Bruce Lee is a legend.

He revolutionized movies and martial arts.

He also boasted incredible strength and all-around physicality.

Lee could place his fist one inch from the chest of a man twice his size and unleash a quick, cobra-like strike that’d send his opponent flying. 

Lee could perform push-ups using just two fingers of one hand. 

Lee wasn’t huge, but his lean, chiseled, defined physique was widely admired, and bodybuilders like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, Flex Wheeler, Shawn Ray, and Dorian Yates all acknowledged the impact it had on their careers.

Co-star and fellow martial artist Chuck Norris described Lee’s ripped physique as “muscle upon muscle.”

A woman who asked if she could touch Bruce Lee’s flexed bicep (a common request he appreciated receiving) described it as “warm marble.”

How did Lee develop his strength and physique? Was he simply a genetic freak?

Nope. If you look at early pictures of the Little Dragon, he was a pretty scrawny guy.

Instead of genetics, Lee systematically and relentlessly built his body with physical training.

Thanks to the meticulous research of martial artist and writer John Little, we know exactly what Lee did to achieve his results. Little shares the details of Lee’s fitness training in his 1998 book Bruce Lee: The Art of Expressing the Human Body. The book is an absolute gold mine of fitness history and information, and I highly recommend picking up a copy.

In today’s article, we take a look at the principles that informed Bruce Lee’s training and the components of his regimen that turned a man into a legend.

The Moment Bruce Lee Got Serious About His Physical Training

Throughout his childhood, Lee was incredibly active. He got in trouble at school, and his spiritedness drove him to mischief and street fights. If Lee had grown up in the 21st century, he probably would have been diagnosed with ADHD. His hyperactivity inspired his family to call him “never sits still.”

To channel Lee’s energy into less destructive activities, his father signed him up for kung fu instruction under the tutelage of master Ip Man. Thus, at age thirteen, Bruce began the lifelong practice that would make him a worldwide legend.

By the time Lee was in his twenties, he had developed enough physical conditioning to excel as a martial artist, but remained a skinny guy.

Then came a moment that would take his physical training to the next level.

In the early 1960s, Lee lived in Oakland, CA, and had begun teaching kung fu. Lee didn’t discriminate in who he took on as a student, and according to some accounts, some traditional Chinese kung fu masters in the area weren’t happy with him teaching the martial art to non-Chinese. So in 1964, they presented an ultimatum to Lee: take part in a kung fu battle against their best fighter; if Lee lost, he had to shut down his kung fu class.

While different versions of exactly how the fight went down exist, according to Bruce, the fight lasted three minutes and primarily involved him chasing his opponent around a building until he forced him to submit.

Despite winning, Lee was disappointed with how he performed. He was unhappy about the shape he was in and had begun to feel that the parameters of traditional martial arts were impractical for street fights. He concluded that to realize his full physical potential and become the best martial artist in the world, he’d need to move beyond kung fu and expand his repertoire of physical modalities.

This moment of discontent not only inspired Bruce Lee to get serious about his physical fitness, but birthed a martial art and overall life philosophy he called Jeet Kune Do or the Way of the Intercepting Fist.

The Sources of Bruce Lee’s Physical Training Philosophy

In moving forward from the fight, Lee sought to develop a physical training system that emphasized “practicality, flexibility, speed, and efficiency” and drew from a wide range of training methods.

While Jeet Kune Do sounds like a formal martial art style like Tae Kwon Do, Lee intended it to be “the style of no style” — a martial art that transcended formal rules and incorporated the best ideas from various disciplines.

To find these ideas, Lee became a devoted student of the art and science of physical training.

Even though Bruce had struggled in school, he had a strong commitment to continuous learning and was a voracious reader throughout his adulthood. Over his life, he amassed a huge personal library of over 2,500 titles.

He trained his mind by reading Eastern and Western philosophy (Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas; The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi), as well as American self-help (As a Man Thinketh by James Allen; How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie).

He also religiously studied everything he could get his hands on about training the body.  

Lee thought there was something to be learned from all combatives and read books about boxing by Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, and Rocky Marciano, texts on karate and aikido, and over sixty volumes on fencing.

In the 1960s, bodybuilding magazines were the primary sources of information on strength training, and Bruce Lee subscribed to them all. If he found an article that contained useful information, he’d clip it and put it in his filing system.

Lee also browsed used bookstores and bought copies of health and fitness books from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including Strength and How to Obtain It by bodybuilder and strongman Eugen Sandow and The Application of Measurement to Health and Physical Education written in 1945 by H. Harrison Clarke.

Lee continued to add fitness books to his extensive library throughout his life and never let a set lens contort his reading choices; if a book or magazine had some useful info in it, he bought it and read it.

Besides magazines and books, Lee would ask his friends and students for training advice. Two men who had a huge influence on Lee’s physical education were James Yimm Lee and Allen Joe. James Lee (no relation to Bruce Lee) was an Oakland-based martial artist and weightlifter, and Allen Joe was the first Chinese-American bodybuilding champion. Both men introduced Lee to the way of the iron and helped develop his first weightlifting program.

For a fuller list of the varied books in Bruce Lee’s personal library, check out this article.

The Elements of Bruce Lee’s Physical Training

If you’re talking about combat — as it is — well then, baby, you’d better train EVERY part of your body.

 — Bruce Lee

Lee’s study of all aspects of physical training led him to experiment with different fitness modalities, including barbell training, isometrics, plyometrics, circuit training, running, and stretching.

His practice of these diverse modalities all had a single goal: becoming a better martial artist.

While Lee only chose exercises that would help him improve as a fighter, because martial arts require the full spectrum of physical capabilities (strength, power, speed, endurance, and flexibility), Lee systematically trained all these capabilities; he didn’t specialize.

Below, we’ll look at the main components of his physical training:

Weightlifting

Thanks to his research and his own experience, Lee developed a deep appreciation for physical strength and believed it was the foundation of all other physical capacities. If you get stronger, you can move faster, with more power, for longer periods of time.

And the most effective and efficient way to get stronger is through resistance training.

In the early part of his training career, Lee used isometrics to build strength. Then he discovered the effectiveness of barbell training and began to pump iron.

While Lee’s weightlifting programming evolved throughout his life, if you look at his programming as a whole, five key elements emerge:

Compound Movements: One of the principles of Jeet Kune Do was economy of motion — using the shortest and most direct path to achieve the desired outcome and minimizing wasted movement and energy.

Thus when Lee chose an exercise for a workout, he looked for ones that could give him the most bang for his buck, like compound lifts, which work several muscle groups concurrently, promoting overall strength and power. Lee was a fan of squats, clean and presses, bench presses, and rows, feeling that these movements not only had high ROI for building strength, but also achieved the harmony between muscle groups that was essential for optimal power generation in martial arts.

Low Volume: While many sources claim that Lee used extremely high repetitions, John Little’s extensive review of Lee’s workout records showed that he typically employed a moderate rep range of 8-12 reps per set for most exercises. The exception was leg training, where he did favor higher repetitions and aimed for 12-20 reps per set.

Lee also kept the volume of his workouts low, doing only 1-2 sets per exercise. Lee was doing Mike Mentzer’s Heavy Duty program before Mike Mentzer.

Progressive Overload: Lee firmly believed in the overload principle and consistently strove to increase the demands on his body for continuous improvement. Depending on his fitness goals at the time, he’d try to achieve progressive overload by adding weight, increasing repetitions, or reducing his workout time.

Focus on Velocity: Lee prioritized speed and power because they often distinguished a great fighter from an average one. He understood that power is the ability to express strength quickly. To that end, he often incorporated velocity work into his weight training. Instead of using slow, controlled movements, Lee would make the concentric part of the lift quick and explosive.

Minimalist Approach: Another principle of Jeet Kune Do was simplicity, and this was reflected in Lee’s continual refinement of his weightlifting programs; he worked to eliminate unnecessary exercises to optimize results from minimal work. If you look at the evolution of Lee’s weightlifting workouts, they got shorter and shorter; he went from doing hour-and-a-half long workouts with a bunch of exercises to a workout with just a few movements that could be done in less than 30 minutes. By focusing on an effective selection of compound lifts, done at low volume, he got the results he wanted in short, intense workouts.

While Lee’s barbell-training workouts evolved over time, he eventually settled on a program in which he did a 20-minute session 3X a week (Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays) that often looked like this:

• Clean and press: 2 sets of 8 reps
• Squat: 2 sets of 12 reps
• Barbell pullover: 2 sets of 8 reps
• Bench press: 2 sets of 6 reps
• Good mornings: 2 sets of 8 reps
• Barbell curl: 2 sets of 8 reps

In addition to general weight training, one area of his body that Bruce Lee took time to do special exercises for was his forearms; we’ll be dedicating a whole post to his forearm-training routine down the road.

Cardio

Lee caught the jogging bug in the 1970s. He thought running was an effective and safe way to improve his stamina and endurance. He’d jog two to six miles on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and would always have a pair of sneakers with him so he could get a run in even when he was away from home.

Lee incorporated the progressive overload principle into his running by increasing his speed or distance. He was also an early practitioner of the “heavy hands” method of aerobic activity and would hold light dumbbells or wear ankle weights while running.

Lee would sometimes supplement the running he did for cardiovascular health by cycling or jumping rope on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

Stretching

You’ve likely seen pictures of Lee displaying his phenomenal flexibility with one of his high kicks. That flexibility came from his commitment to daily stretching. Upon rising and before he got out of bed, he would do his “Wake-Up Routine” — a set of six stretches and body activation exercises:

• Full-body stretch: 5 times, maintaining stretch 3 seconds, rest 2 seconds
• Arch back: 5 times
• Leg tensing: 12 times, 3 seconds tensing, 2 seconds rest
• Abdominal tensing: 10 times, 3 seconds tensing, 2 seconds rest
• Sit-up, touch toes: 5 times
• Bent-leg raises: 5 times

Later in the morning, Lee would spend 15 to 20 minutes on a full stretching routine. He even created special equipment that would allow him to progressively overload his stretches.

Here’s an example of what one of his stretching sessions would look like:

• Seated straight leg stretch
• Side stretch
• Hurdle stretch
• Seated groin stretch/butterfly stretch
• Thigh stretch/standing quad stretch
• Front pulley stretch. This stretch required a pulley and rope set-up. While standing, Lee would place one foot in a strap connected to a rope and then pull on the rope, which would raise the leg into a stretched position.)
• Side pulley stretch. Same as front pulley stretch but the leg was placed in a side kick position.)

Besides his dedicated stretching sessions, Lee would stretch throughout the day. While he was reading, he often propped his leg up on a table or desk so he could get in some stretching while he developed his mind.

Core Work

Lee believed that the abdomen was the “center or generator” of the body because it was the place in the body that coordinates all its parts and contributes to both punching and kicking power. Consequently, Lee trained his abs every day. The result was a powerful core and a tight, trim, 26-inch waist.

In addition to the famous dragon flag exercise, which Lee popularized, he did numerous other exercises for his stomach and waist. Here’s an example of one of the daily ab routines Lee did:

• Sit-ups: 4 sets of 20
• Side bend: 4 sets of 15 to 20. Lee would hold dumbbells in his hands to increase the intensity of this movement.
• Leg raises: 4 sets of 20
• Twists: 4 sets of 50. To perform this movement, Lee would hold a stick across his shoulders, bend forward at the hips and twist right, aiming the left stick end toward his right foot. After returning to the upright position, he would then twist left to bring the right stick end toward his left foot.
• Frog kicks: 4 sets of 20. Lee performed this exercise by hanging from a pull-up bar and raising his knees up to touch his chest.

Punching and Kicking 

Of course, martial arts training was part of Lee’s physical regimen. He’d alternate days where he’d work on combative leg moves with days he’d focus on arms and hands. He often aimed to do 500 punches a day and threw some of these punches while holding light weights. He’d focus on speed and endurance with his kicking and punching sessions, but would also train power by incorporating work with a heavy bag.

Below is a kicking and punching routine that Lee used in 1970:

Kicking

• Side kick: left and right
• Hook kick: left and right
• Spin kick: left and right
• Rear front thrust: left and right
• Heel kick: left and right

Punching

• Jab: speed bag, foam pad, top and bottom bag
• Cross: speed bag, foam pad, top and bottom bag
• Hook: speed bag, foam pad, top and bottom bag
• Overhand cross: speed bag, foam pad, heavy bag
• Combinations: heavy bag, top and bottom speed bag

An Example of Bruce Lee’s Training Routine

Lee trained throughout the day, nearly every day. He did several hours of daily exercise, scheduled into morning, afternoon, and evening sessions that were each focused on training a particular modality.

What he did during those sessions evolved over time, according to what he had learned in his studies, the particular movie he was next to star in, and his personal goals.

But to give you an idea of how he brought together the above elements and incorporated them into his daily routine, here is an example of one of his training schedules from 1970:

Monday

• 7 AM to 8 AM: Ab work and Flexibility
• 12 PM to 1 PM: Run
• 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM: Punching

Tuesday

• 7 AM to 8 AM: Ab work and Flexibility
• 12 PM to 1 PM: Resistance Training
• 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM: Kicking

Wednesday

• 7 AM to 8 AM: Ab work and Flexibility
• 12 PM to 1 PM: Run
• 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM: Punching

Thursday

• 7 AM to 8 AM: Ab work and Flexibility
• 12 PM to 1 PM: Resistance Training
• 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM: Kicking

Friday

• 7 AM to 8 AM: Ab work and Flexibility
• 12 PM to 1 PM: Run
• 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM: Punching

Saturday

• 7 AM to 8 AM: Ab work and Flexibility
• 12 PM to 1 PM: Resistance Training
• 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM: Kicking

Sunday

• Off

The Overarching Secret of the Jeet Kune Do Way to Physical Fitness: Self-Expression

 Absorb what is useful; reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.

—Bruce Lee

Perhaps the most important component of Bruce Lee’s approach to physical training is that he made it uniquely his own.

Each practitioner of Jeet Kune Do is encouraged to develop his own “personal style” within its framework. For Lee, both fighting specifically, and physical training generally, was not some rote habit you went through the motions with and rotely checked off your to-do list each day. Instead, movement was something you put “emotional content” and “passionate meaning” into. For Lee, physicality was existential.

To reach the heights of his potential, Lee created ever-changing training protocols that were suited to him and his personal goals. He didn’t follow cookie cutter programs. He didn’t follow exactly what the experts told him he was supposed to do.

He experimented. He acted. He felt into his training until he had discovered his personal training style — his way to “fully express the human body.”

Source:

Bruce Lee: The Art of Expressing the Human Body by John Little

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Note: This is a rebroadcast.

Kelly Starrett, a doctor of physical therapy, has trained professional athletes, Olympians, and military special operators, helping them unlock peak performance. But as he approached his fifties, he started to see cracks appearing in the health of the folks around him. What had worked for his peers in their 20s and 30s, wasn’t working anymore; they were gaining weight, having surgeries, and just didn’t feel good.

So he and his wife and fellow trainer, Juliet, decided to write a book — Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully — that took all that they’ve learned from training elite performers and distilled it into the foundational practices that everyone, at every age, can use to develop lasting mobility, durability, and all-around health. Today on the show, Kelly unpacks some of those essential physical habits, sharing the “vital signs” — tests that will help you assess how you’re doing in that area — as well as daily practices that will help you strengthen and improve that capacity.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• Kelly’s previous appearance on the AoM podcast — Episode #213: Undoing the Damage of Chronic Sitting
• AoM article on the Sitting-Rising Test
• AoM Article: 7 Simple Exercises That Undo the Damage of Sitting (including the Couch Stretch)
• AoM article on foam rolling
• AoM Article: The Benefits of Hanging for Strength and Mobility
• AoM Article: 12 Balance Exercises You Can Do on a 2×4
• AoM Podcast #638: How Changing Your Breathing Can Change Your Life
• AoM Podcast #678: Physical Benchmarks Every Man Should Meet, At Every Age
• Muscles and Meridians: The Manipulation of Shape by Phillip Beach
• Video of Kelly demonstrating the Couch Stretch
• Video of Kelly demonstrating the squat test
• Video of 90/90 sit/stretch
• Video of Chris Hinshaw demonstrating the Old Man Balance Test
• Get yourself a pull-up bar
• The SlackBlock
• Kelly’s article on fixing shoulder pain, including a video on the Shoulder Spin-Up

Connect With Kelly Starrett

• The Ready State website, including the Built to Move book page
• The Ready State on IG
• Kelly on Twitter

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Read the Transcript

Brett McKay: Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of The Art of Manliness podcast. Kelly Starrett, a Doctor of Physical Therapy, has trained professional athletes, Olympians and military special operators, helping them unlock peak performance. But as he approached his 50s, he started to see cracks appearing in the health of the folks around him. What had worked for his peers in their 20s and 30s wasn’t working anymore. They were gaining weight, having surgeries, and just didn’t feel good. So he and his wife and fellow trainer, Juliet, decided to write a book Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully. They took all they’ve learned from training elite performers and distilled it into the foundational practices that everyone at every age can use to develop lasting mobility, durability, and all around health. Today on the show, Kelly unpacks some of those essential physical habits, sharing the vital signs, test that will help you assess how you’re doing in that area, as well as daily practices that will help you strengthen and improve that capacity. After the show’s over, check out our show notes at aom.is/builttomove.

Alright, Kelly Starrett, welcome back to the show.

Kelly Starrett: It is great to be here, my friend.

Brett McKay: So you’ve spent your career helping professional athletes, members of the military achieve elite performance, and I think a lot of people, they probably know you for the book you wrote, and it’s been almost a decade ago, Supple Leopard, which is just this bible of different movements and things you can do to help you move better so you can perform better. Your new book is Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully. This book is focused less on things like setting PRs and more on just what are the building blocks of feeling good and being vital overall over your whole lifetime. And in the book you talk about 10 physical practices and then each practice has a test or some metrics that you call vital signs to see how you’re doing with that habit.

And this book really resonated with me. We were talking before the podcast, I turned 40 recently. And in my 30s, I was really… I’m power lifting. That was my thing, and I still do it, but what’s interesting is when I was 35, 36, I could just go hard all the time and recover really fast. About two years ago, injuries started popping up and it was like tendon stuff, just overuse my… Your knee hurts and then your hips are achy. And then in 40, it’s the same thing. And now my shift has been moving away from performance, right? Trying to deadlift more and more and more weight to, I just wanna be durable. I just don’t wanna hurt when I get up off of… Out of a chair. And it’s funny, I was rereading Aristotle, his book on Rhetoric, and he goes on this tangent about fitness and health and beauty and it’s really poignant.

He said this, he says, “For a man in his prime,” and he thought a man in his prime was like thirties to maybe 40. He says, “For a man in his prime, beauty is fitness for the exertion of warfare together with a pleasant, but at the same time formidable appearance.” And I can relate to that when you’re in your 20s and 30s, you just wanna look Jack, you wanna be strong, whatever. Then he says, “For an old man, beauty and fitness is to be strong enough for such exertion as necessary and to be free from pain through escaping the ravages of old age.” And that one, I resonate with Aristotle on that one. I wanna be free from pain, but just strong enough to do what I gotta do throughout the day.

Kelly Starrett: Yeah. Here… Here’s what’s really crazy about that, is that we’re starting to see a generation of young athletes who follow these principles in the book because they found that it really does enhance the short game. And what you’re seeing is, and what we’re appreciating now is that when we are working with young athletes who are making millions of dollars, they realize that if they can control their sleep and their minimum ranges of motion, some of these pieces in here, they actually can extend their career. So it means… Means a lot of money to them. And then what ends up happening is that universally, the athletes we work with actually realize they can go harder and they’re actually capable of more. And remember, this is a laboratory. So what I’m transferring that to myself now is, you mean I can get to Friday night and feel like I’m not just smoked, that in the afternoons I can get home from my job and actually be more present for my partner and my kids.

Okay, I’m in. And when my friends say, “Hey, we’re going for a pickup bike ride, or basketball game,” I feel like I’m not gonna injure myself to do that. So these 10 behaviors, we chose these 10 because they’re the hinges that open the biggest doors. And simultaneously, if you are not interested in exercise, you don’t identify with power lifting, you don’t identify with diet culture. We realize that there’s a lot you can do to begin to have a conversation with your body, so you don’t end up just sort of devastated by accident. You took a fall, your bone densities… I mean, just realizing that the long game is the short game and to what your point is, you don’t have to feel wretched. And we really haven’t empowered people so if we use an example, pain is a great example of oftentimes the sort of the fulcrum or the catalyst that initiates a lot of conversations with people about their bodies. “This pain won’t go away. It used to just go away. I just ignore it or take some ibuprofen for few days and it went away.”

And suddenly people are realizing, Hey, I’m living with this thing all the time. Is this who I am now? Like, should your hips hurt? So couple of things. One is that I want everyone to hear pain is a request for change. Unless you have a clear mechanism of injury, or you’ve got something occult going on, like a fever or an infection, something obvious. Or your pain is interrupting your ability to occupy your role in your family or do your job, those things are medical problems. They’re medical emergencies. I want you to go get help. Everything else is typical, which means what we’ve said to a generation of people is that pain is a medical problem. So until you’re ready to go talk to a doctor or a physical therapist about it, it’s not serious, or you should just live with it.

And what we set up people to do is just to go ahead and self-soothe it any way they want with bourbon, with THC, with whatever thing could make themselves feel better. And what we’re trying to do here is say, Hey look, if we’re gonna untangle complexity around pain, we need to make sure that you’re eating enough protein and micronutrients, that you’re sleeping and that you’re moving. And then we can also say, Well, hey, these tools that we’ve discovered over the last 15 years to help restore your position and make you bench more, well they can be redeployed for you and your family when someone’s achilles hurts or their knee hurts. And we realize that we have this real rich tapestry of options that I can drop into my household without having to engage with a physician, without being an expert, and I can start to make myself feel better and ultimately use that as a catalyst to transform how I’m interacting in my world.

Brett McKay: Okay, so these 10 essential habits, they’re great for, if you’re a young athlete who’s keyed in on performance, it’ll help you with that. But even if you’re not interested in that, you just wanna feel good and vital throughout the day, it’s gonna work for you too. Alright, let’s talk about some of these. You lay out 10 tests and then with each test or marker habits you can do on a daily basis to help you improve that. The first one you talk about is the sit and rise test. What is this test and why do you think it’s important?

Kelly Starrett: Oh, isn’t that great? So this is a test that has been well validated to show all cause mortality and all cause morbidity. If you struggle to sit crisscross applesauce on the floor and then stand up from that position without putting a knee down or putting a hand down, like you can’t just pop up and down like every 5-year-old, right? Ask your kids to do this, they’ll crush it because it’s not about strength. But what you’ll see is, holy moly, I’m stiff, and that stiffness, I can’t access my power, I can’t access my shapes, and that means that I have fewer movement choices. So I’m like, here, get up and down off the ground holding this baby. And you’re like, I can’t, I have to hold the baby with two hands and now I gotta put the baby down. What you start to see is that it has these follow along implications.

The number one reason people end up in nursing homes, they can’t get up and down off the ground independently. And what’s notable, I think is one of the things that we know is if we were trying to launch a business, save for retirement, train for the world championships, we set a goal and we work backwards from that goal, but we do not engage in that thinking towards our own health and behaviors. So if we know that we have this simple idea that really is a nice predictor of how you’re gonna fare as you get older and stiffer and weaker, theoretically, none of those things have to be true by the way. Then why don’t we one, put it on your radar and show you that, hey, if you got it, no problem. Good, keep doing what you’re doing. But if this was trickier than you thought or you couldn’t do it, let’s pay attention to that, because the first order of business for all of our interventions is exposure.

So the first thing that we’re saying is if you are struggling to get up and then off the ground, well what we want you to do is start spending some time on the ground while you’re watching TV every night. Isn’t that simple and reasonable? Sit cross-legged, sit 90/90, kneel. It doesn’t matter, but if we know that getting up and off the ground ends up being a nice predictor of how well and affluently you can move through the world because you have more hip range of motion, you can play better pickleball, you can deadlift better, what you’ll see is if your lifestyle is working for you, you’ll ace this test. If your lifestyle is introducing what we call a session cost, which is a concept we use when we’re looking at how gnarly the session was the day before. So you and I go and do some crazy deadlift workout, and the next day I’m crippled and you’re not. I paid a higher session cost for that, right? My force was down, things hurt, I couldn’t do it again. Well, we can start applying that session cost idea towards what’s going on with my day-to-day living, my movement fluency, the workouts I’m doing, and is that costing me in terms of this sort of third party validation test, which is show me you have some hip range of motion.

Brett McKay: Yeah. Okay. So you lay out the test, it’s really simple. So everyone can do this right now, they’re listening to us. You just sit on the floor and then get up off the floor and what you do…

Kelly Starrett: Cross-legged. Cross-legged.

Brett McKay: Yeah, cross-legged, cross-legged, right. And you start off, you give yourself a score of 10 and then you subtract a point. If you do one of the following, brace yourself with your hand to the wall, place a hand on the ground touching your knee of the floor, supporting yourself on the side of your legs, losing your balance. And if you do that, you subtract. If you have a low score, it means like, well you got room for improvement.

Kelly Starrett: That’s right. And that’s the right word.

Brett McKay: Yeah.

Kelly Starrett: You got room for more improvement. It’s not bad.

Brett McKay: No.

Kelly Starrett: You got room for improvement.

Brett McKay: I think that’s a good point you made about most people go to nursing homes because they can’t get up off the ground, right? Because like as soon as you can’t move independently, you’re gonna need 24/7 support care there. And it just usually starts going downhill from there. And you hear about… When you hear about like an older elderly person, they fall down, they break a hip, you think, oh man, this is bad. They’re probably not gonna be around much longer.

Kelly Starrett: Not to be Mac Cobb here, but one of the greatest predictors of the gnarliest things that can happen to you is to break a hip after 70. The research is a… Like you die within five… I mean, it’s so bad. And you have to understand exactly what you’re saying. I suddenly lost my mobility. I can’t feed myself, I can’t move, I’m bedridden, I lose my muscle mass, I lose my conditioning, I lose my bone density, I lose my… And then my brain starts to go and my social connections start to go. One of the things that we’re, I think obsessed with in this culture is like all the hard science, like deadlift more or wattage, poundage but all of the ancillary things that happen by being in a community start to go away if your world gets smaller.

One of the things that’s nice about a lot of these behaviors in the book, like eating as a family, is that we are trying to strengthen our social bonds. What we found in COVID was that holy moly, the brain is a social organ. It needs other brains to actually work and be a brain. And what we know is that we need stronger families, stronger households that are more connected to each other and more connected to their neighbors and their community at writ large. And some of those easy ways are to eat together and to go walk around and nod your head at your jerk neighbor. I mean it really, it’s transformative. So what you’re seeing is when we start making inadvertent choices from lack of choice because we don’t realize we’re doing certain things, it starts to take away a lot of our movement choice, which ultimately has implications in the kinds of society we find ourselves in our 50s, 60s and 70s, 80s, a 100, you’re gonna be a 100-years-old. 54% of kids who are in the fifth grade right now are gonna be 105.

Brett McKay: And so there’s… As you said, to improve on this test, the thing you gotta do is just sit on the floor more and there’s no…

Kelly Starrett: That would be a great start. Right. That’s a…

Brett McKay: Yeah, and there’s no specific way you have to sit, you can do crisscross applesauce. I like… My favorite one is the 90/90 sitting, where you kind of put your hips to the side, that feels really good.

Kelly Starrett: Yeah. You are working on an internal rotation there. And there’s a great writer osteopath, I think, and his name is Phillip Beach and he wrote a book called Muscles and Meridians and it really is like functional embryology… I just wanted to throw it out there because I’m a physio and I had to have a bunch of embryology and if I’d had this book, I’d been stoked on it, I would’ve understood it more effectively. But he believes that one of the ways the body tunes itself is that we spend time on the floor. It actually opens up our pelvic floors. It restores motion in your low back, it loads tissues, it loads your hamstrings, it keeps your hip range of motion good so you have more movement choice. It’s one of the ways that our bodies have engaged with the environment for two and a half million years.

Look, I’m not pint… Like I live in a cool mid-century modern house, I love it. But we have to appreciate that just a few hundred years ago, we did a lot more sitting on the ground, toileting on the ground, eating on the ground, building fires, and hanging on the ground. So it’s almost like we know intuitively that, okay, if… This is one of the things that actually helps the body work better. Well it’s pretty easy for you to watch TV at night and sit on the ground for 30 minutes. Just sit on the ground for a little bit and you’ll see that… You’re like, oh, there’s my roller or maybe I’ll roll my calves out. But exposing yourself to these bigger ranges of motion and fidgeting around, you’ll see aggregates. And we start to stack these behaviors, these behaviors start to compound. And if you get 30 minutes of sitting on the ground seven days a week, you’re starting to spend a lot of time in these fundamental positions that do things like improve your squat, improve your ability to run up the hill, right? Make your back feel better, make your knees feel better, etcetera, etcetera.

Brett McKay: Alright, let’s talk about the next vital sign, which is breathing. When you have an assessment, the breathe pull test, what’s going on there?

Kelly Starrett: The body oxygen level test. So I think breathing’s had its moment, right? Wim Hof gets everyone going. Laird Hamilton, we have Patrick McKeown of Oxygen Advantage. There’s so many great systems and it’s not like the yogis have been talking about this forever, but what we discovered was, there was a lot of low hanging fruit in terms of improving people’s VO2 max and mechanical ventilation. So this is why this matters. If you come to me as a physical therapist, you’re like, “Kelly, I have back pain.” There’s three things we’re gonna talk about day one, no matter what. We’re gonna talk about your sleep, because if you’re not sleeping that eight hours, it’s really difficult for me to figure out is it your brain or is it your body? What’s happening here? Number two, I’m gonna make you walk a lot, because I need you to de-congest your system, your lymphatic system, which is the sewage of your body, is built into your musculature. And if you move your musculature, you move your sewers. If you don’t move your musculature, the drains block up. And if you’ve ever seen a gross sink, that’s your body. If you don’t move, that backed up sink, you have to flush that stuff and that’s all done through movement.

So moving and then we’re gonna talk about breathing. And what we’re gonna see is if the first motion of the trunk, everyone is obsessed with it’s okay to round your back when you deadlift. Of course your spine’s supposed to flex and rotate and twist, but the first movement of the spine is breathing. And what we find is that, it’s a nice indicator of sort of vitality in terms of you can find positions that allow you to ventilate more so it improves your VO2 max, but breathing more effectively does things like opens up your upper back so and you put your arms over your head, makes your low back feel better, allows you to create more intraabdominal pressure when you lift.

And as we found out in the last 10 years of really monkeying with breathing, that when we got people more CO2 tolerant, which is what the body oxygen level test does, it allows people to access more hemoglobin. So one of the things we found, believe it or not, is that people who had COVID and smoked, that was a bad deal to have those things, but they were more comfortable with lower body oxygen levels in their body. And the reason was is that they were smoking so much that their CO2 levels were really high and had set their brains at being very comfortable with these lower oxygen levels. Obviously that’s a problem if you can’t breathe. But from a performance standpoint, what we found is people whose brains were more comfortable running higher CO2 levels, those people are actually able to strip off more oxygen off the hemoglobin. So the body oxygen level test is just a simple way of you being aware of how good you are at utilizing what’s available to you.

Brett McKay: And so you just hold your breath for as long as you can. You want… I guess you aim for 30 to 40 seconds.

Kelly Starrett: You exhale.

Brett McKay: Okay, yeah, you exhale then hold your…

Kelly Starrett: Just take a breath, exhale and then see how long you can go, because it turns out you got plenty oxygen on board to hold your breath for two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, five minutes. What you don’t have is a brain that is gonna tolerate the skyrocketing CO2 levels. So your drive to breathe is actually the rising CO2 level. And what we find is now… Because we’ve been doing this long enough with our athletes, is that now we’re seeing athletes be able to breathe nose only, push 90% of their max heart rate, they’re much more efficient, they don’t have to burn the sugar. But also what we find is, man, if we’re gonna talk about your neck pain and your jaw pain, we need to talk about your breathing. And getting you to breathe through your nose, getting you to not breathe only up in your neck like you’re being chased by cocaine bear, those things really end up making a difference in terms of how your brain perceives you in your environment and the effectiveness of not yanking on your neck every single time you take a breath. Imagine this, you’re on the Peloton bike and you’re rounded and you wanna go faster. If I say get into a position where you can take a bigger breath, you’ll automatically organize your body in a way where you have better access to your ventilation and better access to your diaphragm. And those shapes can be applied to work, to holding my kid, to rocking, to whatever I wanna do.

Brett McKay: And yeah, the practice that you recommend, you just said it there, just start breathing through your nose only throughout the day.

Kelly Starrett: That’s one of the practices. Super simple. Tape your mouth shut at night. That’s become very common. But we also have some breathing drills you can do. And here’s one of the things that I want people to understand, is that I think we’ve become habituated to thinking about all of our health behaviors have to occur in these one-hour blocks. That’s weird. No one has time to go to a one-hour balance class or one-hour breathing class, or one-hour mobility class. If you do anything, I want you to go to the gym. I want you to go to your garage and lift heavy weights. That’s what I want you to do. But I want you to bury and hide the reps, everything else. So we do a lot of this breathing stuff on our warm-ups, on our daily walks, during… While we’re spinning up on the bike. It’s so easy to integrate these things into your life.

Brett McKay: So the next vital sign is about your hips, and this one really spoke to me because my hips have been really achy lately. And so the assessment you have for this is the couch stretch. So tell us about this test and what is the couch stretch.

Kelly Starrett: If you had to pin me down and say, “Kelly, what is the one thing I should do from a one-on-one mobilization?” I am obsessed with you being able to take your hip into extension. So if you imagine a lunge position, lunge shape, that’s hip extension. So standing up from a squat is extending your hip, but actually taking your hip into extension is the magic. And what we find is that the way we train the session cost of our day-to-day lives, we see that people are pretty ineffective at having good full hip extension and having control in that hip extension. So what we’re seeing here’s though, there’s a lot of knee pain and a lot of back pain that’s a symptom of not being able to extend your spine or extend your hip. So your knee behind butt is really the magic. It’s not knees over toes, it’s can you get this knee behind your butt. And the couch stretch, if you’ve never done it before, you should Google couch stretch, we invented it so that we could get people doing it while they’re watching TV. And basically you start on the ground, this is the full couch, you put your knees up against the wall, your back is away from the wall, and you put your shin in the corner where the wall meets the floor. So your foot is pointing towards the ceiling and you’re kneeling away from the wall, and then you bring your other foot up into a lunge, so it looks like sort of exaggerated run shape, except your leg is bent up.

Then all I want you to do is squeeze your butt, take five breaths, can you raise yourself higher, yourself more torso upright, take five breaths and squeeze your butt, and then ultimately can you go straight up and down? And what we find is people really struggle because their quads are so stiff, hip is stuff, their butts turn off. That’s one of the reasons now why you’re running and wobbling your back and your hamstrings are stiff all the time because they’re doing all the work that your glutes should be doing. So if we can get people to improve this, it’s amazing how many things start to feel better.

Brett McKay: And then the daily practice for that test, you just do the test, like you just do the couch stretch every day?

Kelly Starrett: You could. We also throw in some isometrics, show you where you can spend some time the end of your day or during the day. Just put your hip into extension a little bit while you’re washing dishes, while you’re hanging out, squeeze your butt, just do some isometrics, hold that for 30 seconds. We also realize that this is a great place to do some soft tissue mobilization, so you can get on the ground while you’re watching TV, roll out your quads, roll out your hips, and you’ll see that those systems start to improve.

Brett McKay: We’re gonna take quick break for a word from our sponsors.

And now back to the show. Let’s talk about shoulders, another problem that a lot of guys experience as they get older. Shoulder is a weird thing. It’s incredible. It’s got this amazing range of motion, but it can get jacked up really bad. What are the most common shoulder problems you see in the regular Joe athletes you come across?

Kelly Starrett: Well, what’s interesting is, think about it this way, you have the brain, which is the most complex structure in the known universe, seriously, it is, attached to a structure that is equally as sophisticated. So this brain body thing we’ll walk around in is the most extraordinary structure in the known universe. And your shoulder, let’s just start by saying, is designed to last 100 years easily. So when you suddenly throw an error signal and your shoulder hurts, we want you to understand that, A, that’s not typical. It’s a request for change. Well, what change are we talking about? Well, no one on the planet connects range of motion to pain. And there could be a lot of things. Nothing could change. You could have incomplete range of motion, shoulders don’t hurt. All of a sudden you have a baby, you’re sleep-deprived, you have a deadline at work, you smash a bunch of pizza, you drink some beer, [chuckle] it doesn’t matter, whatever the stressors are, and your shoulder starts hurting, and you’re like, “What happened?” Nothing happened except your brain became much more sensitive to your lack of tissue quality or your inability to express normal range of motion.

So what we have here is a really important system. I think most people can recognize or wrap their heads around that. If we were gonna talk about your lower back health, we really should be talking about what’s going on with your pelvis and your leg too. It’s weird how you have big muscles that attach from your spine to your leg and no one looks at how well your leg moves. So if your leg doesn’t move well on your body, it can be yanking, it could be tensioning, it could just be putting mechanical input into your lower spine. So that’s why we look at the spine, the pelvis in the leg as a system. Well, there’s the same system upstream, it’s your neck, it’s your thoracic spine, your chest and your shoulder. They make a trifecta of positions. So if I wanna improve your neck pain, I gotta look at your shoulder range of motion. If I wanna look at your shoulder range motion, I also need to look at how well your thoracic spine works. Remember I told you already, we’re moving in that direction ’cause we’re getting you to take big breaths and you breathe in your upper back? Well, what we’re doing here is we’ve got some simple tests for you around some key range of motion positions and some isometrics that are easy to get you started on untangling what feels like a complicated system. It’s not that complicated.

Brett McKay: Yeah, you got two tests. My favorite was the one where you lay on the floor on your back and then you see how far you can get your arm back, basically.

Kelly Starrett: Yeah, basically it’s an I, Y and T, but really in that situation, or if you’re just… Elbows are out to your side at 90 degrees and you flex the back of your hand to the ground, we’re looking at how much force you can create there. And what you see is if you’re struggling to get to that position, you’re weak in that position. Well, welcome to your rotator cuff. And a lot of times, your rotator cuff, or rotator cup, depending on which patient is telling you about their shoulder pain, the rotator cuff is this sort of non-specific idea that I have muscles that help rotate my shoulders. Well, we look at a lot of rotation capacity with our athletes, and what we see is that when you lack fundamental range of motion in your body, specifically in your shoulders, can’t put my arms over my head, can’t achieve some of these fundamental shapes, your force production starts to go down, which means that when you approach some of these positions at high speed, like playing golf, that can be a problem because you see a lot of inhibited musculature, a lot of force production, like it’s taken away and now you’re just hanging on your tissues.

Brett McKay: Any daily practices that people can do to help their shoulder health?

Kelly Starrett: Oh yeah.

Brett McKay: There’s a lot, but I mean, what’s one or two that you’d recommend, like, “Do these and you’ll be good?”

Kelly Starrett: Yeah, it’s interesting, if we look at our movement traditions, everyone listening has probably gone to a yoga class once. And when you’re in there, you’re like, “Holy crap, these people love Downward Dog. Why is Downward Dog so important?” And you do so much Downward Dog. Downward Dog, Downward Dog. Well, Downward Dog is an overhead position. So if there’s one thing you could do is at least once a day, put your arms over your head. Hanging from a door jamb, put your arms over your head, take some breaths. If you have a pull-up bar, which you should have in your house, hang from your pull-up bar. I cannot tell you how hanging will fundamentally change your life. Hang with different grips. You don’t even have to hang with your feet all the way off the ground, put a pull-up bar in your kids’ doorway, but it’s secretly for you. We have a pegboard in our garage, we’ve got pull-up bars outside, inside the house, in our garage, and just hanging will transform your shoulder function, and transform your upper back. If you’re getting that hump in your upper back and neck, hanging is the solution.

What I would direct you to is some kind of shoulder motion every day. And if you did something like Sun Salutation, cool. That would cover it. But also, if you’re really interested in taking the next step, on our site, we have something… And even if you Google “Kelly Starrett shoulder spin-up,” you will come up, and it’s a quick five-minute routine that touches a whole lot of spine shoulder positions. You don’t need any equipment. I use it for all my elite athletes, I teach it to all our teams, and it’s just like daily vitamins for your shoulder, even if you’re not gonna load your shoulder, even if it’s a lower leg day.

Brett McKay: Right. So you’re big of the squat, and that’s one of your tests. Why is being able to get down into a full squat important for human durability?

Kelly Starrett: Isn’t that interesting? We look at squatting as exercise, not squatting as movement choice. Lower yourself down off a cliff or a ledge, you’re gonna have to squat all the way down. One of the things that happens is obviously getting up and down off the ground is useful there, but it’s one of the ways where we can start to expose the tissues of the body to their full range. So taking the knee and flexing it all the way, taking the ankle and flexing it all the way. Letting your back round in that bottom position is really important to normalize the motion of the back. In yoga, for example, they call it Malasana, and they’re like, “It’s a pelvic floor mobilization.” Well, it turns out your pelvis and your femurs are connected directly to the connective tissue of your pelvis. This is why when you get kicked in the nuts, you feel a stomach ache. So what we’re seeing here is that when we restore how people’s hips move, it changes the connective tissue muscular systems and restores it to, again, native range. But also what we start to see is, man, you’re gonna have better choice, you’re gonna be able to move more effectively, and you’ll see things like your wattage improve on the bike.

Brett McKay: And the test is simple as get down to a full squat, you want ass-to-grass.

Kelly Starrett: That’s right.

Brett McKay: That’s it.

Kelly Starrett: I want ass-to-grass. Ideally, you can do that with your feet straight, but you can even turn your feet out to do that ’cause you may not have the ankle range. But if you fall over and can’t get into a full squat, man, that says a lot about you not having full access to the miracles of your body. Again, we’re not arguing about squat technique, I’m talking about getting up and down off the ground or taking a poo or having waiting for a bus. So this is very much one of those use it or lose it shapes. But the research is clear that people that toilet on ground, sleep on the ground, they engage in a lot more squatting-like behaviors, and lo and behold, we see less osteoarthritis, we see less hip disease, we see less lumbar disease. It’s almost like if we just use our bodies and just touch the ranges once a while, tell our brains it’s safe to be here, we see things like skiing or snowboarding improve.

Brett McKay: In the practice of that, just squat more. Like that’s something you can do throughout the day. I do that. After I read that chapter, I was like, “I’m gonna start squatting more.” I’ve been squatting…

Kelly Starrett: It’s easy.

Brett McKay: During this interview. Like when you were talking, I was squatting.

Kelly Starrett: Oh I love it.

Brett McKay: Yeah.

Kelly Starrett: That’s what I think is remarkable. There’s a lot of opportunities for you to move in a more complete way, and this is what every physical therapist, surgeon, orthopedist on the planet says your hip should be able to do. And if you take all of the range of motion books and you’re like, “What should the ankle be able to do? It should flex this much. How much should the knee flex? How much should the hip flex? What should happen to the lumbar spine?” And then you put them in a blender and shake it up, all those things together end up being a squat.

Brett McKay: Yeah, my goal is to be like one of those 80-year-old ladies in Southeast Asia that are just still squatting, I wanna be doing that.

Kelly Starrett: What’s so cool about that is, actually, it’s a really reasonable goal. So anyone who’s starting this… For some people, it’s gonna be a brutal awakening. You’re like, “Oh, I thought I was super fit. I’m doing Peloton and I do my quarter squats and I look good naked, but I can’t move very well.” And we’ve certainly seen a hinge move towards movement culture. And one of the things that I want everyone to hear is that muscles and tissues are like obedient dogs, and there’s no reason… Yes, it’s gonna be harder to maintain your muscle mass as you get older, but there’s no reason you have to lose your range of motion ever at any age. So one of the things you can absolutely do your whole life is actually have access to your range of motion, ’cause you can imagine if your elbows got stiff, all of a sudden you’re like, “Well, that’s not a big deal. I just can’t feed myself anymore.” You know what I mean? That’s crazy. If your life depended on getting up and down, then you would be really good at getting up and down. I was just in Japan with some friends and we were staying at this cool mountain hotel as we were doing some backcountry skiing, and one of our friends got sick and I was like, “Hey, I really should not spend a few days in this room with this sick guy. Do you guys have any other rooms?” And they were like, “We don’t.”

And then we were like, “This hotel is huge. What do you mean you don’t have any rooms?” They didn’t have any White person rooms, Western rooms. What they had was traditional Japanese rooms. But the Americans who’ve been there before haven’t been able to use those rooms because you sleep on the ground on a futon because the table is set for you to kneel and sit cross-legged, because the shower is built for you to squat and sit in. The whole thing was organized around a person being able to move through the environment. Even the controls for the room were set up at sitting height. So I was like, “Oh, no problem, I got it,” and they were like, “Really? You can do it? Look at you, you’re a huge guy,” and I was like, “It’s no problem. Trust me, I can squat.”

Brett McKay: Okay, so squatting is one. The next test to talk about is the old man balance test. What is this one?

Kelly Starrett: We have this friend named Chris Hinshaw, who is an incredible coach, and he tried to come up with a test where he could beat his kids at, and this challenge is all about balance. And one of the things that we know is that fall risk in the elderly is gnarly, but when we started working on foot strength and foot capacity and balance in our athletes, worked it into games, made ’em spend more time on one leg pressing, single-leg deadlifts, things like that, man, their athleticism went through the roof. And so what we realized is that we needed some better ways to challenge people’s range of motion and their balancing control just day-to-day, little micro-balances, because think about it, someone falls in your family like, Go to this balance class because your balance got so bad and I have to go get formal training? That’s crazy. Look, here’s a simple test for everyone, it’s called the SOLEC. Ready for it? Standing one leg, eyes closed. Stand on one leg, don’t put your foot down for 20 seconds. I bet you’re gonna be shocked at what happens when I take away your eyes. And what turns out is that if your feet are stiff, if your feet are always in foot coffins, shoes, if your feet aren’t strong, you’re really gonna struggle. If you don’t have good anchor range of motion, it’s gonna be difficult for you.

And what we’re trying to do is just bring this awareness of balance and play should be happening in sports. So if you’re riding mountain bikes and playing soccer and pickleball and you’re moving your body, chances are this will not be a problem for you. But for a lot of people who are not doing those things, you’re gonna be shocked at how bad your balance is, and it’s only gonna get worse unless we play with it. So the old man balance test is really simple. Every time you put your shoes and socks on, do it one leg at a time. So stand on your left leg, put your right sock on, don’t put your foot down, put your shoe on, tie it, don’t put your foot down. You’re gonna have to reach down and grab it, you’re gonna have to balance. And so every single time you put your shoes and socks on, you can practice a little bit of one or two minutes of balance, and I guarantee you it’s gonna kick your butt.

Brett McKay: Yeah, and then you talk about it, your house, you have different just balance things you can do. Maybe you put like… You just could put like a 2 x 4 in your house and just walk accross.

Kelly Starrett: Oh, nailed it. How about this? You can put a broomstick down and just balance on the broomstick. But I’m a huge fan of having a dynamic work environment. Well, I want choice. I wanna be able to perch against a bar stool, I wanna stand, I wanna… But on the ground, I have a bunch of balance stuff, so I just do this while I’m at work. If I’m on calls, I’m standing on a thing called a SlackBlock, which is like a portable slack line in your house. It’s tiny. It doesn’t take you many space. And I’m standing on one leg, balancing on the SlackBlock while I’m talking on the phone. And so I get so many hours every week of working on my balance. Does it improve my biking? Yes. Does it improve my skiing? Yes. Does it improve my lifting? Yes.

Brett McKay: Another practice you talk about is just standing more, walking more, moving more throughout the day. If you have a desk job, it doesn’t have to be that you’re in a chair eight hours. There’s different ways you can work, right?

Kelly Starrett: Yes. And if you… Look, I don’t talk about this much, but I had the great pleasure of working with a former US President. I’ve worked with and supported a couple of presidents, and this one president was a pretty prolific book writer, but could not write at a standing desk. So what we had to do was create an environment for this former president to get more movement at the desk because he felt like his best writing happened when he was still. And so that meant we needed to make sure that we were introducing a place to put his foot and a chair that wiggled more, and what I want you to realize is that we didn’t come up with this arbitrarily. Harvard defines sedentary lifestyle as sitting more than six hours a day. That’s an aggregate, that’s all your sitting. That means driving in the car, picking up your kid, it’s all of that. So what we’re trying to do is not battle our physiology, but it turns out…

So right now, I’m talking to you at a standing desk, but I’m actually perching on a bar stool. So I’ve got my foot on the ground, I’ve got one foot up, and in this position, because I’m perching and I’m not sitting, I’m actually above this thing called one-and-a-half metabolic equivalence, which is how much energy my body is using to just function in the background, but the sedentariness is that falling below that one-and-a-half. So sitting in most chairs, you fall below one-and-a-half, and that’s what we’re trying to not do. I need you to accumulate enough non-exercise activity that you actually fall asleep.

One of the things that we found was that a lot of people who are working out weren’t actually moving, still didn’t actually get enough sleep or find that they had enough sleep pressure. What we found was that working with Delta Force, of all the technology that they had access to, they had their guys walk 12,000 to 15,000 steps a day in addition to their training, and it knocked down all their insomnia problems. It really started to make everything better. So if you wanna adapt better to your training, you wanna fall asleep faster, you wanna feel better, you need to look at how much your total movement is, and conversely, how to limit your total sedentary time.

Brett McKay: And this does a lot of things, it’s gonna clear out your system, you talked about that earlier, motions lotion, so you’re gonna move and not feel achy. And then, yeah, I think the sleep component is really important, I’ve noticed that as well, when I move more, I have the best sleep. The best sleep of my life was when Kate and I went to Italy for, I don’t know, she was doing some of school thing. Went to Italy, you walk around Rome all day.

Kelly Starrett: You walk 20,000, 30,000 steps a day.

Brett McKay: Yeah, probably. Yeah, it was insane the amount we walked. And I remember, we got to the hotel, just laid down, we were like, “Oh, we’re just taking a nap,” and we were… It was like 15 hours later…

Kelly Starrett: Kids come back from summer camp and they’re just exhausted and sunburned, that’s the game, but for adults. And you just really nailed it. And what I want people to understand is we can come at this any way you want, but one of the ways that’s important to me is that it’s a hidden calorie burner in my day. So I love dessert, I love ice cream, I love cookies. I’m never gonna turn those things down, ever. If they’re combined, it’s even better, but when we wrote ‘Deskbound,’ my wife found a little conversion, a little calculator, and if she just stood and didn’t sit at her desk during her work day, in the course of a year it was 100,000 calories. I outweigh her by almost 100 pounds, that’s 170,000 extra calories I’d burn every year, that’s like 35 marathons, and all I have to do is just not sit while I’m working. I’m talking about perching, fidget, messing around, walk a little bit. And notice that we didn’t say, “You have to get 10,000 steps,” we saw that all of the benefits really start to kick in at 6,000 to 8,000 steps, which is really reasonable if you just start throwing in short walks after your meals, you take a call, you go for a little stroll in your neighborhood. It’s easy to get 6,000 to 8,000 steps. But the average adult gets less than 3,000, so it’s difficult for me to be sensitive to your foot pain and your Achilles and your junky tissues, if you’re not moving more during the day, which means you just have to be more conscious of it.

Brett McKay: And this is important, this daily movement is important, particularly for those who are… I just said exercising regularly, ’cause they’re thinking, I’m good, I got my hour of cardio in and I got my hour of weight training in, but you’re…

Kelly Starrett: Yeah, smashed it.

Brett McKay: You’re probably still sedentary.

Kelly Starrett: That’s right.

Brett McKay: Yeah.

Kelly Starrett: And if you’ve ever flown on an airplane and look down and you’re like, “Why do my ankles… I have cankles, what’s up my ankles are swollen.” That’s what we’re talking about. Your lymphatic system is backing up because you didn’t move your muscles, you ended up collecting fluid in your ankles, that is edema. But really what’s happening there is that it’s a failure of… It’s why… If you ever go in the hospital, they’re like, pump your legs, do calf pumps. Here are these things, we don’t want you to get a DVT. That deep vein thrombosis happens because people are sedentary in the hospital and they’re so freaked out about it, they hire a physical therapist to come in to tell you to wiggle your feet.

Brett McKay: Okay. So we talked about movement, can you get your steps in, don’t sit down all day, you don’t have to stand up all day, but just move around. You mentioned sleep, if you’re having problems sleeping, moving a lot will help you sleep. Nutrition, what role does nutrition… You’re a physical therapist, and one of the first things you ask is, what are you eating? What role does nutrition play in recovery and just our ability to move well?

Kelly Starrett: Nutrition for better or for worse, become identity politics for so many people, and it’s an identity, and it’s a hobby, and it’s a sport. And it’s a full contact sport. If you get on the Internet and talk about your diet. Universally, what we can start to say is everyone on the planet has protein minimums, you should get this amount of protein, and a really reasonable amount for everyone is 0.7 grams per pound of body weight, which turns out, if you’re sedentary, that’s probably enough. But if you’re over 50 or you’re exercising or trying to change your body composition, it probably is a little bit closer to 1 gram per pound body weight. So you’re keto. Cool. You’re carnivore, cool. You’re paleo, cool. You’re Whole30 cool. You’re vegan or vegetarian, cool, just show me you get this much protein.

And what we find is if you’re trying to change your body composition or you’re trying to recover, but you don’t have the building blocks on hand to do that, you’re not gonna see the gains you want, either way for body composition or otherwise. But the other part of that is that based on some really good data, we find that people don’t get enough micro-nutrients. There is not a single study in the world that says improving your fiber intake doesn’t improve your health. The easiest way to do that is actually eat fruits and vegetables, and so what we found is based on one of our friends, EC Synkowski, her company is OptimizeMe nutrition. She has something called the 800-gram challenge, and every single day, she challenges people to eat 800 grams of fruits and vegetables, and you’re like, “I don’t like vegetables,” cool, you eat fruits.

I don’t eat apples. Cool, you do eat berries and rutabaga. I don’t really care. But it turns out when we get more micronutrients in, all the polyphenols, all the vitamins, all the minerals, you can do that with four big apples a day. But when we get into people’s diets, and we’re trying to talk about soft tissue health and connective tissue health, and brain, health whatever it is, glow, gut health turns out fiber and micronutrients and protein make the basis. For people who are trying to lose weight, when we ask them to eat more and expand their choices, it’s the first time in their life, they’re like, “Holy shit, I had to eat so much to meet these minimums?” We’re like, “Yeah, welcome to it.” A pound of cherries is 230 calories. Go ahead and OD. Let me know what happens. What you’re gonna see is there’s so much food available to… We don’t wanna be restrictive anymore, we want people to hit this baseline.

Brett McKay: If you ate a pound of cherries I think you’d be on the toilet.

Kelly Starrett: It’s an illustrative point. Eat a pound of melon. Eat four apples, you know, what I mean. It really is… And you’re suddenly, I’m like, yeah, you know, the other day, I went to Trader Joe’s got myself up a flat of blackberries, they were just gorgeous, and I ate the entire thing, it was like 400 grams, 350-400 grams, almost half of my micronutrients for the day, and it was 230 calories.

Brett McKay: Yeah. It’s not like…

Kelly Starrett: I love cookies. One cookie from Starbucks is like 350 calories. So what we get is all of this benefit where I’m full, I’m getting all these nutrients. Somehow we demonize fruit. That was ridiculous, where like fruit is sugar. What a bunch of horse crap that is. It’s not the bananas and apples that are the problem. If you eat more micronutrients and fruits and vegetables, you’re gonna protein, your body will start to turn the lights back on.

Brett McKay: So this is great, and then at the end of the book, you have a schedule for people to follow if they’re trying to figure out how can I incorporate all this stuff in my day-to-day. And as you said, you don’t have to make time. Like, I’m gonna do an hour of my built to move routine, no it’s like…

Kelly Starrett: Yeah, no.

Brett McKay: Just you wake up, I’m gonna do this thing, I’m gonna get my steps in, whenever I’m taking a break or on the phone, I’m gonna walk around. I’m gonna get down in the squat, you can just do this stuff as… Like health shouldn’t be a block on your schedule, it should just be a part of your day.

Kelly Starrett: Yeah, what we’ve found is when we handed this thing to our world champion athletes, they were always viewing it through the lens of I wanna go faster, I don’t wanna do it more often, and they found blind spots that enable them to work harder. And when we applied it and gave this to non-exercisers, like we have some publishers who work with us in the UK who are not exercisers and who love pork pies. They were like, “Just reading this, changed my framework and how I perceived the world around me, and it changed me in making different subtle choices,” that all compound over time to really make radical changes where you can feel better and again, work harder and show up and feel fresher. That’s really the game.

Brett McKay: Well, Kelly, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

Kelly Starrett: Go to builttomove.com. We’ve got… Actually, when the book comes out, we’ve got a 21-day Built To Move challenge, it’s free. And it’s basically a video a day just kind of supporting some of these ideas, just to bring you through, you could aim your friends at it. We are @thereadystate on all our socials, and if you are interested in more about how to assess your body more completely, we’ve got the app and everything else.

Brett McKay: Fantastic. Well, Kelly Starrett, thanks for your time. It’s been a pleasure.

Kelly Starrett: Always a pleasure. Keep putting out the good word, my friend.

Brett McKay: Thank you, sir. My guest today was Kelly Starrett. He’s the co-author of the book, Built To Move. It’s available on amazon.com and book stores everywhere. You can find more information about his work at his website at thereadystate.com. Also check at our show notes at aom.is/builttomove, where you can find links to resources, where we delve deeper into this topic.

Well, that wraps up another edition of The AOM Podcast, make sure to check on our website at artofmanliness.com, where you can find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles written over the years about pretty much anything you can think of. And if you’d like to enjoy ad-free episodes of The AOM Podcast, you can do so on Stitcher Premium. Head over to stitcherpremium.com, sign up, use code manliness at check out for a free month trial. Once you’re signed up, download the Stitcher app on Android or iOS and you can start enjoying ad-free episodes of the AOM podcast. And if you haven’t done so already, I’d appreciate if you take one minute to give us a review on Apple Podcast on Spotify, helps out a lot. And if you’ve done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member you think would get something out of it. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time, it’s Brett McKay reminding you to not only listen to the AOM podcast, but put what you’ve heard into action.

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I’ve done the traditional barbell squat my whole life. It’s a great exercise for overall lower-body strength. I’ve also experimented with other squat variations: the front squat, the goblet squat, the belt squat.

This year I’ve been doing a squat that’s become my favorite ever: the Hatfield squat.

I love this exercise. I originally switched to it because long-standing problems with cranky shoulders and knee pain were making the traditional barbell squat uncomfortable. The Hatfield squat has made squatting fun and productive again after years of frustration trying to make the barbell squat work for me. What’s also great about the Hatfield Squat is that it’s an excellent movement for quad hypertrophy, which lines up nicely with my new fitness goal of getting more ripped. It’s been a game-changer in my training.

If you’ve had trouble with barbell squatting or are looking for a different squat variation to mix into your programming, here’s everything you need to know about the Hatfield squat.

What Is the Hatfield Squat and What Are Its Benefits?

The Hatfield squat, named after powerlifting legend Dr. Fred Hatfield, aka Dr. Squat, is a back squat variation that requires a safety squat bar, which is a type of barbell that looks sort of like an ox yoke.

When you do the Hatfield squat, you place the safety squat bar on your back. Then, instead of holding on to the safety squat bar with your hands, you rest your hands on an additional barbell or a set of handles that have been placed at navel level on the barbell rack. As you descend into the squat, you keep your hands on the support in front of you, using it to maintain your balance and an upright torso.

This increases the stability of the exercise, allowing the Hatfield squat to offer some unique benefits:

Great for quad hypertrophy. If you’re looking to grow legs as big as tree trunks, the Hatfield squat can be a helpful tool. Its increased stability allows you to overload your quads more than a traditional squat. Instead of focusing on keeping your balance during the squat, you can just focus on the movement, which means you can be a bit more aggressive in adding reps or weight.

Great for squatting around injuries. The most significant benefit that the Hatfield squat has given me is that it has allowed me to squat heavy again despite the niggling physical issues I’ve had on and off for years.

Because I have shoulder tendonitis due to bench pressing and struggle with shoulder flexibility (despite the amount of time I’ve worked on developing this capacity), the bar position on the traditional low-bar squat just exacerbated my shoulder pain. Because you use a safety bar with the Hatfield squat, you don’t have to use your hands to hold the bar on your back. It completely removes the stress on your shoulders.

The Hatfield squat has also allowed me to work around some pain I’ve had behind my knee since 2020. The pain only happens during the descent part of a traditional barbell squat. I still don’t know what the source of the pain is despite talking to an orthopedic surgeon and getting an MRI done. I reckon it’s some sort of overuse injury on a tendon back there. But at any rate, the increased stability of the Hatfield squat allows me to squat heavy and below parallel without any pain behind my knee.

People with lower back issues have also found the Hatfield squat helpful for squatting without exacerbating their injury.

Due to the Hatfield squat’s pain reduction ability, I’ve also been calling them “Midlife Man Squats.”

It is a great accessory lift for the barbell squat. You don’t have to replace the traditional barbell squat completely with the Hatfield squat. Instead, you can use the Hatfield squat as an accessory lift in your barbell programming. On deadlift day, you could do the Hatfield squat for 3 sets of 8-12 reps for hypertrophy and increased work capacity.

Or you could use the Hatfield squat for overload training to build strength and confidence in hoisting heavier weights, doing 3 sets of 3 reps with weight that is heavier than you typically lift on the traditional barbell squat.

Here’s a hypothetical barbell program that would incorporate the Hatfield squat:

Lower Body Day A

• Squat 3 x 5 (squat is the main lower body lift)
• Rack pulls 3 x 5 (rack pulls are the accessory lift for the deadlift)
• Good mornings 3 x 10

Lower Body Day B

• Deadlift 1 x 5 (deadlift is the main lower body lift)
• Hatfield squat 3 x 8-12 (Hatfield squat is the accessory lift for the squat)
• Lunges 3 x 12

How to Perform the Hatfield Squat

The Hatfield squat is pretty dang easy to perform. You just need to get the right set-up.

Equipment Needed:

• Safety squat bar (SSB)
• Barbell or handles

Place the handles or barbell on the squat rack at about belly height.

Get under the safety squat bar and unrack it.

Keep your hands lightly on the handles or bar in front of you. You’re not using the handles/auxiliary barbell to assist in pulling yourself up. You’re just using them to maintain your stability throughout the lift.

Squat with an upright torso. The Hatfield squat should be done with an upright torso. You don’t need to bend over like you do on a low-bar squat.

Lower yourself until slightly below parallel and then rise back up. Remember, just use the handles for stability. Do not use the handles to pull yourself up.

Like I said at the beginning, the Hatfield squat has been a game-changer for me. It’s allowed me to keep squatting without any pain. If you’ve struggled with incorporating the barbell squat into your workout due to pain, try the Hatfield squat. I think you’ll probably like it as much as I do.

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Since March, I’ve been waking up earlier.

Before that time, I’d typically go to bed at 11 p.m. and naturally wake up between 7:00 and 7:30 a.m.

Then, for some reason, regardless of what time I went to bed, I started spontaneously waking up between 5:30 and 6 a.m. Consequently, I moved my bedtime earlier, too.

I’m not sure why the shift happened; maybe it’s my circadian rhythm changing in middle age.

When I first started waking up early, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I mostly read and took care of admin work before the rest of the family woke up.

But then at the start of May, I decided to take a two-mile walk right after I woke up at the buttcrack of dawn. Why? I don’t know. It was something to do mostly. Also, I knew I needed to walk more. I’ve got a pretty dang sedentary job as a blogger/podcaster. I’m on my butt reading, writing, and answering emails for hours every day.

I’ve had plenty of guests on the podcast who talked about the research on just how bad being sedentary is for your health — even if you make time for regular, strenuous exercise every day like I have for over 15 years. An hour of dedicated exercise each day can’t make up for sitting on your butt for the rest of your waking hours.

So, I figured I’d use my newfound time in the morning to move more and get my steps in.

I had zero expectations or specific health goals when I started the daily walking habit.

But I could soon tell from both personal observation and the fitness trackers I use (the Oura ring and the Apple Watch) that it was creating some positive changes in my health.

Here’s what happened after doing a month of my morning walk routine:

My daily steps increased.My daughter Scout likes to check my Apple Watch stats each night when I tuck her in. Back in March, she looked at my daily steps and saw that they were consistently in the 4k to 5k range. “Dad, you really don’t move much during the day,” she’d observe. “You’re kind of a lump.

Convicted!

Ever since I’ve started walking every morning, I usually get 12k to 15k steps a day. Much better. The boost hasn’t come from my morning walk alone; that habit has also had the unintended benefit of getting me moving more in general. I’ll intermittently take 10-minute walking breaks during the day just because I like how it feels to walk. I also get the Scout vote of approval each night when she looks at my watch.

Winning!

My resting heart rate dropped. Resting heart rate has been shown to be a good indicator of overall fitness and cardiovascular health. A lower resting heart rate means your heart is working more efficiently. Higher resting heart rates have been associated with cardiovascular disease.

A normal resting heart rate for adults is between 60 and 100. Well-trained athletes have a resting heart rate closer to 40.

Before I started walking in the morning, my resting heart rate was usually between 60 and 55. Not terrible.

But after a month of daily walking, my resting heart rate started hovering around 45 — closer to elite athlete level. And I got there just by leisurely walking for 35 minutes every morning.

My heart rate variability increased. Heart rate variability (HRV) is the variation in time intervals between consecutive heartbeats, reflecting the autonomic nervous system’s regulation of the heart. You actually want a lot of variation in your heart rate. High HRV indicates a healthy balance between the sympathetic (fight or flight) and parasympathetic (rest and digest) systems. Individuals with a high HRV are less stressed and more resilient physically and emotionally. You’re able to perform better physically and mentally when your HRV is high.

Low HRV indicates that your body is under stress due to factors like fatigue, dehydration, overwork, or illness.

Physical exercise, like walking, lowers your HRV by enhancing the parasympathetic (rest and digest) activity of your nervous system. Physical activity also helps your body manage overall stress levels and improves blood flow, two factors that contribute to a lower HRV as well.

Before I started walking every morning, my HRV hovered between 36 ms and 40 ms — not great. Now it’s hovering between 45 and 55 ms. An improvement!

My V02 max improved. VO2 max, or maximal oxygen uptake, is the maximum rate at which your body can consume oxygen during intense exercise. It’s a key indicator of cardiovascular fitness and aerobic endurance. Higher VO2 max values indicate a greater ability of the heart, lungs, and muscles to utilize oxygen, reflecting better overall fitness and endurance levels.

You can improve V02 Max through consistent HIIT or steady-state cardio. The only cardio I’ve been doing this past month is walking every morning.

According to my Apple Watch, at the start of May, my estimated V02 max (emphasis on estimated; I’d need to take an actual V02 max test to get an accurate measurement) was 38.5. Today it’s 42. It’s only a small change, and there’s still a lot of room for improvement, but taking a stroll each morning seems to have helped!

I sleep better at night. While I’m still waking up earlier than I used to, my sleep overallhas improved since starting the morning walk habit.

According to my Oura ring, I fall asleep faster and have more deep sleep and REM sleep. During deep sleep, your body releases hormones to help you grow and recover, and your brain flushes out toxins. REM sleep is when we dream, and as we’ve discussed on the podcast, our brain uses dreams to consolidate memories and make sense of all the stuff we experience during waking time.

I reckon the morning walk has improved my sleep in two ways. First, walking is a great way to build up your sleep pressure. Physical activity helps create adenosine in your brain, which makes you sleepy. The more adenosine you’ve built up during the day, the sleepier you feel at bedtime. When it’s 10 p.m., I’m ready to hit the hay, and as soon as my head hits the pillow, I’m out.

The early morning walks have also likely helped my sleep thanks to the exposure it provides to early morning sunlight.Exposure to sunlight helps regulate our circadian rhythm. Research suggests exposing yourself to sunlight first thing in the morning can get your circadian rhythm in a good groove so that you’re ready to go to sleep when you go to bed and experience better quality sleep when you are sleeping.

I’m in a better mood. We’ve talked about how physical activity is the antidote to both anxiety and depression. It’s all thanks to the endorphins that are released when you move your body.

I’ve noticed an improvement in my mood. I just feel better when I get my morning walks in.

I’ve lost some weight. From January to March, I did a short bulk to go from 185 to 200 pounds. In April, I started cutting calories to get my summer shred on. The goal was to get back down to 187 pounds. Why 187? I feel and look good at that weight. In April, I was able to lower my weight by five pounds by just reducing calories each week. In May, I continued to lower my calories slightly each week, but added in my daily walks. I was able to drop the remaining 10 pounds in just four weeks, and I never felt starved because my calories didn’t get crazy low. Combining calorie restriction with increased energy expenditure from walking turbocharged my weight loss.

Lower heart rate, increased HRV, improved V02 max, deeper sleep, better mood, and reduced body weight.

Solvitur ambulando. It is solved by walking. Damn straight.

I can’t recommend taking a daily walk enough. Two miles takes me about 35 minutes. With just 35 minutes a day, I was able to make some pretty significant improvements in my health in just a month. A small change in your daily routine will net you an outsized number of benefits.

If you haven’t started a regular exercise routine because you feel like you don’t have the time or because you think you have to do a really hard, strenuous workout to get any benefit from exercise, try going for a two-mile walk each day.

Don’t have time or aren’t ready for two miles? Then just do a mile. Something is always better than nothing.

Think you’ll be bored? Listen to a podcast (might I suggest AoM’s?). Improve your mind as you gently but significantly improve your body.

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Walk into any commercial gym, or even a hotel fitness center, and you’ll probably see a cable machine and/or a functional trainer.

A cable machine features two weight stacks connected by a cross-beam. The weights in each stack can be adjusted by the user and are lifted through a system of pulleys and cables that travel up and down a track.

A functional trainer sports a similar system, but is more compact in design, with the weight stacks sitting closer together. Most functional trainers also have a pull-up bar between the two weight stacks. 

Cable machines/functional trainers are pretty dang versatile. While a downside of weight-training machines is that they lock you into one position, a cable machine allows for movements that are more dynamic and exercise your balance and stability more than other machines. And with one machine, you can do multiple strength-training exercises and use movements that effectively isolate muscle groups and work them from a variety of angles. It’s possible to use cable machines/functional trainers to get an effective full-body workout.

This advantage is particularly beneficial when you’re traveling. Most hotel gyms are pretty basic: it’s typically a small, poorly lit room with limited equipment. But they do often offer a functional trainer, which means you can get in a good all-around strength training session while you’re on the road.

To learn a full-body cable workout that can be used either at regular or hotel gyms, I turned to Chris Contois, my physical therapist at Vitality Therapy and Performance here in Tulsa, OK. He’s also a competitive bodybuilder and has been doing some bodybuilding programming for me the past year.

Chris created a simple upper body/lower body split that can be done with a cable machine or a functional trainer. He noted that in the last two hotels he’s stayed in, the functional trainer had fixed handles; you couldn’t swap out attachments and put on a rope handle, for example. So he designed this functional trainer workout assuming you might only have fixed handles available.



Also, one of the downsides of functional trainers is that they’re not great for training legs. While you can do some leg exercises with a functional trainer, your options are limited. If you feel like you need a bit more lower body work, Chris recommends adding some plyos or some bodyweight movements, like air squats.

Upper Body/Lower Body Cable Workout

For a full-body workout, do all the exercises for both the upper and lower body, resting 90 seconds to two minutes in between each set.

Upper Body

• Mid Back. Mid-Handle Position Single Arm Mid Row: 4 sets x 8-12 reps
• Upper Chest. High-Handle Position Cable Crossovers: 4 x 10-15 
• Lats. High-Handle Position Half Kneeling Underhand Pulldown: 4 x 10-15 (video shows an overhand grip, just switch to underhand)
• Mid/Lower Chest. Mid-Handle Position Single Arm Chest Press: 4 x 8-12 
• Shoulders. Low-Handle Position Cable Laterals: 4 x 10-15
• Biceps. Low-Handle Position Single Arm Cable Curl: 4 x 10-15 
• Triceps. Low-Handle Position Single Arm Behind Head Tricep Extension: 4 x 8-12 
• Abs. Mid-Handle Position Rotational Chop: 4 x 10 

Lower Body 

• Quads. Low-Handle Position Cable Goblet Squats: 4 sets x 10-15 reps
• Glutes and Hamstrings. Low-Handle Position Cable Pull Throughs: 4 x 12-15 
• Quads and Glutes. Low-Handle Position Split Stance Lunge: 4 x 8-10 
• Hamstring and Low Back. Low-Handle Position Cable Romanian Deadlift: 4 x 8-10
• Outer Leg. Low-Handle Position Hip Abduction: 3 x 10-12
• Inner Leg. Low-Handle Position Hip Adduction: 3 x 10-12

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When you have a license to kill, you’ve got to keep yourself in tip-top shape.

So what did James Bond do for his workout? 

From the James Bond novels, we know that 007 liked to do all sorts of physical activities that could count as exercise: boxing, judo, swimming, and skiing. He was also a golfer, so he got some activity in that way.

As a Commander in the Royal Navy Reserve, Bond likely incorporated some of the calisthenics he learned from the military into his workout routine. It’s possible that he even drew inspiration from the Cold War HIIT workout, 5BX. 

You can see these influences in the workout 007 does in From Russia With Love. In that novel (one of the 5 best books in the Bond canon), Fleming describes a short calisthenics routine that his secret agent does that’s capped off with a “James Bond shower”:

There was only one way to deal with boredom — kick oneself out of it. Bond went down on his hands and did twenty slow press-ups, lingering over each one so that his muscles had no rest. When his arms could stand the pain no longer, he rolled over on his back and, with his hands at his sides, did the straight leg-lift until his stomach muscles screamed. He got to his feet and, after touching his toes twenty times, went over to arm and chest exercises combined with deep breathing until he was dizzy. Panting with the exertion, he went into the big white-tiled bathroom and stood in the glass shower cabinet under very hot and then cold hissing water for five minutes. 

A pretty quick and straightforward bodyweight workout, that we’ve illustrated for reference above. With one adaptation: Bond scholars and aficionados have never figured out exactly what Fleming meant by “arm and chest exercises.” We substituted chair dips; they work both the arms and chest. You can imagine in your own arm and chest exercise if you’d like. Performing that portion of the workout, and all the rest of them, in a tux with a pistol and martini glass on hand is optional, but highly encouraged if you’re an operative training to face the unique challenges of international espionage. 

Illustrated by Ted Slampyak

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When you’re lifting weights, you might be thinking about setting a new PR or doing your curls for the girls.

But throughout history, philosophers have thought about physical fitness on a deeper level and considered how exercise shapes not only the body, but also the mind and the soul.

My guest today, Joe Lombardo, is a strength enthusiast who follows in this tradition and has explored the philosophy of bodily exercise in his writing. Today on the show, Joe and I discuss several different ways the philosophy of strength has been expressed over time.

We begin our conversation with how the ancient Greeks thought of physical training as a way to develop personal as well as social virtues, and why they thought you were an “idiot,” in their particular sense of the word, if you didn’t take care of your body. We then discuss early Christianity’s relationship with physical exercise and the development of the muscular Christianity movement in the 19th century. We end our conversation by looking at the philosophy of physicality espoused by the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, and what he had to say as to how strength training moves us out of the life of the night and towards the light of the sun.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• “The Soft American” by JFK
• AoM podcast and article on the La Sierra P.E. program
• AoM Article: When Christianity Was Muscular 
• The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton
• Yukio Mishima
• Sun and Steel by Yukio Mishima
• Joe’s writings on Quillette
• Joe’s writings at the European Conservative 

Connect With Joe Lombardo

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The overarching principle of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) is that the harder you do an exercise, the more physiological benefits you accrue; thus, by incorporating intervals of higher intensity efforts in your workouts, you can get more fitness bang for your buck in less time. 

When we think about HIIT, we tend to think about going absolutely nuts on a fan bike or doing all-out sprints.

But as Dr. Martin Gibala explained on the AoM podcast, while high-intensity training rises above the level of the moderate, it doesn’t require a complete max out of your heart rate, nor is it limited to certain exercise modalities.

You can do interval training by pedaling like a madman on a bike, but you can also do it with a less strenuous approach. 

Enter Interval Walking Training (IWT), which originated in Japan.

This 3X3 walking workout is simple: you do 3 minutes of low-intensity walking (40% of peak aerobic capacity for walking — a little faster than a stroll), followed by 3 minutes of high-intensity walking (70%+ of peak aerobic capacity for walking). You repeat these interval sets at least 5 times, and do this 30-minute workout 4 times a week.

Your heart rate during the high-intensity intervals will vary according to your fitness level and age. One 68-year-old who participated in an IWT-based study had his heart rate go up to about 130 beats per minute during the fast intervals, so you’re moving at a good clip.

Even though IWT is highly accessible, studies that have been done on it show that it produces significant health benefits. People who did Interval Walking Training 4X a week for 3 months experienced significantly more improvement in their blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, leg strength, and aerobic capacity than those who did continuous, moderate-intensity walking. 

Hiroshi Nose, who developed Interval Walking Training, reports that among those who do IWT, “Physical fitness — maximal aerobic power and thigh muscle strength — increased by about 20 percent which is sure to make you feel about 10 years younger than before training, [and] symptoms of lifestyle-related diseases (hypertension, hyperglycemia, and obesity) decreased by about 20 percent.” IWT walkers enjoyed mental health benefits as well: depression scores dropped by half.

Walking in general is already one of the very best forms of exercise you can do, and IWT just helps you take its benefits up a notch. Hiroshi has used Interval Walking Training to get thousands of elderly Japanese citizens into shape, and it’s a great form of exercise if you’re in the older decades of life. But it’s also good if you’re just beginning your fitness journey and looking to get off the couch and start doing more physical activity. Even if you’re already a regular exerciser who’s in good shape, IWT is a nice way to mix up your usual neighborhood strolls while enhancing your health even further. 

For more HIIT protocols, from the accessible to the challenging, listen to this episode of the AoM podcast:

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Last month, I talked about how I’ve reincorporated weight machines into my strength-training workouts to good effect.

This year, we’ll be doing some articles on how to use various weight machines properly. One of the benefits of using machines is that they have a much easier learning curve than lifting barbells. But there are a few things you should know about using each in order to avoid pain and injury and use them most effectively for building size and strength.

First up in these tutorials is the leg extension machine, which targets your quadriceps and your quadriceps alone. 

There is some folklore out there that the leg machine can cause injuries and puts too much stress on the knees. But this isn’t borne out by research, which has found that leg extensions are safe, including for ACL rehabilitation. 

There’s also a myth that leg extensions aren’t functional. But quad strength translates to everything from walking to running, and particularly to explosive movements like jumping and cutting. Also, because people often use compensating muscles when doing other leg exercises (especially if they’re dealing with injuries), leg extensions, by isolating the quads, can help correct strength imbalances created by these compensating strategies. This is useful in preventing new injuries, as well as re-injuries, particularly a second ACL tear. 

Not only are leg extensions a safe strength-building exercise, they also help give you defined and meaty legs, so you can confidently wear your shorty shorts around town. And, since you’re only moving a single joint, they perform this function without requiring the kind of recovery you need after doing the squat or leg press. 

But since leg extensions, like all exercises, are only safe to do if you do them right, let’s get into how to perform them properly.

Setting Up the Machine

My home gym, plate-loaded leg machine doesn’t have as many adjustment options as one you’ll find in a commercial gym, so I couldn’t dial in my position as much as you might be able to, but this a generally good set-up position.

The leg extension itself is a simple movement. The big thing you have to pay attention to is setting up the machine before you start doing them.

There are several adjustments to make to the machine before you begin this exercise to ensure ergonomic comfort, maximization of strength-producing, hypertrophy-creating force, and the prevention of undue pain and strain on your joints: 

Weight stack/plates. There are different schools of thought on what weight you should use for leg extensions. One is that you should go with lower weight because you’re only using a single joint to move the weight, and you’re not able to exert that much force without form breaking down. To get the hypertrophic stimulus with lower weight, you’ll need to do high reps in the 15-20 range. If you’re going to go the high rep route with leg extensions, perform them at the end of your workout, so you don’t fatigue yourself for the main leg exercise like the squat.



The other school of thought is that as long as you can perform the reps with good form and without pain, you can stick to the traditional 8-12 rep range prescribed for hypertrophy and go heavier.



Experiment and find what works for you.

Seat back distance. The seat back can be adjusted forwards or backwards. Positioning it correctly will minimize undue strain on your knees and allow you to produce maximum force. You want to move the seat back so that when you sit down, your knees are not too far in front of the edge of the seat’s base, nor too far back. Your knees should align with the leg bar’s pivot point. The creases at the backs of the knees should sit against the edge of the butt pad. 

Leg pad height. The pad that will sit on top of your lower legs can sometimes be adjusted up or down. The pad should rest where the ankle flexes. Not up on your shins or down towards your toes.

Leg bar range of motion. The leg bar can be adjusted so that it sits more or less under the seat’s base. The further back it sits, the greater the range of motion that will be possible on your leg extensions. Adjust the leg bar to full depth to maximize the range of motion. 

There is sometimes also a pad that can be adjusted over the thighs to lock them down. As your butt/legs shouldn’t come up if you’re positioned correctly and do the exercise properly, this pad isn’t necessary. 

Once you’ve got all these adjustments in place, you may want to make a note somewhere of the numbered positions of each piece, so the next time you use the machine, you won’t have to spend time fiddling around and making the adjustments through trial and error.

Doing Leg Extensions

Now that the machine is set up right, it’s time to do a proper leg extension: 

Slow and controlled. The big mistake people make with this exercise is bouncing/swinging the leg bar up, using momentum, and letting it drop back down. Instead, you want to lift the bar up and bring it down in a slow and controlled manner. Slow and controlled is the path to hypertrophy.

Lift the bar. As you raise the leg bar, you’re not lifting your butt and hips up. You’re not rocking back and forth; only your legs are moving, not the upper half of your body. Butt stays in contact with the seat’s base pad; back stays in contact with the seat’s back pad. Lean back a little. Grip the handles to keep your butt down.

Steadily bring the bar up until you reach full knee extension/peak contraction. Pause for a second during this top hold. Squeeze. Feel and relish the burn.

Lower the bar. Much of hypertrophy happens during the eccentric phase of a lift, so lower the bar in the same slow and controlled manner that you lifted it — its descent should take a full one to two seconds. 

Rather than slamming back down, the weight should just gently touch the weight stack as it returns. Once you hear it lightly clang, lift the bar up again and do another rep.

Toe position makes little difference. Keeping your toes straight ahead versus angling them a little inwards or outwards can create small differences in which parts of the quads get worked. But unless you’re an elite bodybuilder, this isn’t something you need to worry about. Keeping your toes straight or tilted slightly in is fine. Do whatever feels most comfortable for you, as this will help you produce maximum force. 

Go for full range of motion. Go all the way up and all the way down with each rep. If you can only lift the leg bar halfway up, the weight is too heavy.

Go hard. Don’t just mindlessly crank out leg extensions, tacking them on to the end of your workout without giving them much effort. Just going through the motions won’t build muscle. You should be doing sets that bring you within one to two reps of failure.

Sure it hurts, but it hurts so good, baby. 

Leg extensions can be done using just a single leg at a time, which can be useful for addressing strength imbalances.

Because leg extensions only work the quads, they should be done in a program that includes other leg exercises like squats, leg presses, and lunges. 

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In last month’s AoM podcast episode with Dr. Martin Gibala about high-intensity interval training, he mentioned a high-intensity workout program that was developed by the Royal Canadian Air Force during the late 1950s, took only eleven minutes to perform, and became hugely popular with the civilian population. Duly intrigued, we decided to dig up the program to see what it involved.

The 5BX plan (Five Basic Exercises) was born out of a particular need: a third of the RCAF’s pilots were deemed unfit to fly and needed a workout program that 1) could be done without any specialized equipment, as the pilots were often stationed at remote bases without access to standard gyms, and 2) could fit into airmen’s busy schedules.

While high-intensity training hadn’t yet won mainstream acceptance, the pioneering research of Dr. Bill Orban had showed that by increasing the intensity of exercise, people could get the same fitness-improving benefits in much less time. Orban used this insight to develop 5BX, which involved doing five exercises — four of which targeted flexibility and strength and one that worked aerobic capacity — in just eleven minutes. The Canadian military encouraged not only its pilots to perform it, but their children as well. Orban also developed a plan for women called XBX, which involved doing ten exercises in 12 minutes.

In the 1960s, the programs were published together as the Royal Canadian Air Force Exercise Plans and distributed outside the military. The booklet became popular with civilians not only in Canada but around the world; it was translated into thirteen languages, sold 23 million copies, and is credited with helping to launch our modern fitness culture. 

If you’d like to try it out, we’ve reformatted and republished the 5BX plan below. It features six “charts,” each of which includes the program’s five main exercises:

1. Stretching
2. Sit-up
3. Back extension
4. Push-up
5. Running in place, interspersed with various jumps (can be substituted for an actual run or walk)

Each chart offers progressively more difficult variations of the five exercises, and you work your way from one level of performance on a particular chart to the next, and then from one chart to the next. Charts 5 and 6 get into some elite-level athletics — good luck with those toe-touching jack jumps, friends.

For a visual demonstration of some of the exercises, watch this 1959 Royal Canadian Air Force training video.

The Five Basic Exercises (5BX) Plan presented in this booklet is designed to show you how to develop and hold a high level of physical fitness, regardless of where you may be located. The scheme is not dependent on elaborate facilities or equipment. The exercises require only eleven minutes a day and can be done in your bedroom or beside your bed in your barracks.

The diversity of work assignments, combined with lack of adequate gymnasium facilities at many of your stations makes it difficult to schedule formal physical training periods for all our personnel. The 5BX Plan puts physical fitness training within reach of every member of the RCAF.

It is your duty and responsibility as a member of the RCAF to maintain a high level of physical fitness and be ready for any emergency which may require the extended use of your physical resources. Positive physical well-being is also closely allied with mental and emotional fitness, all of which are essential in the discharge of normal daily tasks.

Warming Up

The 5BX Plan was designed so that no additional warmup is necessary in order to receive its maximum benefits.

The older one is, the more necessary proper warming up becomes to avoid “strained” muscles. The 5BX Plan has a built-in method of warmup. This is achieved in two ways:

• by the arrangement of the exercises; and
• by the manner in which these exercises are performed.

For example, the first exercise is a stretching and loosening exercise which limbers up the large muscles of the body. In addition, this exercise should be started very slowly and easily, with a gradual increase in speed and vigor.

Let us see how this principle applies to exercise No. 1, which requires you to touch the floor. You should not force yourself to do it on the first attempt, but rather start by pushing down very gently and slowly as far as you can without undue strain — then on each succeeding try push down a little harder, and, at the same time, do the exercise a little faster so that by the end of two minutes you are touching the floor and moving at the necessary speed. All the exercises can be performed in this manner.

What Is It?

The 5BX Plan is composed of 6 charts arranged in progression. Each chart is composed of 5 exercises which are always performed in the same order and in the same maximum time limit, but, as you progress from chart to chart, there are slight changes in each basic exercise with a gradual demand for more effort.

A sample rating scale for Chart 3 is reproduced below and is to be used in the following way:

These are the Physical Capacity levels, each indicated by a letter of the alphabet.

Exercises 1, 2, 3, and 4 apply to the first four exercises described and illustrated. The column headed 1 represents exercise 1 (toe touch), etc. The figures in each column indicate the number of times that each exercise is to be repeated in the time allotted for that exercise. Exercise 5 is running on the spot. Two activities may be substituted for it, however, and if you prefer, you may run or walk the recommended distance in the required time in place of the stationary run of exercise 5.

The allotted time for each exercise is noted here. These times remain the same throughout all the charts. Total time for exercises 1 through 5 is 11 minutes.

NOTE:

It is important that the exercises at any level be completed in 11 minutes. However, it is likely that in the early stages, an individual will complete certain exercises in less than the allotted time while others may require longer. In these circumstances, the times allotted for individual exercises may be varied within the total 11 minute period.

How Far Should You Progress?

The level of Physical Capacity to which you should progress is determined by your “Age Group.” Levels for “Flying Crew” are listed separately. See “Your Physical Capacity Level” below.

How to Begin

Check your daily schedule and determine the time most convenient for you to do the exercises. It should be the same time each day.

Here are some suggested times:

• Before breakfast
• Late morning or afternoon, at your place of employment
• After your regular recreational period
• In the evening just before you retire

Regardless of the time you choose, START TODAY.

Maximum Rate of Progression Through Chart 1 According to Age

• 20 years or under, at least 1 day at each level
• 20-29 years, at least 2 days at each level
• 30-39 years, at least 4 days at each level
• 40-49 years, at least 7 days at each level
• 50-59 years, at least 8 days at each level
• 60 years and over, at least 10 days at each level

(If you feel stiff or sore, or if you are unduly breathless at any time, ease up and slow down your rate of progression. This is particularly applicable to older age groups.)

A Note of Caution

Even if you feel able to start at a high level and progress at a faster rate then indicated — DON’T DO IT — Start at the bottom of chart 1 and work your way up from level to level as recommended.

For best results from 5BX, the exercises must be done regularly. Remember, it may take you 6, 8, 10 months or more of daily exercises to attain the level recommended for you, but once you have attained it, only 3 periods of exercise per week will maintain this level of physical capacity.

If for any reason (illness, etc.) you stop doing 5BX regularly and you wish to begin again, do not recommence at the level you had attained previously.

Do drop back several levels — until you find one you can do without undue strain. After a period of inactivity of longer than two months, or one month caused by illness, it is recommended that you start again at Chart 1.

How to Progress

Start at the lowest Physical Capacity Level of Chart 1 (D-). Repeat each exercise in the allotted time or do the 5 exercises in 11 minutes. Move upward on the same chart to the next level (D) only after you can complete all the required movements at your present level within 11 minutes. Continue to progress upward in this manner until you can complete all the required movements at level A+ within 11 minutes. Now start at the bottom of Chart 2 (D-), and continue in this fashion upwards through the levels, and from chart to chart until you reach the level for your age group.

Chart 1

Feet astride, arms upward. Forward bend to floor touching then stretch upward and backward bend. Do not strain to keep knees straight.

Back lying, feet 6” apart, arms at sides. Sit up just far enough to see your heels. Keep legs straight, head and shoulders must clear the floor.

Front lying, palms placed under the thighs. Raise head and one leg, repeat using legs alternately. Keep leg straight at the knee, thighs must clear the palms. Count one each time second leg touches floor.

Front lying, hands under the shoulders, palms flat on the floor. Straighten arms lifting upper body, keeping the knees on the floor. Bend arms to lower body. Keep body straight from the knees, arms must be fully extended, chest must touch the floor to complete one movement.

Stationary run. Count a step each time the left foot touches the floor. Lift feet approximately 4 inches off floor. Every 75 steps do 10 “scissor jumps.” Repeat this sequence until the required number of steps is completed.

Scissor jumps. Stand with right leg and left arm extended forward and left leg and right arm extended backward. Jump up and change position of arms and legs before landing. Repeat (arms shoulder high).

Chart 2

Feet astride, arms upward. Touch floor and press (bounce) once then stretch upward and backward bend. Do not strain to keep knees straight.

Back lying, feet 6” apart, arms at sides. “Sit up” to vertical position, keep feet on floor even if it is necessary to hook them under a chair. Allow knees to bend slightly.

Front lying, palms placed under thighs. Raise head, shoulders, and both legs. Keep legs straight, both thighs must clear the palms.

Front lying, hands under the shoulder, palms flat on floor. Straighten arms to lift body with only palms and toes on the floor. Back straight. Chest must touch the floor for each completed movement after arms have been fully extended.

Stationary run. Count a step each time left foot touches the floor. Lift feet approximately 4 inches off floor. After every 75 steps, do 10 “astride jumps.” Repeat this sequence until required number of steps is completed.

Astride jumps. Feet together, arms at side. Jump and land with feet astride and arms raised sideways to slightly above shoulder height. Return with a jump to the starting position for count of one. Keep arms straight.

Chart 3

Feet astride, arms upward. Touch floor 6” outside left foot, again between feet and press once then 6” outside right foot, bend backward as far as possible, repeat, reverse direction after half the number of counts. Do not strain to keep knees straight, return to erect position.

Back lying, feet 6” apart, arms clasped behind head. Allow knees to bend slightly. Sit up to vertical position, keep feet on floor, hook feet under chair, etc., only if necessary. 

Front lying, hands interlocked behind the back. Lift head, shoulders, chest and both legs as high as possible. Keep legs straight, and raise chest and both thighs completely off floor.

Front lying, hands under the shoulders, palms flat on floor. Touch chin to floor in front of hands — touch forehead to floor behind hands before returning to up position. There are three definite movements, chin, forehead, arms straightened. DO NOT do in one continuous motion.

Stationary run. Count a step each time left foot touches the floor. Lift feet approximately 4 inches off floor. After every 75 steps, do 10 “half knee bends.” Repeat this sequence until required number of steps is completed.

Half knee bends. Feet together, hands on hips, knees bent to form an angle of about 110 degrees. Do not bend knees past a right angle. Straighten to upright position, raising heel off floor, return to starting position each time. Keep feet in contact with floor — the back upright and straight at all times.

Chart 4

Feet astride, arms upward. Touch floor outside left foot, between feet, press once then outside right foot, circle bend backward as far as possible, reverse direction after half the number of counts. Do not strain to keep knees straight. Keep arms above head and make full circle, bending backward past vertical each time.

Back lying, legs straight, feet together, arms straight overhead. Sit up and touch the toes keeping the arms and legs straight. Use chair to hook feet under only if necessary. Keep arms in contact with the sides of the head throughout the movement. Allow knees to bend slightly.

Front lying, hands and arms stretched sideways. Lift head, shoulders, arms, chest and both legs as high as possible. Keep legs straight, raise chest and both thighs completely off floor.

Front lying, palms of hands flat on floor, approximately 1 foot from ears directly to side of head. Straighten arms to lift body. Chest must touch floor for each completed movement.

Stationary run. Count a step each time left foot touches the floor. Lift feet approximately 4 inches off floor. After every 75 steps, do 10 “semi-squat jumps.” Repeat this sequence until required number of steps is completed.

Semi-squat jumps. Drop to a half crouch position with hands on knees and arms straight, keep back as straight as possible, right foot slightly ahead of left. Jump to upright position with body straight and feet leaving floor. Reverse position of feet before landing. Return to half crouch position and repeat.

Chart 5

Feet astride, arms upward, hands collapsed, arms straight. Touch floor outside left foot, between feet, press once then outside right foot, circle bend backwards as far as possible. Reverse direction after half the number of counts. Do not strain to keep knees straight.

Back lying, legs straight, feet together, hands clasped behind head. Sit up and raise legs in bent position at same time twist to touch right elbow to left knee. This completes one movement. Alternate the direction of twist each time. Keep feet off floor when elbow touches knee.

Front lying, arms extended overhead. Raise arms, head, chest, and both legs as high as possible. Keep legs and arms straight, chest and both thighs completely off floor.

Front lying, hands under the shoulder, palms flat on floor. Push off floor and clap hands before returning to starting position. Keep body straight during the entire movement. Hand clap must be heard.

Stationary run. Count a step each time left foot touches floor. Lift feet approximately 4 inches off floor. After every 75 steps, do 10 “semi-spread eagle jumps.” Repeat this sequence until required number of steps is completed.

Semi-spread eagle jumps. Feet together, drop to a half crouch position hands on knees with arms straight. Jump up to feet astride swing arms overhead in mid-air, return directly to starting position on landing. Raise hands above head level, spread feet at least shoulder width apart in astride position before landing with feet together.

Chart 6

Feet astride, arms upward, hands reverse clasped, arms straight. Touch floor outside left foot, between feet, press once then outside right foot, circle bend backwards as far as possible. Reverse direction after half the number of counts. Keep hands tightly reverse clasped at all times.

Back lying, legs straight, feet together, arms straight over the head. Sit up and at the same time lifting both legs to touch the toes in a pike (V) position. Keep feet together, legs and arms straight, all of the upper back and legs clear floor, fingers touch toes each time.

Front lying, arms extended over head. Raise arms, head, chest, and both legs as high as possible then press back once. Keep legs and arms straight — chest and both thighs completely off floor.

Front lying, hands under shoulders, palms flat on floor. Push off floor and slap chest before returning to starting position. Keep body straight during the entire movement. Chest slap must be heard.

Stationary run. Count a step each time left foot touches the floor. Lift feet approximately 4 inches off floor. After every 75 steps, do 10 “jack jumps.” Repeat this sequence until required number of steps is completed.

Jack jumps. Feet together, knees bent, sit on heels, finger tips touch floor. Jump up, raise legs waist high, keep legs straight and touch toes in midair. Keep legs straight, raise feet level to “standing waist height.” Touch toes each time.

Your Physical Capacity Level

Each age group is given a Physical Capacity level to attain; that is, a goal which they should try to reach.

The Physical Capacity levels in this plan are based on the expectation of average individuals. 

With every average, there are individuals who surpass it, and those who fall below it. In terms of the 5BX Plan and the goals, this means that there will be some men who are capable of progressing beyond the level indicated, and on the other hand, there will be persons who will never attain this average level. 

If you feel able to move further through the charts than your Physical Capacity level, by all means do so. If, on the contrary, you experience great difficulty in approaching this level you should stop at a level which you feel to be within your capability. It is impossible to predict accurately, a level for each individual who uses this program. Use the goals as guides, and apply them with common sense. 

Here are a few tips:

When you start, defeat the first desire to skip a day; then defeat all such desires as they occur. This exercise program has plenty of bite; the longer you do it the more you will enjoy it.

As you progress well into the program you may find certain levels impossible to complete in 11 minutes — work hard at that level — it may take some days or even weeks — then suddenly you will find yourself sailing ahead again.

Counting the steps in exercise 5 can be difficult. You can lose count very easily at times. If you have this problem, here is an easy way to overcome it. Divide the total number of steps required by 75 and note the answer—place a row of buttons, corresponding in number to this answer, on a handy table or chair. Now count off your first 75 steps—do your ten required movements—and move the first button. Repeat until all the buttons have been removed, finishing with any left over steps.

For diversity, occasionally an exercise from the previous chart may be substituted.

Wishing is not good enough.

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