The Show Up Fitness Podcast

Dr. Pat Davidson Mastering Athletic Patterns

• Chris Hitchko, CEO Show Up Fitness • Season 238 • Episode 3

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Dr. Pat Davidson reveals a revolutionary approach to understanding human movement through an evolutionary lens on this episode of the Show Up Fitness Podcast. Rather than treating exercises as arbitrary selections, Davidson presents his comprehensive seven-pillar model that creates a systematic, logical progression for any movement pattern – from the most basic to the most advanced.

Davidson begins by cutting through fitness industry nonsense, explaining that personal training success requires strength in three areas: aesthetics (how you look), personality/charisma, and technical knowledge. This refreshing honesty acknowledges what many trainers ignore – clients want to spend time with people who are both fun and represent their fitness goals. Davidson's own transformation from being called "Fat Davidson" online to becoming a competitive bodybuilder in his forties demonstrates living these principles.

The heart of the episode explores Davidson's brilliant application of evolutionary biology to movement patterns. Through the concept of Jacksonian dissolution, he explains how humans under stress revert to more primitive movement strategies – essentially "swimming through space" like our evolutionary ancestors. This explains why stressed or underdeveloped movers compensate with frontal plane strategies rather than the sagittal uprighting and transverse rotation that characterizes competent human movement.

For trainers working with clients who struggle with movement, Davidson's "training wheels" approach provides a clear methodology. By strategically adding "ground" – points of contact, feedback, and support – trainers can help clients understand proper positioning and movement patterns. As clients develop competence, these supports are gradually removed, creating a seamless progression from "white belt" to advanced movement capabilities.

The episode offers invaluable insights for fitness professionals looking to elevate their practice

Want to ask us a question? Email email info@showupfitness.com with the subject line PODCAST QUESTION to get your question answered live on the show!

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Speaker 1:

drunk or something like that, or the way that a chimpanzee would have to move through space. A chimpanzee is a great example of this. On four legs, they move very effectively. They don't compensate. A chimpanzee goes to two feet and it immediately has to frontal plane compensate. It's trying to swim through space with an older model of spinal behavior for locomotion. Humans are no different. The minute that you're incapable of managing gravity and the stress associated with it, your movement system resorts to the older model and you attempt to swim through space with your movement strategy.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry one qualified trainer at a time, with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showupfitnesscom. Also, make sure to check out my book how to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. Howdy everybody. Welcome back to the Show of Fitness podcast. Today we have an absolute monster of a hunk, dr Davidson. Thank you for taking the time to chat today, doc.

Speaker 1:

Well, I mean, I appreciate you being able to accommodate and jump in on this and I think it really speaks to your passion for education. You know what I mean, because I just hit you up yesterday like, hey, man, I'm going to be in LA and I'm going to have a seminar going. Do you know anybody that's interested? You're like oh, I can, at the very least we can do a podcast and get this out there. And so boom, I mean like right away, and you know, I just I like when people are into stuff, you know it's like the world's getting more and more boring.

Speaker 1:

I think you know what I mean. People in a lot of ways are more boring. It's like nobody's got any damn passion. Nobody wants to be into anything anymore. It's like you're worried about getting criticized for whatever being too into something. But I've always liked people that are really into whatever it is.

Speaker 2:

I love chatting with you, but I also have to tell you a secret. I hate talking to you because you're so fucking jacked. You make me look like a little LA boy over here. I did an arm workout before this just to get that pump, I mean look like PEDs do help.

Speaker 1:

I'll put that out there. I never try to pretend. Like you know, I mean I competed bodybuilding and that's a PED sport, so I certainly was not this big prior to, you know, a couple of years ago, when I jumped into competing in enhanced bodybuilding and so I it's funny, I'm on this, I'm doing this men's health gig now where, you know it's like I'm their kind of in-house resident exercise science person they bring in to to be part of the podcast, and one of them was, like you know, over the last couple of years, really see, like some some really great progress with your development of your arms. Like is that? Like what's the main driver training? I was like, well, I think it's probably steroids, you know. I think I think those have a pretty large effect and it's hard to parse out like that which was it coming from, from PEDs, and that which is just like better biomechanics, knowledge of exercise versus, you know, nutrition protocols. But it's I, but it's I.

Speaker 1:

I think it's it's unfair because I I spent enough time training without drugs, uh, and then now with, with a few years of drugs, to actually see the significance of their inclusion and what it does to tissue development and strength and force and it's like, okay, like it helped me. It's like it's funny, like I can remember, like you know, 15, 20 years ago, feeling like, wow, I'm really like you know about as strong as anybody that I'll meet. And then all of a sudden it was like instagram kind of exploded and like I'm just seeing people do comic book kinds of numbers and like, and then it was like I started taking drugs. I was like, oh, that's what it is, that's the secret sauce.

Speaker 2:

pun intended, yeah, yeah. Well, we're going to talk about your athletic seminar here in la in a second, but before that, you know you are an expert with movement and, as a professor, what would be your piece of advice for that new trainer who wants to turn their password fitness into a career? Because so many trainers reach out to me with our certification and they're going through a textbook like NASM or ACE and it's really just not setting them up for success. And, on our prior discussions, you spent over a quarter of a million dollars into hands-on learning in your education, so what advice would you get to that new trainer?

Speaker 1:

You know. I think that it depends on what your definition of success is, because I've seen a lot of trainers in New York City who are, I would say, if I'm evaluating them based on exercise selection, exercise execution, programming, these classical sorts of things that would demonstrate the quality that you're bringing and the level of sophistication, I don't necessarily see that correspond with how many clients you have and how much money you're making. I think that, at least in my experience, it's how much fun are you to be around and how good looking are you? Okay, those are. Are you to be around and how good looking are you? Okay, those are?

Speaker 1:

You know people like you got to understand you are in a business of working with people and people want to spend time with other people that are fun and good looking, all right, and I think if you're not working on those parts of yourself, you could be the smartest guy in the room, smartest girl in the room, and you could end up having very few clients and not a lot of money. So I always say like there's, there's only like you're working with whatever your genetic cards have been dealt to you, but that doesn't mean you can't have a good haircut, it doesn't mean like you got to brush your teeth, you got to put on deodorant you don't want to stink and sweat on somebody or just be breathing funk air into their face. So you got to check those boxes. And also you need to spend time with people and interact and spend time around cool people and kind of notice what it is that they do, how do they interact, how do they talk, what are their mannerisms. And if you're struggling with people, just copy other people that aren't struggling with people, pretend that you're them. And if you put together a decent wardrobe with clothes that fit, shoes that aren't dirty, don't stink, don't sweat on them and you're copying someone that's super cool and charismatic, you know you're checking some boxes that I. Those are your weak links.

Speaker 1:

Now you get to actually use all of your knowledge, skills and abilities to be able to drive a quality product. Because I think that you got to just identify what are the things that matter, and to me it's aesthetic, it is personality and charisma and it's knowledge, skills and ability. You got those three buckets and if you've got one, that's a superpower. Okay. You might be able to use that and drive your whole business through it, like if you are an absolute genetic jackhammer. Okay, like, you are the most beautiful thing anyone's ever seen. Just ride that. You know what I mean. Just be like competent.

Speaker 1:

Don't be a zero out of 10 in the other categories. All you probably need is a one out of 10 and you're golden for a certain period of time, and then time will take away that superpower. If your superpower is knowledge, skills and ability, that sucker is stable and lasts a long time. Okay, uh, you will probably always have that.

Speaker 1:

And now you just need to upkeep your, your aesthetic and the personality and charisma thing is an odd one because it can kind of change with time. Like you have to be aware of the sort of winds of change, like that which was cool in the 80s is kind of off-putting nowadays, and like you might insult people and appear to be out of place, you know. So you've got to again spend time around people and kind of pick up on, like what's happening in the zeitgeist. But to me those are, those are the three areas, and if you miss one of those, then you're really putting yourself in a problematic place Because again you could have a superpower, I could be a 10 out of 10 in knowledge, skills and ability, but if I'm like, drastically overweight and stink, that's not going to work and if I'm completely insulting and off-putting which I might be, you know that's also going to just sabotage you.

Speaker 2:

It's people skills, the professional skills, the business skills, the technical skills. Those are things we really focus on. You're not going to get that in a textbook. So you could get into a textbook all 800 pages and it's like, what do I do next? And I can't tell you how many trainers I've met. I'm just like holy shit, your breath stinks. But I don't say that to them because you know, today everyone's so delicate you have to be cost of that. That's really, really great advice.

Speaker 1:

You know, when I was at hype gym in New York, my friend Marcos, like we'd get interns and it was kind of like, do you need me or do you need Marcos? And like Marcos was for like a lot of these kids that were coming in that were pretty smart. But you're like, bro, like what spectrum are you coming in on, you know. And so, like you know, Marcos would have his barber come into the gym right in the back room and it was like you're going to see the barber next time we're here, Because whatever kind of bowl cut thing that is, you got that's gone, bro, and he's going to bring you shopping. And I know we don't have a lot of money, but we're going to bring you over to, like you know, that Nordstrom discount rack over there.

Speaker 1:

We're going to get you something that fits, because this cargo short down to your mid calf with whatever that is you got on top like you need a redo. This is not. No one in this city is going to hire this. And uh, you know we didn't care. It was like you know, this is, this is our world, and you came to us and you want to get better and the two of us don't have any shits to. You know, like no shits are given over here like we. We will call it as we see it if you're clueless with exercise, you're, you're a me person, okay. If you're clueless on everything outside of exercise, you're going Marcos.

Speaker 2:

So it worked pretty well. I love that. A tough love is great. It's almost like the devil and the angel.

Speaker 2:

But you could be listening to this and be like, oh man, that's not me, but you have a really cool transformation, because during COVID, you know, you had like less than 10,000 followers and I'd watch your Wednesday COVID talks at the gym and they were awesome. But you were, as you even said. You were a little pudgy then, but you went through an awesome transformation and it's cool just to see that trajectory. And so if you're thinking like that's not me, you got to use it as momentum to light a fire in your ass. So start, hire a trainer, get a good coach and really ask yourself am I in the best shape of my life? If, really ask yourself am I in the best shape of my life? If I'm not, why not? Why not show up and start kicking ass and, as your, your product is your athletic weapon, get there instead of being the victim and saying that, oh, you know, I have inflammation or whatever it is like, just get after it.

Speaker 1:

I mean, look, I at the day that I started athletic weapon, I didn't't, I didn't look like this, you know, and uh, it's, it's been, it's been quite a journey, but I uh for sure I needed to, like, I think, covid, everybody had their covid experience. Mine, I just got really pissed off at society, like I was. Is this really how soft we are Like this, like we shut down. Are you kidding me? So I just went in the opposite direction, like I'm not, I'm not, I'm not isolating, I'm not locking down, I'm going to train hard.

Speaker 2:

And I don't, I don't care, you weren't in your twenties either, you were you know, that's cool. Exactly so. It's like no matter your age, it's just an excuse. You know, wake up, show up and get after it and, and you're going to see, your business will definitely improve, because people, they want that and if you're disciplined enough to get after it and work hard, that's inspiring.

Speaker 1:

So then you're going to get more inquiries and people want to work with you I got to the point where I was, like, you know, I feel like I could step onto a damp bodybuilding stage. And then I was like, well, why don't I do that? And that's when I actually started the route of, like you know, hiring a coach that actually knew how to do the pharmaceutical side of things and develop athletes to get on stage, the whole thing. And it's like all right, yeah, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna gonna, I'm gonna do it. You know, uh, but the first few years were were just me training and, like you know, getting on the rp diet app because it like, as a younger guy I competed in weight class sports and, like I had always made weight and got into really good shit. But unless I had that weight class, like you know, fear hanging over my head, I'd never diet. And then, you know, I just got comfortable.

Speaker 1:

In my 30s, I got a taste of, like you know, the nicer parts of life. I lost a lot of the edge and, you know, I remember the first time on the Internet seeing myself being referred to as Fat Davidson and I was like, woo, they're not wrong, they ain't wrong. And uh, you know, it was like that, that one and some of the guys that I was working with there. You know like they were. They were busting my balls on on being overweight and I was like bro, like I at your age, I was 10 times more shredded than you. And then I started to hear myself I'm like you know what?

Speaker 2:

Like, I'm just going to, rather than tell them, I'm just going to show them you know, and that's impressive because it'd be so easy for you to become a recluse and just become a tenured professor, gain another 50 pounds and talk about the glory days. But you're like, no, fuck this, I'm going to show you. It takes days. But you're like, no, fuck this, I'm going to show you. It takes work and discipline and it's not like you know, taking peds is going to get you there automatically. You had to still put in the work and you're just a perfect example the proof's in the pudding. So let's talk a little bit about playa del rey, the 26th and 27th, your athletic seminar, and what that's going to be about.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so you know I have this rethinking the big patterns, overall model certification. It's broken up into three seminars and there's one seminar that's called control patterns. So that one is if you're not moving properly, if you're lacking hip motion, shoulder motion, trunk rotation, whatever that is. That is the assessment course and that is we're going to utilize specific drills that will restore that range of motion for you. Now the other courses are resistance patterns and athletic patterns. Resistance patterns is all things weight training. Athletic patterns is running, jumping, throwing, changing directions.

Speaker 1:

The one that I teach the least frequently is athletic patterns. I don't know, probably because I'm 5'6", 240 pounds and don't look like I should be out in a field cutting or something like that, you know, but what I have tried to do is I see a lot of athletic people make that stuff look great, okay, but to me it's almost like the yoga instructor that's very flexible, that shows off their flexibility while doing yoga, and it's like well, do you know? How? Do you know the science? Do you have a model that you would use to take someone that's completely immobile and not flexible and progress them to this place where they're now, respectively, flexible? You know, and typically the answer is no, All right, and I feel it's a very similar thing for, you know, the genetically gifted amongst us who are still running super fast, jumping very high and like fluidly cut and change directions, and they just post this on Instagram and they look amazing and it's like cool. I'm glad that you can do that. Now, do you have a strategic path and plan to be able to help somebody else get there who's not there? And so to me, it's always like my goal has always been can I create the most foolproof plan to take someone through a pathway to get them to their end stage of being excellent at this place?

Speaker 1:

And so you know, we were talking a little bit before this where I think I was just heavily influenced through martial arts systems and belt systems of okay, I have a white belt and I'm trying to find white belt level drills that are appropriate for this person, and then yellow belt, green belt, blue belt, purple belt, brown belt, black belt what are the actual drills that are appropriate for people at different levels?

Speaker 1:

And the sequence to be able to bring them along this path, to get them as far on this journey as possible, to get them as far on this journey as possible. And so that is what I've tried to do is to create essentially a system, a rule book, a model that is trying to align very specific methods, strategies, concepts, to being able to apply that idea to people at various stages of ability, so that you match their ability with an appropriate drill and then improve their abilities and continue to match that with the next most appropriate drill. So that's the background descriptor, without the specific pieces of what I do, and I'm totally fine in all settings talking about what those specific pieces are. So you know, if that's the next question, that's, that's something I'm totally fine with answering.

Speaker 2:

So I always make a joke. You can find a shitty trainer if they have a nasm in their bio or if they're jumping like tinkerbell. You see people throwing their arms behind. You're like what the fuck is that?

Speaker 1:

dude the like, I don't know. I just called it the dolphin jump. I don't know why I call it the dolphin jump, but it's like who in the history of the world has ever tried to jump up by shooting their arms backwards and down, like I want to see someone try to rebound a ball in a basketball game that way, like just that's what I think I call it the dolphin jump, because you just hit it with your nose. You know you might as well have like that extended sound while you're doing it.

Speaker 2:

I call it the Tinkerbell jump because you look like Tinkerbell flying through the air. It's like what is it? What are you doing? Who came up with it?

Speaker 1:

Why did it spread so much I don't get it.

Speaker 2:

There's probably some influencer looked amazing and he or she was flying on their arms back and I, and he or she was flailing their arms back and you know I'm going to get their physique by jumping like Tinkerbell over here, right, right. So take us a little bit through this two day seminar and, you know, dive into these a little bit, because people who are listening not only are you going to get the tough love, but you're going to get the recipe to do what Doc did, you know, three, four years ago, and really scale yourself physically. So then your business will definitely propel as well.

Speaker 1:

Right. So my model is a seven pillar model and you know, I think that in some ways bureaucracy gets a bad name because of bureaucrats and red tape. And the idea behind bureaucracy is actually pretty good. We categorize things, we create filing systems, we put things in their proper place so that it's organized and it increases the utility of all the things. So this is where I begin with bureaucratic procedures.

Speaker 1:

Essentially, like I classify movements, so pillar one is movement quality. All right, and this is the beginning of classification. I divide exercises up into different concepts. So I have there's breathing exercises, there's core exercises for the pelvis, there's core exercises for the thorax, there is hinging, there is squatting, there is horizontal pushing, horizontal pulling, vertical pushing, vertical pulling. And then there is, for this seminar, locomotion, change of direction, triple extension and throwing. So I've got 13 different trainable realms, like you've got your menu. This is the start place, all right.

Speaker 1:

Then, pillar inside of pillar one, the other parts are we can typically do almost all of these motor patterns in three different fundamental stances a bilateral stance, a front back staggered stance and a lateral staggered stance. And just because you're good at two foot squatting doesn't mean you're going to be very good at split squatting or lateral squatting, like you got to do those things to be able to improve in those things. Like I've seen plenty of people that are really strong, like power lifters, squat 600 pounds and then you have them do a rear foot elevated split squat and they're like whoa, like they can't do it whatsoever. So there's enough specificity with those stance differences to where they got to be separate categories and if you're not training it, you're not getting better. Uh, and the third part of pillar one is the plane of motion, so sagitt and transverse. So when I'm beginning to create an exercise, the way that I do it, I pick my motor pattern squat, I pick my stance front back standard and I pick my plane sagittal, okay. So now I'm in all of these potential areas of split squat or lunge. That's kind of where we're at right now.

Speaker 1:

This moves us along to pillar two, which was movement quantity and this is load velocity and duration. So things can be heavy, they can be light, they can be moderate, they can be fast, they can be slow, they can be moderate and they can be long duration, short duration or moderate duration. And this is where I basically create, like my divisions, or what I like to refer to as, like my bumper bowling alleys of like, hey, what exactly is heavy? And I have it is 59 percent and under. If we're talking about one rep max loads, then velocity is going to be based primarily on barbell velocity numbers. That you'd see with velocity based training stuff, with athletic patterns, all that's out the window because even your fast barbell exercises are slower than slow running. So in these circumstances it's it's like, unless you've got electric timing gates to be able to measure, you know, your 20 yard times, your 30 or 40 or 10 yard flying, like you know, you're generally going to be using your eyeballs with these things.

Speaker 1:

What's fast throwing, what's slow throwing? I've got an answer for these areas Slow throwing, like the motor pattern of throwing something slow. I have a couple of exercises in that category that would be like the Turkish get-up-sit up is actually heavy slow throwing. So it's kind of like, if there's a, if there is a, I call these things trainable domains. There's a box, I just have boxes, boxes, boxes, boxes, boxes. Because I got to have my motor pattern, I got to have the stance I'm doing it in, I've got to have the plane of motion. Then I decide well, what loading zone is it? What velocity zone is it? How long am I doing it for? And it's like I think of it as like Plinko. Okay, like motor pattern falls into this slot and then stance falls into this slot, and then plane falls into this slot, then it's load falls into this slot, velocity falls into this slot and then boom, it ends in this last final slot poof and now the exercise has a few potential variations that it could live in. But I'm basically in this place of like okay, this is going to be a squat in a front back stance in the sagittal plane and it's going to be heavy, it's going to be for short duration and it's going to be slow velocity. So it's kind of like we're doing just a few reps of some kind of a split squat or lunge under those circumstances.

Speaker 1:

Okay, now, when we start choosing the tools, this is where we're not quite there yet, but that's where we get into pillar four. Before we do that, pillar three jumps in here and this is movement standardization in here, and this is movement standardization and with this it's basically like I will walk you through what I would consider to be competent sagittal exercise identifiers, competent frontal plane exercise identifiers, competent transverse plane exercise identifiers and those are based on what does it look like and what does it feel like for the person doing the exercise. Okay, now, this is a very contentious pillar in my mind, because it's it's it's kind of the realm that guys like gray cook have walked into and basically found themselves getting caught in like a bear trap, because as soon as you try to start saying good exercise or bad exercise, it's like you get swallowed by this uh, you know, demon in some ways, because humans, fundamentally, there's a lot of ways to get the job done, you know, and just when you think that that's the right way to bench press, somebody comes along and does it a different way. They Fosbury, flop on you and you're like what was that? That's not good. And then it turns out actually that was better than what you thought was good. So I think I'm aware of the idea that that territory is fundamentally a hazard to walk yourself into, but I think I have.

Speaker 1:

The answer that I came up with is an odd one, but I think it's right and it's entirely based on this notion of something called Jacksonian dissolution, on this notion of something called Jacksonian dissolution. Now, jacksonian dissolution was something that was the thought product of John Hewlin Jackson, who was an English neurobiologist, that his career was primarily in the 1850s and 1860s and what he noticed is that there is an evolutionary timeline of the anatomical regions of a brain. Okay, so this is like the triunal brain theory, of like. We have a reptilian brain, a mammalian brain, a primate brain and a human brain. So what he saw is that the most modern evolutionary parts of the brain, the prefrontal cortex it's the first to go offline when stress is presented to the organism.

Speaker 1:

So the prefrontal cortex, as Robert Sapolsky puts it, allows you to do the right thing when the right thing is the harder thing to do. You to do the right thing when the right thing is the harder thing to do. That shit is going to go offline the minute that you're presented with stress. So when you're in the grocery line and you've got your kids in the shopping cart and there's 10 people behind you and the cashier is chewing bubble gum and talking to somebody on their phone and their ear pods and then your credit card gets declined, you're probably not going to like have a great response. You know like you might start screaming or you know like something's going to get on me. All right, you're going to resort backwards, from an evolutionary perspective, to older systems, and those older systems typically lack the same variability and the inhibitory qualities of the more modern stuff that allows you to be like this incredible human being, that's like able to flow through life.

Speaker 1:

Now, the interesting thing about Jacksonian dissolution it seems to not just apply to the brain but it applies on a principle level to a lot of things, and I believe that it applies to the movement system in a beautiful way and you see it as soon as it's presented to you. And so, from the evolutionary history of movement, what we see with biological organisms is we start with simple things that are simply capable of pure radial, three-dimensional expansion and compression Amoebas, sponges, you know these very primitive sorts of creatures. And we still have those elements inside of our body, like lungs and heart, that just whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop of our body, like lungs and heart, that just Then, if we press the fast forward button, we kind of get up to the level of animals that have a spine. Now I just pressed like a billion years of fast forward, but we get to spinal creatures. And first spinal creatures are fish. Okay, so the movement strategies of fish. They swim in the frontal plane. So so if we press the fast forward button again, we have animals that make their way onto land and those are going to be things like if you see a salamander, for instance, and then those are going to turn into lizards. They still move in the frontal plane with their spine. Now I press the fast forward button.

Speaker 1:

Age of mammals. Mammals have a lot of different things as compared to reptiles, but one of the really striking features of mammals is that they switch their spinal movement approach to a sagittal plane spinal driver. Okay, and we see this really prominently with mammals that return to the water like whales and dolphins, and they swim in the sagittal plane. Okay. So we could essentially say that there's reptiles like snakes and, you know, iguanas that are swimming on land and mammals like dolphins that are running in the water. We press that fast forward button again and we actually go all the way to humans who decided to take a mammalian sagittal spinal strategy and go upright with it and add a twist, aka a transverse plane element to it.

Speaker 1:

And if you are competent and can manage gravity, you have a sagittal uprighting capability and you transverse your thorax through space as your arms and legs swing in the sagittal plane and your pelvis pumps in the frontal plane, the minute that you become overloaded with stress. The minute that you become overloaded with stress, what you do is you go backwards from an evolutionary perspective and you compensate with a frontal plane spinal strategy. Okay, you see this with people immediately when you know what to look for. You see this with people immediately when you know what to look for. It's like they're not competent movers, so they wobble like penguins or like a drunk or something like that, or the way that a chimpanzee would have to move through space. A chimpanzee is a great example of this. On four legs, they move very effectively. They don't compensate. Chimpanzee goes to two feet and it immediately has to frontal plane compensate. It's trying to swim through space with an older model of spinal behavior for locomotion. So humans are no different. Okay, the minute that you're incapable of managing gravity and the stress associated with it, your movement system resorts to the older model and you attempt to swim through space with your movement strategy.

Speaker 1:

What I try to do to be able to solve for this is I give you training wheels. If you can't ride your bike, someone would give you training wheels. And what training wheels do is they add ground, they give you support, they give you external support and they increase the amount of feedback that your brain is receiving through more contact points with surface area that's outside of you. That is pillar four. Okay, pillar four is what do you do with people who can't move very well? And this is I increase ground. And I have 12 different inputs that increase ground that you could go with as a trainer.

Speaker 1:

Okay, some of these things are really simple, like increase the coefficient of friction. Like what's an example of that? Put chalk on your hands so that you can hold on to something more effectively, you know, or straps. That just increases the coefficient of friction immensely. All of these things just increase the amount of surface area contact that you have with outside stuff. But I build supporting structures, I put things on tracks, I give you a push in a direction to give your body a sense of that space. I give you something to feel okay, like a lot of times I'll talk about like tourists on the New York City subway who, if they get in there, they're trying to read that map, which is not useful. If you get on that subway and you think that map is going to help you. It's not going to help you, but as soon as the train starts going, whoa they get rocked around.

Speaker 1:

You see, a veteran. They just put one finger on that pole and they just kind of flow with it. It's amazing, you know, that one little piece of touch is a significant improvement in the way that you can manage yourself in space. So, you know, I got all these different things, but it kind of creates like hey, I landed in this chute of sagittal plane split squat and it's going to be, you know, loaded with weights and you're going to, you know, do it for a low number of reps and it's going to be slow.

Speaker 1:

But if this person is a train wreck trying to do a split squat with dumbbells in their hands, okay, well, we've got a solution for this. Okay, I'm going to put them in a Smith machine. If there's a Smith machine, because the Smith machine is on tracks, you don't have to deal with this thing potentially wobbling in space, you don't have to control for it. So I could guarantee you that if the person was a mess with dumbbells in their hand trying to do a split squat, at the very least they're going to be better in the Smith machine because it's got more coefficient of friction. It's a guided track system. There's more contact places for you. It's got a number of factors that would lead to a more competent presentation of the concept you're trying to create with the exercise.

Speaker 2:

But I thought that the Smith machine isn't functional.

Speaker 1:

You know it's, it's it's. I think that this industry is lacking a framework for appropriate decision making for exercise selection. So a Smith machine is neither functional nor dysfunctional. It is a tool that could be potentially very useful in certain circumstances or an inappropriate choice in other circumstances. So it's trying to identify the circumstances and the individual in those circumstances and then match the appropriate tool and setup for that situation.

Speaker 1:

You know, if I'm trying to train somebody that's going to try to win the French Open in tennis and their whole program is Smith machine squats probably a bad program okay, they need to be able to operate in multiple planes in large like lateral stance positions and they need to be able to go at high velocity with low resistance. And my hope would be that there would be some corresponding match with my fitness selections for that individual based on their goals. But if I've got a 55-year-old woman that's trying to lose weight and not lose a ton of muscle tissue and we're trying to make good and she's in her second week of exercising, I think that we would have very different exercise selection and choices for those two different individuals.

Speaker 2:

But the great thing about being a competent coach is you can go to the seminar and you can take these gold nuggets and regress it back to even your general population, because we're all athletes and you need to be able to look at and say you know what? I have someone who I can progress. I have someone I need to regress. But the principles are still the same.

Speaker 1:

You know. And so when you're like, okay, great, You're talking about a squat and putting a person that's bad at exercising in a Smith machine Cool, that's a seminar Well, there's a lot more to it than that. But what this seminar is is for running, jumping, throwing and changing directions, all right. So how do you take and look're, if you've done some personal training, you will probably have worked with someone that's incredibly unathletic and maybe you tried to get them to run and you realize, like, oh my god, like I didn't even know that someone could show me something that that is that scary. Looking like, oh my, where do I begin with this person? Like, what's the? What's the concept? So, you know, with these concepts of ground, it's like, you know, there's there's start with a bilateral stance, there's start static, there's start with touching as much stuff as possible. There's, you know, regress, the range of motion. There's a lot of these areas, but like, essentially, like exercise number one, for the most incompetent person you've ever dealt with in your life is seated with their back against the wall. Arm action, okay, because it's going to position them so they'll feel a back, a wall against their back, and so now they can sit up nice and tall and have their head over their thorax, over their pelvis, and they can maintain that posture while they're starting to get their arms to move. And exercise two is going to be hey, we're going to now stand them up and we're going to keep their back against the wall, we're going to put their arms out in front of them and we're going to have them march so that they're in this posture and they're starting to get their legs to go. And now we can take them away from the wall and give them a kettlebell in front of them and they can still march and they've got enough reference and gravity management and body positioning stuff to be able to. And we're segueing them away from their absolute white belt drills into a yellow belt drill. And now, before you know it, I always say like, just let somebody do one thing right in the concept, and what we're going to do is we're going to crack that door open and they're going to feel what something should feel like hey, this is the way your body should feel when you're trying to run. Okay, and maybe the only thing we do right today is we get your body stacked up, lined up, head over thorax, over pelvis, and we move your arms, okay, but I can guarantee you they're going to be like well, I feel my abs when I do this, is that right? And it's like, yes, you know. And now we kind of push them to the next drill and they're like, hey, I still actually feel this thing here. Good, excellent. Now just add your legs on top of that thing and then they're like, huh, okay, this is, this feels a little bit better. And you get to the point where you've actually got something that's like fairly respectable and you're moving them in a trajectory.

Speaker 1:

I find the concept that's the easiest posture to put somebody in, then add as much external stuff to support them and give them information in that easy posture as I possibly can, and I keep them in that posture and I remove the support and the feedback from them until there is low on the support and feedback in that posture as possible. If they nail that now we move them to the next posture and we maximize support and feedback in that place and then we again remove support and feedback in that posture and then remove them to the next posture Okay. So it's oftentimes easy when I explain it with something like squat, because people are more familiar with that the easiest place posture-wise in a squat is reclined and people go what the hell is that? It's a hack squat. It's a pendulum squat. It's a leg press. The forex is reclined back and try to do a pendulum squat and not work your quads. I dare you. It's very hard to do it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so I get the person reclined and they're in the most maximally supported circumstance possible Back rest. It's on a pivot point. It literally is on a track that brings you through space. Now I'm going to challenge the posture more. Okay, I'm going to bring you to full upright and I'm going to maximally support full upright. The only tool I can think of for that is actually the Smith machine. I mean, there's actually also the Rogers pendulum squat, if you've ever seen that. But those are maximally supported upright posture exercises. They're ever so slightly more difficult than the reclined supported exercises, but they're the next step in the pathway. Now that they master those things, I can have a less supported upright squat, so that could be a free weight squat. Right, then I progress you to the next posture, which in many ways is playing with the stance change into a split stance. People see that pretty easily with a resistance exercise being able to create that with throwing or with running or jumping.

Speaker 1:

That's the task of this seminar and to me this one is like the master class of these things, because you have to zoom back out. You're like, well, how the hell would I maximally support a change of direction cut, like what does that look like? And it's like, well, what it can look like is someone has a wall next to them and they're pushing into the wall and they're staying there and they're learning what it feels like to push out of a cut with some force, so that it's not like a marshmallow trying to move sideways. Because I guarantee you probably got some clients that want to play pickleball and their lateral movement is probably absolutely tragically bad. Okay, so if you wanted to start them somewhere, we got to find a static drill that actually gets into understanding the concept and from there there's going to be different tools that we can use to constrain the movement.

Speaker 1:

You know, one of my favorites in the beginning of being able to create lateral movement, change of direction, is the reach and roll drills that Lee Taft really kind of like features quite a bit. So you've got a Swiss ball, a medicine ball, and then like a small medicine ball as your tools, ball, a medicine ball, and then like a small medicine ball as your tools, and you're standing in a wide stance and you're rolling the ball back and forth in front of you with your hand, which is making you laterally shift your weight side to side. But because your hand is on a ball, you're staying in that flexed athletic position. You're not coming out of that position. So they're learning to translate their body mass side to side. And then I can extend it further by switching the hand and bringing it across my body with one and then increasing the lateral movement with the other hand. So there are, and I can add bands or cables to the person's body to give them more feedback with these things.

Speaker 1:

So it's like to me this is the most creative. This is like the Bob Ross of seminars, where we're like, hey, how do you take this train wreck? And we're going to paint a little cloud over here, a little river over here. So now it's coming to life for the person here. A little river over here. So now it's coming to life for the person. It's like, you know, how do you take a jump and let someone who can't jump well, find a position that's actually appropriate for them. You know how do you classify and categorize all the different ways to train triple extension. How many tools can you think of to be able to regress it, so that you give the right person the right level of sophistication and then selectively remove those things, so that you create a very smooth transitional progression system and you don't jump someone from white belt to purple belt exercise difficulty?

Speaker 2:

And, ladies and gentlemen, that's why we call him the mad scientist, because he I love how, in the beginning, you're talking about the people and the business skills essentially of you know training, but you have an extreme competence for the technical aspect. Don't let that deter you either, where it's like, oh my God, he's talking about you know fish and all this bullshit. I'm not ready for the seminar. He has a great ability to be able to teach to all levels and so when you show up, you'll definitely be able to take with, like he's saying, the white belt. You may be a white belt with these technical skills, but you're going to get a lot of tools that you can bring back immediately implement with yourself, but also with your general pop or if you have athletes.

Speaker 2:

This is a game changer. If you aren't fired up like I am, every time I hear Doc talk, I get motivated and just there's so much to learn and I can only feel for the person who wasn't able to get the hands-on aspect. So in these two days you will learn more than any textbook guaranteed. You have to get to the in-person and just be in his presence and you're going to get that fire and you leave these seminars with so much motivation. That's what you need. You need that spark under your ass to start better serving your clients. And so many trainers they had that scarcity mindset. Well, you know, I can't do all that. That's why you're struggling, because you aren't investing in yourself. You have to get out there and be around great people like Doc and that's just going to propel your business and your own personal technical skills just beyond belief you know after.

Speaker 1:

I like the way that you put it, like some of them might hear that be like I don't know how to do this stuff. Two days of this you're going to come out of this. You're going to know exactly where to start people. You're going to have an exact rule book that you can follow so you don't have to like what I tried. I always tell people I'm the laziest trainer you'll actually ever meet. Okay, it's very lazy and I don't like to make pressure decisions like I really don't. Like I've had enough times where I've had my back pressed against the wall. People like what's your decision?

Speaker 2:

I'm like I don't know, I don't, don't know.

Speaker 1:

Well, once you have actually created a systematic process for your decision-making, you never have that I don't know, I don't know what to do moment where you're like I think we're going to make something up and we're going to see how it goes. You don't ever have to do that again. It actually saves you so much anxiety and that kind of a thing, because you're like, okay, what's the, what's the category of exercise that will work? Okay, check, I know what that place is. And now that we're there, I have a bunch of different options, okay, as far as, like, ways to be able to support.

Speaker 1:

Now, if you again like I always tell people, like, if you work in a gym that's got all the machines in the world, your life is going to be really easy. If you work in a place that's like absolute bare bones kind of like it looks like a garage CrossFit kind of gym. You've got dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells and maybe some bands. Now you got to get a little bit more creative. But with this seminar you're going to see exactly where would you put a band, exactly where would you run a cable, exactly what would you do in these circumstances to be able to take someone, because, look, if someone's amazing. They're like Michael Jordan walks through your doors and he can jump, run, throw, do everything perfectly. Like, okay, this is super easy. Like hey, how about you just run a few sprints? And like, then jump and lift some weights and like everything looks good, cool. Like that's not happening.

Speaker 1:

Okay, the opposite person is coming through, where everything they do is wrong and you're like, oh God, how do I fix this? And I, I really created something that it will do your thinking for you and now all you have to do is follow a model. And because that's all I do, because I still work with new people on a regular basis, and I'm like, oh, that's terrible. Like I, I didn't know someone could actually do a row that poorly.

Speaker 1:

What do I do? You know, it's like the answer is built in and it's like for me, I just have to remember the okay, I have to add ground here, here and here. And it's like then they do the thing and it's like well, it looks pretty decent. Now we can work with that. It's if you're feeling the anxiety of like, ah, this is too complicated, this is the least complicated stuff you will ever actually utilize in your life, because I don't want to be stressed out or to feel like I'm not doing a good job and I literally had to build something to take all those fears and anxieties out of my own life.

Speaker 2:

Doc's been nice enough to select a few lucky winners. If you throw this in your story, the podcast will reach out and get a little discount. It's going to be the 26th and 27th of next week at Real Fitness in Playa del Rey. It's a game changer, ladies and gentlemen. You got to show up to this, Doc. Thank you for your time. Where can people find you?

Speaker 1:

Instagram's a great place. It's at Dr Pat Davidson D-R period Pat Davidson.

Speaker 2:

All right, my man. Well, thank you for taking the time and remember, keep showing up.