Autonomy 🤸🍔✊ GMB Fitness

The most requested topic from a recent round of surveys, how to train around minor injuries is a real and pertinent issue for all of us at some point or another. Whether you wake up one morning with a crick in your neck or you twist your ankle while running, learning to train with limitations is a skill that can be learned. In this episode, we dive into what constitutes a minor injury, why it's important to keep moving, and how to assess your situation and stay productive so you don't feel like you're wasting away while you heal. Key Points: How to Define ‘Minor’Why It’s Important to Keep MovingKnow ThyselfHow to Continue TrainingReading Your Internal BarometerThe FutureResources: Body Maintenance GuideYour Guide To Moving Better With Less Pain Easy Self-Assessments to End the GuessworkDealing With InjuriesOvercoming Chronic Pain with ExerciseHow To Make Progress, Even With LimitationsIt’s All in Your HeadBronnie Lennox Thompson on Fibromyalgia and Living Well With Chronic PainBronnie Lennox Thompson’s websiteSupport the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout

"It's time to make the Donuts." In a few recent polls, we found that about half of you say you move on from a training program when it gets boring. Given that repetition is basically requisite to any physical training, we thought we’d tackle this topic and vouch for the grind of donut making. Boredom is part of the process. Whether you learn to get interested in the details or just accept the repetition and cruise through it, sexy results come from unsexy efforts. As do delicious donuts. Key Points: Who Gets Bored?How to Define Boredom Goals & ExpectationsStaying Engaged is a Learned SkillProgress Is Non-LinearKnow Yourself, Plan for What You NeedProgress Is Not the Next StepThe FutureResources: How We Keep the Basics InterestingFighting Boredom in Your WorkoutsHow to Build a Training RoutineA Not-Boring Article on WalkingThe GMB MethodWant to Stick to Your Training?Avoid Exercise BurnoutSupport the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout

On any given day, we get dozens if not hundreds of questions on our YouTube videos, social posts, and via email. And we enjoy answering them because we never want you to get stuck or give up. Most of our answers have carry-over to whatever situation you find yourself in, so we thought we'd share the love. In this episode, Ryan and Andy answer a handful of commonly asked questions. Some of these are about advanced skills and others are about how or where to begin. So whether you've been sitting on the sofa for the last decade or are working on your Bruce Lee kip up, we've got you covered. Questions & Answers Question #1: Muscle-up TransitionQuestion #2: Seal Walk; Wrist Mobility & StrengthQuestion #3: Out of Shape, Where to StartQuestion #4: Kip Up Question #5: Walk to Squat Resources Dealing With InjuriesOvercoming Chronic Pain with ExerciseHow To Make Progress, Even With LimitationsHow to Get Started with TrainingDOMS – they suck!The GMB MethodYour Guide To Moving Better With Less Pain 8 Exercises to Fix Hand & Wrist PainSupport the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout

Nike says that "if you have a body, you're an athlete." That's BS, and it can lead to poor decisions and wasted energy that don't benefit you. Of course, you may be an athlete. We've worked with clients competing at all levels in just about any sport or activity you can name. But the vast majority of people we work with are definitely not athletes. What does that mean? Are we saying they're not good enough? Serious enough? No. Simply that their lives don't revolve around their training. This episode talks about the choice to become and athlete - and the choice not to. The latter gives you freedom to make different choices and to enjoy your practice in the best way for you. Key Points: Why We’re Not AthletesHow to DifferentiateFreedom & FunResources: Physical AutonomyThe Fundamentals for SuccessHow to Develop the Athleticism You NeedWhat We TeachHow to Make the Most of Your TimeTap Into Your Long-Term MotivationSupport the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout

Play is a topic that is often left out of the conversation in fitness. This is in spite of the fact that experimentation, exploration and going off script is at the core of many physical training disciplines—dance, martial arts, acrobatics, any sport you play. However, play is not just free form improvisation or what children do on the playground; it requires a foundation in what you are practicing. In this episode, we get into a subject that is near and dear to our hearts and some of our other parts: how to play with yourself. Key Points: What Play IsHow to Play EffectivelySafety & the UnknownOther TipsThe Future Resources: The GMB MethodBalancing Goal Oriented Training with Movement ExplorationWhy All Adults Should PlayPlaying with MovementTranscript of this EpisodeTurning Unconventional Play into Lifetime of FitnessPlay Your Way to Any SkillLearning to Incorporate Play Support the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout

Chances are if you like what we do at GMB, you don’t want to spend hours each day working out. Like us, you want to focus on just the essentials in order to help you better enjoy the things you love to to do like practicing your martial arts and being active with your families. In this episode, we were happy to be able to chat with Philip Chubb, otherwise known as the Mindful Mover, in which we discuss how to minimize the time you spend training while maximizing the range of gains you make. This is not just the cliché of "less is more," but practical things everyone can apply to their training to get a life beyond the gym. Key Points: Do Fewer ExercisesDo Less Reps Less OftenStop Over-trainingCardioGet a Life:Resources: The Mindful Mover@the_mindful_moverMindful MoverBody by ScienceBreathing Exercises3 Steps to Autoregulation TrainingHow Many Reps, Sets, Exercises, and Workouts You Should Be DoingOur Articles on Injury PreventionSupport the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout

Martial art has its history in combat, so as a company founded by three martial artists, Rule #1 (Don't Die) is fundamental to GMB. If you die, you don't get to do anything else. It's over. That's the end. It might sound dramatic but self-preservation is key to making any kind of progress. While this seems like a fairly basic and obvious fact, it is one that often falls to the wayside when we start taking on new challenges. In this episode, we talk about how everything comes with a trade-off and how to assess your training in order to not make irreversible decisions. Key Points: Don’t Die:What to do InsteadChallenge Doesn’t = PainOur AdviceIrreversible DecisionsThe FutureResources: 3 Steps to Autoregulation TrainingThe GMB MethodDOMS – They Suck!Breathing ExercisesTranscript of this EpisodeHow Many Reps, Sets, Exercises, and Workouts You Should Be DoingOur Articles on Injury PreventionSupport the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout

As a company founded by three dudes, GMB might seem like a very male centric company. But about half our team is women. The three dudes are married. Two of us have daughters, so raising strong girls and women is something we actually care about deeply. So we got in touch with one of the coolest, most successful and badass women we know: Juliet Starrett. She’s the CEO of TheReadyState.com, an attorney, and a champion athlete. She’s also a mother of two teen girls and has managed not to tear out all her hair, so she’s got a lot to say about parenting girls in today’s world. Key Points: Body Image:Role Models:Sex, Porn, Difficult Conversations: Letting Go: Resources: The Ready StateSan Francisco CrosSFitJuliet on InstagramDeskbound: Standing Up to a Sitting WorldStandup KidsGirls & SexBoys & SexS.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Sexuality GuideRaising Strong Girls, Part 1 Support the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout

As a company founded by three dudes, GMB might seem like a very male centric company. But about half our team is women. The three dudes are married. Two of us have daughters, so raising strong girls and women is something we actually care about deeply. So we got in touch with one of the coolest, most successful and badass women we know: Juliet Starrett. She’s the CEO of TheReadyState.com, an attorney, and a champion athlete. She’s also a mother of two teen girls and has managed not to tear our all her hair, so she’s got a lot to say about parenting girls in today’s world. Key Points: Relationships & CommunitySocial MediaTechnology, Self-Regulation, Sleep Resources: The Ready StateSan Francisco CrosSFitJuliet on InstagramDeskbound: Standing Up to a Sitting WorldStandup KidsGirls & SexBoys & SexS.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Sexuality GuideSupport the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout

We get it - you were born before the turn of the millennium, so much of your knowledge of health and fitness comes from the Jane Fonda Workout VHS and watching interviews with Arnie in junior high PE class. But you’re a grown-ass adult, and you’re still capable of learning new things. It’s time to learn how to prepare your body for a productive training session. “But I heard warming up is a waste of time!” I’m sure your buddy with the bad back who told you this helpful tidbit had your best interests in mind, and we completely agree that warming up like a recreational jogger in 1983 isn’t going to help you much. But if you spend most of your day in a low exertion environment and try to immediately transition into a high-exertion training session, you’re going to have problems. This episode is about the right way to prepare yourself for training - how to get your mind in the right place, how to prepare your body to maximize the benefits of training, and how you can organize your environment for productive training. Is it OK to skip prep and just start training? Sure, and you can also eat a frozen sausage without taking the wrapper off. But you’d be acting like an idiot, so cut it out and learn how to do things right. Support the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout

Why buy a program when there are 50 billion free workouts on YouTube? Precisely because there are 50 billion free workouts to parse through. In this episode, we talk about the good, bad, and ugly of the free content on YouTube. We cover: Learn how to use YouTube to help you make the best decisions for you and your own practice. Support the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout

"Just squat!" "Just do intermittent fasting!" As sentient beings in the 21st century, we all have pretty solid bullshit detectors by now, but when we're facing challenges, it's still tempting to believe the easy answers. And why not? Mostly, they're offered in earnest from friends with the best of intentions. But sometimes, there's an insidious bias behind the rec. In either case, "just X" is usually masking a litany of gotchas and caveats that you should understand before jumping in. This episode is about investigating claims without wasting time researching beyond your necessity as a layperson. If you're gonna trust someone as far as you can throw them, you better learn to throw! We'll look at veracity, context, and incentives as heuristics for casual analysis of "maybe too good to be true" claims. In other words, it's a tune-up for your bullshit detector so you can skip the crap and start using the solutions that suit you best. Support the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout

It's easy to get overwhelmed by all the possibilities out there. Decisions are hard, and we can't make them for you. We can, however, show you how we make a lot of our decisions. In this episode, we revisit the framework "Hell Yes or No," give examples of how to apply it in both your life and training, and explain how it can free you up from indecision, inaction, or overwhelm. Learn how to practice saying "No" so that you are spending time doing what you really want to. Support the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout

"Boredom, I think, protects the individual, makes tolerable for him the impossible experience of waiting for something without knowing what it could be." Here's the deal: you will get bored. We all love that new-car smell and sense of novelty when we start something new. The first couple of weeks on a new program or routine usually feels like you're really making progress, but then the honeymoon ends, and you find yourself knee-deep in The Grind. The Grind is the inevitably boring middle part of a training plan when things stop feeling exciting and fun, and you might even wonder whether you're making any progress at all. And that's why most people quit or program hop sometime in the third or fourth week of a program. Unfortunately, the grind is super-important. It's where you cement your learnings and really start making headway. Without the grind, you don't build to the eventual results you want. The Grind can suck, but we'll show you how you can learn to love it. Support the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout

"Progressive overload" is a principle in training that says you need to continually add greater stimulus to an exercise to keep seeing a training effect. And it makes sense. To get stronger, you need to continue pushing your body. But the history of popular fitness has instilled a bias here that overload can only be achieved via a handful of training variables, primarily load and repetitions. So once we get to a certain point, we naturally start looking at adding weight to our training. It works great for exercises like pull-ups and dips, but in others, it's a recipe for injury... or at least for poor results. When it comes to bodyweight exercise - and especially skill-based training - complexity and sophistication of movement are often neglected as pathways for progression. This episode hopes to change that. We'll explore why adding weight works and when it's the wrong choice. We'll also cover examples of sophistication instead. We know that making the right choices is tough! There's a lot of nuance involved, and this episode will provide the context you need to figure out what'll work best for your goals. Resources: Loaded Carries for Practical, Everyday Strength Support the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout

Everyone starts the new year with a slew of well-intentioned goals. And with goal setting comes questions of how to take the steps to reach them, when you'll hit that mark, and how to know if you're doing the right thing. In this episode, Andy and Ryan talk about ideals, expectations and reality, and how to honestly and confidently start or continue your fitness journey. We cover: Learn how to assess where you are and take the first or next step to get where you want to...

If you've tried something new even once in your life, you might be familiar with falling flat on your face, possibly literally. In this episode, Ryan chats with David 'Jacko' Jackson and Tim Stevenson, founders of School of Calisthenics. They talk in-depth about how they developed their philosophy of "redefining your impossible" by exploring your physical potential through body weight training. Jacko and Tim share their stories and thoughts on: If you want insight on how to reframe something that feels out of reach, this is an episode you definitely want to stick in your ear hole. Resources: WebsiteYouTubeInstagramStrength, Play and Conditioning ProgrammesLearn the Whole Handstand Process Support the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout

We get a lot of questions about Recovery which is not surprising, given how much information there is out there. There's no easy way to cut through all the noise since Recovery is and should be subjective, but in this episode, we break down: Recovery, like any aspect of your training, cannot be cookie cutter and takes practice. Learn how you can apply recovery methods based on your own needs. Resources: Regulator -- Recovery, Resistance, ResilienceHow to Speed Up Recovery TimeHow to Maximize Recovery Support the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout

We've all been there -- schedules and routines change, and we can't fit in our regular workout. Rather than trying to stick to your routine amidst a big project, the holidays, or a busy time, tailor your workouts to better serve you. In this episode, we talk about: Learn how to use life changes to your advantage; adjust your training to help you focus on what you need to get done. Resources: ElementsIntegral StrengthMobilityCreating Your Minimal Viable Routine20-Minute Locomotion Circuit for Conditioning (Follow Along Workout)Support the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout

Have you ever Googled a topic and been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of products that are supposed to solve your problem? Or underwhelmed by the lack of real answers? In this episode, Andy chats with Andy Morgan of Rippedbody.com about why helpful information doesn't sell, and how to figure out what to do based on your own needs. We cover a variety of simple yet effective guideposts and strategies for working on your physique, including : Whether you are looking to lose weight, get ripped, or create healthier habits, the answers are often simpler than you think. Resources: Rippedbody.comRippedbody PodcastGrowthLab Support the show 👉 Try a free strength and agility workout