 Next question is from Erika in Texas. My dad's doctor told him he shouldn't squat because it compresses your spine when you load weight on your back. Instead, he just does leg presses. Is there any research you've seen about squats compressing your spine? This is where doctors need to be punched in the face. Oh, so many of my clients have been told this. Yeah, so here's the irony of this question. Yeah, it's probably worse off. Oh, a proper squat versus a proper leg press if the leg press poses much more risk. The way that a leg press is loaded, when you bring the weight down especially and you get the lumbar spine to, you know, extend or flex with weight, that is more dangerous or more risk than a properly done barbell squat. But let's go in the opposite direction. All right, so compressive forces on the spine, not good. So that means that astronauts in space who've been out there for a while should have amazing spine health, right? Because there's no gravity. The space is between their spine or expanded a little bit. There's nothing pressing down on them. The reverse is actually true. When astronauts come back down, they find that they have a bone degeneration, muscle loss. This is a big problem, in fact. This is one of the major hurdles that they have to tackle with long space travel. You know, they're thinking about sending astronauts to Mars. One of the biggest problems, how do we keep the astronauts from degenerating? Because you need these forces to continue to tell the body to maintain strength, not just in your muscles, but also in your bones. Now, of course, we're talking about proper squats, proper loading, can you use too much weight? Of course, you can use too much weight on any exercise, but if you do it properly, you don't damage the spine. You strengthen the spine. You strengthen it. You train it, you strengthen the muscles that support it. You keep it stronger, straighter, for longer. It functions better. So, no, there's nothing about a squat that's inherently wrong. I think this is the same thing that we used to get with our national certifications, right? I think that doctors have just been, they know they could be held liable, right? So if a doctor tells your dad who's got spine issues that, hey, you should go back squat, because back squat's gonna strengthen your back, and he goes and he does it irresponsibly, loads it like crazy, has terrible mechanics, and he hurts himself, he's liable for a lawsuit. So he's always gonna push clients in a direction that is a less risky or safer route because that's what's going to protect his ass. It's not necessarily what is best for the client. And that was very similar to how we were even taught as trainers. I mean, many of the exercises that we taught, we were taught that you never do. Behind the back, lap pull downs, oh my God, that's so dangerous. Squatting below 90, oh my God, that's so dangerous. Bench pressing below 90 degrees. All these things, later in your career, you find out like, oh wow, actually, I want to get my clients to be able to do all these movements through full range of motion, but yet all my certifications taught me that I'm supposed to stop here, and it's for safety measures. And so that's where it's coming from, and that's what you need to be able to express to your dad is to understand, but always full range of motion in any exercise that we do is gonna be ideal, but you gotta make sure that he does that safe and doesn't try and load the bar really heavy until he has really good mechanics. That's a gradual progression. And if the prerequisites of him going through and not having proper stability, if that's not in place, then yeah, it would be problematic. And so again, but it's not to just throw that exercise out, that's definitely something to work your way towards and what does that look like? A proper trainer would be able to kind of assess ways to regain that stability, regain the strength, get proper support and mobility around the joints to support the load properly, and then just gradually start to load. I would not load, it's not just to say go load right away and let's work this out, there are steps to this, but you can't just make a bold statement like that and eliminate that when it's so... I mean, the results speak for themselves with people doing this. Yeah, properly done squats with good control and good stability applied appropriately to the body to that person is one of the best possible exercises you could do. That's hands down 100% true. So there's two pieces of, two things I'm gonna say here. One is I recommend for your dad our prime bundle because that is a correctional exercise-focused maps programs. And so what they're gonna do in those programs, he goes through assessments, he identifies issues with mobility, he corrects his movement and they'll get him to the point where he can do squats properly, safely, with good stability, good strength and then reap the tremendous benefits you get from the squats. Now the second part is this, if we're gonna use the logic that your doctor gave him, then we would also eliminate any kind of running, walking or hiking. If you were to add up the repetitive stress from every step you took, because let's say you weigh 200 pounds, every time you take a step, the compressive forces on my spine are more than 200 pounds, I'm stopping gravity and you add up all those steps all day long, it would look absolutely terrible. Oh my gosh, don't walk, don't move compressive forces are too high. This is true for anything that gets your body to get stronger or improve is somewhat of a stress. Whether you go out in the sun and expose yourself to UV rays or you handle rough objects or you work out with weights and strengthen your body, it's a slight stress but it's the right dose that makes the difference. When it's the right dose, not only is it not damaging, it's healthy and it's strengthening. And again, if we were to break down what happens to your body, even with the proper work, if I took Justin and I put him through an appropriate workout and then while he's working out, we tested his body, measured inflammatory markers and hormones and damage markers on stuff. From a, on the computer, it would look terrible. But oh my gosh, Justin, stop doing what you're doing. Your inflammatory markers are going up. I see micro tears in your muscle. This must be absolutely terrible. But we know exercise is not terrible. It's phenomenal. It's one of the best things you could do for your body. So this is terrible advice from your doctor. And by the way, doctors have the average doctor has zero education when it comes to proper application of exercise. I used to train a ton of doctors and surgeons and they hired me for a reason. Their expertise is very narrow, but very deep and specifically what their doctors for. That's what I would stick to. But when you ask them stuff on exercise and diet, they usually don't know any more than the average person who reads the average health article. Not to mention that part of the benefits of learning and performing a good squat is the core and low back strengthening that you get from it. When people look at squats as just a leg exercise and they try and switch it out with something like leg press, which absolutely requires zero core stability or low back stability or strength, it's like defeating the purpose of what the real benefits of learning how to squat would do for this person. This person who has potential spine issues, nothing is going to help their spine more than getting a strong core and back muscles to support that spine. If you do something like a leg press, you're going to atrophy that. You're not having to work it whatsoever. If you eliminate squats for the leg press where you do not have to use any core stability and no low back muscles are being engaged when you lay down in a seat and press with your legs, all the only benefits you're getting from that is some leg development, but a squat is so much more than that and learning how to squat is so much more than that. So when you have a client like this, that was always the hardest thing as a trainer. So I understand where this kid's coming or this guy's coming from with trying to probably explain to his father that he needs to learn how to do it is because these doctors would tell clients, like, oh, you have back issues, don't do deadlifts, don't do squats. But the reality is, as a trainer, my goal was to get them to be able to perform those movements the safest and the best, because if I could get them to do that, nothing was going to protect their spine longterm more than that.