Dr. John Rusin | Unlocking Pain-Free Performance | August 25, 2025 Ep. 20 - The Low Carb Consultant

Episode Transcript
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(00:11):
All right guys, welcome back to the Low Carb Consultant podcast.
I'm thrilled today to introduce Doctor John Russen, also known
as the Strength Doc, a doctor ofphysical therapy, personal
trainer and injury prevention expert.
He's been recognized by Men's Health as one of the top 50

(00:31):
fitness professionals globally. And for nearly two decades, Dr.
Russen has forged A reputation by blending elite level strength
training, functional hypertrophyand injury resilience into
everyday fitness. He's the architect behind the
Pain Free Performance Specialistcertification and the

(00:53):
unbreakable training app, makingelite strength, mobility and
longevity longevity accessible to anyone.
So Doctor Russ and great to haveyou on man.
Pleasure to finally meet you our.
Pleasure is mine, thanks for having me.
Yeah, absolutely. And maybe before we get into all
the fun stuff, training, diet, injury prevention, your
philosophy on things, can you give the listeners just a real

(01:15):
brief background on yourself andand maybe how you got to this
point and where you're at right now?
For sure. Well, I started out as the son
of two PhD university professors.
My dad was in athletic performance and he was an
athletic director, and my mom was the Dean in Health and Human
services at a local university in my hometown of Buffalo, NY.

(01:36):
And I was thrown into two thingsright away.
I was thrown into the gym and onthe field in court for sports
with my dad, and I was sitting around the university in the
library with my mom. And I like to think that my
journey was kind of like high advertising both of those things
together in what I'm currently doing today, which is running an
education system with pain free performance, coaching clients

(01:59):
and athletes with my personalized training and also
with some of the teams that I run and really just looking at
it through a lens of preventative health and fitness
as opposed to just run-of-the-mill personal
training. But in terms of my background, I
started off as an athlete myself.
I brought it all the way to a Division One level in baseball

(02:20):
and then ended up being a coach at University of Buffalo for
strength and conditioning and spending a couple years in
Graduate School and then headingout to Southern California.
Taking my first job in sports performance and for about a
decade working predominantly with field court, sport
athletes, overhead throwing athletes, majority or
quarterbacks in football, baseball players and tennis

(02:41):
players. And today I find myself in a
little bit of a different role with health and longevity being
my focus really, with 90% of my client list and a lot of my
education focused on everyday people that want to look, feel
and function their best. Very cool.
So it sounds like to me. So we've got kind of a little
bit of a split between who we'reworking with.

(03:04):
It sounds like you work with some elite level athletes still
as well as everyday people, correct?
That's correct. But you know, contrary to
popular belief, I believe that my training systems, they
actually best serve both of those populations.
Even though we've been told thatthey need to train totally
different, the principles don't change.
I think the principles of pantryperformance training best serves

(03:27):
all of these different populations because at the end
of the day, people need to be healthy systemically, they need
to be healthy orthopedically. And if they can achieve both of
those things, then achieving their goals are performing at
their highest level becomes. Far easier.
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.So, so what's kind of breakdown
your training philosophy so the listeners understand those
principles? So what, what, how do you go

(03:51):
about when you're, when someone's coming in and you're
trying to diagnose someone or they've maybe they've got an
injury? How do you go about utilizing
your principles in terms of taking on that new client and
implementing whatever it is we need to implement for progress?
We've worked this for the last 19 years and I think it's a lot
more simple than it was 19 yearsago, but we call it the six by 6

(04:14):
protocol. When I bring on a new client or
a new athlete I want to look at the six foundational movement
patterns, squat, hinge, lunge, push, pull, carry and degrees of
rotation as a 7th. And I also want to look at if
they are in the training and maintaining the core 6 physical
characteristics for health and performance.
So that's power strength, hypertrophy, cardio and

(04:35):
conditioning, mobility and athleticism.
That is the first stage audit that I'll do for every type of
client that comes in. And that will tell me a lot
about the way in which we go after a rebuild process for them
and their client management, their programming decisions, and
even the way that I am interacting with that client to
be able to achieve higher levelsof success than they had in the

(04:59):
past. Very cool.
What's typically like the biggest performance mistake you
see people making right now? What's maybe the main thing that
you're seeing as clients are coming in?
I mean, I'm sure you're seeing all types of issues, whether
it's injuries, movement pattern,inefficiencies.
Let's go with the first one. What's the biggest performance

(05:20):
mistake you're seeing people making right now when they're
coming in and they're new with you?
I think it's more of a mindset issue for most people.
They are placing their performance in front of their
health and they are not achieving either.
We like to have a pain free performance mindset in terms of
the way in which we are prioritizing the First things

(05:42):
first. I'm a big believer, I always
have been. If we can be healthy, we can
achieve anything. But if we're not healthy, if
we're struggling with pain, injuries, burnout or systemic
health issues, we're always going to be playing a hard game
of back around trying to rebuild, rebuild, rebuild,
taking one step forward, 2 stepsback and kind of getting into

(06:05):
that vicious cycle of pain and frustration.
So a health centric fitness first approach is what we try to
go after, but the average personis doing the polar opposite.
They're putting aesthetics in front of their health, they're
putting their bench press numbers in front of their
health, they're putting their marathon time in front of their
health, and in all actuality, all of those different goals

(06:27):
would be more optimally achievedif they simply felt their best.
That's interesting. And yeah, I, I, I would guess I
would say I would have to agree with you on that point because I
think a lot of times where there's like we've got hobbies
where like you said, running training for marathons or we're
in the gym. We're just trying to push
certain numbers on on, on the barbell, right, Increasing

(06:50):
weight, whatever the case is, weget kind of too invested in some
of those things and we're not thinking about our overall
general health and what we're doing to our body pushing to
attain some of those numbers andmetrics.
So it is there like a common issue that you see when you have
people coming in? Is it like shoulder issues or

(07:11):
just basic movement pattern and efficiency, unable to squat, bad
knee? Like what's the most common
thing that you're seeing with like everyday people?
Because I would say athletes areprobably different.
I think they're usually most athletes that I've had the
pleasure of coaching and training and knowing they are
born with a different type of like things come naturally to an
athlete. I think if they, if you watch an

(07:33):
athlete move for the first time,you can just tell like the way
they squat, the way they walk, the way they run, it's different
than most people. So in regards to most people,
what's the most common thing that you're seeing?
From an orthopedic perspective, you're going to see the big
three almost every single time in current day #1 most injured
area or most chronically painfularea in the human body today is

(07:55):
not the lower back, contrary to popular belief.
It is actually the shoulder. So we're seeing a lot of
different shoulder presentationswhere there's a a combination of
mobility, stability and skill issues that they're unable to
really open themselves up and they are dealing with the
generalized chronic pain condition, which is front sided
shoulder pain. 2nd on the list though is the lower back.

(08:17):
The lower back tends to be a chronic pain point for people.
We have 3 to 4 decades of research showing that this is
the thing that most likely takespeople out of their normalized
lifestyle. And that is absolutely true.
There's people that are dealing a lot with lower back pain and
movement pattern disuse. We'll get to that in a second.
And then the third one is going to be the knees.

(08:39):
The knees tend to take the burden of stress when our hips
aren't working, when our lower back hurts, and when our
shoulders are not moving well and dysfunctional.
So those big three are interesting because the average
person today that goes into a fitness solution is dealing on
average with 2.3 chronic pain points.

(09:01):
So the average person coming to you working with me or anyone
else for that matter, in the fitness industry in 2025 is
dealing with shoulders, hips, knees, lower backs, ankles that
don't move, elbows that are flared up and next that can't
rotate. And we go, oh, okay, well, your
goal is hypertrophy and losing 80 lbs this year, but you can't

(09:22):
move and you can't function and we can't really train
autonomously. Where do we go from there?
And that's why I'm a big believer in, hey, let's get
healthy first. Because if we can lay the
foundation for movement health and be able to ingrain a full
human movement system spectrum where we're able to actually
perform movement patterns that anormal human being should be

(09:43):
able to do, then scaling into hypertrophy or losing fat or
driving up intensities and volumes becomes that much more
meaningful and sustainable. And that last thing,
sustainability. That's the name of the game for
any professional coach out therewho's managing clients.
A. 100% yeah. That's that's a great way to put
look at it. And I would say we're all, I

(10:05):
mean, even myself guilty of thisin terms of, you know, chasing
certain movements, PRS, whateveryou want to call it and regard
it. But maybe putting those in front
of overall health and general movement effectiveness and
efficiency for long term sustainability.
That makes all the sense in the world to me.

(10:26):
So what would be what, what would like the protocol look
like someones dealing with the big three?
What would the protocol look like in terms of exercises you
would have them do? Maybe we can talk about diet.
I don't know if that's part of the protocol as well.
We can shout about that. But on the movement side of
things, what would the initial protocol look like for someone
dealing with the big three? And I think you said the big
three was the shoulder, the lower back and the knees,

(10:48):
correct? Correct.
We would go right after a movement system audit.
So that's looking at the foundational movement patterns
from the most basic of structure.
So you look at squat, hinge, lunge, push, pull and carry
carries, essentially locomotion of moving your body through
space. And we look at it from a
qualities control perspective. And from there we access where

(11:11):
they are on the pyramid of progression and regression.
Do we need to maintain the levelof function because we're doing
pretty good and we want to maintain it in terms of
performance, or are we having togo into more of a structural
rebuild, putting together the component of the parts of a
movement pattern such as a hip hinge and building it from the
ground up, so to say? So it starts with a movement

(11:33):
screen and then it can even go into movement assessments where
we look at the deeper dive of unique anthropometry, body type,
body structure, limb lengths, joint angulation, and just
general skill sets from a training background or an injury
background that would alter the way in which their brain is
actually perceiving quality movement.

(11:54):
So we like to go at a training first approach, meaning that I'm
not a big believer of like having a clipboard there and
telling people that they're broken and dysfunctional.
I want to be able to get them moving because that's what they
hired me for, to be able to moveand train and then be able to
find access points that we can start maximizing now and then
rebuilding points that we start building back from the ground up

(12:16):
with more of a structured protocol where we're taking a
step by step approach up to loadintensity and also complexity of
the movement and exercise variations.
Interesting on the diet side of things, do you ever consult
because obviously you know basedoff diet and you know that can
cause a lot of inflammatory conditions having a specific

(12:38):
joint or area of the body be stiff, have inflammation, those
types of things. Is there any sort of diet
protocol that you implement along with the movement side of
things? As much as we have systemized
the training protocols, as you say, I think that on the
nutritional side of things, it is far more complex and far more

(12:59):
individualized based on people'sunique preferences, their
lifestyle, and also their behavioral habits.
But when I take on a client to work with or even if somebody
comes in and trains on the Unbreakable app with us, we have
to be vocationally looking at the trifecta of results.
If you're looking at only diet or only training or only

(13:21):
recovery and lifestyle habits, you're not going to gain optimal
results. So yes, nutrition is one of the
big three for us and it's a non negotiable because you can train
all you want on the best programs.
You can sleep 10 plus hours per night and you can have HRV score
of 130, or you can actually eat your diet or your recovery.

(13:44):
So we need to be actually looking at this in combination
of creating synergy with the other things that we're doing.
One of the biggest mistakes thatI see people do is that they're
either eating well or training like shit, or they're training
well on eating like shit, vice versa, or they're not recovering
and they don't have these three things moving in the same

(14:05):
direction to create momentum. And as simple as that sounds,
actually coordinating your dietary intakes with your
training frequency intensities and volumes and goals, those two
things, if we can do, you're almost automatically going to
jump somebody over the plateau or the hump that they weren't
able to do previously. Very cool.

(14:25):
And you mentioned the unbreakable app, I definitely
want to chat about that here in a quick second.
But what would you say? Like what would what would you
say is 1 lesson you think coaches still overlook when
trying to keep athletes injury free?
Like, is there one common area that you feel like a lot of
coaches are just basically overlooking?

(14:47):
We are lacking general physical preparedness today largely,
especially for our general fitness consumers.
I think that with the inundationof information or dare I say
entertainment on social media, especially in the fitness
influencer space, we see a lot of circus acts, we study a lot
of non actual training. We see people that have never

(15:08):
trained another human being in their life giving fitness advice
to millions of people and we lose touch at what the major
items are that are going to moveus forward individually in the
real world versus what is gawk tastic when it comes to
Instagram or YouTube. And I think that people come in
with a really messed up mindset as to what they think they need

(15:29):
to do in order to move the result needle forward.
But general physical preparedness basically means
that we're well-rounded to the point where we are strong, we
have a strong body composition, we are building muscle, we are
burning fat, we are mobile, we're able to accelerate and
decelerate, we're able to move like an athlete and you're able
to feel good on a daily basis. But very rarely is somebody

(15:51):
coming in with more of a well-rounded mindset.
They're coming in with a very dogmatic, narrow view at what
they think they need to do. Hey, the barbell lifts are going
to cure cancer. 6 to 8 reps onlythe squat, bench, dead and
overhead press. That is all I need.
On the other side, it's like no functional training is all I
need. I don't need anything more than

(16:14):
the 16 KG kettlebell and I need to add rotation and
lateralization into every singlething that I do.
Neglecting all strength. Or people throw out strength
altogether and they look at, hey, VO2 Max is the number one
longevity metric that we have atour disposal.
I don't have to strength train as long as I run and as long as
I'm able to build that VO2 Max up even though I can't even move

(16:36):
and feel good on a daily basis. So I think people are very
narrow at one dogmatic approach as opposed to building a more
well-rounded approach. I call it a actual hybrid
approach to training, not just powerlifting and marathon
running, but actually doing all the things that a human body
should be able to do to be a lifelong athlete and be able to

(16:58):
maturely move forward with that mindset versus what we're
inundated with. I love that.
No, that that makes all the sense in the world to me.
And, and that's how essentially I train now I use a lot of the
big barbell, barbell movements for just general strength, But I
also run, I also do cardio, I dokettlebell work.

(17:20):
I try to incorporate as many things as possible because when
you say general physical preparedness, like it makes me
where my mind goes is like you want to be kind of ready for
anything. Right.
Yeah, that, that's what that means to me.
I I want to be able to go outside and run.
I want to go from standing stillto a full to a full high speed
runner Sprint without necessarily having to spend 30

(17:43):
minutes warming up because my knees and hips and tight and
ankles are so tight. Like I want to have that
capability to be ready for anything.
And also another thing too is just to be able to build or have
the capability to move weight when you're tired.
That's another thing I think is kind of important, Like when
you're fatigued, when you're tired, how capable are you, if

(18:05):
that makes sense? What are your thoughts on that?
It makes total sense. I like what you said, to be able
to be prepared for anything because that's called real life.
We don't know the challenges outin front of us.
Maybe we're going to be hit witha really tough diagnosis that we
need to battle back from. From a systemic health
perspective. Maybe we find ourselves in a
dangerous situation where we need to be able to run or move

(18:27):
fast. Maybe we are just stepping off
of a curve while drinking a Starbucks, texting on our phone
on the street, and we need to decelerate rapidly on a single
leg. Maybe you find yourself stuff
like me for the first time in 15years, having to throw 300
pitches a day of batting practice to my sons travel
league team this summer and having to not tear my rotator

(18:48):
cuff in the process. You don't know what's out in
front of you, but I think that the more capable we are across
the spectrum of human capabilities, that is where we
find the term lifelong athlete. A lifelong athlete doesn't mean
that you have to go and do a high rocks competition or go to
the CrossFit Games and get all dogmatic with one single

(19:08):
training approach. It means that you want to be
able to move like an athlete, bepain free, look great, function
well and be emotionally investedin your physical process.
And that's something called physical autonomy.
Physical autonomy is that you train smart, you eat well,
you're able to recover like a boss, and you get to go out and

(19:29):
live your life that has benefited from you being healthy
and you being functional. Physical autonomy means that you
get to do whatever you want to do because you've earned the
right to do it, and you don't have pain, you don't have
injuries, you don't have repercussions in the process.
I love that philosophy. That is such a great way to look
at diet, training, lifestyle as a whole.

(19:51):
That that that is like that is the mentality.
If if everyone adopted that mentality, think how pain free,
think how much better everyone'slife would be if they adopted
that approach. I was curious when you have a
new clients coming in, whether they are athletes or everyday
people, are they sometimes? Surprised about your approach.

(20:15):
Like we were talking about people who have dogmatic
ideologies, like, oh, you guys, you just got to do CrossFit or
you just got to run and get the VO2 Max, that's the only thing
that matters. Or you just got to do the heavy
barbell lifts. That's it, That's all that
really matters. Do you find that sometimes when
people come in, they sit down, they chat with you, they learn
about your philosophy, your approach, your protocol?
Are they sometimes surprised to hear what you might be

(20:38):
recommending in terms of a game plan for them?
I think earlier on in my coaching career, maybe today,
I've been extremely fortunate tobe in the industry for so long
and be in the public space for so long since 2013.
That basically everything that Ibelieve, everything that I
teach, everything that I systemize, everything that I

(20:59):
personally practice, what I preach, it is out there in the
public space. Thousands of articles later,
we've run 952 day in person livecertification courses through
pain free performance. It's out there.
So the people that are coming towork with me, they know exactly
what they're getting. And I think that's a very
interesting conversation becauseI do a couple different things,

(21:21):
like I'll bring in one-on-one clients, I'll bring in teams
that will work with me, I'll develop large scale team
training for thousands of peoplelike the Unbreakable app, and
then I'll also do programming audits.
So it's basically consulting andI'm giving a ton of data.
I sift through the data and thenI give general recommendations
on what the next steps are. But the interesting thing about

(21:43):
all those different portions of my business is that they all
lead to the same thing. People know what they need to
do. People can make the decision to
yes, I need to change, but sometimes they just need to be
validated and saying, yes, this change is warranted for me.

(22:03):
And usually that change runs into people running into pain
and injuries. Hey, I can't blow out my
shoulder again. I need to start training
different. Or they run into health issues
where, hey, I just had a heart attack and I know that cardio
and conditioning needs to be a strong portion of my program
going forward. I just end up being the guy that
puts the programming together once they've already made the

(22:25):
qualified decision to make that change, if that makes sense.
But you know, everyone who comesin to me, they know that they're
coming in for a specific health first well-rounded program that
is going to make them feel and function well.
If they want to go in and powerlift at a world level
competition, don't hire me. If you want to go in and run an
ultra marathon against David Goggins, don't hire me.

(22:47):
But if you want to be healthy, you want to have longevity and
you want to train something thatadds to your life, then yeah.
I am the person to come in and work with and work under.
And I think that just carving out that niche, it is a more
generalist niche, but it is one in the same where I think that
10 years ago, longevity and health and being well-rounded

(23:08):
and just being good, human, being able to move, feel and
function well, it was a little bit less popular than it is
today. But for better or for worse, we
have a lot of big names out there talking about it in the
media today. The power of longevity, the
power of 4050 sixty plus training and the way in which we
organize a lifestyle for a forever plan.

(23:29):
And I love that because I've been doing this for almost 2
decades now with that exact samemotto and mentality.
I love it. Yeah, I would totally agree with
you there. When we wrap up here, we'll talk
about where people can find you.We'll talk about the training
app, YouTube, all the different elements because you have so
many different resources online.But in regards to the website,

(23:50):
on your website, you debunk the the myth about building muscle
while burning fat simultaneously.
Can you maybe break down why that's one of the most misguided
goals in the industry? Well, we refer to it as the Holy
Grail and I would be lying to you, Max, if I didn't have 90%

(24:12):
of people that come in to work with me other than getting
healthy and getting out of pain.They want to lose fat, they want
to build muscle and they want tomove like an athlete.
That is what everyone is after. But then you have, you know, the
pub Med geeks out there saying like, oh, this is impossible.
This is this study and this is that study.
You can't build muscle mass and lose body fat.

(24:33):
And then any real practitioner working with real life human
beings that are actually taking data on a week to week or a
month by month basis goes. I know the science says one
thing, but how can you tell thatthis is not working when you
have hundreds of clients that are able to build muscle and
reduce their body fat percentageat the same time?

(24:56):
You can't tell me that it's impossible because it's
happening on a day-to-day basis.But I do think that in order to
actually achieve that, we do need to be on point across the
board. We can't be half, half assing
our workouts. We can't be haphazardly going in
and having a nutritional approach that isn't necessarily
dialed in. And we definitely need to

(25:17):
sleeping and recovering and de stressing with tactics that
aren't going to take away from those other two metrics.
But I can see it day by day. I think that this idea out there
that everyone won the Mr. Olympia 10 years ago and they've
maximized optimal muscle mass and now they're going to try to
build more muscle mass and lose fat at the same time.

(25:39):
That's not what we're talking about.
Or people come in and they're 4 1/2% body fat shredded, and
somehow they're going to build muscle and get down to 3% body
fat. Everyone likes to look at the
outliers, and they don't look atthe average person coming in
that most likely hasn't come close to maximizing any sort of
hypertrophic potential. They've never really built

(26:01):
muscle meaningfully in their life, and they're probably 10 to
15% over their body fat percentage that is healthy and
sustainable. When you deal with real people
that have a lot of fat to lose, have a lot of muscle to gain,
they're not dieting, they're nottraining intelligently, and
they're sleeping four to five hours a night.
There's only opportunity on the table.

(26:22):
And I would say that I hate to promise this to anyone, but I
simply show the results because the results speak volumes,
whether it's men or women, whether it's people in their 20s
all the way up into people in their 60s on my client list.
It tends to go in the right direction.
When again, you get those 3 metrics moving forward,
training, nutrition and lifestyle.

(26:42):
If we can create that momentum forward, then we start to do the
things that are quote UN quote, unthinkable or impossible.
Yeah. And on that note, if someone's
focused on nutrition, but ignoring maybe the strength or
the mobility, what would be the first thing that they're likely
missing on that side of things? Usually they're not hitting the

(27:06):
requisite amount of volume and frequency of actually structured
strength and hypertrophy that they need to be eliciting on a
weekly basis. I have a number of awesome
clients that come in and I manage a lot of coaches, a lot
of nutritionists, physical therapists and physicians.
About 80% of my client list is professionals in the field that
really know their shit. So the the nutritionists are

(27:28):
usually the best ones because they'll come in and you'll look
at their diets and you're like, wow, are you locked in?
Like this is amazing, but their body comp isn't what they want
it to be and they're dealing with the same issues as everyone
else. So you're like, OK, well you
have one out of the three triadstaken care of.
Usually it's a lack of progressive strength training,
it's a lack of intentional functional hypertrophy, and it's

(27:53):
a lack of training frequency andoverall training volumes that
hits minimal effective dosages. Usually I'll see that people are
training anywhere from like one to two times per week.
I'm sorry. You can maybe maintain that that
amount of frequency, but unless you're training 3 hour sessions
and you're Ronnie Coleman, you're not going to be able to
actually make positive adaptations in your body comp.

(28:15):
Usually bringing somebody from two days per week to three days
per week or three days per week to four days per week and being
able to focus intentional intensities and volumes that hit
that minimal effective dosage. That is when they go from moving
around with weights unintentionally to actually
intentionally go in to get strong and building muscle.

(28:35):
And then they take all the advantages from a high end
nutrition protocols that they'vealready had and that's where
they start to trajectory change.I see that almost every single
time. Yeah.
So basically what you're saying is in a lot of these cases, the
simplest way to put it is peopleare moving unintentionally.
Or another way to say it is they're just not working out.

(28:57):
An easy way to put it is they'rejust not working out hard
enough. They're just, they're maybe
going into the gym doing three sets of 10 here, three sets of
10. They're maybe not pushing to
failure and basically they're not sending the appropriate
message to the muscle group thatit needs to progress or change.
They're just not working out hard enough.

(29:18):
Would that be an accurate way toput it?
Yeah, we see this all the time across social media.
I call it woke fitness. Woke fitness is this all you
have to do to be your most optimal self is just lift
weights, quote UN quote, lift weights and walk.
And I'm sitting here like, ah, just because you pick up a
weight doesn't mean that it's strength training.

(29:39):
Just because you are using a machine doesn't necessarily mean
that you have a muscular adaptation to cause hypertrophy.
Just because you're going through the motions hoping and
praying that you do something doesn't mean that you don't need
to hard, Work hard and also worksmart.
I think it's less of a working hard issue for most people.

(30:00):
It's that they don't know how toelicit the proper adaptation for
the goal in hand. They don't know that when they
strength train, we need to be hitting failure with technical
proficiency in order to have themind and the muscles being able
to adapt. They don't know that when we hit
hypertrophy, volume is a key driver that we need to hit
minimal effective dosages with with total volume in order to

(30:22):
grow the tissues. They don't know that when we do
conditioning, we need to be up into of zone 4 or zone 5 close
to maximal heart rates in order to gain that VO2 Max.
They don't know that when we do cardio, we actually need to be
at a zone 2, which is 60 to 70% of maximal heart rate in order
to have any elicited adaptation whatsoever.

(30:44):
Just lifting, AKA working with weights and just walking AKA
moving. That's not necessarily going to
lead to long term positive adaptations.
And people are already in there spending the time.
And the thing that gets at me the most is like, I love when
people are in the gym. I love when people are there
every single day. Invest in their time and their

(31:05):
energy and their money. Don't you want to get the most
out of that? People are so close most of the
time. They're so close and making a
couple key adjustments allows them to maximize their
potential, and that feels betterthan anything.
Yes, just lift and just walk. That feels good to say for
people because it's a very low barrier of entry.

(31:27):
But these aren't the people thatI'm working with.
The people that I'm working withare looking at trying to
optimize their health for a lifetime, and when that's the
goal, I take that very seriously.
That means that we actually needto get at this in a more
intelligent way. Yeah, I think you said, you said
the phrasing perfectly a little bit earlier.
People are just going through the motions like just because
you're you're picking up weightsand you're going for a walk.

(31:50):
Yeah, that that that might be able to elicit some sort of a
progress early on in regards to maybe some newbie games or
whatever the case is. And yes, walking is great, but
in terms of performing effectiveeffectively, efficiently and
optimizing performance and movement as a human being,
you're going to have to put yourbody in certain situations and

(32:11):
uncircumstance of needing to adapt and forwarding that,
forcing that adaptation. Like you said, you got to get
into the zone 4-5. If you're trying to increase,
you know, your increase your cardio in any sort of meaningful
way, you're going to have to train till failure if you want
to send the right message to your muscle group in order to
adapt it. Your body's not going to want to

(32:32):
do it if you're just going through the motions.
And This is why I think, yes, you can trade fat for muscle
because of the majority of people are going through the
motions. They don't mean to be.
I don't. That doesn't mean you're a bad
person. If you haven't had success with
this, you just haven't been equipped with the proper tools
yet. You haven't been equipped with
the proper systems or the protocols that are going to move

(32:53):
the needle for you. And those are the people that I
love working with the most is because they've already made the
choice that health is important to them.
They're already consistent. They're already tracking their
nutrition. There are in there sweating it
out and trying to work hard in the gym.
That is a perfect client for me.That is a perfect client to come
work at any capacity to me because they've already proven

(33:14):
that they have up here what it takes to make a change for a
lifetime. I love putting in programming
for them and going watch this happen and showing them the
course that will change the trajectory of their health and
the results. Because no matter if you are the
fittest person that you know, most likely you're not at your
fitness, you are not at your highest potential level in terms

(33:37):
of your performance. And top performers, they're
always competing not against anyone else.
They're competing against themselves because the game is
about us. The game is not about anyone
else. It's about us being able to feel
and function our best, and that's through empowerment.
So when you can get people that are running into brick walls in
terms of frustration, that are already active and seemingly

(33:58):
doing the right things and giving them a more qualified
plan to be able to achieve, it'sthe best thing in the world
because it's showing somebody that yes, you are doing the
right things. You have made huge progress
mentally. Now, physically, it's time to go
because I'm going to give you the tools for it.
Yeah, absolutely. And I would agree with you too.
The best clients from when I used to own the gym out in Vegas
and the most fun clients are theones that they, they might not

(34:23):
know exactly what to do, but they're bringing the energy and
the mentality in regards to showing up, putting in the work,
taking direction, being coachable for sure, and then
implementing the things out on the outside.
Those are the types of people that are going to see the most
success the quickest. I think about this a lot.
You know, everyone's always about aesthetics.

(34:44):
We judge somebody's character bytheir aesthetics.
We judge their training program by their aesthetics.
We judge their ability to be an expert by their aesthetics.
I don't, I just don't. I can respect a great aesthetic,
but I respect action Action takers, people that are going in
and putting in the work and investing their time, money,
energy and focus into being better.

(35:07):
Action takers are where it's at and they have my highest level
of respect because there is a genetic component to having a
pure aesthetic that is Instagramworthy.
And then there's a component of being a real human trying to be
at your best, which is you taking action on a day-to-day
basis. And man, if we had a world full
of action takers to be a whole new world out there.
Man, that that's that's, that's so well put, 1000% It's all

(35:31):
about taking the action. And to your point, yeah, it's
like so, so those great bodies that we all see on Instagram,
and those are some genetically gifted people, like the girls
like selling the booty programs.They are genetically built with,
with that type of physique, you know what I mean?
And it's the people that are ultimately trying their best to
come in here and put in the effort and the work that are

(35:53):
going to see the results. I 100% agree with you.
Let's talk about the Unbreakableapp here a little bit.
What what goes into that? What went into the development
of that? How can people use it?
Unbreakable App is essentially an all access program that
covers training, nutrition, coaching and a lot of different
unique add-ons to be able to create your perfect program at a

(36:16):
dollar point that makes sense for almost everybody.
It took us about nine months to develop Unbreakable, but I was
unhappy with the types of training teams that I was
managing. Yes, the programming was great.
The delivering was a little bit more subpar, but I knew that we
needed to get people more than just a great program in order to
do what we've been talking aboutthis entire podcast, which is

(36:38):
actually changed the trajectory of their health.
So Breakable is an interesting one because I was a big believer
that people need flexibility with their training.
Not every week's going to be thesame, not every gym is going to
be the same. People have lives, people have
kids, people have travel, peoplehave work.
So we need flexibility in terms of the way in which we schedule,
but the goal needs to be remaining the same, which is

(37:01):
burn fat, build muscle, get healthy.
And I have inside of Unbreakable10 different programs that are
forever program, so they run in simultaneous with one another.
And you're able to train full body, upper, lower splits up to
six and seven days per week. There's dumbbell and band
programs that's had that same goal set and people are able to

(37:23):
mix and match their perfect training schedule.
So you can do an upper lower split, a movement pattern, split
a full body day, and then togglein cardio conditioning and even
have specific mobility days, 15 or 20 minutes at a time that
allow us to have that hybridizedschedule that we've been talking
about. So I think that's a lot, a lot
different than anything else that I've done in my career

(37:43):
because I have sold a lot of awesome single cell programs,
functional hypertrophy, functional power training,
foundations training program, Hundreds of thousands of people
have used these things, but it was 1 program.
But I know very well that peopleneed optionality.
People need the ability to make decisions based on the reality
versus their theoretical. So Unbreakable was the first

(38:06):
time in my career that I was able to deliver a platform which
was all access. So you get access to everything
and actually be able to pick andchoose to create your perfect
plan. And that was a game changer
right off the bat for people. But a lot of people that have
used my previous programs, they're like, I don't even
understand what am I supposed todo with this?
I'm not supposed to just follow one.
No, you can have everything. And I think the reason that it's

(38:28):
been so powerful is that I have 5 head coaches that are inside
of Unbreakable to assist all of our members with it so we're
able to actually assist in the creation of the perfect plan.
That's so cool. So when someone downloads the
app, does it take them through like a series of questions?
I'm assuming in regards to like,hey, OK, what are you trying to
attain? What are the goals?
Where do you have pain points? Where do you have movement

(38:49):
inefficiencies? What are you trying to
ultimately go for? And then it will recommend a
plan and you can kind of pick and choose different movements.
Well, yeah, walk us through it. Yeah.
So when you come in, you're going to have access to
everything, but through the 1st 3 or 4 days, we want to make
sure that one, you can choose your primary training program,
which is going to be like the base training program usually

(39:10):
based on two different things. It's going to be based on your
frequency of training per week. What can you 100% get in no
matter what happens and also based on your goal.
So boom, you have your primary training program.
The next level is, hey, what is your pain point?
And we start to toggle in different six phase dynamic warm
up protocols specific at those pain points, whether it's

(39:32):
shoulder, lower back, knee, you can do them all simultaneously.
That's the next level. And then the third level is to
be able to go, hey, what do you need a little bit more of?
Because we have supplemental plans that add on to the primary
plan that have an emphasis on mobility and have an emphasis on
cardio and conditioning. So you can pick and choose
specific mobility for hip mobility, for instance, 2 days

(39:55):
per week, you can toggle in zone2, cardio, 2 days per week.
And you can create this program that is now a primary program.
You have your pain points that are covered.
And then you have these supplemental plans that can be
toggled in to be able to emphasize mobility and also
emphasize cardio and conditioning.
Gotcha. SO right now I'm just basically

(40:16):
thinking about how I would use this app.
So I so I left Monday, Wednesday, Friday I do cardio
like running, kettlebell work orkettlebell swings Tuesday,
Thursday, Saturday. And so basically what I can do
is go in, go through like maybe the initial structure flow of
the app, put in how I like to work out and basically build

(40:38):
myself like a hybrid training program.
And then I could probably also, to your point, toggle in.
OK, I'm having issues with hip tightness, lower back tightness,
knee stiffness, whatever the case, I can toggle in some
different mobility elements in in order to get where I'm
ultimately trying to go right. That's how the ABS essentially.

(41:00):
Structured that's exactly right.And if that seems like super
arduous of like, Oh my God, I need to do this, this, this and
this like that's available. But also it's available where
it's like, hey, based on what you just told me, you need to be
doing the ultimate plan, which is 3 days per week of full body
lifting, 3 days per week of functional cardio and
conditioning. And you just toggle into
mobility and you are set within one click of a button.

(41:22):
So that's the one I. Want to download this thing
right now? I follow a plan very similar to
yours. I follow the ultimate Pain free
performance program inside of myown app.
So anyone who follows me on Instagram, you'll see that the
reason that you're seeing so many like free workouts is
because I'm literally doing those workouts just as my own
health and fitness every single day.
It's a little bit of a bitch to be able to bring in the tripod

(41:44):
and get videos of everything, but that's happening in real
time. I'm not like setting the camera
up. This isn't curated content.
This is, hey, I got 60 minutes today because I'm a business
owner, I'm a father, I'm a husband.
I have shit to do. I'm getting you real time.
Here's a top end set of me killing myself in the exact
program that you can use. I think that people they do
gravitate towards that because when I do share the real stuff,

(42:07):
it's not like I have a closed set to be able to show you and
fool you into doing something that I'm not doing.
One of my biggest tenants of theway that I've run my career is
practice what I preach. And if it is so good that I will
put my health and performance onthe line with it, I believe that
you should do it too. And I've always been one of the

(42:28):
biggest advocates of running my own training.
I get to the point where if I manage one-on-one clients, I
will personally run their own training programs before I ever
give it to them. I think that we learned so much
with our own bodies that we can fine tune, we can adjust and
then pay it forward. That that is a special thing
that a personal trainer or strength coach has above any

(42:48):
other profession. You know, your CPA is not going
to go in and fuck up his own taxes before he goes in and
messes with yours. But we have the ability to run
everybody's plan and be able to feel the elicited adaptations
that we're talking about in order to pay them forward in the
most efficient way. Very cool.
I was actually going to ask you what does like your, your week,

(43:09):
like your week look like in terms of your training?
I think you said you're so you're following the the
ultimate plan in your app, correct?
Correct the what is it Hanfree performance plan.
Very cool. So what does like your Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, take us whatthrough the week looks like real
quick? Like, do you have certain days
you're doing strength, certain days you're doing cardio,
certain days you're doing mobility?
Yeah. What it What does that look like
for you specifically? Specifically for me, I like to

(43:31):
be active for 60 minutes every single day on a structured
program. It's not for everyone, but it is
definitely for me. Yeah, I'm a little bit weird
like that because I go out not only the result in the gym, but
the way that that makes me feel after because I also work 7 days
per week. But I will go in.
Right now I am doing a four day strengthen hypertrophy focused

(43:51):
high day plan. So on Mondays, it will be a
deadlift emphasis day. This will essentially be our
total lower body day. And then on Tuesdays, it will be
more of a push emphasis day thatwill be upper body focused.
And then on Wednesday, it'll be a functional conditioning
circuit that will have more emphasis on higher heart rates.
In that circuit, we'll also do more direct conditioning work in

(44:14):
those higher heart rate zones with recovery and then also
toggle on mobility and zone 2 cardio, all in 60 minutes.
On Thursday, I have another lower body day that is a squat
emphasis lower body. On Friday I will have a pull
emphasis upper body day and thenon Saturday it will be another
one of those days that mirrors like a day on Wednesday, which

(44:35):
will be a functional conditioning circuit plus high
in heart rate zones and zone 2 at the end.
And I think that having those high lows, it makes you feel
really good because we're not just cranking barbell lifts
every single high day and we're not just walking on the
treadmill on an incline on the low days.
There's going to be a combination of different
emphasis every single day with different movement patterns,

(44:56):
different physical characteristics.
But I've learned that when I train consistently on the
schedule and I'm able to put power, strength, hypertrophy and
conditioning into a same session, very rarely do you feel
bad or do you feel burned out, or do you feel like you can't
reproduce a high level of effortand quality on the next day?
Now, one of my biggest things isthat I want to be able to

(45:18):
personally leave the gym feelingbetter than when I went in.
I think that's what gravitates me towards doing something seven
days a week. Yeah, and same thing too.
When you wake up the next day, you want to have the you, you,
you don't want to necessarily have like the muscle soreness.
Obviously we want sore muscles. But if you if you stagger the
workouts the correct way, you'renot going to be like doubling up

(45:39):
on certain muscle groups from one day to the next day.
So you're able to train, not feel sore, have full
capabilities. That makes all the sense in the
world to me. I know.
And by the way, I can't wait to check out that because now I'm,
I'm basically sold on it. This sounds super super.
Cool. Love to have you.
Yeah, yeah. We're, we're starting to come up
here on time. I've got some some rapid fire

(45:59):
questions that don't necessarilyneed to have rapid fire answers.
Feel free to elaborate here a little bit, but I got some fun
ones for you. So what's the What's the single
most overrated exercise you wishpeople would stop doing?
And what should they do instead?There's a lot that get

(46:19):
overtrained or mistrained, but Ido think right now I see that
the barbell back squat is the beall and all of everything for
most people. And while this has a very high
return on investment for an intermediate to an advanced
trainee that is pain free, that has mobility and stability and

(46:42):
has the skill and the training history to be able to withstand
that high amount of load, high amount of skill and stress, I
don't think it's necessarily foreverybody.
And when we actually qualify theworth in terms of ROI of all six
foundational movement patterns, I do believe based on the data
that we drive, that the bilateral back squat with the

(47:05):
barbell on your back is the least effective of all of the
different movement patterns thatwe have at our disposal.
With a more traditional lens, you know, one could argue any of
the traditional barbell lifts, but the way in which we get the
most success out of them is thatwe sprinkle them into
programming. People hear me say like, hey,
not everyone should barbell backsquat.

(47:26):
And they hear, hey, John doesn'tbelieve that anyone should
barbell back squat. But then they jump in the
Unbreakable app and they're like, oh, it's an option almost
every week. Awesome.
If you have the capability to doit, do it.
But where we run into problems is people force feeding a
specific exercise into their program that they're not capable
of doing at a high amount of quality, and they don't have the

(47:48):
load capacity to elicit the desired adaptation that turns
into what we were talking about before, just moving and hoping
that something happens via the work that we do.
I'd rather do something that is more feasible in terms of
unlocking somebody's potential to perform.
Your body doesn't know the difference between exercises.
It knows movement patterns, it knows neural connection points,

(48:11):
and it knows its ability to gaintension and strain.
And if that is the goal, we have101 different ways to replace
the barbell back squat. If that, for whatever reason,
isn't an ideal fit for you on that program, on that week or on
that training day. Yeah.
And here's another thing that just popped up into my mind,
too. Anatomically, we're all designed
a little bit different. Some people are shorter, some

(48:33):
people are bigger. When you think about the
barbell, right, you got a barbell and some plates on a
barbell, What is that thing it'slike to be 910 inches off the
ground? 8.75 inches.
Dude, you got it. Yeah, 8.75 inches off the
ground. People that are have different
structures that are tall, short like that might not.
That doesn't work for everybody,right?

(48:55):
And it kind of reminds me too oflike a front squat for how
someone's designed or built might be better than a back
squat. Or like a trap bar deadlift
because of how someone is built and how far they have to go down
to pick up off the ground would be a better option for them to
hold the load rather than out infront and pick it up.
Well, like what are your thoughts there?

(49:15):
Because I feel like that's kind of what you're saying too.
Pain Free performance, my certification and then my
upcoming book. It focuses in over 300 pages on
this exact topic of individualization based on
people's unique physical presentations.
It's not just limb lengths, it'sactual joint angulation and

(49:35):
joint structure. In Pain Free Performance we go
through specific protocols for the squat, for instance called a
hip quadrant test. It shows us the depth, the
angulation, the socket height and also the ability for our
hips to move in the flexion, external rotation and a
deduction to get us into the most ideal squat stands.
Guess what, it's going to be different for almost everybody

(49:57):
and we're able to unlock people that were following a textbook
approach. Squat shoulder width apart, toes
slightly out because that was a mismatch stance for them based
on what they unchangeably have as their unique anatomical
structure. And I think a lot of the
foundations of what pain free performance teaches is
optimizing around your most optimal movement pattern, which

(50:19):
is going to be unique to you. It's going to look different
than somebody else's, but in terms of being able to gain
joint centration and stability, in terms of being able to line
up maximal muscular recruitment,it's OK if it looks different as
long as it doesn't elicit pain and maximizes your performance
and allows you to be at your best self.

(50:40):
And I think that that idea is still really hard for people to
conceptualize because so much ofour focus is on everybody else
training, everybody else training in the gym, everyone
else training on Instagram, the way that the models look in the
textbook that you may be reading.
And when all actuality what we worked really hard with pain
free performance over the last 10 years of the certification
and now in the book is that we can explore your unique

(51:03):
variables that will automatically lift up the glass
ceiling that's been over your head for probably years at this.
Yeah, makes all the sense in theworld to me.
If you could pick one move to keep someone strong, mobile,
pain free for life, what would it be?
1 movement. One movement I would have to go
with a hip hinge variation. The hip hinge variation I just I

(51:24):
really believe in is the pure hip hinge pattern, which is more
of a Romanian deadlift. The Romanian deadlift is an
awesome movement because it really trains everything
simultaneously and different than the deadlift.
We're able to actually get muscular recruitment between a
lowering eccentric phase that stretches the hamstrings.

(51:45):
We have a concentric raising phase that really flexes the
glutes hard under a lot of load.We have lower back maintaining a
strong isometric position that adds to resilience throughout
the lumbosacral area of the body.
And then we also have the contact points of the load
connected to our arms, which integrates a radiation from the

(52:06):
hands. It integrates upper back dynamic
stability and it allows us to bestanding on 2 feet to be able to
be interacting with the ground and the load simultaneously.
So I think that the Romanian deadlift is so powerful for
building muscle, it is so powerful for building functional
strength. It is so powerful for having
resilience in the body and it ismost powerful for reversing

(52:29):
postural distress disorders thatwe have for just sitting and
normal technology used in our hands.
It essentially reverses what we would be doing seated in the
chair. Beautiful. 100% agree.
What's the biggest lie the fitness industry keeps selling
that's actually making people weaker or more injured?

(52:51):
It's the booty chicks. It's the booty chicks on
Instagram that have 5 to 6,000,000 followers and they are
doing body weight or band workouts, or they have a single
5 LB dumbbell, but all of a sudden their lower bodies look
like they may as well be horses.Their ABS are so defined that
you can't even believe that somebody could look like this.

(53:13):
And their upper body looks like they're about to win a bench
press contest. I will not throw anyone under
the bus here, but I will attest to having trained two or three
of these ladies in the last two years.
We are training for strict strength and hypertrophy and we
are doing extraordinarily well and we're improving and
maintaining the physique that they have.

(53:35):
Usually from a bodybuilding background, that's where they're
coming from to look like this. But in order for them to sell,
in order from them to shield supplements, in order for them
to sexualize their social media,they are having to make it the
most accessible training programs possible in order to
essentially fool and live peopleinto joining their apps or

(53:56):
joining in their programs. And they end up doing one thing
to achieve this physique over 5810 years to get to look like
that. And then training
extraordinarily hard to maintainit sometimes with me.
And then going in and selling something that you can do for 17
minutes a day while you're in Bali on your pool deck, while

(54:19):
you're in a bikini with somebodydoing a $10,000 video shoot in
the process so you can post it on your social media.
Like that is, it's not necessarily hurting people,
right? Like, I don't believe that
somebody's going to get hurt doing a body weight and band
program or hoisting a 5 LB dumbbell.
But it hurts your psyche, it hurts your soul, it hurts your

(54:39):
mindset, and it hurts your momentum because you believe
that, yes, that's possible. I'm the average lady that's 40
or 50 lbs overweight. I don't have a backside.
I'm looking to grow my butt and having six pack abs and I think
that following this lady's program is going to be the key
to success. I think you're a fucking failure
as a human being if you are selling something that you are

(55:02):
not doing yourself and claiming that you have.
Well, but can't say it any better than that.
Next question. You've trained elite athletes
and everyday people. What's the one difference that
separates those two people that anyone could adopt right now?
The. Thing that separates those two

(55:23):
people. I tend to have a harder time
motivating and a harder time with buy in of my top high
performance athletes than I do for my general fitness
populations. Reason being is that many people
in general fitness population, this is our thing that we do.

(55:43):
It's not necessarily a hobby, but this is our one area of our
life that we're able to expend ourselves physically.
And so we have a little bit morefocus on it.
But when you work with somebody who's on the field on Sundays
making $20 million or they're playing a Major League Baseball
season at 162 games, their focusis on the game.

(56:04):
Their focus is on practice, their focus is on their mindset.
And very rarely is that same amount of focus placed in in
their prehab, rehab, strength and conditioning work.
So you have a lot less time to work with these athletes.
You have a lot less impact on these athletes, but you are
expected to deliver at an even higher rate than you would for

(56:26):
somebody who is a general fitness population.
So I think that the difference between a super high performer,
whether they're an athlete or whether they're just looking to
be their healthiest and best self is mindset.
The mindset separates an athletethat will be in the major
leagues for 10 to 12 years versus the athlete that came up

(56:46):
for 11:50 games in their career.The mindset will shift somebody
from taking down a weight loss or a physique goal and
maintaining it for a couple weeks to a couple months to
somebody that can do a decade ortwo of maintenance.
I think the mindset in the way that we habituate and
professionalize us making this automatic within our lifestyle,

(57:06):
I think that that maturity of mindset and you hardening your
ability to make sure that it's apriority automatically, that is
what is going to send somebody on a totally different
stratosphere. Yeah, 100% agree.
When I think of Tom Brady, right, But what really got him,
his success with was absolutely not his athletic capability.

(57:28):
He was, he was not like the greatest athlete.
But when you look at a lot of the other athletic quarterbacks,
what really set him apart was his mindset, how we prepared,
how we watched film, how we worked out, how we took care of
his body. And that's what I think you're
getting at. If people have that and anyone
can do that, that just really takes discipline and
consistency. Anyone can attain the mindset

(57:49):
shift really and and adopt that.It's just putting in the work
and doing it over and over and over again.
I think is is what you're saying.
Yeah, I'm I'm. I'm get in trouble for telling
the story, but I'm going to tellit anyways.
Two weeks ago, 3 weeks ago, we were in Las Vegas with my pain
free performance team. We are in our studio shooting
for the Unbreakable app for a couple days and it was a Sunday

(58:12):
morning and we were staying at the Fontainebleau Hotel.
Super awesome place and the reason that we stay there
because it has the best gym in the world.
This gym is awesome. Like it is the best by far.
So me and my team, because we have to be in studio at 6:00 AM,
we roll into the gym right when it opens at 4:00 AM on a Sunday

(58:32):
morning and there's a handful ofpeople kind of waiting with us
in front of the doors in order for the hotel gym to open up.
So we open it up, we start training, and there's three
different portions of the Fontainebleau Hotel gym.
There's like a strength training, cardio training, and
then like Pilates and group training classes.
And all of a sudden about 10-15 minutes into our session, we go

(58:53):
back into the strength area and we see these two Bros bench
pressing. So they're doing a bench press
workout. They're doing a little bit of
band work. And it took us a good like 5-6
minutes to realize like, oh, that's Tom Brady.
That's Tom Brady training with not his trainer, just a random
guy. And they're doing a bench press
workout and they were in there before us, so they must have

(59:14):
been there in there at 3:00 AM. And he is getting after it on a
Sunday morning like I've never seen before.
So I was blown away. I'm telling my team I'm like,
hey guys, this is what success looks like when everyone else is
sleeping, when everyone else is drinking, when everyone else is
doing drugs or gambling. This guy is in there at 3:00 AM

(59:36):
on a Sunday morning getting his training in.
He practices what he preaches because he's a fitness guy as
well. I later on figure out that on
Instagram, I see all this stuff coming through.
Happy birthday Tom Brady, it washis birthday.
It was he's in there at like 3:30 in the morning training 3.
30 in the morning. Sunday morning training on his

(59:58):
birthday and he opened up his new gallery at the Fountain Blue
that day. You want to tell me that
somebody isn't driven by their health and their performance
isn't driven by their training, isn't doing this seven days a
week because it matters what notonly what they do on the field,
what they do in their life. That was the perfect example.
I I'm still blown away from that, But that's the kind of

(01:00:19):
shit that pushes me. I'm like, I would never compare
myself to Tom Brady, but I'm like, man, people are operating
in at a whole different level. And if you want to ultimately
succeed in whatever your goal is, then your health and your
fitness needs to be the cornerstone.
Oh. My God, that is such a cool
story. And you know, when you see all
the clips about him being interviewed and how he talks and

(01:00:42):
his mindset and how he prepares,like to be honest with you, I'm
not really surprised. Like that's what you saw because
that's kind of what he puts out.But wow, what a really, really
cool story. Last question here and then and
then we'll wrap up. We've got 10 movements, 10
exercises that you can do for the rest of your life.

(01:01:02):
Only 10. They don't necessarily have to
be in any specific order, but what are they for you?
Let's go 5 lower body so we'll be trap our deadlift, Romanian
deadlift, Bulgarian split squat,goblet squat and most likely a
lateral lunge. For upper body I would be doing
a neutral grip pull up face pull, single arm dumbbell or

(01:01:27):
cable row. Most likely going some sort of
rear delt direct work, whether it be a rear delt lateral raise
or a cable raise. And I hate to say it, but I
would say if you're capable of doing so, bench pressing has a
high degree of return that people can get away from.

(01:01:47):
Beautiful. Well done.
All right. Well, Doctor Ross, and this was
awesome. Where can people find you
online? Get in contact with you, work
with you. Again.
I'll put everything in the show notes, but feel free to drop
whatever you like. You can find me over on
Instagram at Doctor John Russen at DRJOHNRUSIN.
Same thing over on Facebook. If you want to learn more about

(01:02:10):
the Unbreakable app, go to become unbreakable.com.
And if you're interested in learning about pain free
performance in my brand new book, you can go to become
unbreakable.com/book. Bonus and you can actually get a
free training program by pre ordering the pain free
performance book today. So cool, so cool.

(01:02:31):
Awesome. Well, thanks guys for listening
to the Low Card Consulted podcast.
We'll catch you guys on the nextone.

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Dr. John Rusin | Unlocking Pain-Free Performance | August 25, 2025 Ep. 20

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Dr. John Rusin | Unlocking Pain-Free Performance | August 25, 2025 Ep. 20