Roger Frampton: The Flexible Body
EPISODE 159
Forget everything you think you know about exercise. International model and fitness expert Roger Frampton has developed a revolutionary new approach to movement, designed to get your body working in the way it was designed to.
Just 10 minutes of training per day can help you work towards unlocking your body’s full potential. ‘The Flexible Body: Move better anywhere, anytime in 10 minutes a day guides you through a series of positions, stretches, rolls, and balances that retrain your body to move like it once could.
SHOW OUTLINE
INTRO
Roger introduces us to himself and his theory on fitness
An introduction to the Frampton Method (2m33)
PROBLEMS WITH AN INFLEXIBLE BODY
Roger identified this priority during his time as a catwalk model
Prioritize your spine (2m41)
Roger, the teachings of Dr Esther Gokhale and the J-Shaped spine
Sitting too long is back for your back (1m52)
HOW TO IMPROVE
Roger and LondonReal discuss attitude
Have the mindset of an athlete (1m11)
OUTRO
Roger’s final advice to LondonReal, and those who are training their physical and mental bodies
Notice every movement (1m40)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOJLx4Du3vU&ab_channel=TEDxTalks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L6PJiQyNlQ
EXTRA FOR AUDIENCE: Try Roger Framptons 10min Flexibility Practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EIwg8zJJKw&ab_channel=RogerFrampton
READING
The Flexible Body: Move better anywhere, anytime, in 10 minutes a day: Roger Frampton
TRANSCRIPT
And welcome to the podcast. It's episode 159. I'm your co-host Mike Parsons. And as always, I'm joined by the man. Who's rather flexible. Mr. Mark Pearson Freeland. Good morning, mark. Good morning, Mike. I have to admit to you and our listeners. I am. Dialing in and making the podcast. I'm not doing the crab.
I'm not doing some impressive yoga move. I'm just sitting down behind my microphone. Recording live to you, Mike, hopefully after today, though, I can become a little bit better. Are you telling us mark that you need to limber up a little bit or you telling us you need to get out a few kinks. I think inspired by today's show number 159.
After we dig into today's episode with Roger Frampton, the flexible body move better anywhere (Available on Amazon). Any time in 10 minutes a day, that's quite a promise. Isn't it? I think Mike, that you and I, and our [00:01:00] listeners, we're all going to have a little bit more knowledge and awareness as well as flexibility and movement in our day-to-day lives.
I'm quite excited as we reached the end of our health series to really come back to the basics and look at the. Very important part of health, very important fourth pillar to our health series. And I think mark, it's so great that we chose to study an author, a book, a set of ideas around having a more flexible body.
And what I felt was very interesting was the fact that he calls out Roger Frampton calls out our big enemy and that. Is Citi. That's right. This is doing untold damage to our body and that's why our hips and our backs and our necks, and pretty much everything tends to get very achy. So if you're listening to [00:02:00] this podcast, if you're a moon shutter, the chances are you do a lot of your work.
At a computer. And if you're doing that, you're often sitting down and therein lies the problem. Mark, today, we've got a great journey where we're going to unpack the problem. And in classic moonshot style, we're going to have a SIM solutions. We're going to have some daily habits that you can embrace to have a more flexible body, so you can feel better work better.
That's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, I'm pretty excited. It's certainly something that I perhaps have deep prioritized as I get older, but the truth is you really can do these stretches, whether you're traveling or whether you're at home, whether you've got five or 10 minutes or more in your day. It's so easy for somebody like me.
I just forget about it or a deep prioritize it. And the truth is that is causing me inflexible damage. Roger takes it even further. Mark. He says the good news amongst all of these tight hips [00:03:00] backs and so forth is that we actually start our lives as children as being insanely flexible. And we lose it and he helps us regain it.
So it's not like we actually have to learn something really new to our bodies. We have to remember. And so I think this is such a perfect way to wrap up our journey into health so far where we've done breath, sleep, where we've done. Diet with Michael Pollan. Now we're into the body and we're not going to focus on high intensity interval training or protein powders or any of that sort of stuff.
We're going to get back to basics, which has really been a big theme of this series. We're going to get into. Stretching and moving the whole body, taking care of some fundamental things. How we sit, how we stand and we've got some [00:04:00] great practical tips. So much ahead in this show, mark, where do you want to start our journey into Roger Frampton and the flexible.
Perfect. My you've done a great introduction, but I think it's time for Roger Franton himself to introduce us and our listeners to him, his theory and flexibility, as well as what he calls the Frampton. Hi, I'm Roger Frampton corrective exercise coach. I'm also an international model and I've appeared on numerous catwalks for some of the biggest designers in the industry.
Now it's fair to say it's highly competitive and so not, you need to keep in tip top shape. So I created a method of exercise that delivers extraordinary results and can be done anywhere any time. So what's wrong. Firstly, it's important to understand that we are born with fully functioning bodies, but the long periods span.
Shoes and sitting in chairs have restricted our body's natural ranges of motion. The fitness industry, and in particular gyms have become obsessed with [00:05:00] superficial appearances. So the measures for progress have become weight sets, repetitions, and even attempts to target muscles individually. So instead of how many squats can I do or what muscle groups does a squat work?
The question, what technique should I apply when squatting to ensure. Posture a maximum impact will serve you better in the long run. When the goal itself is a better understanding of how we go, body moves efficiently measures such as a fat-burning will take care of themselves. So what's different about the method?
Several years ago, I attended an adult gymnastics class. Now bearing in mind, I'm funny pastoral training quantified and have attended courses all over the country. I still managed to get my technique corrected by a six year old girl. Be a true realization. The us adults have absolutely no idea of how our body has adapted.
So I created the three PS that [00:06:00] make up the front of method. Primitive. Can I achieve a primitive position? I squat posture, can I keep my spine straight? And my feet stay within a squat and progress. When you begin to apply the exercises on this channel, progress will occur as a result. So how will this change your life?
Through the front of methods, you'll begin to understand your body, the way you hold yourself, walk and even stand slouching just becomes a thing of the past as positive your body, take responsibility for holding you in the powerful postures. We're currently sat in the driving seat of the most powerful machine in the world, but we have a fitness industry comparing us to Lego characters, less prove once.
And for all that good bodies are simply a byproduct of a deep. Of how to move efficiently and greatest. Wow. Primitive posture progress. [00:07:00] Those are the three PS of the Frampton method. And what I love is we've just discovered that there's this very much this back to basics theme. I just go back to the previous show with Michael Poland in defense of food, he was talking about five ingredients or less.
If your grandmother doesn't know the ingredients, don't eat it. What Franklin is doing is exactly the same for our bodies from a kind of a physical perspective is saying, make sure that we're making progress and we have great posture and that we can do these primitive stretches and positions.
I really like what we've uncovered so far. Mark, how do you feel when you apply Roger Frampton's three-piece to yourself? How do you think. You know what? I've always been pretty lucky because my primitive elements. So the ability to do a, I guess what's called a deep squat where you're sitting on your heels and [00:08:00] your spine or your bums, nearly touching the floor for some reason I've always been relatively lucky and able to do that.
So my posture, when I'm at least doing that move allows my spine to be straight. But I'm very bad when I'm sitting down in a chair because I really hunched over. And even though I've got an ergonomic screen, the keyboard stand the whole nine yards, the truth is though. Elements that you can purchase the high-tech wizardry.
It doesn't really matter unless you're really conscious about how you're setting yourself. I think what Roger's really reminding us here is you don't need those big, expensive gyms in order to get the superficial gains that we're convinced that we really want is reminding us to just go back to basic.
The six-year-old child showed Roger that she was far more flexible and therefore agile than he was, even though he was a qualified [00:09:00] PT. I think for me, it reminds me. By just taking a breath, going back to the basics and thinking the body is just about movement, about muscles, about stretching.
I can therefore have their slightly better posture and a better spine by just going back to those essential things much like a child would, I love this idea of the energy of a child helping me get a better active and flexible body. I think it's really. Yeah. And the the one thing I would say for those of you who have yet to really get into any sort of yoga practice, I think Roger Frampton's framework and method is a perfect stepping stone.
If you just want to loosen your body up if you just want to have better posture. If you just want to feel better because you get that blood circulating throughout your body. I [00:10:00] think this is a great stepping stone. Maybe you might be looking at yoga and thinking, oh, you don't want to have to go to the gym to do your yoga session, or it's not convenient, or maybe it's don't feel comfortable doing it.
That's okay. What I quite like about the front of method and what I like about gymnastics and this idea of stretching and just body weight stretches is personally for me. I find that I get like the calmness and the buzz of yoga, but also I get to work out the body. I really engaged my muscles, using a lot of different stretches.
I'm a huge fan of stretching in the morning. And I think ahead of us on this show, we're going to get into some of the kind of core problems that we need to tackle with this kind of modern sedentary knowledge worker lifestyle. And then don't worry, everyone. Mark and I have got a ton of [00:11:00] cool little suggestions stretches.
To challenge you. And we've also got a big question to ask of ourselves for this show. We we did a big question on diet last week, this week. What's the big question that we're asking of ourselves and of all of Alison. I'd like listeners myself and you Mike, as we go through today's show and hear from Roger Franson as well as when we reflect on the show of to hearing it.
What is the one activity in your day that you can now do while standing. We hear from Roger about standing about posture, about doing these primitive moves, but the truth is we do a lot of it while sitting down. So let's ask ourselves what is that one activity in our day that we can actually now do whilst standing.
Big one. And while you're contemplating, Hey, could I maybe do that call or that chore? [00:12:00] Or maybe if I'm just doing some light email, maybe I can do that standing rather than sitting while you are contemplating that something else we should contemplate is our fabulous members. Mark. We are so grateful for your support.
We are so lucky that we are now starting to cover some of our basic costs that it takes for us to produce this weekly show. And more importantly, we're just so jazzed to know that everybody out there is loving the show so much that they want to learn out loud together with us. They want to be a member.
They want to support us. So mark drum roll Q the Trump. Let's do a shout out to all our members. So those who are totally flexible with their mindsets and wanting to improve and become more flexible every day include Bob kneels, John and Terry Bridey, Nial, Sandy and Ken DMR, Tom Byron and mark Halena, [00:13:00] Yaniv margin Connor, Rodrigo Yasmina.
Spaceman, they, Mike, I need to go and revisit this show on breathing to even be able to get all of those members out in one breath, to all of you, including our latest spaceman and to our very first member. Bob, who's been with us since the start. Thank you so much. We're very grateful. You're helping us.
We have to pay web hosting. We have to pay podcast hosting. There's a number of additional costs that we pay out of our pockets, just so that we have the chance to share with you. And we're totally grateful for your support and mark. If you become a member@moonshots.io, every single month, you get to listen to something that's pretty cool.
What is that? Every single month in addition to our weekly podcasts. So by no means is this changing the plan? Everybody will still be doing our weekly show. Every so [00:14:00] often as you guys can all hear, we run into these themes and topics and areas that just deserve a bigger, deep dive ideas, such as motivation ideas, such as circle of control and frameworks, as well as the art of communication.
Here's a little teaser for you. Coming out in the the month of December will be our sixth episode or six shots member series, master series, all about the art of communication. And in those are 90 minute comprehensive, deep dives into very specific topics that we uncover every single month. So by.
On Patrion and becoming a member, a moonshots member, you can get access to the master series and deep dive into these topics with myself and Mike, every single. So there you have it. Moonshot study, click on the member button. You can do it. In fact, if you're listening right now, if you're enjoying Roger Frampton, cause we had a lot more of him to come in.
You're thinking [00:15:00] I want to work on my communication a little bit. This is something for the new year that I could jazz up a little bit. Just become a member. We'll be publishing it next week. You get to listen to the art of communication masterclass. If you head over to moonshot study and become a member.
Yeah, something else we can do. According to Rajat Frampton is to take care of our spine. We talked a little bit earlier about how we end up sitting so much of the day and that's doing a lot of things to us and we're getting a little disconnected to our body. So let's start this real examination of some of the science behind the flexible body book by Roger Franklin.
Now let's hit it. Let's get into the key thing. That's right. It's our spine. This is me strutting down the catwalk for Calvin Klein the casting director, who is backstage before the show, teaching us how to walk in a strong posture feet, straight belly button [00:16:00] in shoulders, back and down.
But why am I early twenties? Was I being taught how to walk? More importantly, why did walk in this way full so alien, but yet on the outer sides to the audience, it looks quite a powerful all they were asking me to do was walk like I was supposed to walk. So I decided to go to a place where just being in Schrom Pasha was common practice.
And I was about to meet the person face to face that would destroy my aspiration. Of Schwartzenegger forever. So I was attempting an exercise called a bridge and adult gymnastics class, and I just couldn't get my arms straight, let alone my body off the ground. So the coach called somebody over who demonstrates this movement effortlessly.
She was a six year old go. But what I really began to see is a [00:17:00] principle is being used in gymnastics. Identical to the posture cues I've been given backstage during fashion week. It's the language of gymnastics. That's not based on individual muscles, but based on movements of the joints and the skeleton.
For example, they use shoulder instead of biceps, triceps, hips, instead of quads, hamstrings, completely the opposite to what the fitness industry prioritize. Fitness talks muscles before spine. Gymnasts focus on how they are moving their body. And they also just happen to have awesome posture and a really strong core.
It's really no coincidence. This is a byproduct of working with the body. In fact, prioritization of the spine is a much smarter approach. If you happen to damage your spinal [00:18:00] cord, you can actually lose the ability to move any part of your body. And this is something we've been reminded of our whole lives.
Stop slouching, sit up straight and go draw, call off the table. They all mean the same thing. All your parents were saying was prioritize your spine. Say the thing is that humans, we were just born with full range of motion. Mike, I don't know about you, but it definitely got me sitting up straight.
Yes. Yes. Had it straight snap, the heels. Pretty good points. He's really saying don't over obsess about the bicep. Think about the shoulder. Think about posture. Think about core, respect the spine as some central [00:19:00] foundational basis by which all movement comes from. I really. And how surprising was it that when the models are told.
Actually walk with confidence and look good. He's they just reteaching you. What you get in gymnastics. That's the same concepts as what you get taught in gymnastics, but that shows you, everyone forgets these basic principles of good posture, good core strength. And this is what he's teaching us. I love this kind of stuff.
I think this is great. I think this really is a good summation actually of the entire series we've done on health. We covered breathing, we've covered sleep, we've covered food, and now we're digging into the body. And I think what Roger's calling out there is he was 20 he's always in his twenties.
He was learning how to walk again. These [00:20:00] four aspects. These four elements that we've covered within the health series are all pretty essential things that we have perhaps forgotten about. And you get taught at once. Maybe you move on and you develop bad habits. For example, with your body, you might be slouching or you might be sitting in an awkward position and you'll deprioritize your spine.
This series for me, Mike has really illustrated and brought up a number of a hard moments that make me realize I can sit up straight more regularly, or I can prioritize my spine through better stretching. And rather than focusing on specific muscle groups, like ice sets instead thinking about the movements that you do and allowing the core or the muscles to follow the moves, it seems.
Much more enjoyable, actually it seems like a real moment to get that body a little bit more flexible and improve yourself in the long run. [00:21:00] It really does, but I do think we need to use Roger's insight here to go a little bit further. To call out the problem, the enemy. And we've already mentioned it a lot.
This idea of sitting and boy mark, I can find myself sitting for long stretches of the time for huge parts of the day. So let's actually hear from Roger and let's hear his thoughts on why sitting for too long is bad for your back biochem. Mr. Esther got clay. Spend time traveling the world and research places where back pain hardly exist.
What's she noticed was people's spines with a flatter lumbar curvature. Didn't suffer from back pain. She referred to this as a J shaped spine, and you can see the difference in the images here between the S shaped spine. So in the Western world and the J shape spine and people where back pain doesn't exist, go clay states.
The JJ [00:22:00] spine is what in Greek statue. And in young children, universally, what she saying is we're all born with a J shaped spine. Now you may have noticed when young children pick things up from the ground, they drop down into this perfect squats. This is in fact, a preacher resting human position.
But unfortunately, as a consequence of our current human conditioning, Or our culture, this natural resting position is about to be taken away from this child. He's about to be tall. A resting position is in fact a chair. And when he's doing start school, seven hours of his day, every day, he will be asked to sit in this quite frankly, with an unhuman position.
Now I didn't even take into account the amount of hours. This kid spends watching [00:23:00] pepper pig. According to the British chiropractic association, the total number of people offset from what we've bank pain increase last year by 29% from the survey. The reason for back pain was sitting too long in one position.
It's he's really calling us out that we think a natural position of rest is to slouching back in the chair. And I think we're also guilty of this, right? I am so guilty whether it's in an office chair, whether it's a dinner chair or whether it's the couch I think we're all guilty of creating.
Specifying and Dr. Gokhale specifying is this Ash shaped spine. And I think that awkwardness, if you compare it to a nice gentle or straight line with that [00:24:00] little kick, like a GA shaped spine and spine, to me, it feels quite squat. And sometimes if I'm sitting down for too long I'll feel as though my body's almost got smaller.
If you can imagine that because it's almost compressing upon itself. Yes. And I think this is what we're all just really reminding us here. Yeah. And just to make sure that we understand the science here, they have found in indigenous populations that don't have this sedentary chairing computer culture, that they have much better, healthier spines.
They don't have all of these back complaints. Just think about how many times. You and me mark have had soreness in the back or so lower back, or how many people who pull out their back or who become bedridden because they've they've done something to their or their S two. [00:25:00] It's prolific, isn't it?
Like how many times have you been like, oh, my back is really. Oh very regularly. And in fact my wife had to have an operation two years ago on her spine this tightness, and what people refer to is slip desks, trap notes, and know it's all very commonplace now, isn't it.
And yet we're still quite happy to just go about our days sitting in. As Roger calls these awkward chairs, rather than going back to the essentials, like a kid who squats deeply to pick up something from the floor. I think this is really the crux of what we're just trying to teach us. Isn't it be that little bit more agile, be a little bit more conscious of how you move and in the long run your body and your spine will thank you for it.
Now's the time to start making this change. It really is. And if you are feeling agile, I've got another suggestion. Mark. I think folks could open up [00:26:00] their apple podcast app and they could search for something brand new. Don't think. Yeah. Yeah. There's something very flexible out there in the ether.
And the internet is now listeners they're master series. The moonshot master series is coming to you from apple podcasts. So if you're listening to. Through the apple podcast app each week, you can now go and subscribe to the master series where every single month we do a deep dive, a 19 minute comprehensive delve into first principles and motivation.
And you can listen for free for how long is it, Mike? Is it a month's free trial? I think it's two weeks, you can listen to it, to everything as many times as you like, and then it's a subscription. And we basically created this so that if patriarchy is not your thing and you much preferred us to get the podcast through your favorite apple podcast app then you can do and you can just subscribe.
And so just go into in fact, try it. Now, if you're [00:27:00] listening, you can just go and get a free trial. You can just type in moonshots master series. You can check out these great 90 minute masterclasses that we do where rather than studying, say Roger Frampton. Oh, Michael Polen individually. Like we do every single week on the moonshots podcast.
This is when we pull it all together in a mega topic, like motivation, like first principles, like we will next week, the art of communication. And we have tons of clips. Mike, when we have on average nine clips in a 90 minute show with downloads and transcripts and frameworks, and it'll keep you busy.
That's for sure. Yeah, it's taking the learning out loud model and method and applying frameworks downloads and additional breadth of clips to that, that analysis and education. So come join us listeners, come and join the moonshots [00:28:00] master series and continue learning out loud. As we delve into these pretty big comprehensive and very important topics on the master suite.
Yeah. And that master series that'll power, your mindset, just like Roger Frampton will. He's got now the opportunity to give us some very practical steps that we can take if we want to deliver on great posture. If we want to have. A really good sense of progress in how we develop our body and how we keep ourselves in good shape.
So we can be the very best version of ourselves. He's got a mindset advice for us. Now we go into the practical. Now we go into getting the job done of having a flexible body. So let's have a listen to Roger Franton himself here also, but working a little bit like what IDO Portel says, like there you're working on new neural patterns, like holding a plan is difficult and I'm in hand balancing courses and it's very difficult, but I get a [00:29:00] crazy workout.
But when I go work out for an hour, I'm not thinking I'm going to work my shoulders and work my ass. I'm just trying to hold a handstand for a two minute hands down the last weekend and everything's working, but I find it so mentally challenging. And that's what I talk about the mindset of an athlete.
So I think I would say look at, look like a female sprinter, really hard for women to get six pack and these girls have got abs and then if you figure that person, are they, when they go to training, are they trying to get a six pack? No they're not trying to get a six pack.
They're always trying to improve that performance. However, in the fitness industry, we're trying to get six pack trying to get a six pack. Like it's just a slightly different way of thinking. The athlete is always thinking, how can I improve my performance? And it doesn't matter whether they're a runner, whether they're gymnastic, I loved gymnastics.
It doesn't matter what the sport is. They're always trying to improve that as a result of improving that you get looking better, but [00:30:00] you've never trained. Don't train to look better instead, that is a result of trying to improve your performance. Mike, this is a pretty cha there's a bit of a change for those of us who have intentionally signed up for the gym, because we want to look like the Chris Hemsworth or any of the Hollywood individuals, people will focus on building, let's say big biceps or a six pack when Roger's really reminding us here.
No, start with. Start with just having good performance in whatever it is that you're doing. Yeah. And I want to even go back and really unpack this quick, because I think in here, this is the perfect bridge to some of the exercises we're going to recommend. He has such a good point. He talked about female sprinters.
And if you actually recall, they all have just these amazing [00:31:00] incredibly lean physics, but they're just trying to run fast. And what he's making the point of is if you focus on a body driven outcome, Like better movement, more speed and work on a series or some of joints and muscles and movement rather than going to the gym and just doing the isolated bicep call.
What are you saying inadvertently? You will have a great. Healthy body that looks great by focusing on those outcomes and is such a good. It's such a good example, because you can guarantee that a lot of women watching the Olympic sprinters and they look at those female sprinters and go, oh my gosh, they're so [00:32:00] slim.
They're so strong. Look at those six packs. And technically for women, six packs are harder than men, just for basic biological reasons. And it's interesting. That none of those female sprinters train for the six pack, but yet that's the thing that they get as a result of focusing on these body outcomes have better flexibility, more total body strength.
I think this is really powerful insight to here where he's really encouraging us to focus on the. The root of body mobility, isn't it. He's saying go out and try and improve like London, real references in that clip, he's doing a two-minute handstand, or if you're running like Roger references, you're going to have these results, these impacts after working on that performance.
So allow it to be allow muscle growth to [00:33:00] almost be. A side benefit to actually improving your performance in exercise. And that's really the crux of this. Isn't it. By working on your body, being able to bend to squat, to roll with more ease than you had yesterday. Your body will then be able to lose weight or be that little bit more flexible.
Maybe you'll be able to reach a different move in your yoga structure than you had before. Just by starting with those basics. The I like the shift in thinking here now. He has a bunch of different thoughts and exercises. I think if you're really excited about Roger Frampton's book, the flexible body, he also has another book called the seven stretches.
So just jump onto your favorite bookstore. He's got lots and lots of great programs. You can [00:34:00] go to his website, roger.coach. You can get all sorts of stuff. Let's now. Let's break down sort of some of this into some practical things. And the first thing I want to do is introduce to you like the flexibility idea that he brings us.
And the kind of essential way to think about his work is he is prioritizing the spine, your hips. Your shoulders and how they all come together and balance, this is really the architecture of what he's proposing. And again, you don't see him saying the bicep or the quad or the lab he's really talking about this system. And if you do these if you really work on these concepts and. We'll give you [00:35:00] some examples in a second. You can do all sorts of things. You can reverse back pain, you can increase your flexibility. These can lead to better posture and getting rid of all of that tightness.
But I think what's really interesting. Mark is if you focus on things such as the spine, such as stretching and flexibility, I think what happens is you really do. Get a sense of confidence through this mastery of the body, through understanding all of those joints and muscles and movements. I cannot tell you my, like when I do a great stretch in the morning where I do everything from my neck, my shoulders right down to my calf muscles, even my toes.
When you do work outs like that, when you do stretch, like that kind of feels you get this confidence, right? It's I don't know what it is. The blood starts moving. The [00:36:00] muscles are activated. Your mind becomes alive. It's really like a feeling of mastering the body. Isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I can totally relate to that.
Whenever I use my. And I'll focus on my hips or my legs because they get particularly tied as well as my shoulders and the upper back, actually more so than the lower back, it hit the feeling. The only way I can describe it apart from the agonizing feeling that you might get in the first or second time, which very listen to don't be put off.
If it's a little bit sore, the first time you use a roller, it goes. After that I it's a feeling it's so good. I can't express how good actually. And just so we're clear these foam rollers. So if you're not sure what we're talking about, just Google foam, roller. Nice. Chunky three to six inch in which probably about three feet long.
Oh my gosh. Just roll those bolts. [00:37:00] And when you use those or when you're doing stretching, as you would just say, Mike, th the feeling that I can express is it's like waking up. It's suddenly, you've got this clarity, and I think it is exactly, as you just said, the blood is flowing. Your things are firing in your brain, because suddenly for me, I'm starting to feel.
Again, and sometimes at least I'm guilty of this. I'll be in my own brain. I'll be thinking about emails, about work, about things I've got to do in my day, but by stretching and by using maybe a firm roller or doing some form of exercise, it helps me bring myself out of my mind and into my. And I can start feeling my toes.
Like you say, I can feel my back my hands and I've got a little bit more awareness. And for me, that's when I'm really waking up when my body is as awake as my mind. Yeah. And you're ready to learn. You're ready to engage and to [00:38:00] think clearly it's blown out the cobwebs. Blown out the cobwebs is exactly how it feels.
Let's talk about some of his advice and practical things that we can do. The first one, we're going to get run through a couple of these together. So listeners, if you're thinking about the question that we had for today's show, what is one activity in your day that you'll now do standing, as you consider that maybe you want to do a little stretch and.
You engage the body. Maybe what you want to do is think about some of these as options for you to incorporate into your daily practice. I think a great one that he has for beginners who are getting into the word of stretching is he says to them, Fine. Try a couple of stretches and melt into it.
Now this first advice from him about melting into it is [00:39:00] really based around, and I'll read you what he says here on a scale of one to 10 intensity. You want it is to be around about a five. If you manage to last the time. So roughly a minute, it will leave you feeling relaxed and recharged for the day.
So if you want to really get to the first thing you can do, if you're really new to stretching, try just a couple of stretches. And just melt into it. Don't push too hard. Just gradually get into it. Keep the intensity level at about a five. And if you can hold that for a couple of minutes and just let it really take hold of your body.
And see if it works. I think that's a great way to get into stretching, doing humor. Yeah. Yeah. I've certainly used one of those when back in the day of doing yoga classes and it feels amazing just to sit there in peace and allow your body, like you say, to melt into it. And it does become a lot more flexible, [00:40:00] even just allowing yourself to stay relaxed.
Yeah, it does. It does start to open up. Yep. All right, so he's got another one. So hit us with it. Yeah, another great one that I like to do a lot, Mike, as well, even though I'm not very good at it is just simply folding in half. So as you stand, you can do this while sitting actually as well, sitting on your floor, think about trying to touch your toes.
Now, if you're a little bit like me, maybe you're still a little bit flexible and you need Roger, Frampton's help. Maybe touching the toes is still a little bit ambitious at this point, but the way for me, Mike is our stand hit with. And I'll fold over really bending in the spine and feeling as though your body and your blood is going to your brain, as well as all the tips of your fingers.
As you're bending over now, you don't need to stretch too much there. You're not intentionally trying to touch your toes, but just a nice gradual again, like the first tip [00:41:00] you're melting into it and holding that for about a minute whether it's in your house or wherever you might be, you can start to feel that.
Lifting. And if you need to like me, you can put a little bit of a bend in the knees just to help yourself get that little bit closer. And over time you can get closer to touching those toes. Totally. Another one he's got for us is I want you to imagine lying on the floor in what they call the Springs pose.
So you lie with your tummy on the floor, and this is a great one that he recommends you can just do. If you're watching a bit of tele. Is you lie on the floor and then you put your hands out in front of you. You push yourself up a little bit. So you curve that spine. Yeah. You don't have to do it really intensely, but what you want to do is keep your hips.
Really nice flat on the ground, but then curve your back up. Don't push too hard, but actually, so you can, instead of looking at the floor, you're actually looking at something like the television. Now this is a [00:42:00] great one. I actually do this one every morning. I even liked. Twist the spine a bit to really open it up, but this Sphinx one is such a good one and it's a great recharge.
It. Each of these ones that we're mentioning a really good recharge is getting a lot of blood movement throughout the body, to the head. I think that's a really good one. If you want to. Re-energize the body. Do the male tech society find one exercise into smelled into it, to do the folding and half or three, do this thing.
Suppose ally on the foreign just curves you back up, watch the television and just feel particularly down in that lower spine. You're doing all sorts of wonder down there. Yeah, you're doing so much wonder in that spine, this stretching that you're doing and your body ultimately really benefits your mindset.
Like we were saying, Mike, when you're doing your stretching in the morning, or maybe using that foam roller your body, as well as your brain are starting to come to life. And what Roger is really encouraging [00:43:00] us is to really consider that consciousness as well as the word of mindfulness as you're doing these stretch.
Similar to the ability of getting out of your brain when you're exercising, when you're stretching, just think about the effect that it's having on your body as you're stretching and you're melting, and really allow your body to feel recharged as well as your mind feeling that reenergized station that comes with that little bit of exercise.
And as we got to remember, Mike, these stretches. They do count as exercise. So even if it's just a five minutes or 10 minutes a day, that's still a very light form of exercise. That's just helping your body become a little bit more mobile as well as flexible. So it's really worth doing isn't it?
Yeah. And his last tip. This is all around recharging. Your body is the inverse of the folding and half is what he calls the opening of your heart. And this exercise you'll [00:44:00] sometimes hear this referred to as back-bending all you do instead of folding over and doing the touching of your toes, we're going to inverse that and we're going to actually.
Stand and just lean backwards curve backwards and open up the heart. Very good exercise. That can really just, I actually like to have my arms out when I do this one. And so I not only are opening up the back, but really working on the chest as well. And it's a really good way of shaking off the day. Maybe you.
Been really focused on something. Maybe you've just got a bit of stress in the body, literally curve it back, open up the arms and just enjoy the opening of yourself and letting all of that blood circulation happened that breath and energizing the body. So those are five tips from Roger Frampton, the flexible body author, five [00:45:00] ways that you can recharge and energize your body.
He has a lot of other work around specifically what you can do for the spine in terms of flection extension rotation getting into hip mobility, shoulder rotation, imbalanced. So there's so much work here. We just wanted to give you five good ones that will help you recharge and start building that flexible body who I think Mike, before we wrap up with the Roger.
I think we need to remind people that we talked about apple podcast app and how much we'd love them to get the moonshots master series on that. But something that we've been very fortunate with is that folks have always wanted to give us a rating and review, but I think now's a good moment to remind them how much we need those ratings and reviews in the apple podcast app.
That's right. Listeners. If you're looking and listening to us in the apple [00:46:00] podcast app, if you're checking out the free trial for the master series, why not give us a little bit of a rating or review while you're in there as well, because it really helps us spread our message as well as this ability of learning out loud.
We get so many. Tens of thousands of listeners a month, just like you guys at home. And we love hearing from listeners who are from all four corners of the globe and the way that gets spread and the moonshots message gets out there is through ratings and reviews as well as people sharing it. So if you're in your apple podcast app, why not just give us a little bit of a rating or review and we'll definitely thank you for it in the future shows as well as.
Exactly. And now that you're, you've finished hitting those five stars, I think we're hoping for five stars right now, right? Yeah that'd be a nice moment. I'll tell you what. Yeah. It's Christmas. It's a holidays gift from you to us. [00:47:00] So thank you, our deal listeners. Now, another moment is upon us, not only is it the last clip for this show, but in fact, we're going to end with some thoughts on which moments really matter if you are pursuing the flexible body.
So for the last time in this show, let's have a listen to Roger frame. W what any thoughts you have for me? Because I'm training for this race. I've got not much time left a couple of months. I'm training like 13 times a week right now, nine sessions for Ironman four sessions. Just so I can have fun with this thing called my body.
Cause I like break dancing. I can bouncing. I like moving, but for the Ironman, there's no creativity. I have to. And swim and run and do it a lot. And that's what I'm doing. So advice from you, anything that comes to mind on the physical aspect, maybe the recovery or just plant-based diet or just thoughts in general.
Okay. Cause you are, cause this is something that's completely [00:48:00] different to like, to what you've ever done. And to what I do, like that's this is like opposite. I talk about the heroin, the toys a lot, right there. A lot the way having the toys or the hair on the tortoise. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, the hair and the tortoise.
You and the rotors. Totally. Okay. So what are you saying? You're saying because slow and steady. Basically, and it's not oh, that's wrong. And this is right, but I'm always playing that's all to his game. So I like, for now I haven't ran for years. Like I don't even run for a bus. Okay. Just because you cannot be a self-aware when you're moving past a certain speed.
Okay. I'm coming from, okay. So you're the slow, you're the slow mover, as opposed to the fast mover, because you want to pay attention to each movement, every movement, and you're super conscious of where your shoulders are and where your brain is and where your breathing is with each movement constantly, even as I said, even as you said.
Okay. Gotcha. So you're the one right now. [00:49:00] I'm stretching my right hip. Okay. Gotcha. Conscious and aware, Mike look, not only does that feel like a suitable clip to wrap up Roger France and the flexible body, but actually as our health series in general, noticing and being conscious of your breath, your sleeping, your eating, and your body, that feels like a classic tip that for me, at least I've totally deprioritized and even forgotten.
I think this this could be taken as Roger to saying wake up and realize it and listen to an experience your. And she like one of the things that I found through just a practice of meditation and breathing is how beneficial it is to be truly present and aware in your. And the way in which you can just get so much [00:50:00] from noticing your movements being aware of where you feel good and strong.
For example, I did my resistance training yesterday, upper body. So I want, I'm not going to say, I feel like Arnold Schwartzenegger preaching that much and it's just really good. And this is what I mean by this sort of confidence that you get from stretching from. Physical activity. It really does feed your confidence, the clarity of thought and a way you can unlock that is noticing every moment.
Don't just be focused on the bicep. Be focused on your balance. Be focused on your posture, have strength in your core. I think these are great ideas to take out from Roger Franton. What do you think. You're totally right. Noticing movements, building that confidence as well as clarity in your mindset.
Mike, this is what the moonshot show is [00:51:00] all about. This health series for me has absolutely landed in the sweet spot of the key lessons and tips that we uncover every single week together. For me, it's been so practice. Because we've covered areas of breathing of eating or flexibility in sleeping, but actually it, again, ladders up into what we're really trying to communicate on the moonshot show, which is about confidence being the best version of yourself, as well as creating that clarity.
So here's the question. What is the one activity in your day that you're now going to do standing? It's I'm going to very easily. Do meetings while standing, maybe it's just one hour a day, but instead of slouching in front of my computer, while I'm working from home or in the office, I'm going to stand up and do the core wealth standing.
What about you, Mike? [00:52:00] I'm going to go for email. I try to batch my email and so I don't have to worry about where I am. Exactly. I can move about the house. So I'm thinking like I have this really nice. Deck and barbecue area with a raised area. So I could actually stand out there, do some email while standing there and then head back and sit down when I want to focus on some work.
So I'm going for a two for one day. That's nice. I like that a lot. Trying to sneak in and get move around a little bit, take a different location. Stand up. Mark, listen, thank you to you. Thank you for joining me on this journey into a flexible body and thank you to you. Our listeners, the moonshot is our members to people who are listening to us on apple, Spotify, or.
Amazon music. There's millions of you out there. So we want to say thank you. We are so [00:53:00] grateful for you learning out loud with us, and we're especially grateful to those of you who have become members to support us. And today. It was a real celebration of the body. It was a fitting in to our health series.
We studied here on show 159. We studied Roger Frampton's book, the flexible buddy, and he really gave us an introduction to his method, primitive posture and progress. And he made a call to arms prioritize your spine respect. Your spine, make it number one, because his next thought was, you're sitting for too long.
You're crashing that back. You're not got that beautiful Jay. You've got what they call the S spine. And that is doing untold damage to your hips, to your shoulders, your balance. And he says, you have to have this AF this mindset of an athlete focus on the outcome. And you'll get the six pack along the [00:54:00] way.
And we had a bunch of different stretches tips and tricks. So you can unlock the flexible body and above and beyond every single stretch. And every pose is a key idea of noticing every movement, become one with your body, feel your body, know your body, be inside of your body and join us on this journey of learning out loud.
As we discover the power of our body, the power of health. Helping us be the very best version of ourselves. And that's what we're all about here on the moonshots podcast that Surratt.