then you're never going to be that eagle. Like you you like you want to be you need to want to be in front of a 60oot wave and in that surf. You don't want to be somebody who's not like because the the thought processes that happen when you're in those situations and these are the same things that happen with running. It's just I'm using an extreme sense right now. People don't want don't look at it as an extreme sense but it's the exact same behavior where it's like look you really don't actually want to be here right now. So there's no real sense in actually forcing this. That's definitely true for me when I was running. It was always a sense of oh I got to do this because it I should I should be doing this not because I want to. Uh, you know, another personal example, a few years ago, I got into sentry rides and um was doing a lot more cycling. I can I'm built for a cyclist. I'm really, you know, heavy lower body and um I did a cycle a sentry ride with my right toe clip adjusted wrong and about 60 miles in my right knee pretty much failed. You know, the outside some tendons on the outside of the knee and that was like four or five years ago and I still can't really cycle for more than a mile or two before things start to lock up. So my identity is congruent with a cyclist, not so congruent with a runner, but I've managed to get injuries in both ends of things. And you know, now all I do is aggressive yoga. So I mean, where would you take someone like me who would would want to build these things back up? One, it's, hey, let's look at where where the pains where the pain's at. Okay? B, let's look if we can apply if if we can get you to apply any of the soft tissue strategies that we understand to that to start alleviating why the tightness, why everything's happening. Because it's not that your knee is bad. There's no such thing as a bad knee. There's no such thing as a bad hip. There's no such thing as a bad ankle or bad wrist or bad knee or you know, elbow before you're injured at least. Yeah. Yeah. Unless unless of course it's like blunt trauma like you fell off of something that's an entirely different story or you know a bullet something like like look those are that that that is stopping movement that's tissue insult. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So most people are just reinforc they're most people aren't paying attention to what nature's telling them. And pain is pain is nature's greatest is one of greatest its greatest assets to say hey wrong. You know, you don't see animals going around and running around with toes internally rotated or externally rotated. They're following the path of the least resistance. They're always doing that. And we do that as a We do that as babies. Sure. Beautifully. Then at about five, we take our children and we go, you know what? We're gonna stick you in school and we're g we're gonna force you to sit down for six hours a day and we're gonna we're gonna put you in these really cool shoes that mommy thinks are really cute or daddy thinks they're really badass, you know, whatever. Yeah. And and and we just start to mold the being into more like us versus allowing that child to adapt and and be pliable and understand things on its own unique, beautiful level. Okay? And and and I'm not saying you need to have your kid barefoot and you know you know hair down to their ass and running around like you know Mad Max is you know a little Mad Max beyond Thunderdome but I I do think that we've really tried to systematize things because we don't understand how to deal with stress. Yep. And we think that a system is what's going to say versus our own feeling and understanding that own feeling like hey my foot my clip was changed. Okay. So, what did I do here with that clip? So, if I'm internally rotated, there's something going on structurally, and we know that you can rotate off the tib and fib at the knee a little bit, but most of that rotation is going to have to be made up through the hip, right? So that you know looking most likely at things through the quads is where we would start get the soft tissue work then start to look at you from a movement standpoint like when he's walking what's going on you know and then or hey let's put him on a bike for a mile and let's see where the knee where that pain's showing up and then we now have part of our solution is to look what he's doing and why is the pain showing up. I think I need to visit you guys in Newport Beach. Come on down there. So you mentioned shoes you know putting little kids in shoes. What is your thought about this? You know, barefoot running, zero drop. Is that important? Is it a fad? Uh what where do you fall on that? Uh I I think you should be barefoot as much as you possibly can. Okay. Um I don't think barefoot running is the answer. Um I I think barefoot running is great. Um in fact, if that's what you want to do, I'm all for it. I I I don't have any disagreements in barefoot running. Okay. Um you're always going to run faster in shoes. Um, but that doesn't mean you can't get really fast barefoot. Um, the a lot of the concrete and everything that we've put in, I don't know that the foot is entirely ready to handle all of that like like from from a a legitimate um, you know, adapt adaptation standpoint, you know. So, have have we made those changes yet? And and I just don't know that we've made that. Um, but understanding shoes is is is a big thing. And hey, my toes, they all touch. They're kind of, you know, my my little ones are like wrapped over each other. So So those aren't good things. Those are those are early signs that you're probably going to have some issues upstream of that. A foot should look like a hand, basically. Uh, where the the the toes don't necessarily touch. They might be really close, but they don't touch. Okay. Um, the entire foot should work. You should have an arch in your foot. Um, you know, not having arches is another early sign that you've probably done some poor mechanical stuff. Okay. Um, you know, can can that be addressed 100%. Yeah, we've seen people who've taken flat supposed, you know, the term flat foot is is actually not real. There's no such thing like you can actually draw the arch up off the floor. Sure. It's just a lazy stance. So you're not actually being you're not actually in a true stable position in using the hips. You're slouching with your feet. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much you're collapsing medially. Um so I I think there's I think there's merit to barefoot running. I my my suggestion is for people to walk barefoot as much as they can. Um also, you know, if you're going to run and you're going to be in shoes, take your shoes off at the end of the run. Find a grass, you know, a grass uh field. do a few hundred meter repeats in the grass barefoot just to reinforce some better positioning um if you're not going to be somebody who's barefoot throughout the day. But I I I think understanding that any sort of a heel lift compared to the front of the foot is a m is a is a big big thing in understanding how you can actually change a lot of things in your life like in terms of like in a in a bad sense. Like if you were to stack blocks on top of each other and you actually gave a mild lift to the very first block. Uhhuh. And we were stacking them 6 ft high. Those blocks by the time they got to 6 feet would have to be so compensated. Yeah. Just from that minor lift that we that you're going to be dealing with pain in some way, shape, or form. your wrist pain or your elbow pain may just be associated with that pain there. So, you know, and ladies like to walk around in high heels. Um, another bad mean that isn't good for you. That is terrible. Really? It's terrible. Yeah. You removed dorsif flexion. So, it's basically just saying to your ankles, you don't need to work, which your ankles are a part of your foot. Your foot is your only thing that's connected to the ground. Uh, you know, like Kelly Starretette brought up years ago, the the tissue on the hands, the tissue on the feet is the same. Yep. You don't have that tissue on your ass, right? Therefore, we know what should be in contact with the ground most and it's definitely not your ass. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. So um these are sort sort of getting into how you would approach examining movement problems, looking at causes of injury, rearchitecturing the biomechanics, better habits, better training. Um when someone like Aaron, you know, came with lots of injuries. I mean Erin, first of all, what was that, you know, psychological mental, you know, you you had you obviously were pushing through injuries, being relatively successful in spite of, you know, wear and tear and weathering these things. What was the different mental game once you started to change how you moved? What did it do to how you pushed your body, how you got injured, how you felt about your day-to-day training pain and things like that? Yeah. So, I kind of I come from a standpoint of uh I I danced actually the first 12 years of my life, you know, modern classical everything. And I think movement is an expression. I don't think that there's a right and wrong. Sure, there's something that puts you into pain and doesn't. Um, but if you are continuing to get injured, um, I think you are wanting to suffer. You know, you're wanting to put yourself in that place unconsciously some most of the time, you know. Um, and I think that's where I was mentally at the time when I was continuing to get injured. And I thought, you know, rowing and any endurance sport that was that was what I was told. It was just a game of suffering. Okay. just had to power through it. Yeah. And that was the coaching cue. It's like if you want to go faster, go harder. Y instead of like, no, you can actually, you know, tweak a little bit here, tweak a little bit there. It's just, you know, that was that was the a lot of a lot of the feedback that I gravitated to as well is like, oh, you know, I just need to make it hurt more. Right. And and you were a world-class athlete at this point with this mindset. Yeah. And and I was, you know, praised for that, too. and and as are a lot of other uh athletes and I think that's what you know what draws people to endurance sports sometimes they're just like oh how long can I suffer for you know how can I suffer better and it's like if you're going into it with the idea of you wanting to suffer then there really is more emotional things tied into this movement and maybe that is that is the cure you know maybe that is that you have to go out and like Brian went out and suffered for 100 miles and then he realized that, you know, okay, well, that's not really getting me anywhere. Like, that's not answering these questions um that I still have. So, now I need to to look inside. Now, of course, as an athlete, you're always learning, you're always evaluating, you're always sort of, you know, personal records and training routines. Did your mindset change when you started to get some movement sort of meta supervision on the movement uh and how you were doing? Uh or rather how did your mindset change? It was it was more it was it was a relief that it wasn't just about going harder. Okay. You know, always going harder and like Sure. and that injury is a sign of weakness. That's the other big thing that you know a lot of coaches and and I don't blame them. Like sometimes I I you know I I'm coaching now a bit too and I have no other you know when you have no other excuse or no other you know no other guidance to give your athlete it's like oh you're just weak or you're unfit or you know you're just not made out because injuries are continue to show up. Yes. Exactly. And it really that's that's kind of the easy way out you know to to blame it on the athlete versus the coach being like okay let's figure this out. Okay, obviously what what we're doing or the cues I'm giving you are not resonating. And that's the hard part about being a coach. Like it's and granted I had, you know, a lot of years figuring out my body and feeling and and now I know what feels right and what feels wrong, but a coach can't feel the athlete. Like they have to just see biomechanically, does it look right? Right. Right. And so it's one thing for it to look right and it's another for the athlete to actually be able to feel it. Yeah. Interesting. So I don't have a good sense of rowing. Um I mean I I've done some running. I've done some cycling. My experience of rowing is being you know a freshman sophomore at UMass Ammerst and all the other freshman sophomores were getting up at 4:00 a.m. and coming back at 6:00 a.m. completely beaten up, bleeding hands and then watching these incredible changes in their bodies over the first few years in first few months in college. And they became these sort of massive athletes. But it looked to me like they were just, you know, they had these brutal, brutal early mornings and they were just being sort of shaped into new people over a few months. That's probably not how the average person rose if I had to guess, like especially those who aren't doing it sort of professionally in a competitive level. What are some of the benefits that, you know, the average person would get doing some rowing, learning that that skill that I think it's that's kind of the initiation. That's funny because I was just coaching some guy and he's like, "Yeah, I wanted to row, but I didn't want to wake up early." And it's it's kind of the self-weeding process. Again, it's it's a sport that has has tradition in just suffering, you know, like instead of being like, "Oh, let's tweak this." It's no, can you show up at 5:00 a.m.? Right. Right. So, can some middle-aged non-rowing guy like me? now. Yes. I think I think rowing can open up its doors to a lot more people because it is such a great um full body exercise and especially for people who have history of um you know joint issues and it's a new you know it's a new movement that a lot of people haven't done before. Like a lot of people have tried running, a lot of people have tried cycling, swimming, right? Um rowing you know is really low impact on the joints. Um, and it's just it's a very fluid rhythmic movement that I think that's that's part of that's what really drew me to it, especially from my dancing background is just you get to this point where you feel like you aren't even working anymore because you just fall into this rhythm and especially flying across the water. Yeah. Even on even on the Concept 2 or the you know the static urgy. Yeah. Um, but the best part of it is actually I have my uh teammate here from Serbia. She was uh rode a cow with me in 2005. We were just talking about this yesterday of like the best part of rowing is rowing with someone else to get to fall into their rhythm and like you just have this connection. Of course, you guys are both going through pain, but it's really not that painful when someone else is doing it with you and you just fall into this rhythm together and it's a it's a really like it's a rad thing. Yeah, I've certainly I grew up in Boston area, so I've certainly seen uh on the Charles, you know, there's those amazing teams of people perfectly synchronized with a coxin, you know, calling time and it's just it's a beautiful thing. But honestly, my own experience of rowing is being a little kid in a rowboat, you know, and rowing out to like pull lobster pots in a, you know, in a bay or something. So, it's not exactly the same kind of experience. Functional rowing. Functional rowing. Exactly. Exactly. And I think, you know, if you if you do get in the gym or even take roll the rowing machine out of the gym is my preference these days to get a little vitamin D. But um you know start on the rowing machine, figure out the movement and then add the instability of the water. Okay. Um because or you know just go in the water and then put on a bathing suit and don't it's it's okay if you fall in. That's right. Be be okay with getting wet. Be okay with getting wet. Yeah. Exactly. Um but yeah, no, it's it's a sport that I think we can it can open up a lot more doors. The only So, the the main reason that rowers like to get up that early Yep. to row is because the water's flat. Ah, because it's calm. Yeah. The weather calm. Yeah. And so, sure. Yeah. There's definitely the initiation. Can you wake up? Will you wake up to be part of this team to, you know, commit to everybody? But also, it's a lot easier to row when the water's flat. Interesting. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And of course, my experience of rowers is in college where they're all doing it before our classes. So, they're going to like the Connecticut River in Massachusetts. And, you know, they'd be coming back at like dawn. So, they'd be beginning very very early. Uh, so that's interesting. So, uh, of course, uh, you, Brian, are a water guy, it sounds like these days. Do a lot of your workouts in the water. A lot of your personal exercise. Um, you know, I grew up on the water. I I sailed boats, pulled lobster pots in in the Northeast. the ocean in spite of being that I mean I'm terrified by the ocean. I I I'm on it a lot still terrified by it. So how do you go from that sort of uh you know appreciating the majesty and danger of it from afar to being somebody who's you know between 20 foot waves. Uh where where's that inflection? I mean I I've been living in California now for like 15 years well 10 12 years. Um this idea of starting to learn to surf is kind of exciting but I'm I'm a kid from Maine. Like the idea of surfing is a little bit strange to me. Well, it's it that's an interesting question, but you know, I I mean, maybe it doesn't if it has to do with waves, like you you just need to have a love or passion for the waves and want to be able to progress that. If it's for the ocean, like I want to go like there's guys like there's guys like Mark Healey who who's one of the greatest watermen in the world, big wave surfer, um free diver, spear fisherman. Um, I mean, he has an intimate intimate relationship, does a lot of conservation work with in this the constructs of, you know, the ocean. Um, he's a ginger kid that lives in that lives in, you know, Aahu. You know, his life has been literally, you know, he's not supposed to be in the sun that much. Yeah, I completely understand, right? You know, um, and and but he is he's figured out how to do it. he's figured out how to go and be deep in the ocean and get and be have relationships with things like sharks and understanding sharks deeper. Um, you know, or you know, but it's the the the interesting part of the question is it's like look, you know, and although I brought up like 60 ft waves or whatever, I'm not riding 60oot waves yet. Um, but I'm out there and I want to be out there and it drives me to want to be out there. Um I I've been doing some towing in for probably the last four or five years now with friends who are connected in that world. Um and that's been a progression itself. It's interesting because being around somebody like a Lar Hamilton or Omar Healey, um people are are fascinated with what they do and they're like, "Oh my god, I mean, how do you ride these waves?" and and and you know Lar's ridden 100 foot plus waves and and that isn't really something fathomable by the by normal even if you see it on video if you were to watch it like live it's an it's an un like you can't understand it and the the idea is it's like how did you do that and it's like well what you're not looking at is that that there was some this kid that made a commitment y when he first learned what a wave could what he could do with a wave. Yeah. And he continued to chase that commitment and try and understand that commitment and everything around that commitment and how it transpired like it started with shore break. It got a little bit bigger. It started with understanding the ocean floor and why the ocean, you know, why waves do what they do and it, you know, and you know, it just goes on and on and on and on what you can learn and nobody's going, "Wow, what a commitment you right." They're like, "Wow, what skills you have." Yes. Or you're just so talented. Well, it's no different than the example you just gave of the marathon runners or or even like the rich fonians like, you know, and I think that's I I have a you know, I'm not extremely comfortable in the ocean either. And I think sometimes what I think our biggest fear is is to be out in a situation that we're not comfortable with. Sure. But everybody can stick their feet in the water, right? Everybody can start there. Everybody can walk around the block. Just start somewhere. just become I and I think it's with everything that you're scared of. It's not jumping into the deep end. It's literally just getting your feet wet. So, this commitment that you know you're speaking about, Brian's speaking about is sort of like um developing a different or a continuing depth deepening relationship with what you're doing. How much of that is similar in your perspective to what happens when you're mastering endurance, you know, long distance uh uh activities? How much of is is the relationship versus the brute forcing it and keeping yourself going? Depends on the person. Depends on the athlete for sure. I think there's some people and that's that's literally, you know, why I look at someone like Lar um he has a he's a different athlete. He has it's more of a relationship with the water. Okay. um and himself and you know nature versus a lot of athletes including myself that I've been around it was a race to win. Yeah. Um and to train to win to uh you know and you're just doing it to for some glory and being you know find going on the other side of the rainbow you standing on top of the podium. Um, I can tell you that that lasts uh, you know, well, about the length of the national anthem, right? You know, and then it's then it's it's over. And then granted you have you know those stars on your shoulder but if you have a relationship and you have an appreciation for the your movement practice or whatever you decide to do whether it's it is studying uh or getting you know you know getting being a neuroscientist. It's like you have to have a relationship with it rather than wanting something from it. So you've pod a lot. You've been up on that that those steps a lot. Yeah. Now you're uh retired. You're you're a coach essentially at this point. I'm old and out of shape and Yeah. Yeah. I I'm I think I'm the oldest at least in shape person sitting at this bench right now, but that's right. Um, how has your relationship with rowing changed? I mean, do you still do long distance endurance driven? Do you still like to, you know, get behind the the ores, so to speak, or are you is your relationship with that whole process shifting a little now? Yeah. I mean, if we could put some um nodes on my head to measure all the emotions and and whatnot that you go through. It's it's been a process and it's been four years since, you know, the last Olympics. Um and everybody it was so funny cuz everybody was like, "Oh, do you miss being there? Do you miss going?" Like, "How was it?" And it's like at first I was just pissed when people are asking, but as Brian and usually and I remind him as well, when you're pissed and like angry about something, it's usually because you need to understand it more. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Um and so I I think what I've taken away from it is that it's it's hard to step away. So having that relationship of just wanting to win, just, you know, being on top of the podium, being driven, of just being the best in the world. Sure. It gets you gets you on top of the podium. Yeah. Um but then the aftermath of that and I decided to retire not for physical reasons, but for I I just knew there was so much more I wanted to experience in the world. It must be a very singular drive if you're an Olympic athlete or have Olympic aspirations. So much of your life um you know across four year cycles must be focused on that moment of competition that's sort of this looming thing in the future you must hit cuz it's only coming around every so often. Yes. And with that you get a hall pass by everyone um you know that loves you loves you deeply and understands and with that you lose I mean like I lost a lot of friends who were just like no you like aren't you aren't being a good friend you aren't being staying in touch like when you when I have kids or you know get married or there's a funeral you aren't there so no you're not a good friend anymore and and I think that's the thing that a lot of people sometimes And they still would be like, "Oh, no. I understand. You can't go anywhere. You have to you have to train for this." But you're so you get this hall pass for like, you know, 4 to 8 to 12 to 16 years of your life that it's okay to not be, you know, a contributor to society really. Sure. Um because you have this bigger goal in mind. Um and I and I think uh you know I this is obviously just where I am with the whole movement. I think The Olympics are a wonderful thing because it still really is an amateur uh contest, but I and you know, originally it was just a practice to or a a you know, event to praise the human body and and what it can do and and it's a beautiful thing for sure. But what a lot of people don't see is on the back end of that like what happened to all those Greeks after, you know, they were it's it's like racing horses. what happens to racing horses. Glue, you know, glue. Yeah, exactly. Um, and so I think that's kind of where I've been heading and just kind of watching my teammates and how they've been adjusting whether they immediately adapt that to a new goal. Okay. Um, which I've tried to do and I've tried to like I'm going to go run a 50 mileer, I'm going to go do, you know, and just taking that drive. But that's um are you finding places in your life to apply that same like you know 10,000 foot goal kind of approach and and pursue those things or are you working more in the microcosm now? Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to use different parts of my body besides just willpower. Okay. All right. If that makes sense. Sure. Absolutely. You know, like there's Yeah. I'm just going, you know, studying into, you know, yoga, uh, the study of yoga, not really actually doing too much yoga, but I I really I really like cuz, you know, the sauna or the the movement practice is just one piece of it. It's actually a, you know, there's a lot of really good um pieces written about it and uh, you know, Buddhism and all of that. And, you know, without making me sound like I'm doing going too far into the weeds, it's the only thing that's really resonated with me to to make sense of this all of like, okay, you've burned out your willpower. you used it a lot and you got really far, but I I've had a hard time applying it to something else and sticking with it. And it's most likely because that flame is like it's burnt. Yeah. You know, and it's also gotten focused in one specific direction for a long time. I imagine it's hard to, you know, refocus that a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I have a a very good partner. Um, and he's, you know, he is nine years the wiser. um of me, but he just kind of sits back and and is watching this process of uh you know, me trying to figure things out. And I and I do think that in a big way um athletes could be on, you know, have the same wavelengths of addicted, you know, people to substances. Sure. Yeah. That only happens in in uh athleticism. I mean everything from the that is distorted body image to orthorexic diets where you got to be this way about your diet and well I mean it it's anxiety it's depression it's alcoholism it's drug addiction it's I mean you want to know the list of you know drug addicts and ex-alcoholics that are doing ultramarathons most of them yeah you know it's a it's a very adrenaline is a drug dopamine is drug absolutely yeah so so um not everyone of course is going to be an elite or a long, you know, distance athlete. Um, you mentioned yoga. What other sorts of other sorts of, you know, lifestyle, if you will, activities do you think are useful or beneficial both mentally and physically for folks to engage in who aren't necessarily dedicating vast resources to becoming profoundly good athletes? You know, what what things are helpful or or should be. One of our good friends, uh, Doc Hickey, he says, "The best workout is the one you do." Is the one you do? That's I I I just although I'm sure he didn't make that up, you know, like it's just it's it is um that's the first thing again. It's just getting your toes in the water, you know, like start with that. And I think we all have these including myself. I know it very well like these grand dreams of like I'm going to have this perfect workout. I'm going to do, you know, workout six days a week and then rest one day off. And even at the elite level, that doesn't happen. you get injured, you know, you get sick, uh some your partner gets sick, um things happen. And so I think when we hit those hitches of like, you know, your knee hurts and usually injury is what makes people stop moving, right? And unfortunately, you know, my parents, that was the big thing that they're now, you know, getting hip replacements, knee replacements, having diabetic issues because they have injuries that they just didn't wanted to learn more about. Sure. Or maybe we didn't know. I mean, our parents are old enough that medicine has actually advanced in the past few decades. Um, my mom uh had some knee problems uh you know, built kind of like me, you know, short and stocky. And um about 10 or 15 years ago, she had bilateral knee replacement and she was I don't know like 55 or something, pretty young for knee replacements, but had both done it once and went from being a slightly overweight, slightly, you know, tired, you know, uh middle-aged person. My god, now she exercises four to six hours a day. She canoes, she swims, she I mean, she's 67 or 68 and she works out more a day than I ever have in my life. Wow. And it was just, you know, getting her knees back functional freedom. You've got surgeons who, you know, you've got orthopedics that'll do surgeries based on that and and that's why we should be doing surgery. Mhm. Not for functional ability. Yeah. Not because you've just worn this out and you're just going to go wear that out and you're not going to do that or or or you know, you're just going to it. We we've fallen into this world where we use western medicine as a as a means to take care of our lives. That is not what it's intended for. It's intended Yeah. Like like prescription medication, like knee replacements, hip replacements. I mean, I I've had my hip resurfaced. Like I've had my hip kind of re pretty much redone other than having it re, you know, the the bone replaced. Um, uh, you know, we we get into these places where, hey, if I just continue to take this or I've got this crutch, I can continue to do what it is I'm doing. So, basically, I'm buffering off the behavior of the stuff that's getting me into trouble. The festering wound underneath a band-aid. Exactly. It's just Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that and and this is I mean, and we deal with a lot of, you know, mental disorders or even people who are drug drug addiction, things like that. Like I have dealt with this stuff for 20 years. Um I've trained people for about the same time. I saw a direct connection between people in exercise and either alcoholism, drug addiction, the same patterns that are going on. Sure. You know, and these aren't people who go out and drink alcoholically or do drugs, right? But they're doing the same type of behavior p. And it's like you start to catch on to this and it's like, yeah, what are we really not dealing with here? like and and it was just I mean hey that was part of me actually having to really stop not drink and understand why when I drank I did the things that I did and you know oh that's why and it's like it's not that you know my I'm I'm my identity is I am an alcoholic or because I'm not I drank an al and if I want to live on that sure I can but I'm no further away from that than I ever was right sure but if I'm going in and I'm using the exercise or I'm using the the the medication to to just continue to eat the that I want to eat and bang my knee or let my knee hurt and then you know just continue going down that cycle. Why should that's not what western medicine was intended for? And and that's so we've got a big misconception of it. Okay, it makes sense. I've I've done a lot of addiction work myself. I I um actually worked in a in an alcohol. Yeah. And I I have a a former clinic I used to work in uh where we had a moderation approach where we reintroduced alcohol into your life if you were abstinent and wanted to try to drink again. Um and the whole focus of that center was not so much the substance you were using or the consequences, it was the relationship with the substance. And it sounds like that's congruent with the with the obsessive exercise. It's the relationship with the experience growing, you know, now it's like I I was obsessed with it and now it's like I everybody's like, "Oh, don't you just go out for like a paddle and it's beautiful?" And I'm like, "No, no, I still am not at the point where I can enjoy it." But with all of this, movement is still a necessary thing for us humans. Sure. Um, and I think that it is a good way to balance out the stress we create upstairs. Okay. Um, so I mean, as much as we're I think we're on we're definitely on the on the other side. We're we're talking about people who are obsessive exercisers, worker outers, fitnessers, you know. Sure. Um, or even per se elite athletes. Yeah. You know, there has to be some obsession in there. And I see it. Yeah. Do you think you would have been as successful as a rower if you had not been obsessed in 2007 and 2011? I mean, would you serious? And it's it's so funny because everybody's like, "Oh, you know, Rich Froin like works out five times." If this guy who won some CrossFit games thing if you didn't know who that is, but anyhow, it's a guy who is very, very successful and an extremely good athlete. But he came and worked with Brian and I, this was in 2013 or 2012. And I literally was watching him and I was like, "Yep, he's in the Matrix." Like he is in there. Obsessed. Obsessed. You recognize that that glaze that that that 10,000 yard stare on a goal that was Yeah. I think us as humans are we praise it. We look at it and look at it as such like this thing that's we all envy and are like, "Oh, we I wish I was in that tunnel with you." You know? Yeah. Um, so there's other ways of being successful as an athlete beyond that. Is that what we're hearing? I that's what I think. I mean I don't I mean I'm trying to figure it out before I talk too much about it cuz I'm like I swear there has to be another way up the mountain. There really does. And I and I know I've I've met some athletes that have had this great relationship with their movement practice or they continue to just move throughout their whole life. Um you know Leard being one of them. I think there's a slight obsession there for sure. He has to get in the water. there's no waves and he there's nothing to do like you don't want to be around the house like within like a mile or so he just has so much pent up energy you know but I I mean he yes and he buffers that off and and he but he does have that obsession and I think that's but it's a healthy obsession to a large degree okay that I think we're trying to get to like where you got to understand what a healthy obsession is and how to take that down a notch and And the reality because here's the problem is that the real world doesn't work on a competitive basis like the athletic world. When you don't win a deal or get something or somebody or you lose a client y that that that's not losing that that's like hey there's going to be another one right real soon you know and it's not you you look at four years and if you lose the race that's a big big problem and it's not just the next four years that you've sort of lost it's also the the two to three to four years you just put in getting here right so yeah and then you're thinking about that you know And and so it's it's really an eight-year cycle to base on your sport in in terms of one opportunity for exertion and success. But Aaron, I think in my opinion, Aaron, although we're talking about how her experience out of the Olympics now has happened, Aaron navigated pretty well from 2008 to 2012. I mean, in 2008, she had how many rib injuries by 2010 had you had? Five. Almost one a year. Yeah. Yeah. She had five. She had broken five ribs. She had basically been a mess. She How do you break ribs growing? How how is it just your muscles? It comes like you can feel like you've had shinints. Shin splints. You can start feeling like this little impulse and it's just literally, you know, a lack of mobility and then also your shoulder being out of position. Okay. And it just strains uh a certain part um you know and of your muscles. they just get tight and they can't move and your ribs are actually pretty flexible right and you also have your lungs and diaphragm hitting from the inside and so you know perfect storm right interesting perfect storm but yeah so I mean but just to parlay on that is it's like she went from being injured to not having any injuries to crying at the end of a a gold medal race because she felt like she didn't work that hard in the race and she could have gone right back out and road again. And it was like, well, no, that's what it's supposed to feel like when you're healthy. Okay. You know, not beaten down, worn down, tore up. But I was looking for the suffering. Yeah. You know, when I was running in high school, uh, we would run, it was cross country, so long distances mostly, and half of us would stop the race and throw up at at the end of the race. Like that that was a sign we had we had given it. We, you know, left it all left it all on the field, so to speak. Um, and I that didn't always I was I was always a little bit sort of dismayed by that that all these, you know, amazing runners were hurling into the bushes at the end of our cross country rag. So, I don't know. So, let me ask you guys, let's finish up with this. Um, you have a really broad experience working with elite athletes, being elite athletes, working with uh, let's say proumers, people that are, you know, um, not quite the elite but still very uh, oriented towards fitness, crossfitters, etc. across all types of people. Are there any commonalities? Any things you think are principles that are important to hold in mind as you engage with movement, as you consider your body, as you move through challenges? Are there principles that that are seem to be true across uh people regardless of what level they're performing at in terms of continuing to move further and better and and and get more control over what you're doing? to stump the uh the the guest part of the question. I know this is the most quiet part of the whole podcast. Wow. So, let's let's say if if you had three things that that were the most critical things to tell people about, you know, movement, about success in life, and we're just talking about every everybody in general about the things that are true across no matter at what level you're performing, what what might be true. Just start. Okay. Just start. And again, I think that's kind of where I've gotten and with analyzing my biomechanics and it's not, you know, there's a perfect way to move and I'm injured and there's I think being scared of injury or being scared of doing it wrong is a much bigger barrier than actually just, you know, then we actually just start, okay, just get your toes in toes in the water. Um, and and that's how, you know, every everything begins really. And I think it's again what we're talking about throughout the whole thing of like don't go run a marathon. Don't go try to surf a 100 foot wave. Okay. Um some of that's mental preparation we're talking about 100%. Yeah. Just just start and practice. Get into the practice of it. Don't get into the competition or the race of it. So do you think the the the equation of performance is you know more heavily weighted towards uh the perspective and mindset versus the physical is it is it largely a mental game? Yes. Okay. Yes. 100%. I I I I think you just need like Aaron said is just starting that's an action that's just taking part in something that's going on in your head. Sure. So if you don't actually like if you're just thinking about something that I want to do and I have some fantasy about this thing but I'm afraid of it. Yeah, just go do it. Go do it on the most basic level. Start it. Move. Like like moving is just something fundamentally we were not we designed to not not do, right? If you stop moving, the game's over. Like you're you're checking out real soon. Sure. Guaranteed. and and we we see just as many people who are checking out this planet because of not moving as because of some disease like cancer or whatever. It's like you you you know have somebody I don't want somebody taking care of me when I get older. Yeah. The health risks of not moving are profound. There's a study out a couple years ago. I'm a gerontologist. I teach courses in geranttology at UCLA. Yeah. Um, and one of the things we we I harp on a lot, um, is that a sedentary lifestyle, which used to be defined for elders as less than 5,000 steps a day, now it's defined as less than 7,000 steps a day. Less than that, produces as many health risks, cardiovascular health risks, as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Wow. So, yeah, we have control over this stuff. I mean, Dr. Dr. Andy Gal, they just finished up some study over in Sweden and they found out that the three coralates, the three Yeah. things that left gave us not only longevity of life but quality right were V2 max okay not getting below I believe it's 22 1/2 okay so if your V2 max drops below 22 1/2 L okay you're done okay lean tissue mass okay in the legs yep and the ability to stand up yeah that's another gerontology thing um uh classic gerontological sort You know, if you can do one assessment geranttologically, give somebody a chair without arms, have them sit in it, and have them lift up, stand up without using their arms. Yeah. If the quads are strong enough and balanced enough to lift you up off a chair without using your arms, your body's probably not aging that dramatically, you know. Yeah. So, I mean, just going back to like these things, I think movement is a big like just starting huge. Having a movement practice is huge. That means doing things that require functional movement, not just the same things every day, every, you know, day in day out. I think CrossFit's done a phenomenal job with with that, you know, is is introducing what functional movement can be and changing that around, varying it around. Um, you know, and understanding that stuff. And I I honestly I think a positive mental attitude on the entire thing, okay, is is absolutely 100% unequivocally going to keep you there. Great. I think that's wonderful advice. Uh why don't we stop there, folks? But uh if our listeners and viewers are interested in finding more about you, your programs or companies, your philosophies on life, where can they find you? Where where should they hunt you down? Yeah. Uh well, you can find both of us at Powers Speed Endurance, just building that bad boy up. Okay. And then uh yeah, Brian is XBT life uh as well. they're doing experiences, but uh yeah, on both either channels, uh one of them's more of the programming sport focused okay one trying to bring health back into sport. Um we're going to we're we're we'll we'll probably have some talks uh after this. But yeah, bringing in uh more of the mindset of of endurance sports and helping, you know, athletes that way. But and then XPTt XPTt lifestyle, you know, unpack XPTt for me. for the acronym but uh extreme performance training. Okay. So you're looking at something that might you know like it inevitably can become extreme because if you start from that small level um so we've introduced a lot of the water uh waterman training that Lar has done over the years which is in a pool with dumbbells. Um so there's a lot of hypoxic work but it's it's work. It's not about hypoxic meanings uh you're you're holding your breath you know you've got to you're underwater working with dumbbells. So, um, what are the benefits there? I have a a slight follow-up question, but what are the benefits for hypo what's what's the theory there? There I mean, think of think of a swimmer getting fitter throughout a season. Like their their ability for CO2 retention and ability to absorb CO2 gets greater and greater and greater. Interesting. Most a lot of people including like sympathetic dominant people um are very very they are not CO2 tolerant and so they become and the ability to actually get more oxygen into the tissue. So you can there there's studies that show hypoxic training will get will have kind of like uh will get more of an EPO like response in in the in the tissue. Um you know the body will create more hematocrit hemoglobin out of it. um we do a lot of heat and ice the physical part but for I mean all the expertise stuff I think there's the measurable stress response um that you know hold a hold a weight underwater that's going to stress you out right here's a couple of 30 lb dumbbells and we're going to sit put you in a 12t deep pool interesting and you know you drop down to the bottom and there you are and you're like well I'm pretty deep right now and then you're going to run across or you're going to swim across or you're going to do something across you know whatever It builds a confidence that really isn't there with as well as absorbing more. I've never seen anything in my life and I swam competitively for 20 years. So I swam laps. I'd been involved in a lot of swimming stuff. I've never seen anything build confidence in the pool for people better than what this is. Water. Yeah. In water in general. So we do that. We do a lot of heat and ice therapy stuff um for the recovery aspects and for the adaptation aspects of it. So, we're getting a lot of the stress responses out of that stuff, but but teaching people how to deal with that. Um, and then there are things like the gym training, the stuff we do where we apply method to it, like, "Hey, why are we in the gym squatting?" Well, you're going to need to squat the rest of your life, right? Exactly. Exactly. Um, you know, the uh beach workout stuff. Um we do uh there there's just a lot around lifestyle and we get people to go out and you know do more surfing, paddle sports, climbing mountains, get into stuff, get into nature. Interesting. Yeah. The hypoxy stuff caught my attention. I have a client um who's a sort of profoundly impaired uh developmental kid. Yeah. Who has when I met her, she was having two or 300 seizures per hour. Oh wow. Um now she's down to about 50 or 60 per hour through neuro feedback. Um but recently her mom started working with her on this carbon dioxide rebreathing system which seems to provoke a developmental challenge that improves uh seizure status in a lot of these really profoundly impaired brains. There's something about this CO2 tolerance maybe the EPO upregulation that you're describing. I mean I don't know the neuroscience here myself all that well but it sounds like we're actually you know from a impaired individual as well as a peak performance athlete there's something similar being tapped into here. My my the our theory has always been is that if an elite level athletes doing it, a child should be able to do it. If a child can't do it, an elite level athlete can't do it. Interesting. That's and they're just fundamental. They're both congruent with with having a body 100%. Great. Well, that's a bit of a mic drop moment. So, uh folks, uh thanks for listening to another episode of Head First with Dr. Hill. Thank you to my guests Brian and Aaron McKenzie. And I think we're going back to uh Peak Brain now and talk about your brains, but we'll do that off air, folks. So, uh, thanks so much for being part of the show and I'll love to come down and see you guys in Newport Beach sometime soon. Come on down. Thank you. I will. [Music]