 We are in for a little treat today. Andreas Salters, a.k.a. The Bod mechanic is going to be putting your body back together. Another one, not another like he has got some real specialism in like rehabilitation, but as a as a as a specialist, almost in all areas, which I find fascinating in itself, we talk a little bit about postural restoration, which is something that's been on the radar now for a little while, and we haven't had anyone on the podcast to talk about that. So those that have come across it, then you're going to be quite excited about that. Those haven't come across it yet. You're going to find out what it actually is. And one of the things I love about what we're talking about is we go into the fact of appreciating the body, like how the body and all these systems work together and how certain things when we talk about internal organs, the body is not symmetrical internally, and that has some ramifications on how your body moves and how your body works and how your body feels and how it responds and you need to listen right to the end because not just because we want you to listen to the end, but actually into the biggest takeaway, my biggest takeaway by absolute far was at the end and it's genius, but it's but it's simple. Everybody can do it or try to do it at least. Jaco got a proper actionable take away off the back of this one. So it's a really interesting conversation, but what is also interesting and you if you're an avid listener to the podcast, you would have heard about this before, but the best offer that we have all year round comes around in the January. It is January. We are giving you an incredible opportunity to jump on board with the school of calisthenics, make consistency, your superpower, and actually get some change, commit to long term change, stop program hopping. Let us help you make twenty twenty two a year to remember because you absolutely knock your training out of the park. Yeah, that's because you're going to be able to not just train for a month or two months or a couple of weeks or six weeks. It is 25 percent of our annual memberships, which means you get a whole for our standard membership a whole year for less than seventy five quid. So the investment that we are asking you to commit to with your body and your training is not the financial one because it's not that much. The investment is the investing time in your training and trusting that that consistency is the superpower and with the help and support of the school calisthenics coaches and the online community of people, you are in very safe hands if you stay committed to that yearly approach. You cannot believe how much content is in there for that small price and you're not also going to get educated. We are a school and as such we want to teach you. So you're going to get all the exercise programming that you need as well. But on top of that, you're actually going to learn about training so you can become self-sufficient. So after the year, you may not need it anymore. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what we'll go. We'll go and help some other people. We will. Right, let's sit back and enjoy Dr. Andreas Sautas on the movement strength and play podcast. Roll that jingle. Listen, players. You're listening to the movement, strength and play podcast by the School of Calisthenics. Here are your hosts, Tim and Jaco. So, Andreas, welcome to the movement, strength and play podcast. We're excited to speak to you today. Thank you very much for having me, guys. And so just to kick things off for giving people a little bit of a background. Some people have come across you on Instagram as the Bod mechanic. Some people will be asking what does Bod mechanic mean, but, you know, you have a brain-based approach to rehab and performance, but just give us a little bit of a background on on who Andreas Sautas is and what Bod mechanic is all about. Well, the name Bod mechanic has nothing to do with anything spectacular. But I can say that as a as a student, when I was in PT school, I've always viewed as, you know, therapists being the mechanics of, you know, people, especially in the fitness industry, I wanted to be the mechanic of bodybuilders. So I had a I had a fascination with bodybuilding at the time. So we're talking of we've all been there. Right. So you remember the muscle mag magazines, muscular and fitness. Tim still got them. Oh, yeah. So that complex. I'll just just say one thing listeners will be in the UK when people say PT in the UK, they generally think of personal trainer. Whereas you're talking about like physical therapy, physical therapy. Yeah. So physical therapy school. So we're talking about mountain stacks of these magazines. I was just fascinated with Ronnie Coleman, Dexter Jackson, you name it. So I've always had a dream of working with bodybuilders when I was studying in Greece, I studied abroad at the time. And, you know, I always said I just wanted to work on bodybuilders. I may I plan a vacation to come here at the States. It was a Christmas and while watching TV, I was watching one of the commercials. You know, those ax spray commercials, right? We have another brand called BOD, right? BOD Spray. So I was like, all right, I like BOD. And it was actually a couple of guys, really nice, muscular guys playing basketball. I was like, BOD sounds pretty, pretty sick. You just take the Y out. So I said BOD mechanic, I want to be the body mechanic. So that's how it came out. No, I love that story. I know a whole brand around it. I know. So good. So I've I've always wanted to be a therapist because of a horrific motorcycle accident that kind of left me basically partially paralyzed from the waist down. I had a incomplete spinal cord injury. I'm basically my lumbar spine and I had partial functions of my legs, partial sensations down my legs. And recovery was gruesome. And because of the amount of help that physical therapists placed on me more than actual doctors was phenomenal. And because of them, I wanted to become a therapist. I saw how much they were motivating me, how they worked not just only only as in a biomechanical level, but they worked in a neurological in a multi system level. And that was that was 2003, I think I read on your website. That was 2003 happened, the accident happened. And then we're talking now 2004, 2005 were my rehab years. So how old were you when you had that accident? We're talking now 16, 17 years old. You know, I was still I was actually graduating. No, no, no. The accident happened 2003. Symptoms came right away, but it took me a good a year and a half to two years to fully recover. It's just to be able to stand up out of a wheelchair and start walking again. Things that obviously surgeons, which they love saying this, don't expect to walk again, rearrange your house, rearrange your family situation. Wow. So they said that to they didn't think he was going to walk again. Oh, three of them, three surgeons. It was just one, right? So that's a mental attitude, isn't it, the surgeons? Well, yeah, they just love having you up, you know, there, but I would say there was actually one surgeon that said, you do not need surgery, I can kind of see this getting better depends on how much work you put into it. So his his words stuck to me. So I said, I'm going to start no matter what. And at the time, they would teach me how to use the wheelchair. And there were also times when I would use crutches, but I would actually actually have to tie my legs together because they would they would dangle if they were if they were let free. So I remember just getting really sore on my wrists, on my elbows, because of the constant weight bearing that would put my arms. So I would start doing plenty and plenty of mobility work on my wrist just to help relieve them. And surprisingly, the more I would move my wrists, the more I would start getting sensations on the tip of my toes. And you now regaining sensation is like winning the lottery when it comes to a paralyzed person, right? I was like the most happiest man alive, but still surgeons were unable to explain to me why this would occur. You know, and if I had a better understanding of why it would occur, I would still keep on promoting it more and more and just work more on top of it. So that's when physical therapists kept on saying, whatever you do and keep on doing it, let's just make it better. So we were just doing a lot of upper body work. That's why my traps are much more bigger than the rest of my body right now. So because of a lot of upper body work, neurologically that created reflexes down my legs. And then we would see trophic changes. You actually see muscles starting to respond better. Sensations will come back again. That is when I fell in love with PRI because I found that nothing worked better than breathing. Nothing worked better, not even my the functions of my GI tracts. My hormone balances started going back to normal. The more I focused on breathing, PRI just helped me put it more into exercise as opposed to, you know, Wim Hof or Buteco or Tumo breathing. All that they're great, but I just needed more that I can do strengthening work, endurance work on top of it while doing breath work. PRI back in the time was fairly new. And I was at the time I was studying in England in Oxford. And that's when I found PRI through them, through the school that I was doing sports medicine. And ever since then, I kept on progressing. I started standing and you guys can see me now. I can actually climb mountains. So that was my reasoning for becoming a therapist today. That's cool. Yeah, it's powerful, powerful. Yeah, just so PRI, we haven't you know, we've had mentioned to you before we went live, like we've had Dr. Cobb from Z Health Performance that, you know, and they've done some work with them. Brain based training, some of the listeners will have come across with some of the some of the guests that we've had, but we haven't had someone from Postural Restoration Institute, so PRI. Give it give us a bit of a, you know, and it's it's some I've watched a few videos of on YouTube of Neil Hallanin. Have you seen it? Yes, of course. So so I was like, OK, this is a bit like his videos are I find them hilarious and he's not trying to be funny. But like he if someone's seen one of those videos, they know what I mean. He's like just randomly sat just on random roof of his house like with a book and like turns to the camera and goes like anyway. But what is what? Yeah, what is PRI? What and what is it about from a proper layman's terms to start with? And then and then we can go into how it's how it's helped you and lots of other people. Well, posture, PRI, Postural Restoration Institute is an institute. It's a it's a method, I would say. PRI is a is a means of restoring symmetry, symmetrical function between two sides of your body, between left and right side of your body, because their theory, but also which is which is known fact that we have asymmetries in our bodies. So the movement patterns of our left side do not coincide with the movements of our right side. So that can bring lower back pain, neck pain, shoulder problems. So they look at it as we have these postural asymmetries, including scoliosis, including kyphosis. But the root cause of most of it is a is a respiratory dysfunction. Because of how we are shaped diaphragmatically, our rib cages take a specific shape and that specific shape of the rib cage, then the pelvis follows and then the appendages, which are the extremities. So basically they are a they're an institute that focuses more on postural restoration through respiratory techniques, through proper positioning of the body to make it aware of the individual of if they want to establish a new pattern of walking. Right. They have to understand with putting them in different positions. This is what you should feel when you're standing on your left leg. This is what you should feel when you're standing on your right leg. This is when you should blow out, when you should breathe in. So they're trying to synchronize and harmonically bring your your posture more symmetrically, function symmetrically through the use of respiration. Pure postural restoration institute is now diving a lot deeper now into the dentistry area. So they're seeing that a lot of a lot of the issues that we currently have can be also oral from our oral cavity. They see a lot of obstruction airways. So they see that because of our oral fixation, we have obstruction going down to our airways. So they they now start working a lot with dentists and orthodontists that are able to, let's say, modify your oral cavity like a pallet expander is like that to be able to breathe and respire better. So their their entire philosophy on postural symmetry and function is derived from respiration, from breathing. But thanks for that. Really, really useful and it's interesting. So I'm sure Jaco is going to want to ask a couple of questions on them. Before we dive a bit forward, I just want to pick up on something you said, Andreas, a while ago. Because I think it's an interesting conversation. We've got so many in our fields of expertise, which are kind of emerging in many different areas. So you say like that just gave a great example there, the PRI and where that's going with dentistry. It's an emerging field. We don't probably have a great depth of research for it. Yeah. We have the brain based training. We've got functional medicine. We've got like all of this kind of stuff, which is super interesting. And people are getting incredible results from from using and they explore and I think it's really interesting. One point you made about surgeons and this is not a criticism at all, but there's just this, you know, where we can sometimes people and professionals can become, well, I can fix that if I cut it or if I operate on it. Or if I try some fairly drastic surgery. But it's that kind of common phrase in it. When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I think for some people, I think it's just interesting to hear that these there are these so many other ways that you've got. You managed to gain control and feeling in the in your lower half of your body as a result of doing upper body training when a surgeon told you that you couldn't because that was their realm of expertise. And that's not a criticism. That's just what they know and what they're trained to do. I've done some stuff with athletes in the before we were being injured. So say I work with a guy prior to London 2020 broke his is fractured his wrist and trials. He's a swimmer. So he was out of the water like 16 weeks or so before the games. Big problem. He slipped over in the changing rooms. So we used a protocol where we're going to just train the right side of the body because the research will suggest the left side of the body gets stronger, even if you don't do anything. I'm just interested to get your kind of take on that side of things because it's something that people would go, we've got that's not going to work. But there's something happening around the brain where it says it's trying to find that symmetry and laying down the strength message into an untrained arm based on the other side of the body doing some work. It's kind of pretty phenomenal for some people, but it works. The guy came out, took his cast off like after about eight weeks and the strength was pretty comparable. The size was different, but strength was pretty comparable. I'm just interested to get your thoughts on that. It shows that there's more to there's more to training and more to even just more to life, but like then just what we can touch and see and feel and think. Yeah. Medicine came from a knife, right? That was that's the original kind of form of medicine was like we can operate with doctors. We're now kind of it's emergent field of now actually as we start to understand more the general health care system and opportunities. It's just way bigger than what we knew a hundred years ago. Well, it's also the fact that most researchers today, they're still not performing a lot of human subjects. So not a lot of human experience. They're still performing a lot on rats. Some of the stuff that we know about what you just mentioned about this is called the cross education effect, where if you train one side of your body, the other side responds. Most of the literature that we have is actually on rats. It's not really on humans, right? But there we can see that if it's happening through animals, it can happen through humans. It's just that especially in the medical field, there's not enough funding. So because of the funding that is too low, that's why we don't have a lot of human experiments. Aside from that is that we in the medical field in general, the medical field, not just let's say orthopedics or neurology. We're talking in general medical is the one area that has the least amount of evidence based research. Now, evidence based, which everybody likes to say, oh, it's what you're saying, is this evidence based? Do you even know what evidence based means? Evidence based is a review that has had at least a six to a 10 year minimum six to 10 year follow up. That's how you know that because of the long term effects of this specific method, this specific tool has has an appropriate validity, appropriate reliability, you have to have a large, a very long term amount of follow ups, right? If you have very short term, which is one year, two years, three years, that's still short term, right? That's why I'm kind of going a little bit crazy with this whole vaccine thing because there are no long term research studies on it too. So that's what a few things we have to consider is whatever research we are reading is are there any long term follows with it? And is this human based or is this mostly animal based? So when it goes now to your to your question with this whole cross education effect, that's what it's called cross education effect. And if you type it on Google Scholar, you'll find reams of articles on it where they would experiment even with people that if you have your arm casted because there was a fracture and you train the opposite part of your body, specifically your leg, if it comes to your arm, then you would see trophic changes. You actually preserve muscle, muscle size and you actually speed up the healing process as well. So neurologically, this works in a it makes more sense neurologically. So we know that anything we feel on the left side, anything we move on the right side is all controlled by the right brain. So basically, the more we move the left side, the right side, the right brain has to promote reflexive stability on the right side. So there's been EMG studies with people doing, let's say, shoulder lateral raises. They will put EMGs on their on the shoulder, but also EMGs pads on the opposite obliques. And the activity on the obliques was twice as much as opposed to the actual working delt because of the reflexive stability on the opposite side. So what I'm trying to say is that you are creating neurological changes to the injured area reflexively if you work the opposite side. That's one part. The second part is all of this is happening mostly via the spinal cord. So the spinal cord has certain neural cells where they're called CPG, central pattern generators. So if you tap, if you type these into your Google Scholar, central pattern generators are reflexive is our reflexive firing rates between the upper body and the lower body, specifically the appendages, my arms and my legs, where they said that if in locomotion, when my left arm moves forward, my right leg, my my left arm moves forward, my right leg moves forward and vice versa. So these reflexive patterns are neurologically wired together. So that's why when I have a patient of mine and he comes to me for shoulder pain, probably the first thing I'll ever give them is just plenty of strengthening and mobility work on their opposite leg. And they feel 10 times better on this left arm, right? It kind of gives them also the the the hope that, hey, even though my issue is here, I can still fix it through another route. So there are options, right? So the way to answer your question, those are two answers. One is the theory of CPG, central pattern generators, which are located within the spinal cord that creates reflexive locomotion during walking. And there's also the the brain aspect of which cortical, which which cortex am I activating and what's going on, that the more I move my one side of my body, the opposite side will create reflexive stability, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. So if since you guys spoke with Perry Nicholson, Dr. Cobb, those guys, which make me look like nothing, obviously, if we could, I would like to say that I'm not a brain based guy, but I'm more of a multi system guy, meaning got to do visceral, got to do vision, got to do vestibular work, lymphatics, like Perry Nicholson. So all that stuff. Perry Nicholson says it is like no system works alone. So I would say that the use of these multi systems, PRI, Z health, Perry Nicholson stuff, NKT, they're all systems, right? Just match them together and that's what you're going to get the best out of it, because they're all just tools. There's not just one specific system that's like the end all be all. So, yeah, hopefully that question. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How does that come from a training perspective? But one thing, because we've obviously had the pleasure and privilege of speaking to a lot of people who have got these areas of expertise. And that's one thing I personally find in this, I'm probably sure there's listeners listening to this as well. Like, what does that look like when you've also got strength training to do and you've got cardio work to do, like trying to try to fit all of these things in. Can you combine those into some kind of more efficient system? Because it can be quite overwhelming for people, right? When you go, I've got to breathe, I've got a lymph and I've got to. Right. So again, even strength training alone, right now, we're seeing a lot more growing research on strength training and brain brain areas, which areas of the brain are being activated. A different part is being activated during a concentric phase, a way different during an eccentric phase, a way different during an isometric phase. So the more we understand what brain areas are being activated and if it's needed for the specific individual. So that's where I love where personal training's route is going today, is that there I see much more better assessments, but not biomechanical assessments and only that. I would say neuro biomechanical assessments. They're starting to check out reflexes, postures. So if we understand that I have now an individual that's coming to me and wants to start weight training, I'm not going to start them on bench, deadlifts, shoulder presses. I have to see now what does this person need? Maybe he needs more unilateral training. Maybe we need to strengthen more of one side of the body. Do we need to do eccentric loads? Do we need to do concentric or isometric? So just like Dr. Cobb has mentioned that your brain is now perceiving certain things either as threatening or not, it's the brain's job is survival. So when we lift weights, that is a threatening response. That's a threatening environment. Go into a gym and nobody's happy. Right. Everybody's miserable. I got to say. So Jimmy Gator. Yeah. So. It's we have we have now seen that if you're in an environment in a gym environment, you perform bench press. You have to earn the right to do bilateral work if you want to strengthen up. Right. You are not made to do bilateral work right off the bat. You might need to do a lot more unilateral work because let's face it, we're mostly right handed people. What happens with this other side that's very miscoordinated a lot more weaker, you're now feeding more into the problems of building these asymmetries. So. My. My personal opinion when it comes to strength training would be make sure you might need to do a lot more unilateral work first, specifically on the non-dominant side to get that neural, that neural education that this left side can move just as well as this right side. If that this left side is very coordinated doing, let's say a Arnold press, a lot of people will do an Arnold press with their right arm, feel no problem. The left feels very unstable. There's a reason why that happens. Maybe there's a brain issue. So. Unilateral work is something I would like to promote first for at least the first four, five weeks and then put them into bilateral. I need to assess them depending. Do they need eccentric loads? Do they need isometrics? We have downgraded isometrics a lot nowadays because you cannot sell isometrics. They're not sexy enough. You can sell concentric. Yeah, nobody wants to do that. But isometrics has been shown to promote muscular hypertrophy as well as decreased pain at the same time. And a lot of people don't want to do isometrics because it's just not fun. But if it saves you from pain and still preserves your muscle size, I will still promote that. Yeah. Then what Tim has asked, like, how do you fit all of this stuff together? Well, you have to synchronize your breathing with your lifts. There are specific ways. Do I need more inhalation based type of breathing or do I need exhalation? We are now seeing, even with breathing, what type of brain areas does it target? If I focus more on inhalation, targets a different spot in the brain. If I focus more on exhalation, way different. Does that area of the brain coincide with what strengthening protocols I'm trying to try to gain? So, for example, eccentric loads targets a lot of the temporal lobe. We know that the temporal lobe is also responsible for hearing. Right? Maybe if I put a ear but in there and I do eccentric type of weight training, that temporal lobe can stimulate a lot more. And you can basically now implement strength protocols and help individuals regain better neural connections this way. Hopefully that makes sense. Yeah, perfect. Thank you. Right. I this I've got a question, but my first bit isn't actually a question. So it's taking us back to that thing of but don't worry because it's not it's not necessarily a question, but training one side, both the other. I had this idea when I broke my scapula into two places, playing rugby and had a full separation of the AC joint. And I remember coming into the gym and I was like, I picked up a very light dumbbell and I was like, well, my left side is still going. I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to train that and I'm going to put there. I'm going to put this sort of thing to place I picked up. I can't even remember what it was. Maybe it was like an eight kilo dumbbell in my left arm and the excruciating pain on my right shoulder. I was like, I am not doing anything. It's like, no. So yeah, there's there's I guess it depends on the injury being able to do some of that cross body stuff. Depends on the injury. Depends if you have any of the prior injuries to that working arm that you're doing. And like I said, when it comes to shoulders or anything on the arm, I don't go to the opposite arm directly. I go to the opposite leg. So I should have gone right leg. Pretty much left leg. I should have gone left leg, left leg, pretty much. And still being able, even though it was a scapula, even the same, even any other of the neighboring joints, elbow, rest, those you can definitely still move. A lot of doctors would just keep it casted like this throughout the whole. But still you're able to move a rest or still able to move an elbow. But yeah, you should have. Yeah, I think we're I think we're told to almost, you know, your body sort of does it, mind definitely does it when something's injured. Like really wants to protect it. Yeah. And I think you, I don't know, maybe it's not the right thing then. I don't think it's like give in to that. And I certainly wouldn't wouldn't have done anything like I wouldn't have moved my right wrist because I've been scared of it hurting it, if you know what I mean. Yeah, but yeah, but even so, that's again, a doctor should have told you, you've got to move that wrist, you've got to move that elbow. Because if you don't, you're going to stay scared. Yeah, the brain's job is survival. So you don't want to be in fear all the time. Yeah, but there's the the job of the like, like when you go to A&E, like the emergency, it's like, the person see me there, they're not concerned whether I will go back to being a high performing athlete or not. They're concerned with whether I'm just and that's one of the thing that's difficult for those of us that really want to like get good at sport and exercise in the way our body moves and stuff. It's like, that's not necessarily the. Yeah, there's a there's a disconnect there with that. You're good, like you're fine, you're not going to have you're not going to have emergency doctors tell you that, but when I'm talking about your regular physician, though, your orthopedist, your surgeon, yeah, those guys should tell you that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. Before we dive into I got a couple of like, sort of into the weeds of like some of the breathing stuff you mentioned, but before we go like any narrower. A bit like how Tim was saying, like, so you've like, you've got to take into account all these systems and how do we how do we try and do that? That's that's a challenge. And I was just wondering from your perspective of looking at your looking at your profile and all the stuff that you do and cover. It's like, you know, I said to Tim before we went live, I was like, you know, it is he's doing everything like and and there is a huge challenge of doing everything because a lot of the time people will specialise in, you know, I'm going to I'm going to rehab hips or, you know, Tim does specialise in shoulders. Like what's the what's the challenge with trying? I'll give you a two question answer in any order you want. But what's the challenge in trying to be able to do everything? And then also by looking at everything and looking at lots of people, are there any commonalities that you like most people, whatever the their acute issue is, the underlying sort of root cause is it's maybe this or it's maybe that, like, you know, maybe PRI say that it's it all comes down to breathing, but it might not be the case. Do you mean like that? Do you see any commonalities around lots of different injuries, but there's some common things that come into play? I do. I do see commonalities by far. Again, breathing is the number one thing that gets thrown off when you have any kind of injury. So I would say that breathing is what will probably be the first thing to attack will be that, regardless of who it is, whether it's a young kid, whether it's an older man, it doesn't matter. I gear there first. Now, the challenges is that if the more you know, the more you're like, OK, where do I start with this? So it's easy when you don't know as much. Even if you're wrong, you're like, right, I got the answer. It must be this because that's the only thing I know. But here's the thing. Here's the thing. When you're wrong, you get frustrated. And then you start saying, I suck, right? So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It all comes down to your history. That's it, depending on your assessment, my assessments and history taking a loan is one session, an hour and a half. I bet that's how long it takes for me to take a full history. Now, when I say to go full history, I want to know even what happened to you when you were four years old. Did you have any concussions? Do you have vision problems? Do you have IBS? Any stomach issues? Any breathing problems? Any vertigo issues? You have to chart down everything that has possibly been threatening to this person's life that presents to you today like this. Yeah, I don't I don't care if you're coming to me saying, OK, I have a herniated disc. My doctor says that it's protruding out. It's touching my sciatic nerve, and that's where it's coming from. I can show you people right now that have worse, worse disc bulges and herniations and absolutely be pain free. So yeah, yeah, it always more apply. Yeah, very much. So my my method of treatment or my method of helping customize a program for an athlete, all depends on their history, their training history, the movement history, their health, meaning have to are they taking any kind of medications that their side effects may be ruining my results? Do they have any visceral issues? Do they suffer from swelling a lot? So the more you are able to assess, the more you're able to know where you're going to start from, right? If I know I have somebody that has been complaining to me about neck pain, I quite frankly, I had a person five, five, six days ago complain to me about right side neck pain. It's like, OK, man, I don't know what we did last session, but my neck has been killing me and I've been getting the stab on my mid back like crazy. I said, all right, what did you do the past few days? He's like, actually, this thing started when I went out and partied and I drank. I'm OK, are you sensitive to alcohol? He's like, no, but one time I went to the doctor, he said I had some, you know, elevated enzymes. OK, did a little bit of visceral work on the liver. Pain's gone in seconds. So that tells me that he had a a somatic he had somatic pain. He had pain on his neck, but his issue was visceral. It was not even biomechanical. So that's why I'm saying that depends on the person's history. That's where, you know, where to start. The problem now, the challenges is that you don't have a niche. You're you don't become a specialist. You're not just focused on one thing. I just like Dr. He's like, I just make people awesome. So you just call me an awesomeologist. So it's it's hard to find a specific niche with me. Personally, I'm in the fitness world. I like working now, mostly with crossfit athletes. Not so much bodybuilding, powerlifting, to be honest, because powerlifters do not care if they're in pain. Seriously, I worked in a powerlifting gym for two years. Lifting heavy. They just don't care. It's like, oh, OK, I got a little alley. It will go away. OK, I get it. So yeah, that's the only challenge is that it's hard to find a niche. But it's also challenging because not that's challenging is that the more you know, do your assessments, do your history. You now have options. Is that OK if this specific exercise, the specific drill does not help this person? I have the option of going to his visceral. I have the option. Maybe he's got something going on with his eyes. And then I start stacking this stuff. Vision exercises while they're doing mobility drills at the same time. So that's how I devise my plan. It depends all on history. So a therapist or even a personal trainer. I love seeing personal trainers taking a thorough history of a person instead of just saying, OK, what's your goal? And let's go at it, right? So that's I think that's where it all starts from. It's history taken. Nice. You've got to drill down into that stuff, haven't you? That's where I think people are they don't necessarily. I know when I when I go through like a client history, you sort of like, is there anything else I need to know? Anything else I need to know? And then you get into it and you go, OK, what's something that's gone with the ankle? Oh, yeah, I did. I ripped my Achilles when I was nine, but I didn't think it was relevant. Like the real stuff like, oh, yeah. I look back like now, like I was asthmatic as a child, but no one would take that as part of a history. But that's actually shows that my respiratory system had a lot of stress in my brain when I thought I couldn't breathe for quite a lot of my early years. Well, you also have to ask the appropriate questions as well. Yeah, you just tell them, OK, tell me what else, what else, what else? They don't consider asthma to be like a thing that hurts their knee or something like that. Your questions is what matters. So there are plenty of there are actually quite enough questionnaires, even online, that have a crap load of questions, but can direct you exactly. OK, if they're if they're complaining about this much, they have a problem at this part of the brain. So there's a lot of questionnaires out there. So the more questions you have and you you can kind of direct them. Have you ever had any IBS? Have you ever had stomach issues? Yeah, right? You're like, oh, yeah, when I had I was four years old, I had, you know, acid reflux like crazy. OK, maybe your back problem is coming from there, right? So you have some scar tissue in the lining in the front. So, yeah, it's what you asked as well. I think it's just one of the points just that just give me some people some takeaways for this. Like I've when I was up and coming to Strength and Condition Coach, I didn't take me long to realise if I had got an athlete who was good on one leg, I got an athlete who was good on two. I often saw people who could squat bilaterally quite well, but you put on one leg and they'd be absolutely shocking. And given the fact that most athletes are most sports, have got their running based movements, it's a single leg exercise, right? So I've always kind of like being a massive fan of that unilateral work and particularly through the upper body work as well, because you have to stabilise the chain, right? It's a real, even if you're doing a single arm dumbbell bench press, you're the left to right side is working way more than you're going to go and bilateral movement. So I think for people just listening to this, like if you don't, if you're not doing any unilateral work or single arm work, single leg work, try and get that into some form of your program in some way, whether it's a single leg squat, whether it's starting to do some single arm work on the, on if our guys are thinking calisthenics around the rings, that kind of thing, there is a massive amount of value in doing that. And it iron out a load of that asymmetry, right? Just forcing you to understand that actually you might be doing bilateral movements, but your left arm is carrying way more of the load because your right arm is lazy and not working or not for, not activating, not firing quick enough. So and then we always like, so if people find some of this stuff, Andrea, this may be a bit of a basic question, but there's a few things I've used over the years of trying to help people to kind of overcome that asymmetry. How do, how can people go about doing that? To, to what? Fix asymmetries? So if they say they find they've got an asymmetry, someone's listening to this and they kind of go, yeah, I've done a bit of unilateral work before. My left side is way weaker than my right. How do they go about it? It's common, common question that we get of going, what should I do to fix this asymmetry? Well, I would say that the first thing they should target is maybe you may want to start doing some isometrics. That will be the first thing to do because isometrics helps with stability as well. So the reason why, you know, you're working your right leg, you feel more stable, you feel stronger, but the left side is a lot weaker. It's a lot weaker, not because there's also a lack of strength. There's also a lack of proprioception. There's a lack of basic awareness, but there's also a lack of reflexive stability. So the, I would say isometrics will help you stabilize joints. So if you're doing, let's say a shoulder press and you isometrically press six seconds here and in different ranges here, a different here, six seconds here. So you work the scale up. I would say isometrics will be the first way to target that. Now nobody will be able to find a protocol that says, this is what you're gonna do for your asymmetries. And that's it. Everybody's very different because you can be, you can have a neurological asymmetries on your left arm, but have different neurological asymmetries on your right leg. You have to do different stuff on the right, different stuff on the left. It doesn't mean that my whole left side is the weakest side. It could be a weak left arm, but a weak right leg, if that makes sense, right? So it's hard to ask, to answer that question to give you a specific protocol if that's what you're looking for. But if I were to tell you now where to start, again, if you know that your left side is the weakest side, just do one thing. Add maybe an extra set or two while you're training. If you're doing shoulder press bilaterally, add in a second one with just the left arm. Make movements very complex. Instead of doing straight up and down, make it into an Arnold press, which is more complex. Complexity increases neural drive. And that is a thing now with fitness is that we give people very fixed movements, right? For example, a squat. We always learn that you have to keep a chest up, head straight, squat down, but that's for the gym. It does not apply, though, to real life. In real life, you're squatting, turning a head, turning a torso at the same time. Maybe we need to teach people how to squat in a very unorthodox way to create variability because variability is what drives people to stay safe throughout the world and not get injured. So aside from training unilateral, the weakest side more, on which, let's say, let's say it's my left side, I'll do maybe a lot more complex movements, Arnold presses, whatever. But also, if I want to do bilateral work, give them bilateral work, but modify something. Instead of giving them a bench going straight, you can just simply tell them, I want you to bench, but I want you to look at something to your left. Keep your eyes there. You know how hard it is to keep your eyes focused on something else while you're doing a bench? You have no idea. Try looking away when you're squatting. Guarantee you their squat's going to become completely different. But what happens when that happens in real life? Then you get a herniated disc there, right? Do you think that our training environment become far too simplistic? Have things like crossfit, definitely. Well, yeah, just thinking, like, if we... Because it's easy for trainers. It's easy for trainers to have 40 fixated exercises that have been ever since the golden ages, since Arnold Schwarzenegger. It makes it easier for trainers to prescribe exercises to people and for programming. But unfortunately, the training environment does not allow any variability, no novelty, within the fitness industry. They think that if I squat differently, if I deadlift differently, I'm going to get hurt. That's the whole belief. It's not like that. Yeah, so we love promoting the play side of what you can do with what you can do with training and what we like to have as a key pillar within the Squawk Arts Center, because when you play, you take away the rigidity and you take away the rules and you go like, you've got to go from this movement to that movement or you've got to try and do this and just let your body think and work outside of the box. And for a lot of people, yeah, that could be a little bit like mind blowing initially at first. And I certainly had it from my background of playing rugby where in the gym it was like, we had to squat like this and everything had to be like this, this, this, this, to make sure he didn't get injured. But there was no preparation for like, what happens when you go outside of those lines on the field and we've talked about this a little bit. But I mean, even today, they've put a post of a few different, just dip variations, right, on Instagram. And at the end of each rep, I just went like lower than it was. And, you know, I was trying to make a point so I was going like really low. And then there was a couple of comments, you know, that were based around like one person asking a question of, isn't it bad for your joints to go that deep? And they were asking the question. Someone else's comment wasn't a question and was more of a statement. Going that deep is bad for your, will get you injured or something like that. And yeah, if you haven't got that range of talks, you've never been there and you try and force yourself into a range. Yeah. But if you've got that, you're more likely to create a joint that will get injured. If you haven't exposed it to the range, as it might potentially have to go through with my, I think I didn't have enough characters in my, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, the joint has never went that far. The joints have never went that far. The ligaments never went that far. But also, why is it important to you? There's a reason why you love to do it. If you like to do it and love doing it, you're going to keep on doing it over and over and over again. Yeah. So sometimes the proof, right, is in the proof isn't in the evidence-based research all the time. The proof is sometimes in like, well, I just did five sets of those and my shoulder isn't injured. And or, you know, this person in gymnastics has been doing that movement for a hundred years and blah, blah, blah. You know, like sometimes we just get fixated on this, like, and on, you know, it's something has to have a research paper to prove that it worked. No, no, no. Time proving it worked. I know. And other times there's a little bit of, it's just, it's just confusion. Not, oh, yeah, confusion slash misinformation around like, you know, you can't let your knee do this or you can't let that, you know, it's that person that made that comment I just heard. And actually, you know, it's actually, it's a nice comment because it was more of a case of like, I'm concerned for you getting injured or I'm concerned for other people getting injured. So it's coming from a good place as generally all comments tend to do. But I wanted to ask you before we finish up, I just wanted to, because you mentioned a bit about the, we're talking about asymmetries and then you mentioned around the asymmetries that we have within the body. And when we look on the, we look at somebody and we see their body and their head in the middle, two arms, two legs, everything looks symmetrical. And then we go, but the internal organs at the heart is not in the middle. And then when you're talking about the diaphragm, the breathing with the PRI, they're approached around the differences between the right side of the body and the left side of the body being to do with those internal organs and therefore like breathing on the right side, being different to the left. Can you just explain a little bit for people about that as a basis for that? Because I think it's just a, yeah, it's an interesting point. Well, or if we look at it in a visceral way, then yes, we have the heart that's on the left, which doesn't really weigh much, maybe roughly two pounds. But we have a very large liver on the right. We have three lobes of the lung on the right. There's only two on the left. We actually have some muscles. So for people like, there is just like two huge differences and is that presumably for everybody rather than like some people? Well, I don't know anybody else that just has two lobes on the left and two lobes on the right. That's everybody's made exactly the same. We all have one heart. We all have one liver all placed on the right side of the liver. We all have one diaphragm that has created a specific shape because of our makeup, the organs. So for example, if we look at the diaphragm, this looks like a parachute, we tend to see that the right side is much more bigger as muscles and we know that muscle weighs more than fat. So a lot more bigger, the leaflet on the right side as opposed to the left side. The left side is a little smaller. The tendon of the diaphragm, it's actually two tendons that are coming out, the cruraus. The right side, much more thicker, but it's tied to the lumbar spine mostly on the right side. Whereas the left is a little shorter, the right one grabs an additional vertebrae below that, the L3, L4. The left side is a lot smaller as a tendon. So we have much more mechanical advantage of the diaphragm to pull the rib cage and rotate it to the right. Whereas now the lower body, the pelvis would turn, excuse me, we have the lower body pelvis and lumbar spine rotating right because of the tendon. Above that diaphragm though, the rib cage would rotate left. And because of the body weight distribution from the organs and from the size of the lung on the right side, this is three lobes, pulls you to the right. So that's why we see these asymmetries of the right shoulder being set lower than left. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That takes a different shape to our pelvis as well. So the diaphragm is, I would say the one area we would have to focus on when it comes to these asymmetries because you now have different pressures. I have a different air pressure on my left side and a different one on my right side. The right side, we have a diaphragm that's more domed because there's a liver pushing it up. Whereas the left, there's a heart pushing the diaphragm down. But the diaphragm drops when we inhale. So now that means that my left side carries more air pressure on my left side. My right side, since the diaphragm is more domed, I exhaled it more and that's why we have ribs that are dropped on the right side. That can bring certain disturbances during our gait cycle because the moment we make a step on that left leg, because of this excessive air pressure on the left side, that air pressure will bounce off, bounce us off from the left side going back to our right leg. And that's how we gain this dominance of being right-handed mostly. I'm telling you now this in a biomechanical slash respiratory level. There's also a neurological level to why we're like this as well, aside from just our make of structure. But if you look at it diaphragmatically, this is what's occurring. It's because of the shape of the diaphragm on the inside, more domed on the right, flatter on left. Now we have a misregulation of air pressure. We can't push the pressure of this left side to go to the right and then back and forth during gait. That's the goal of Poster Restoration Institute is to normalize pressures within the chest cavity by breathing. Do they think, is there any theories on why we are sort of designed like that or is it a malfunction of like human nature? I wouldn't say why. I mean, again, because of our make, we now just favored it that way. And our world has been created to favor more right-handed people, right? The way we, well, in London it's not the same, but here in the States and everywhere else, we drive the same cars the same way. We lean on the right side way too much because of this added body weight. But as we grow older, and once we started standing on two legs and utilizing this body weight more to the right side, even other systems have been affected such as our vestibular system, which now thinks that this whole right-sided lean of our bodies thinks that our world is straight this way. If I try and bring it back to the middle, our vestibular system, even our vision, doesn't think that way, it still thinks this is wrong. So to answer why is again because of our natural make, yeah. Andreas, it's been really interesting. I've got one last quick, sort of quick fire question. How much effort should we make to try and to be symmetrical? Is it realistic or is there just gonna be an inherent certain level of asymmetry that we can thrive with without needing to kind of get super, kind of like almost obsessive about it or not? I don't think we need to become more really obsessive about it. It depends on your goals. If your goal is to be, I just wanna run so fast because I wanna be the next Olympic. I wanna be the most of the next Olympic gold medalist, then symmetries wouldn't matter because not symmetrical as in structure but symmetry as in function. I care more about does it move the same way? Does one side of your body move just as well as the other side? That's the kind of symmetry I would focus on. Not how it looks like in a mirror because no matter what you do, you cannot change it. Unless I take all your vital organs and put them right in the middle and change your diaphragm, then that's possibility but not really. What we should see though is at least maintain a somewhat symmetrical level if you really work on it. For example, if I know I work more on my dominant side, my non-dominant side, my other side will create some reflexive tone and you can actually see shoulders are starting to level out, scapulars are starting to level out, pelvis is going a little bit more leveled. It's not perfect but it's close to perfection. Yes, that you can promote and it should be implemented to someone's training routine but it's not just only in training, it's your daily life. It's how much are you using this non-dominant side? Notice the habits that you do in your daily life. You brush your teeth the same way, you shower the same way, you eat with the same hand, you do specific activities every single day over and over and over again. Now you created a certain amount of neuroplasticity. Your job is to create a different pattern, to create a different type of neuroplasticity. Now, when it comes to neuroplasticity, it's neither good or bad. Neuroplasticity just is. You can be very awesome at creating a new movement pattern but you can be very awesome at still feeling pain because you're creating neuroplastic changes in it. So yes, to gain symmetry is a goal but it's also how much are you willing to work for it? What kind of changes can you make in your life to promote this symmetry? Are you using your non-dominant side not throughout most of your day or are you still using your dominant side, right? So these little things, when it comes to symmetry, the one thing I would personally say is start doing most of the stuff you can with your non-dominant side because that will wake up the opposite cortex that's been so low and stimulus, it's gonna wake up again. And when it does, you see scapulas going right back to where they were again, nice and symmetrical, right? Do you know how hard it is to eat with your left arm if you're a right? That's what I'm thinking about. Checking in particularly struggles with this. I've been trying to wipe my ass with my right hand, sorry, with my left hand. Yeah, I've been trying to eat a salad bowl like more than three days ago. It takes me 15 minutes to eat my salad. This one took me an hour and a half just to coordinate the damn thing. Jacko can't feed himself with two hands. Like you have to, you have to swap, Jacko swaps his knife and go over this. Yeah, yeah. There was just a shoveler. I have to have my right, the knife has to be on my right hand for cutting and then I swap them to then eat. And then as, I was gonna say this, but I was like- It just sounds exhausting just hearing that. Well, it's exhausting watching. Neuroplasticity, I've become, I've laid down those neural pathways and it's very, I don't even know that I'm doing it. It's just automatic, but I eat far too fast. And one of the things I was thinking was right, I'm gonna eat with my left hand. I'm gonna brush my teeth with my left hand. I'm already wiping my ass with my left hand. Don't do those things all at the same time. But that's gonna slow my eating down, which will be a good thing for my digestion. Absolutely. So, thank you. That's my big takeaway for sure. Absolutely, absolutely. Andreas, that's been a really enlightening conversation. We thought we were gonna get some really interesting and different perspective from you. So where can people find out about you if they want to get a little bit more information? They can definitely reach me at my Instagram, Bob Mechanic. They can also find me through my website, BobMechanic.com. I have a monthly subscription where people can subscribe and watch all my weekly videos, my live videos as well. I put educational information, specifically for personal trainers and medical professionals that wants to know more about rehab and sports performance. So yeah, basically my website, BobMechanic.com and my Instagram mostly, BobMechanic. Awesome. We'll put those links in the show notes so people can just click straight through into them. So thank you everyone for listening. And if you have any questions, obviously make sure you do reach out. And if you haven't followed Andreas yet on Instagram, we would highly recommend checking Instagram out and the website. And from us to you, Andreas, thank you so much for your time. And I will update you on how my left-handed eating is going for sure. All right, yeah, definitely keep me updated. Cheers guys. Thanks very much. Thank you guys. So that is it, an absolute mouthful, Jaco, to chew through. So I've done that. I've pulled that together quite nicely. You've got a big mouthful to chew on. I'm just like chewing on the left hand side. Until next week on the Movies Trending Play podcast, we have massive thanks to Andreas for coming on and just spitballing some concepts and some thoughts from the emerging side of where we're going with health, performance, medicine, all those sorts of things. And we hope you've fully enjoyed it and go back and give it a second listen. If there's some stuff that you can think in cracking, what did you say that was a bit confusing? Give it another spin. And if nothing, keep some of your day-to-day activities left-handed. Join me with the mat, the eating and the bum wiping. Unless of course you are left-handed, then you've got to go and have a play on the right-hand side. Well, get creative. We'll leave that one to you as to what you choose to do with your left and right hand. Let us know. I think a big challenge. Timbo, Timbo, Tim is a double thumbs texture. Whereas I'm much more like, I'm right thumb dominant for me texting. I need to like swap and try to do me texting. Do your Instagramming with your left hand. I'm taking full advantage of that little bit of difference between me and an ape. Double thumbs, baby. Right, so until next time, we keep exploring your multi, or your, I think what is it, is jacket. What is it? The physical potential of your left hand as much as you're right. And keep yourself in symmetry, but just play with it. Because that's what we do. That's what we do. I can't remember. Exploring your physical potential, move to another place, symmetrically, please, or asymmetrically, whichever one you need to do to balance both sides out. Class dismissed.