November 11, 2017
Podcast from: bengreenfieldfitness.com/weck
[00:00] Introduction
[00:52] The Quip/Mvmt Watches
[05:18] About David Weck
[11:48] What Happened to David at Age Six
[23:29] David the Trouble Maker, Mischievous Kid
[27:40] Football and William’s College
[31:16] Ben and David on Speed Reading
[36:33] David’s Acting Stint
[39:31] David’s Rollerblading Obsession
[44:50] What Nightly Drinks of Alcohol and Aleve Did to David’s Body
[48:39] David’s Breakthrough with Paul Chek and His Stability Ball
[51:27] Bosu Ball –The Idea. The Prototype. The Success
[59:11] Kion Flex
[1:02:33] David’s Addiction To Pot and How He Broke It
[1:09:01] The Effective ECT Treatment That Helped David Overcome Addiction
[1:19:12] Why David Thinks Current Day Trainings Are Nonsense
[1:26:25] The Reason Most People Train Their Core Completely Wrong
[1:51:34] End of Podcast
Ben: Yo! Yo! Yo! Every once in a while, I have an amazing person come to my house. This is Ben Greenfield by the way, in case you were wondering. And this podcast involves such a guest who does not fall short, I guarantee you that. This guy showed up at my doorstep and entertained me from minute one, me and my boys. Showing us all manner of exercise tricks and how to use like clubs and these really cool hand held devices that make you a faster runner and special moves on the kettlebell. He invented the freaking Bosu Ball, and how cool is that? And we hung on my house a lot and talked a lot. And he’s a super, super intelligent cutting edge guy. He’s one of those guys who just thinks outside the box which I really respect. His name is David Weck and you’re going to get to take a deep dive into David’s mind in today’s show.
This show is brought to you, speaking of innovative things, toothbrush. Yes, a toothbrush but this thing is like Apple designed a toothbrush. It won Time Magazine’s Best Invention. It won a GQ Grooming Award. Made it on to Oprah’s New Year’s O List and it’s an electric toothbrush with vibration and a timer that reminds you when to switch to new area of your teeth, and it literally is like Apple designed a toothbrush but without the big price tag. So you’ve got to see this. You’ve got to brush with this for yourself and you could try it out. You get your first refill pack free, by the way. It’s called the Quip. Here’s how you get your first refill pack free and get the Quip at just twenty five bucks. You go to getquip.com/ben that’s g-e-t-q-u-i-p dot com/ben and your dentist will be the first person to tell you that you do not have to dish out hundreds of buck for a top of the line electric toothbrush. And you can start taking care of your teeth at a very, very affordable rate with this thing and it’s literally revolutionizing the oral care industry. So check it out getquip g-e-t-q-u-i-p dot com/ben.
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In this episode of The Ben Greenfield Fitness Show:
“My college football coach used to say, “Eye in the sky does not lie, okay?” It can be misinterpreted which it is when you don’t understand it, but it doesn’t lie.” “If you think about balance, the best way to think about balance is coordination, okay? It’s an orchestra. It’s where and when. That’s what balance is. It’s homeostasis.” “Right now, I’m not afraid of any one. I’m not afraid of anything. Ask me a question and be prepared ‘cause you might not be able to handle the answer ‘cause I’m just going to tell you the truth.”
Ben: You’re not allergic to that smell in here, are you?
David: No.
Ben: Do you know what you’re smelling right now?
David: Let me see.
Ben: That is the scent of the wonderful rosemary.
David: Oh.
Ben: Did you know rosemary actually increases your memory? When you smell it? Yeah.
David: My father told me to drop rosemary drops in my scalp.
Ben: Wait, how do you drop them into your scalp? What do you mean?
David: Take one of those little rosemary things and just ump, ump.
Ben: You mean on to your scalp?
David: Yeah.
Ben: Okay, yeah.
David: Yeah, onto… (laughs).
Ben: Yeah, like you got holes in your head? Like a cheese grater?
David: Like a cheese grater.
Ben: Hey, we are recording, my friend. We are recording. We are live. If you’re listening in right now, I have a kind of a slightly insane guy in my office. His name is David Weck. The David Weck. Pretty much the main thing that I knew about him until yesterday essentially was that he invented the Bosu Ball. You invented the Bosu Ball.
David: That is correct.
Ben: We’re going to have to get into that.
David: Oh, yeah.
Ben: ‘Cause I would imagine there’s more to inventing a Bosu Ball than just like finding a big old exercise ball at the gym and chopping it in half. Or is that the whole story that I just tell like or…
David: No, I think it’s a little more intriguing than that.
Ben: Okay, well.
David: And there’s also the entrepreneurial aspect of it. I think some people might be curious about.
Ben: Entrepreneur.
David: Entrepreneur.
Ben: Entrepreneur. Is that what’s from the Little Rascals?
David: (Laughs)
Ben: This little kid in the Little Rascals. You know, not…
David: Spanky or Alfalfa.
Ben: No, not Spanky or Alfalfa. The little yeah, back in the day. I don’t know what they would call this little fellow. He was a little African–American fellow.
David: Oh, Buckwheat?
Ben: Buckwheat!
David: Or Stymie?
Ben: Buckwheat!
David: Yeah, Buckwheat.
Ben: Entrepreneur.
David: Eddie Murphy did a good one on that.
Ben: And entrepreneur did that and yeah, Eddie Murphy did that too. Okay, so anyways though, David doesn’t just cut balls in half. He’s actually a wicked smart. We just finished filming a video at my driveway ‘cause he’s here at my house in Spokane, Washington and David showed me how to activate my core. He showed me a brand new way to run that just blew my mind. I’ll be posting plenty of links for you in the show notes that you’ll get to see in terms of some of the things that he’s invented to make you a faster runner, to turn on your core, to turn on your bootey. He taught me how to fix a flat butt.
David: Oh, yeah.
Ben: That’s all. I’ll link to the Facebook Live video that we just shot. Just go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/weck. That’s bengreenfieldfitness.com/w-e-c-k.
So anyways though, quick thing about David. He’s of course the CEO of Bosu Fitness. It’s like a whole company. It’s not just a ball. It’s like a fitness company.
David: Oh, no, no, yes. It’s a company. I’m the founder.
Ben: The founder.
David: I’m the founder.
Ben: What did I just call you, CEO?
David: CEO.
Ben: Okay. So the founder just gets to walk away and be the lazy CEO.
David: Oh, no. We’ll, here’s what it is, okay? The CEO has to catch tuna, make sure that you’ve been making money. The founder has to set the vision for the next big thing and you know, my hooker harpoon isn’t prepared to catch tuna.
Ben: You’re the big vision guy?
David: Oh, yeah.
Ben: Yeah. Okay. Cool. You know where you belong.
David: Pre-historic beast. Bigger than a blue whale.
Ben: The RMT Club, you invented that which I thought was the silliest thing ever.
David: Did you really?
Ben: Somebody sent me one and I’m like, “Dude, this is like a mace for six year olds.”
David: (Laughs)
Ben: It’s like this light club, ‘cause I’m used to like the big, like you know the Onnit maces and these big steel clubs and I get this thing in the mail. It’s like this plastic club and I play around it and I toss it in the corner of the gym and then I just whipped it out when David came over and I’m like, “hey dude, I know you invented this, but then dude, just like five minutes of my drive you completely gassed me with it.
David: Well here’s the thing, okay. Speed. Speed, speed, speed. And I’ve been training with clubs for 20 years. I’ve got a whole collection, you know how. You come into Ben Greenfield’s home if you ever have the privilege to do so, this man has more toys and gadgets and things that fix your DNA.
Ben: Yeah, people send me stuff (censored).
David: Oh god, yes, but so my house looks like that with clubs. And so I invented the club that didn’t exist because I care about the functional carry over to movement first and foremost. And speed. Speed, right? You clipped yourself in the leg just a little bit going.
Ben: Yeah, it didn’t hurt. It would hurt if I would have like one of those big steel maces.
David: Ah, cancel Christmas.
Ben: Yeah.
David: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah, cancel my trip to Finland in a couple of days. It was like, you showed me a move I could do in the back of the plane that’s for my butt. It’s called the Royal Coil. And you guys have to see this video and so again I’ll link to that. I’ll link to all of his crazy Weck Method videos.
But anyways, David descended on my house in Spokane and before we dive into how this club came to be. How the Bosu ball came to be. Dude, I want to go way back. I want to go way back. How old are you?
David: I’m 47 years old.
Ben: 47.
David: That’s right.
Ben: And you said this whole story you’re telling me and you know, we never got the chance to talk about this too much but it started when you’re six?
David: No, it started at birth, okay.
Ben: Of course.
David: No, no, no, no, but what I’m saying is you’re sort of the product of your genetics. It’s the nature and the nurture, right?
Ben: Right.
David: So you’re cut for a certain cloth and then depending upon your surroundings. That’s what shapes you. Those two factors.
Ben: Genetics epigenetics.
David: Yeah. So I was born to loving caring, amazing parents and my father’s one of the most competitive people I know, okay? And this was his first son, okay? And you know, Harvard Business School. He’s a go getter. He was an incredible man and he put me on the pedestal. So for my first 19 months of existence, the world revolved around me.
Ben: What does your dad do?
David: He was a consultant. So when the world revolves around you and you have a mother who just dotes on you. You have a father who makes your relatives put on surgical masks and gloves the first time they come over because you’re not going to mess this kid up.
Ben: You kidding me?
David: No, I’m not kidding.
Ben: He’d never heard of the hygiene hypothesis? Had he?
David: He just no (laughs). Apparently not.
Ben: I had my kids look in dog poop and hang out with the goats out back.
David: Well, I got into the dirt pretty soon thereafter. What I’m talking you know, this days old. I was his progeny, right?
Ben: Oh, gosh.
David: He wants to be the best and gets what he wanted from me. So my first 19 months is my exposure. And as a human being you have a want curve and if you get what you want, the want curve will expand and get bigger. And if you don’t get what you want, you have to either reconcile. You ain’t going to get what you want or you have to figure out how to get what you want. That’s the way life works. So my want curve was the universe, right?
Ben: Right. So were you saying you were born with a silver spoon or just super-duper high achiever type of dad?
David: Super-duper high achiever dad. No silver spoon.
Ben: And he wanted to live vicariously through you?
David: No, ‘cause he was successful. He just wanted me to be better than him. Be the best in the world.
Ben: Aha.
David: Yeah, so anyway, that’s how it started. And then come six years old, that’s when I began to start to realize that “hey, wait a minute I’m really not the best at anything.” Anything, I mean.
Ben: You remember thinking of this when you were six years old?
David: Yeah, some kid beat me in a race and I’m like (metal sound). Can I swear on this? I guess you know. It should be…
Ben: Yeah, you can. We’ll put cow bell on that, for the kiddos.
David: Okay, good. I’ll try not to do it.
Ben: For all the six year olds.
David: I have sort of a football background and some of the most influential people in my life were they cuss like sailors.
Ben: No kidding?
David: I get excited and I do that too. So I’ll refrain as best as I can. Yeah, when I was six years old I got beaten on a foot race and I was just like, “Wait a minute! What the!” You know, that’s not supposed to happen.
Ben: “Cause you’re the best?
David: ‘Cause I’m the best.
Ben: Supposedly the best.
David: Supposedly the best.
Ben: ‘Cause your Dad has been telling you for six years.
David: Not telling me. That was the vibe. It was much deeper than spoken word.
Ben: Right. So on your own, were you the only kid?
David: No, I’m first of four. But I’m the first.
Ben: You’re the first? Yeah. Okay.
David: So anyway, that’s where it started. When I was six years old, it started to dawn upon me that wait a minute, I’m not the best at this. I’m not the best at that. But I was still a very high achiever. My first grade teacher told my parents and she said, “look your son is very talented but he’s going to come into problems because everything is easy for him and he gets to coast with what we’re doing, and he’s going to coast like that and then he’s going to get hit with the cold water that he can’t always coast, okay? And we’ll get into some of the crashes, and yeah. So anyway, that…
Ben: Okay, so you lose the foot race at six years old.
David: Yes. So that six year old experience coincided with another one where I fell asleep standing up. Alright, now just think about that. That’s sort of like the epitome of effortless power, right? Normally…
Ben: What do you mean you fell asleep standing up?
David: I was standing and I fell asleep.
Ben: And when was this?
David: Six years old.
Ben: Still at six years old you remember this?
David: No, that story was told to me. I don’t remember that.
Ben: Okay, so what’s that have to do with this?
David: Well, these are the imprints that formed me as a person, right? So that’s just a deep neurological experience that’s enticing you. How would you like to fly, Ben Greenfield?
Ben: I love to fly.
David: I bet you’d like that.
Ben: That’s my dream someday.
David: Yes, so would I, right? So falling asleep standing up is very indicative of (censored) like I can do so much with so little. It’s pretty cool.
Ben: I thought falling asleep standing up was a bad thing?
David: Well, I don’t know if it’s good or bad but it set…
Ben: Okay. It’s happened to me before training with the Navy Seals down back at Kokoro Camp at San Diego. Your neck of the woods.
David: Did you stay standing? Did you stay standing?
Ben: I don’t think I did. I toppled.
David: Yeah, right. I think that sort of what’s supposed to happen if you lose consciousness. You lose the ability to stand.
Ben: Yeah, that’s after a 26 mile hike and then they had us do merf with the 50 pound weighted vest which is like 4 AM. I freak, I fell asleep wobbled, came back up, yeah.
David: Right. No, this is not those extenuating circumstances and it was just an extraordinary event that my nervous system remembered my conscious brain did not, alright? And then I’m going to tell you one more experience at six years old that I recall was lying in bed one night and suddenly and unexpectedly the walls just started to expand away from me, and it was like it started and then it started to get faster and it started to get faster and faster (fast moving sound) I shook it off. I remembered being absolutely terrified. Like it was just like and I shook it off. And I think you know, we live in this right now reality, right? And that’s what we’ve formed to and that’s what we’re tuned to but there’s also this timeless.
Ben: Your mom didn’t sneak psilocybin in your macaroni and cheese, did she?
David: I’m not aware if she did or not and I don’t think so. I think that would’ve been.
Ben: By the way, my boys are making mushroom risotto upstairs and they did some wild plant foraging, so you might have a repeat of that. [0:15:47.4] ______ on tonight.
David: Alright, I’ll take a small bite at first. (chuckles)
Ben: Fork your way around the mushrooms. (laughs)
David: But there’s a timeless time. There’s a lot of mystery. There’s other frequencies. There’s other dimensions. There’s a lot we as human beings in this realm don’t understand and I think some people tap into those things and I think your surroundings here without all of the electrical noise those sort of…
Ben: No WiFi, no computer.
David: Yeah, exactly. I mean look, you carry your phone in your pocket and you’ve got your Bluetooth earphones and you’ve got all these stuff. I mean there’s a ton of noise in this modern world that we live in, right? And I think what that does is it distracts you from the ability to tune in to the circadian rhythm. The more natural thing. Perhaps years ago this remote viewing concept may have been possible. Maybe you can raise stones if you knew where binaural lines are in the earth and you know you could resonate energy.
Ben: Yeah, I just actually interviewed Paul Chek who invented the original ball which you bastardized…
David: He did not invent the ball.
Ben: What you do invented, like ways to use it?
David: Yeah, he made it very popular. Like I would say that you know…
Ben: But that is what you say, he listens.
David: Good.
Ben: Okay.
David: Hi Paul. (Laughs)
Ben: (Laughs) So yeah, he does a lot of that remote viewing stuff?
David: Okay, right. Now he probably lives in the same. In a sense, there are very few people who have carved out the sanctuary that you guys have.
Ben: Yeah, for those of you who don’t know what remote viewing is it’s like being able to use extra sensory perceptions and know what’s going on like far away. Like where you know, whatever. Like your family member who’s in Virginia is doing and you’re up in Idaho, and all of sudden like you realize that whatever, they just crashed on their bicycle and you just like sit there and you know and you call them on the phone that they just crashed in their bicycle.
David: My in laws, my ex-wife’s father, in the house someone used to come into the parlor, it’s now called the living room. So living room is that’s where you have the wake and when they’d walk through the house and they’d pass through the parlor or the living room they would smell the flowers and they knew somebody had died in the family. And it was true every time.
So anyway, and I’d think about that experience where the walls were going away as I would shake it off like I can’t help but think, do you know the rock opera Tommy from The Who?
Ben: Uh-hmm.
David: You know, it’s such a beautiful story. These kid sees his mother having sex with another man and they beat that out of him and he becomes autistic. And the eyes detect the light that dials the [0:18:23.1] ______.
Ben: That’s what Tommy is about?
David: Yeah, he hears but cannot answer to your call and then he becomes aware, right? After being this pinball wizard. It’s a great album.
Ben: That’s crazy. You’re going down a deep rabbit hole, dude.
David: No, I know. I know. Will you bring it back? Bring it back.
Ben: Bring it back to six years old.
David: Bring it back six years old. I liked girls. Show me yours, I’ll show you mine. Got straight A’s in school easily and then after first grade comes second grade. And that was my life. Yeah. So yeah, that’s six years old.
Ben: Okay, so obviously you’re into sports. I know you had some success in football. I’ve seen you move, you obviously are very into fitness. When did sports enter the scene?
David: Oh, I wanted to run like the wind since I was born. I love to just run like the wind which is just pure joy and then I fell in love with football. I just loved the sport so much and my father didn’t let me play organized football as a youngster. So I was just watching.
Ben: Why not? He did not want you to get hurt?
David: He didn’t want me to get hurt.
Ben: So he has the neighbors come over with the gloves and the masks on and then he doesn’t let.
David: No, it was weird because I rode a bike as a child, I used to ride wagons down the hills, skateboards and (beep).
Ben: It was kind of funny. I did too like I had a motorcycle. We lived down the countryside. I had a mountain bike. I was a super active kid. I’d go on these 10-mile hikes up in the countryside but my mom made me wore a bike helmet to climb trees.
David: Aha! (Laughs)
Ben: Like I had some of that going on too.
David: Aha! (Laughs)
Ben: I agree we have these certain things that didn’t just make sense. And also my parents did not allow me to play organized football. They said that I would get hurt and kids get concussions and they didn’t like the attitude of the football players. So they got me into the preppy sports instead, right like I played tennis and I had golf lessons.
David: The lifetime sports.
Ben: I played basketball too but yeah, I didn’t play football either.
David: Well, anyway football was my passion. I wasn’t allowed to play formally until high school when I would have rebelled to the point where it was like look, I’m either playing football or that’s it.
Ben: Right.
David: So anyway, sports were always in the equation and I think this sort of dilemma that I had of being surrounded first exposure to life. The universe revolved around me realizing that hey, wait a minute, no, it doesn’t. Not at all and wanting to be the best at things and sports, so I had sort of this OCD aspect especially baseball ‘cause it is such a zero to one hundred game. You know you, sit in there and then you’ve got to go hit a pitch, right? And it’s a very precise thing and I was very good at it. I had the best batting average in the league.
Ben: In high school?
David: No, it’s prior high school. The senior little league.
Ben: That was before you got into football. Before you were allowed to play football you were playing baseball?
David: We’ll I played baseball, basketball, you know soccer. They didn’t have Lacrosse in my day. I would have been great at Lacrosse but anyway, I didn’t play it. Sports always but I used to have to ascend the staircase a certain way and I had to look down the field three times, and so I had these OCD things that I did to just psychologically maintain an edge that I could play. You know, when you watch the Nomar Garciaparra get into the batter’s box and undo the batting gloves, zip, zip, touch this, touch that, tap, tap. So baseball is a very OCD sport because the pressure is so intense and it’s such a 0 to 100 thing.
Ben: Right.
David: And they say hitting a baseball is one of the hardest things you could do. And that’s why some of the baseball players aren’t like…
Ben: Unless you’re a baseball player. Have you heard of the sports chain where they will take a professional baseball player. They tell the story and they put on that begins the of best softball player in women’s softball and because baseball players are so used to not watching the ball, right? They watch the pitcher. You watch the pitcher you know when the ball’s going to get to you and how the ball’s travelling by what the pitcher is doing. So when you swing you’re not actually tracking the ball, you’re tracking more of pitcher’s motions. And so what they did was they took some of the best hitters in the league in MLB. They put them up against a women’s softball pitcher and because these guys weren’t accustomed to that type of movement on the mound and the ball was coming at them in a completely different way, she was striking him out.
David: Yeah, I think that’s an acclamation issue. ‘Cause I think you know you give him some time.
Ben: Obviously, they’d be able to figure it out.
David: Yeah, right.
Ben: Okay, so baseball was your sport. Your Dad wouldn’t let you play football.
David: Football was the sport.
Ben: And football became your sport. What happened as you were playing football?
David: No, I was the guy who I’d die trying. I would sacrifice myself. I would jumble my sentences in high school because it was badge of honor to carve a big groove in your helmet with a big hit. If you broke the face mask off, that was another thing. Drinking beer on the weekends and head butting the wall and head butting your buddy you know, it’s just that sort of rowdy football kind of thing, right? So I did all that and captain of the football team. Football is what got me into William’s College though so…
Ben: Yeah, but you told me you got into some trouble in high school too.
David: Yeah, pre-high school’s when I really got into trouble because…
Ben: What happened?
David: Well, I would hang out with friends and we just like to be sort of delinquents, terrorize the neighborhood, go out at night, just steal stuff and throw all the crap in the pool and eventually, we should just go into cars and take stuff like cassette tapes or whatever. And I was in front of town hall one night.
Ben: Like sober? Or you guys doing drugs too?
David: Oh no. The only things I’ve ever done is beer and pot. No other drug. I’ve not had another drug. Aspirin, whatever that was but not mind altering.
Ben: Until you have my kid’s risotto later on.
David: Yeah, exactly with those mushrooms.
Ben: Yeah.
David: It can wait. So I just got into a lot of mischief and it was the excitement of it. And here you are you’ve got a lot on the line. You’re an honor roll student. To all intents and purposes viewing me from the outside, oh, this kid’s a good kid. So the truth is a matter of excitement in doing that kind of mischief and eventually, I broke into a police car and was taking a pistol and a magazine of clips and (siren sound) they came around the corner and then I got caught and I had to do community service. You know that basically put a stop to most of it at that point in time but…
Ben: Uhm. So you were a little bit of a troubled kid.
David: Yeah.
Ben: Not that different than a lot of American high school persons.
David: No.
Ben: So you were already in the fitness. What about nutrition? Were you in nutrition?
David: Not really. My house was the boring house where we had the whole grain wheat bread and we had the Smucker’s Peanut Butter and…
Ben: Same as me Take and Bake Pizza, Jiff Peanut Butter, iceberg lettuce and French dressing and then $0.29 cent hamburger day.
David: No, I was exactly opposite growing. Oh no, my stuff was we didn’t have Wonder Bread. We didn’t have Jiff. We didn’t have any of that stuff. It was all healthy versions and stuff. I hated it when I was a kid. Now I prefer it.
Ben: ‘Cause we’re ahead of the curve.
David: I guess so but you know, we didn’t have Captain Crunch.
Ben: Oh, dude I grew up on peanut butter Captain Crunch.
David: Yeah, so there’s hope for people who grew up like that.
Ben: Peanut butter flavored milk. I don’t know how many years I took off my life. I’ve done telomere testing and I’m 35 years old chronologically but 36 biologically. So it was either the peanut butter Captain Crunch or 13 Ironman Triathlons.
David: Oh, really?
Ben: I don’t know which one takes more years off your life.
David: Yeah right. Oh, yeah. I had a buddy who did the Ironman five years in a row and he said he had to eat ice cream otherwise he’d just emaciate.
Ben: Oh, yeah.
David: So had to eat it.
Ben: Yeah, copious amount of calories. You said you’re eating 10,000 calories a day?
David: Easily.
Ben: In high school?
David: Yeah, in high school.
Ben: That’s a lot.
David: I have had a huge appetite my entire life. Like I could eat, just eat, eat and eat.
Ben: I could have cooked more food today.
David: Well, I’m fine. I’m fine right now.
Ben: You know, I got up today I knew you were coming over and made crockpot chicken.
David: I can’t wait. I can smell it.
Ben: You how to do this? I’d take… and then we’ll get back to your story. I’d take a cast iron skillet and a big pat of butter. I do onions and some cremini mushrooms, some diced tomatoes from the garden and then some thyme and cilantro from the backyard, salt, pepper, a little bit of cayenne. And so I stir all that together and saute that with just a little bit of red wine and then I take an organic bone broth and a bunch of organic pasture raised chicken breast. I put that in the crock pot. I dump all the vegetables on the crock pot. It’s been cooking now for five hours upstairs and we’ll eat in a couple of hours if we finish the podcast.
David: (Making a gurgling sound)
Ben: Just melt in your mouth crock pot chicken. You’ve got to get a crock pot for easy cooking. ‘Cause then you’ll just walk away and do this thing.
David: Yeah, exactly. Now you’re talking to someone who can appreciate food in good taste. I’m the guy you line up five wines blind test and I’ll tell all five every single time.
Ben: Good, while I break out the good sea salt and the good wine, and we’ll eat good tonight. But anyways, so back to football. So you went on to Williams College, and ‘cause the reason I’m asking these questions is that I want to kind of get a background, a good background. I know you have a fantastic history ‘cause Chris Holder who introduced us and by the way, if you guys are listening in, you got to go listen to the podcast with Qigong master and strength conditioning bad ass Chris Holder who connected me with David because we had a great episode. He also came to my house and we did kettlebell swing and Qigong but he said, you get David’s back sore ‘cause it really leads into this whole invention of Bosu ball and his crazy ideas about reinventing fitness while a lot of these biomechanist and coaches are wrong. So you played at Williams College and what happened there?
David: Basically, I played above my level by using brains to augment my brawn. Film study was my big thing and it was more X’s and O’s than it is biomechanics which is what I use for film study now for. For video study now. So I had an advantage because I could read plays and I could put my body in a position to make a play whereas I did not have to react as fast because I knew what was coming and then in the summertime…
Ben: So you’re saying you weren’t as natural as an athlete but you were using more your brains or you were a good athlete who has strong brains on top of that?
David: No, I was a good athlete, four six forty, could dunk a volleyball. I could catch a…
Ben: A volleyball.
David: Yeah, that’s palming, right?
Ben: Yeah, I used to [0:28:58.8] ______ and dunk a tennis ball.
David: Yeah.
Ben: And I actually got to a point that I could dunk my senior high school and my freshman year at college, and then I started to do body building. I kind of have it.
David: Oh, yeah.
Ben: So I lost the ability to dunk and then I went straight from body building and endurance sports. I completely lost my [0:29:12.7] ______, right? I don’t know what fast twitch muscle and the slow twitch muscle.
David: Exactly. So I was a good athlete but I certainly wasn’t the best but I played above my ability using the brains. I come from a very smart family. Both of my brothers and my sister basically everybody’s entrepreneurial. My brothers are just like crazy smart in Math. Crazy smart. They got it from my grandfather. And my smarts are whatever brain power I have is augmented by what I say fearlessness and honesty. Common sense is my greatest evaluation of anything. So if it doesn’t make sense to me I don’t care who you are. What your background is or something. I want to know what it is. It’s got to make sense to me. If I don’t understand, I’m never going to pretend that I understand it. And I’m going to understand it and I could be wrong and then I’ll understand better when I understand it. But I’ll keep going.
Ben: Got it. So you’re studying film and football to get you to go to football?
David: Yes.
Ben: Okay. So what happened at Williams? What were you studying over there?
David: I majored in Political Economy, okay? Sophomore year, you’re supposed to declare your major. I didn’t even know the day that you’re supposed to do it. I hadn’t thought about it once. Somebody came around the dorm and said, “hey you’ve got to declare your major by tomorrow.” I’m like, “oh geez.” I started looking at my previous classes and Political Economy was considered a very prestigious major.
Ben: Oh yeah.
David: That’s a hard major.
Ben: Right.
David: But Econ and Math and Poli Sci have a lot less reading than say, English. And so you can do Math fast compared to oh, you have to read 90 pages of this book. I basically taught myself to speed read so I can just get through it.
Ben: Yeah.
David: So my strategy academically was cover my butt so that I can go, work on Wall Street, you know. Be the consultant.
Ben: Yeah, that’s actually how I learned to speed read too. I moonlit at a Christian Liberal Arts College during my study in Kinesiology while I was attending University of Idaho and you’d show up for that particular institution which is a lot like great books and like Logic and Latin and you’ll get a stack of like 12 books and see you next Monday.
David: Yeah.
Ben: The pen and the tracking and never let yourself turn the page backwards like I had to work that muscle. And now people ask me how I read a book a day? I was telling you this upstairs it’s the freaking muscle. Like if I quit reading, I slow down. But as long as I tell myself you’ve got to read a book a day. I get through a book a day. It’s just like it.
David: That’s incredible. And you’re right. And I’ve tapped into extraordinary things with some of my experiences. And the most extraordinary speed reading I experienced was like flash! Like you know pff! (Curse word) I read it and I know it. You know pfff! And I used to lay on my bed and I would take post it notes and I would put 52 post it notes all over and then put ones on the fan, the ceiling fan spinning, right? And I used to count randomly like to (computer sounds) try to find you know, it’s Lomachenko kind of training where you’re doing that stuff and then when one of my manic episodes I actually could control REM and do the cardinal directions with the eyes. It was wild.
Ben: What do you mean cardinal directions with your eyes?
David: North, south, east, west and then the 45 angles in between.
Ben: You did that to learn how to read?
David: No, I had already done a lot of the learning how to speed read stuff, but going into this manic episode I didn’t sleep for 6 days. Weird stuff starts to happen and at one point like right before the end of that episode I was just in so much incredible power where I could take my eyes and I go (computer sounds) make them go.
Ben: Consciously.
David: Consciously.
Ben: That’s hard. There’s a vision reading method called the Bates Method or the vision fixing method called the Bates Method that teaches you how to take control of your ocular muscles like that and have this amazing video and people got from like glasses to not wearing glasses with that method.
David: I have that book and I studied that book way back in the day. You see now I’m…
Ben: There’s these folks out from a nervous system training, it’s called Z Health by the way.
David: Yeah.
Ben: And they did the same thing that…
David: Eric Cobb.
Ben: Oh yeah, Eric Cobb has taken over the Vision Gym. And I ordered it for my wife ‘cause she wanted to learn how to not wear glasses and she does not do supplements and she does not do programs. So that already end and got shoved into a closet and then I pulled it out and started to mess around with conversions and diversions and all these techniques. I have 20/20 vision, I’m a bow hunter, right? So I wanted to work on my eyesight. It’s pretty cool. Kind of like the way you can train your eye muscles. But anyways, we digress once again. So you were at Williams College you got a Political, you said Political Science?
David: Political Economy.
Ben: Political Economy. What did you do with that?
David: Ah, nothing. The way that I view the world is sort of framed by that education, I suppose, and I think we’re in a very fascinating interesting time where we’re going to have some post capitalistic solution when the machine replaces the man in terms of labor. So what do you do when nobody has a useful function in terms of the job? The jobs didn’t go to Mexico, they went to the machine. So okay, what do you do? And if the means of production can be plenty, it’s not like the Soviet Union where the guys are drinking vodka and nothing’s getting built but now you’ve got machines going to build everything super efficiently. You know, perhaps there is a different political economy that needs to be established because wouldn’t it be amazing if you had the means of production, very productive and you could give people a living stipend that allowed them to shop at Whole Foods because means of production, and then you could go pick your kid up at 3 o’clock and go play baseball. Go surf. Go read. Go do whatever, right? Instead of some mindless meaningless nail the rivet in or whatever agony that makes you drink at night.
So anyway, I don’t want to digress too much. But that’s what political economy I think. I’m much more interested in it now and I can still reflect back on the education and draw insights from that framework. But I just did it because you could get a job as a banker and it was easy for me and I graduated with honors. And I worked on Wall Street the summer before my senior year. And that’s when I realize, okay well (chuckles) I can’t do that.
Ben: You don’t want to work on Wall Street. Same thing I had with Medicine. I studied pre-Med at the University of Idaho. I’m like indeed a full year in emergency rooms and hip and knee surgical sales and just got immersed in medicine. Walked out the other side of that completely disillusioned with Western medicine, and I quit my job walked across the street to the gym across the street from my house and asked for a job. And I’ve been immersed in the fitness industry ever since. But anyway, so didn’t get into Wall Street. What did you end up doing?
David: I just dove into acting.
Ben: Acting.
David: Acting yeah, and basically sort of the method, right? If you study Marlon Brando and James Dean and the actor’s studio, it’s basically self-therapy for people with angst to be this method actor, and so I got way into that. And my senior year is when I met a drama teacher and he gave me a one-man play or a one-man show. It was an hour and fifteen minute monologue. And it was called Chuckie’s Hunch. And it was about essentially this loser who lived in Upstate New York with his 85 year old mother and he was writing letters to his second ex-wife. Okay, and that’s who the guy was and an hour and fifteen minutes of that. And in order to get myself into that role to be capable of doing it to the standard that I have for myself, I didn’t shower from the first rehearsal through the end of the run. So I didn’t take a shower for six weeks. And I wore this sweater. I wore this weird wool pants and that’s how I went to classes. That’s what I did. It was after football season, so I had no sort of a containment and I’ve always just gone for it I guess.
Ben: Yeah.
David: And so, it’s weird when you don’t take a shower for six weeks at that age anyway. It’s like you go through phases where your skin peels off and then you’re almost clean again. Like it’s weird.
Ben: Oh my gosh.
David: Yes, so I mean the extreme nature with which I just approach life. Those are just sort of stories, indicators or whatever they are.
Ben: I shower about once every four or five days but I jump in cold water and the reason for that is that I’m a big fan of like I said the hygiene hypothesis. Let the microbiome grow in the body and if you eat shit food then you smell shitty, but if you eat good food you actually don’t stink that bad. ‘Cause I don’t think I stink that bad.
Anyways though, so you got into acting, it’s crazy. You’re a football player with a Political Economy degree. You joined the acting obviously you didn’t make it ‘cause I haven’t seen you in any big movies.
David: Hey, you didn’t watch One Life to Live?
Ben: No. Did you watch Teenage Dirt Bag? ‘Cause I used to do acting too.
David: Oh, really?
Ben: Yeah. Anybody listening in watch Teenage Dirt Bag. I’m the dude and they basically hired me for the make out role. I just had to basically make out with the girls over in this, was filmed actually over at Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. I was married and my wife said, “[0:39:05.6] ______ make us answer and do what you got to do.” And she watches the movie and she’s like, “I don’t know if acting is the thing for you.”
David: Yeah.
Ben: I’m like, yeah. I get it.
David: I played those roles in commercials. Let’s put it this way, I lived 10 years in Manhattan as an actor. Oh yeah, I’ve had my living. There’s no mid-life crisis in that sense.
Ben: Yeah. I hear yah. Okay, so what happened after Manhattan, dude?
David: Alright, Manhattan. Roller blading. Personal training. Acting. So I was.
Ben: Rollerblading?
David: Yeah, rollerblading. So again back to effortless power. Here’s what happened. 1993 I had a knee operation to fix an injury that I had from football a year before and I’m walking through Central Park with a buddy of mine and I’m limpy because I literally had surgery two days prior, and I see these guys rollerblading in Central Park and they’re jumping over trash cans and I’m just like, “I need to do that.” And so the next day I went and bought a pair of skates. And I started skating before the knee was better and pretty soon I got very, very good at it and then I existed in skates.
Ben: Not blades. Skates?
David: Rollerblades.
Ben: Rollerblades? Yeah.
David: Yeah, the rollerblades. Not the ones…
Ben: Not the ones with the four wheels on but rollerblades.
David: No.
Ben: That’s kind of funny like that’s how I got into rollerblades. I saw some dude in Miami, right, and he was beating us. We were in a car and he’s like beating us through the traffic on his rollerblades. He had his shirt off and in Miami I was like 13, 14 years old. I asked my grandma if I could get some rollerblades. She was there for a week. She bought me rollerblades and I got hard core in the rollerblading for a little while and then I got into roller hockey, right?
David: Oh yeah.
Ben: It’s a fun sport but while I was rollerblading, I’m so big.
David: Okay, so rollerblading. First of all it’s fascinating in Central Park and your rollerblading and rollerblading was big then. It was before skateboarding sort of surpassed rollerblading. Rollerblading was more popular than the skateboarding back then. And you had this social dynamic in Central Park where you’d have a CEO of a Fortune 500 company hanging out with a 14 year old kid who lived in the projects and from a skating standpoint the kid’s much better than the guy, so they’re sort of on an even footing and they can have a conversation and it was really cool like they have that kind of dynamic, but I love the skates. I loved it because you can go so fast and I skated everywhere. Literally. I’d go out to a club on Saturday night and I’d wear my skates and I was good enough to walk around. You didn’t even know I had them on. I lived in the skates because I…
Ben: You didn’t walk?
David: I didn’t walk. Walking’s slow.
Ben: It’s crazy.
David: No.
Ben: You just went everywhere in rollerblades?
David: Everywhere. Everywhere. And I’m not at [0:41:46.9] ______. You know, I’m a pretty intense guy.
Ben: There’s no impact? Don’t your feet get weak?
David: That was what happened. My feet got [0:41:53.2] ______. [0:41:55.1] ______. I had to crawl off a rocky beach in Spain or in France.
Ben: [0:41:58.8] weak? What do you mean?
David: Like the Princess and the Pea. I could be standing on thousand mattresses you could put a pea under it and my foot would bruise, okay? I had to crawl off a beach in France because it was a rocky beach. I went to the community swimming pool one day and I had to sit down after about 25 feet of walking on cement.
Ben: You overdid rollerblading, dude.
David: Oh god. Way overdid it and I had no idea back then that the feet were so important. I wore cowboy boots.
Ben: Just like a cyclist. They have this huge lungs and zero bone density.
David: Yeah, right. So the feet caused the back problem. I bought a motorcycle and the starter motor didn’t work so I used to jump start it down the wrong way of 56th Street. You know when I ride it, I have to jump it and I dropped it one day, and I picked it up in big hurry and I wrenched my back a little bit and then three days later I was training with a client and we came in from Central Park where he rode his bike and I was rollerblading. And crossing the threshold of his front door I just collapsed. White hot pain and spent the next more than a year in pain every single day because my feet were so weak that there was no resolving the back pain.
Ben: Yeah, a lot of people don’t realize it.
David: No.
Ben: I just read a book called Barefoot Strong and you are getting this. Like point [0:43:21.3] ______ feet at the back.
David: Yeah. No feet, feet. Like, my feet are you know, feet are the interface between you and the ground.
Ben: Yeah.
David: And the more work your feet can do for you, the less work you got to do up top. My feet couldn’t do any work for me so there was compensation built in to the equation and I had no idea.
Ben: So you threw your back carrying a motorcycle?
David: No, that was like the event that was, okay, wrenched it and then just the wear and tear on top of that and the weak feet, it sort of went out, right? Like that moment when it’s just like the pain is like, I passed out from the pain.
Ben: Oh, yeah. I…
David: Well, you’re cold and you’re sweaty.
Ben: I’m like five weeks ago and I’m just now recovering. I was in Iceland and I went into like a Strongman Training Facility and I bent down to flip a tire at like seven o’clock in the morning you know, my body’s still waking up.
David: Yeah, nice and hydrated.
Ben: It’s about a 450 pound tire and I bent down, I got my hands under it and ummm! Just trying to pick it up and it felt like rip a curtain apart. It felt like that curled up my spine or like somebody’s ripping a piece of fabric apart. And it was up until, you saw me now I’m on the driveway.
David: Oh yeah. I couldn’t tell.
Ben: I’m feeling okay. But it was not good like two weeks ago I was hobbling. It hurt a lot.
David: I mean, if I have had that bad injury now I could fix it in no time because I know what I’m doing now.
Ben: Yeah, you were talking about pot. I was taking about a hundred milligrams of CBD a night the past three weeks to not feel the pain.
David: Okay, so what I did my solution was you know, I was getting up at 5:00-5:30 in the morning go personal training. Staying out late at night. I had four to six drinks a day just regular. Just drinking alcohol, it was normal.
Ben: Four to six drinks a day was normal and you’re a personal trainer?
David: Oh yeah.
Ben: You didn’t know that was bad for you?
David: No, I was an actor not a personal trainer. You called me a personal trainer back then I thought it was an insult.
Ben: So I thought you just now said personal trainer.
David: No, I was a personal trainer to make money but I was an actor.
Ben: Oh, yeah, then he was an actor. A drinking actor.
David: Yeah, and back then if you call me a trainer, I’m not a trainer, I’m an actor. I train so that I can act.
Ben: Right, I got you.
David: So it was early mornings then late nights and no sleep and then it was Aleve a naproxen, right?
Ben: For the back?
David: For the back and I used to buy the bottles, Ben that they’re four, five inches tall. You know, that version of them? And I used to take them like Tic Tacs. And it was very bad.
Ben: I don’t know how your liver looks like, dude.
David: Oh god. I just had blood work on Friday, I keep tabs on it very closely. And my body went toxic and it was horrible and I still suffer from it today.
Ben: Have you ever done a cleanse or detox, or something like that?
David: Oh, yeah I did all that (curse word), all that stuff. I did so many things, you know I pooped and put it in a bag and sent it off and the nurse came and took my blood. I’ve done so many things. I think what I did was I bored so many holes in my intestines and my liver was like Bernard Hopkins just hitting it over and over again, and so when we go in the hot tub you’re going to see my belly button, you’re going to see psoriasis on my abdomen that I deal with this now. And when you’re enjoying that risotto I’m probably going to be…
Ben: It’s alright, dude, my wife had a C-Section.
David: (Laughs)
Ben: Scars. Scars on abs.
David: Mine’s not scars it’s more like scabies. It just grows.
Ben: Oh, wow. That’s crazy.
David: And I have a terrible dandruff.
Ben: And that’s from candida-type of thing?
David: Yeah. Candidiasis.
Ben: From excessive alcohol consumption and liver disease?
David: Yes.
Ben: Wow. And that was all because of that back pain?
David: All because of the back pain.
Ben: It started with the back pain.
David: Yeah, it started with the back pain and my bellybutton started oozing like stench.
Ben: What?
David: It was horrible and…
Ben: You weren’t still on the six-week-no-shower stand?
David: No, that was years earlier. No, I’m like 28, 29 years old when this was happening.
Ben: That’s nasty.
David: Yeah. It was horrible, okay, and I still deal with the ramifications of that today, alright?
Ben: Wow.
David: And so I’ve done so many things. And I do everything I do. I do it pretty intensely as you probably gathered and I still suffer from that. And if I had one thing to do over in my life I would not have done that. (laughs)
Ben: You would not have consumed all the alcohol and all the Aleve and all the things that… well, it knocked out your liver. It developed your inability to detox you’re your body ‘cause you lose your major detox organ and you went full on toxic candida, everything.
David: So toxic that I was probably near, I don’t know if you’d say fatal but I was more toxic. I stopped because I had to. I’m sort of an oxymoron because I cherish the way that I move, my health and capacity to do that, but I’ve gone through phases in life. Biting the filter off the cigarette and smoking it that way and you know, I used to have a cigar every single day and I love beer. I love wine and I love whisky. So the four to six drinks, have a couple of beers and have nice red wine with dinner and maybe have a cigar with a scotch or whisky
Ben: So what did you do? How did you fix this?
David: So what I did was I saw Paul Chek standing on the stability ball squatting weight…
Ben: Your buddy, Paul Chek. Did you know he was on the show before?
David: Yeah. So I saw a picture of him standing on a stability ball and I had recently purchased a stability ball because my last session of physical therapy, you know insurance isn’t going to pay anymore. This stuff is not working anyway and I wanted a stability ball and that training started to make my back feel better. And then I saw a picture of Paul Chek standing on the ball and I said, “hey, I’m going to do that.” And when I started standing on the ball that was the catalyst to make my feet strong. And as soon as my feet started to get strong in that way, the back started to get better very quickly. And one to also progress the challenge I started jumping on to the ball. Jumping from one ball to another ball.
Ben: Jumping from one stability ball to another ball?
David: Oh, yeah.
Ben: It’s hard.
David: Well, yeah and you bust your butt.
Ben: Wish I had two balls here. You have to show me.
David: Well, it’s like that muscle, right? I haven’t exercised that muscle a little.
Ben: It’s like speed reading.
David: Yeah, exactly.
Ben: I got you.
David: So anyway, and then I was into Feldenkrais back then. So I’ve always had an interest in martial arts and I took Wing Chun and a little bit of boxing in New York but the Wing Chun was just terrible training compared to what I understand now.
Ben: Feldenkrais is like a movement pattern, right?
David: Feldenkrais is Moshe. Feldenkrais, if there’s one book that you haven’t read that you should, it’s called “Awareness Through Movement.”
Ben: “Awareness Through Movement” I’ll find it and link it for you, guys at bengreenfieldfitness.com/weck. Okay, so this Feldenkrais, you’re also doing this?
David: So the idea of Feldenkrais is you want to reduce the efforts so that you can discern the distinction, the gradations of force and then iron out the inefficiencies and build on…
Ben: It’s like a body awareness kind of thing?
David: Yeah, that’s what it is, right? And so it’s a very minimalist approach and so if you are standing on something and you close your eyes instantly the challenge goes up. So I used to stand on the stability ball and close my eyes and now woah! The challenge in what I would do is I’d sit to relax despite the challenge, right? And then I tilted my head back one night you know, with the eyes closed on top of a ball and this was a big one, a 75 centimeter ball and I fell, I bounced on the ball. I did a backflip and I landed. I was in a 200 square foot studio apartment. I landed from the living room in the kitchen. I started kicking my feet to make sure I could still do that and I was scared. And I was like, okay, I’m not doing that anymore. But my back’s getting better, my feet are getting strong but I’m not doing that anymore. But what am I going to do?
And I went to bed and this was like 12:30-1:00 AM and it just hit me. What me if I cut the ball in half? And boom! And now, I just knew because by that time I had seven stability balls in that 200 square foot apartment. I had a loft, right? I put them up in the loft during the day and take them out during the night because this ball and that ball and the other ball, so I knew the metrics on stability balls. There were probably at that time two million units annually sold in the US alone and then a worldwide market that was larger than that.
Ben: ‘Cause you can’t just cut it. For those of you haven’t been with one of these stability balls, you can’t just cut it in half, right? It’s an inflatable ball.
David: No. Well, and Physics abhors if it’s inflated it wants to go around. So the Physics are working against the Bosu ball, so to make one is really challenging. To make a good one. That was an engineering feat to sort of make it robust enough.
Ben: Yeah, I never really thought it that much like you actually… ‘Cause you do inflate it when you get it.
David: Yeah. Right. The forces acting on that platform are tremendous.
Ben: Yeah.
David: Tremendous. The next day after I thought of it I built my first prototype. So I cancelled everything. I got on a train out to New Jersey at my father’s house. Went to Home Depot. I got a pine table top that was round two feet in diameter. I took a stability ball and I had to sacrifice it. I was, oh god I’ve got to cut this thing. So I cut it about an inch and a half beyond its centreline, so I have something to wrap over then I got staples and I figured, okay, if I just put a staple right next to a staple, right next to a staple, right? I’d do that 250 times and then I just cover my tracks with glue. This thing’s going to stick on it and it’ll be sealed. And you know, I inflated it the next day and it worked. And I was like, (curse word) this is my ticket.
Ben: Did they already have at that point like the little foam things that you stand at the gym and the balance force and all these balance devices?
David: Yes, they did and the timing…
Ben: What year was this?
David: This was 1999. And so the timing of it was perfect because at that time stability balls were all the rage.
Ben: Oh, yeah.
David: And here was something that had a lot more utility than the stability ball but it was still riding the wave of that stability ball. And so it was literally ready, fire, aim. Like I just went and you know, when you’re an entrepreneur inventing things several trains have to leave the station at the same time. So your IP has to leave the station. Intellectual Property. You’ve got to be working on the patent and file that patent. ‘Cause if you can’t protect it then you’re not going to reap the reward. So you got to do that. Then you got to do the manufacturing and that’s going to take time to find the manufacturer, do the industrial design on it, you know, the prototypes and blah, blah, blah. So it takes time. And you’ve got to market it. And so the key is you’ve got to put the IP in place before you hit the marketing button and what I figured as soon as I had the IP in place I’m just going to bang in drum on this thing, and when I get the manufactured one for real I’ll start selling the real one but in the meantime I’m going to make prototypes. I’m going to get this thing off the ground. So that when I have the finished product I’ve got to market that and sell it. I’m not going to wait, right? And so October 4th I was patent pending and October 14th I sold the first two units to US Ski Team. I flew over to Park City.
Ben: Boy, you acted fast.
David: Oh, it’s so fast. If you’re not [0:55:06.9] ______ hey. Early bird gets a worm, baby, I mean you just got to go. So it was so funny too. The guy’s name was Andy Walsh he was the head of their training hit the ski team.
Ben: Where’d you have the money to build these?
David: The money?
Ben: Yeah.
David: Well, at that point it wasn’t that much money because it was you know, I would take a router and I would cut this Baltic plywood out and the [0:55:28.3] ______. It took me about six hours every unit.
Ben: So this is just like the cheap ass ugly Bosu ball?
David: This was a staples, duct tape and glue. That’s what this was. But it was functional. Let me get the story off the ground. It was funny ‘cause when I got to the ski team, Andy Walsh, he shows up late. It’s snow on the ground. He had ridden his motorcycle in as he takes his helmet off and his nose looks like Rudolf and he’s sneezing ‘cause he got a cold. He opens the door and I go in this room and I see all these products like on the walls, on the shelves, and I’m like, man you have a lot of products here and he goes, ‘cause yeah, people send me this (curse word) all the time and they want me to validate it. What do you have? (Laughs)
Ben: Right.
David: But he got it right away. He loved it and we became an official supplier to the US Ski Team like right then and there. They bought two of them and then they bought twelve of them. And they bought twelve of them.
Ben: Amazing.
David: And they bought twelve of them like it was a big deal. And then with that in hand I took it to the Yankees. I took it to the Lakers. I took it to the Devils. I took it to the Ravens and the Rams. It was all the championship teams from the big four. I’m going to validate this thing. They bought it and I had to sell it. I didn’t give it. I said to them listen, here’s how it’s going to work. I’m going to leave these with you here and if you use it then I’m going to send you an invoice. I’m not going to give it to you this has to be valuable to you and I’m not just going to give it to you. But I’m going to leave it here but if you don’t want it then I’ll get it back but if you do want it I’ve got to send you an invoice.
Ben: Right.
David: So I just built the story and then by the time I got to the fitness market, you start at the top of the mountain with the elite athletes, you make them better. Then you bring it down into fitness and that professional market and then with the Bosu ball you go to consumers.
Ben: So you mean that’s how you do it if you’re going to invent a fitness device. You go to the influencers first.
David: If you’re going to do it organically then you have to go to the influencers. If you’re going to do it the other way, the infomercial route then you’re going right for the consumer market. And that’s a different ball of wax. That takes a lot of money.
Ben: Yeah.
David: It takes a lot of money and if it hits, you make a lot of money. But it sort of like you’re taking this big cauldron that’s going to cost you a lot of money to build and fill it up with water and then you’ve got to put a lot of fuel underneath it. A lot of wood. A lot of coal. And you’ve got to light a lamp fire and that costs a lot of money to make the steam rise and if you’re fortunate the clouds form and then it rains. And you’ve built the buckets to catch it.
[Music Plays]
Ben: Alright, if you’re doing all the cool things that David and I are talking about in today’s show, then you may or may not need some joint support. So there’s a lot of different ways to support your joints, right? So collagen is one thing that’s been studied quite a bit like Type 2 collagen is a specific structural protein and cartilage that has been shown in double blind placebo controlled studies to help out with joint function and joint pain especially after strenuous exercise. And then there are a whole bunch of things that can shut down inflammation naturally, like cherry, and ginger, and turmeric, and white willow bark, and hyaluronic acid, boswellia. A lot of people will use these things all by themselves but once you put them all together it’s like a freaking anti-inflammatory shotgun for your joints. For recovery. For a whole host of anything that has to do with inflammation in the body.
Now once you combine all these with two other things. Minerals and enzymes. See enzymes break down fibrinogen which is one of the things that also causes soreness after workout. You have a really potent almost like a shotgun formula for knocking out inflammation. So that’s where this stuff called Flex fits in. So I have a bottle of Flex in my pantry. I don’t take it every day I’m going to shoot totally straight with you, but anytime I’m injured or anytime I’ve crushed myself with a hard workout, I pop anywhere from four up to, on Sundays even twelve of these bad boys and you wake the next day feeling you’ve got a full body massage like from the inside out. It’s crazy.
And this is one of the brand new formulations, this Flex formulation that I have over at my new website where I’m releasing a whole bunch of new formulations that I’m designing. It’s called Kion K-i-o-n. Kion Flex and to get it just go to getkion.com get k-i-o-n dot com. Automatic 10% discount on this stuff. Once you get there there’s a coupon you can use, so it’s getkion.com. And the stuff I just talked about it’s called Kion Flex. See what I did there with the name? Flex, like flexing your muscle? Alright, I’ll shut up now. Back to today’s show. Alright, getkion.com check it out Kion Flex. Never be sore again or at least be sore a whole lot less.
[Music Plays]
Ben: But you obviously made it with the Bosu ball though?
David: Oh yeah.
Ben: Like you made a lot of money on that thing. I would imagine. I see it everywhere.
David: I still do.
Ben: Yeah. Those are for a few years like done up for that or is that passive income and now you’re retired or like did you have a family at that point or what happened?
David: I married my wife in 2003 and we have two kids. We’re divorced now. Very amicable but I can understand it would be hard to stay married to a guy like me.
Ben: Yeah, you’re kind of crazy.
David: Yeah, I mean crazy yes, but I think I would say intense and just different. ‘Cause I don’t think I’m crazy.
Ben: Yeah, and your bellybutton isn’t like oozing toxic sludge anymore. From what I understand.
David: No it’s just red (laughs).
Ben: Yeah. So you got married. You’re divorced now.
David: Yeah, I have enjoyed a passive income for a long time and what I did was rather than focus on the money, I licensed it to have a passive income where I’d have no deliverables due. I still work with the project. I still have things that I have to do but in conventional sense I [1:01:39.6] ______ has a purpose, I have no deliverables due.
Ben: Yeah, that said, so Bosu balls on cruise control now.
David: Yeah, for me.
Ben: Okay.
David: So I went to Chinese Medical School like you know. I would go up to Esalen Institute for two week stints and study with Ed Maupin. He was one of the first students of Ida Rolf. You know, I’d go to China. I invested in my education. That’s how I spent my time. It’s invested in my education.
Ben: How long did you do that for?
David: I still do it. I’ve been doing it since.
Ben: You obviously started inventing things again.
David: Yeah, right. I mean, all I care about is results. If you keep on exploring then you, okay well, what’s the issue that I’m trying to enhance or fix or make better and then how can I do that? And then that leads to the inventive process.
Ben: You told me you got through a period of your life where you’re like getting really heavy into pot and that actually lead to other I guess, breakthroughs. What happened there?
David: Yeah. Okay, I was an East Coast guy who thought that pot was for losers and stoners and you will burn out if you did pot.
Ben: This was after you invented the Bosu?
David: No, I’m talking of high school now. Like drinking beer, crushing Budweiser cans on your forehead, you know. Like red blooded, that’s who I was, right? And potheads were potheads. Then when I moved to San Diego, I just encountered so many people that weren’t losers. They were very productive people and they smoked pot. And I’m wait a minute, you smoke pot? You’re a lawyer.
Ben: Yeah, it’s kind of like how Silicone Valley executives now are doing LSD and psilocybin.
David: Right. I mean it was sort of like, wait a minute, you’re a lawyer. You’ve got a family. You drive a Lexus and you smoke pot every day? And so it sort of loss some of that negative commentation for me and then I started it and basically what it did for me is it acts as a stimulant. It works differently I think for everybody.
Ben: Yeah, it does.
David: And for some people they function better, for some people they function worse.
Ben: It knocks some people out of their stars. Some people are freaking on fire.
David: No, it started me on fire and I’m talking the deeper person.
Ben: The same thing with alcohol, really. Some people are just not and then they get super social.
David: Exactly. So marijuana for me was a stimulant. Like a crazy stimulant. It just brought me to sensitivity in my body and I could feel everything. And so my Tai Chi practice was just like I would do pot to basically exist with the Tai Chi. I can feel everything. And then play push hands where you’re manipulating someone else’s body. You’re not letting them find your center. You’re invisible. You yield. You neutralize. You issue. And with marijuana I got very, very good at it. But the marijuana also was catalytic for bringing my mind to some dangerous places and that was exciting too. You know, to sort of go off into those outer realms and you sort of play with the fire. That was fun in regard and really led to just a lot of places that I just wouldn’t have gone otherwise and gave me somatic receptivity that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. So it was beneficial in the sense that it taught me a lot about movement because I could feel the truth better than ever before. And it also lead to three psychotic breaks from reality.
Ben: I was going to say, did you overdo it or?
David: Oh, god. Yes. I mean, did I overdo it. (laughs)
Ben: I know. I get the impression you’re an all or nothing kind of guy.
David: I got to the point toward the end of it. I no longer do it and I no longer crave it. ‘Cause I guess I got what I got from it. And in the past like after this psychotic break, you know, my family’s like, “look are you going to stop doing this?” I’m like, “alright, I’m not going to do it today but no guarantee I’m not going to do it tomorrow ‘cause I wasn’t done,” and then I always went back to it. And I got to the point where…
Ben: It’s a very addicting substance. Especially if you’re using it for productivity like that.
David: Yes.
Ben: If you feel it makes you a better person so it’s easy to excuse just like doing all the time.
David: Of course, and I got to the point where I was getting, I don’t even know how many hundreds of dollars a week I was doing. But you know, getting the most intense concentrates I could get.
Ben: Oh wow.
David: I had an electric nail that you don’t have to heat it up with a torch. You heat it with this glass thing that costs five hundred bucks.
Ben: In fact, back there behind me I’ve got like this some fancy vaporizer and I’ll drag that thing out like once every couple of weeks. You know, when I go up to the hot tub or something like that, but you were doing this super expensive stuff every day?
David: Saturation.
Ben: Wow.
David: ‘Cause your [1:06:20.6] ______ always goes up.
Ben: Like morning to evening?
David: Oh, yeah.
Ben: Holy cow. You were just high all the time?
David: All the time.
Ben: Wow.
David: I would go lecture at San Diego State University and I’ll be stoned out of my mind and I could just slang from the hip because I know what I’m talking about and the pot just like all these dots like you can connect dots from here to there, to there, to there, to there.
Ben: When were you having these psychotic episodes?
David: Well, not all the time until they ramped up, these psychotic episodes ramped up. Where you go on a mania run. And then you know, I crashed three times and the last crash was catastrophic like I was catatonic from a long manic rolling, rolling, rolling.
Ben: The results from being psychotic on THC.
David: What the THC would do is it would bring our mind to these places where… I was exploring the outer realms and I’d go. You know what they say when they say someone who takes DMT is it’s that life-changing. I’ve never done it but you know they say you take the DMT, and mother ayahuasca has now revealed to you that Graham Hancock you know, blah, blah, blah. And it takes your ego away, right? So your ego self is no longer there and now you stripped it away and now you have this insight and you’re forever different, that’s amazing, right? So what I do was I would go into those outer realms through marijuana, THC but with my ego fully intact and leading with the ego. So I was going into those outer realms and getting in tuned with the weird things but full on ego. Which is a very dangerous combination because then you start feeling power and then that power becomes very enticing and then you start tada, tada, tada that’s not a sustainable thing and then you crash. But now I figured certain things out, made certain discoveries that I otherwise wouldn’t have made and I came out the other side. October 2016 that’s when life crystalized for me. 2016 of October.
Ben: Oh wow. So the time this is recording like a year ago.
David: A year ago was when…
Ben: And you were like heavy into THC until then?
David: I was heavy into THC until the beginning of 2016, and then I just stopped it and I was catatonic. And I have an amazing psychiatrist who really has saved my life and I’ve seen him for 11 years. He’s amazing and the treatment that got me out of the funk was called ECT.
Ben: ECT. Dude, I just did a podcast about electroconvulsive therapy.
David: (Laughs) Yeah.
Ben: Because I have a device up in my bedroom called the Circadia. And it’s like mild electroconvulsive therapy to help you sleep at night.
David: Oh wow.
Ben: It shuts down cortisone and it increases dopamine instead. It’s like baby ECT but it’s very, very similar. I’ll link to that podcast in the show notes for those of you listening in. But I would imagine what you did was a little bit heavier form of ECT?
David: As heavy as it gets.
Ben: Like, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest kind’a heavy?
David: It’s One Flew Over Cuckoo’s Nest with a very civilized that’s going to anesthetize you and are going to paralyze you so your body doesn’t jump off the table and you feel nothing.
Ben: Is that a common thing people do for things like THC addiction?
David: No, it’s like the last resort but apparently it’s the gold standard. I think One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest sort of put it in a perspective where most people just think of it as savage and, you know, okay, it’s almost a punishment and if you are severely depressed and nothing else is working that’s what you do. It’s like a reset.
Ben: Yeah.
David: My doctor told me that if someone got raped. Let’s say a 16 year old girl got raped. What he would do is he will prescribe ECT immediately and then that episode would no longer exist for that person.
Ben: Wow. Where’d you do this California?
David: Oh yeah, California. Yeah, 10 minutes from my house.
Ben: Wow.
David: And it is weird because like I have chunks of time that I don’t remember.
Ben: Yeah. Crazy.
David: But I’m better. So yeah.
Ben: So what happened after the ECT last year? ‘Cause you have all these things you brought to my house like this club and this new thing we can’t talk about that you’ve invented to help make people run fast.
David: Well, no! On this podcast we can talk about it.
Ben: Oh, yeah ‘cause this podcast isn’t coming out for until after it’s been released.
David: Yeah, exactly.
Ben: Okay, got you. So was that when you jumped back into inventing when you kind of like got off the THC bandwagon or?
David: Well, what happened was that long manic run lead to certain profound insights about tensional balance in the body and if you think about…
Ben: Tensional balance?
David: Tensional balance. So if you think about balance, the best way to think about balance is coordination, okay? It’s an orchestra. It’s where and when. That’s what balance is. It’s homeostasis, right?
Ben: Okay.
David: Right. The cellular respiration that you and I are doing right now has found that homeostatic point and yours is balanced in tuned as just anybody because of all the things that you understand and you do. Other people it’s a different balance where, oh well maybe I have the alcohol too much or whatever it is but you always come to a balance, right? And as far as physical biomechanics, it’s about the tensional balance. It’s the interplay of tension and relaxation orchestrated as efficiently as possible. So that’s what balance is. It’s not oh, yeah don’t fall down, right? That’s a low bar for most of us to not fall down.
Ben: Uhm.
David: It’s how efficient are you. And most people have well, everybody has inefficiencies in their tensional balance. And most people with the busy electricity everywhere wadadada. I sit in a chair all day wadadada. They have very little awareness of how inefficient they are. And if you don’t walk with your head over your foot. Meaning over your right foot, over your left foot, over your right foot. Every single step you take is not tensionally balanced. That means that your lower back on the other side has to squeeze just a little bit harder and then otherwise would have had to do if your head was over your foot.
And so now add them up. Twenty five years. Talk about millions of reps. Oh, why does everybody get back pain? That’s one cause of factor. Not the only but one cause of factor because so many people walk poorly. And then couple that with the fact that shoes which I’m a big believer in shoes. Like I’m not going to walk New York City barefoot. I mean that’s dangerous. Most shoes prevent you from walking optimally. You can’t do it. People say heel striker, mid foot striker, forefoot striker. No. Would you want to be a spiral striker? You want to go from the outside which is strong, fourth and fifth metatarsal that’s strong too long. The inside, the pronating roll through and you want that to be smooth and efficient as possible and shoes don’t let you do it. That hard edge on the outside creates an accelerant for the pronation.
Ben: Okay.
David: So if you have a transition that lets you go according to the right pace, the where and when then you have a chance at walking right. But if you wear a shoe like most shoes you don’t even have a chance of walking right. That’s where we are and for most people who gives a (bell sound), right? It’s too much to think about. I got other things to do, right? You know [1:14:28.0] ______ footballs on. (Curse word) that. I’m getting a beer.
Ben: Right, that or a lot of people have just switched to minimalist shoes. Like I wear pre-minimalist shoe but I don’t move the way you were just showing me up in the driveway.
David: Here’s what you do. ‘Cause when we were introduced, I then went and did my homework. I listed a ton of your stuff, right? And I’m very glad that I have. I’ve learned a lot but I saw a video of you and your family and you were walking and you’re ahead over foot walker, Ben Greenfield. ‘Cause I can’t help but look at the way you walk. That’s the first thing that I see.
Ben: Uh-hmm.
David: Before I see the TNA, I see the way she walks. (laughs)
Ben: Uhm.
David: So the concept of tensional balance is that I got this esoteric crazy using the six degrees of freedom. I drew all these lines and diagram the feet and I sort of came up with these lines and these angles and these geometry. Or sort of figure things out but that was in the crazy time. And in coming through sort of the low and then coming out of it I was able to just simplify it to green dots. Initiate with the green dot, right?
Ben: Tell people what the green dots are.
David: And so the green dot is a green circle that is located on what you call the fourth and the fifth metatarsals. So the metatarsals are those bones that are forward in the feet just behind the toes. And the outside ones, the two, the fourth and fifth, the pinky toe and then the next toe, those bones literally come back to the foot and they connect through the heel bone. And the big toe, second toe and third toe connect up to a bone called the talus which is on top of the heel bone. So the green dot leverages the power of your heel and your posterior forward in the foot. So it gives you the best mechanical leverage to produce the most productive ground loading force to initiate the contact. And you go from strong to the outside, to long the inside in locomotive gate cycle if you’re doing that.
Ben: And that’s what you’re talking about when you’re talking about spiraling gate?
David: Yes, spiraling gate is basically that outside strong to inside long. You don’t want to think of flat transition there.
Ben: I know some of this can be hard for people to visualize but I’m going to link to a bunch of your videos in the show notes and also the Facebook Live video we just shot on the driveway. So for those of you listening that will be really good for you to watch to understand what David’s getting at. Just go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/weck and you’ll be able to watch it. Why don’t more biomechanist or coaches or running instructors teach this style of movement? This spiralizing style of movement?
David: It’s because in this world that we live in we have to produce right now results. So there’s tremendous pressure to perform in this world that we live in and that means that it essentially has an effect to stifle innovation because you can’t take risks. You can’t take chances. The strength coach can’t come into practice and say, or the weight room session and say, you know guys I’ve got a theory today. We’re going to test this out, right? You can’t do that because if you fail you’re fired. And then you’re credibility’s gone and blah, blah, blah. So what you have to do is you have to listen to the guy who’s had more time in than you, right? You’re going to do, do, do, do. And you haven’t lost your mind three times. And you haven’t gone off. I have absolutely no fear socially now. And I used to sweat my armpits you know, OCD. You know, like that. Right now, I’m not afraid of anyone. I’m not afraid of anything. Ask me a question and be prepared ‘cause you might not be able to handle the answer ‘cause I’m just going to tell you the truth, right? And so it puts me in a position where I’m just extremely honest. Most people put on that eminence front.
Ben: Yeah.
David: And I still comb my hair and put jell in it so I care about that social mechanism. I don’t want to be that awkward but when it comes to okay, well, so and so says this so it has to be right. Well, no. What are they saying? It doesn’t have to be right? What’s right is right. And I had no deliverables due. I can get off to Chinese Medical School. I could go, you know…
Ben: Right, you got time in your hands ‘cause you got independently wealthy from the Bosu ball things. You got time to explore a lot of these.
David: Time. Listen. Money is time.
Ben: So tell me why you said I think in an email to me you said that so much of what you see in training today is complete nonsense. Does it go beyond just this fact that people are trying to teach front to back movement versus moving in the spiralizing fashion? With the weird arm swinging thing that you were showing me?
David: Great questions, Ben. You’re awesome. So let me take you back to locomotion sort of the deepest most ancient ancestors. The ideas we climb down from the trees, okay? So in order to locomote on the ground and catch the rabbit not get eaten by the wolf, you’ve got to carry sticks and stones. So that means locomotion itself bipedal locomotion is contingent upon your ability to swing a stick, throw a stone and then eventually string a stick and then shoot an arrow and sling a stone and blah, blah, blah, right? So those are your first tools. They were your first weapons and their necessary ‘cause they’re essential for walking bipedal, okay?
Ben: Okay.
David: And walking bipedal is the fundamental and universal function that is a foundation for just about everything else that we do. Even swimming and cycling activities that you think might not be so related but they’re intimately related with the function of your body’s core to do these things, okay? Now the three plains of motion have a sequential order or a hierarchy of these three plains of motion that can be looked both macrocosmically and microcosmically. And I apologize to your viewers if I’m getting a little… I’m going to try go slow. You’ll attach my contact into this so people can ask me questions.
Ben: Yeah, your contact and your video’s all going to be available.
David: Right. So basically if you look at the first animals on planet earth, they were in fluid and they wiggled. They side bended to get from here to there. To eat and not be eaten basically, okay? And what that did that mechanical stress lead to a segmented spine. Evolution happens. It builds on what came before. Our foot looks remarkably similar to the foot of a dog. The metatarsals were standing on the heel kind of thing, right? So that segmented spine in the frontal plane side bending is first. Now you have the amphibians and the reptiles that come up from that and now you have this transverse counter rotation to limbs are coming out the sides. Your side bending but then you’re counter rotating to locomote in that manner on the ground because in the water you don’t have to deal with that gravitational force to prop yourself up. So with fish, all they have to do is side bend, okay?
Ben: Right.
David: Okay, so the amphibians now start and initiate with a side bend and then they do that transverse counter rotation. And that’s the root of our motion because the mammals just prop themselves up higher and made that sagittal movement deflection extension to potentiate more energy.
Ben: That’s really interesting. I never thought about that one.
David: Yes, so think of reflecting the truth.
Ben: When you had me up on the driveway on my belly on a Bosu ball moving like that before you showed me how to do it upright. Now I understand why.
David: Yeah. There’s a method to my methods, right?
Ben: Yeah, I get it, okay.
David: This is fun talking to you, man. I like you (laughs). So, basically the mammalian strategy is to create the potentiation by raising the center of gravity. And that costs energy, right? You’re warm blooded, right? The true paleo diet is sit on a freaking rock and let the sun heat you and you don’t have to eat for six weeks ‘cause you’re a lizard and you just sit there, right? That’s all you’ve got to do. I’m not spending a damn drop energy.
Ben: No cookie dough protein bars required.
David: No. You don’t need anything because you’re just not spending the energy and in nature efficiency is life.
Ben: Uh-hm.
David: The guys in Ohio they look at the guys in California banging tires with a sledge hammer and they go, “what the hell are you doin?” You’re working as hard you can without working. We’re chopping wood. We’re doing the same thing but we’re getting the job done, right?
Ben: Right.
David: So efficiency. Now okay, so now that’s sort of the macrocosmic frontal plane first then the transverse counter rotation next, and then the sagittal extension flexion next. And so it works in your body the same exact way. So the curvature of your spine means that when you side bend biomechanically it’s going to create this counter rotation. And it was Gracovetsky, Serge Gracovetsky who basically coined the term spinal engine. The core is the genesis. The core is the originator of your rotational power.
Ben: But most people when they’re training their core don’t train it the way that you are showing me even if they know the core is supposed to rotate or the core is supposed to brace. You know, take Stuart McGill, right? I’m actually getting on the podcast as of this like back pain relieving exercises where you’re planking or even like a quadruped exercise but there’s not that side to side spine movement. At least I haven’t experienced that.
David: Well, here’s what it is, okay? And Stuart McGill is the perfect example because he holds a very special position in the fitness industry.
Ben: Yeah, he’s considered to be the father of spine biomechanics.
David: Yes, and core.
Ben: Yeah, and core.
David: And he’s in not in the trenches the way so many people are so that no one has all the pre-reviewed studies and the 30 years of experience and dadadada, but when it comes to locomotion, throwing, swinging those activities he doesn’t know or understand those activities. So what he studies and what his bias is basically weightlifting. You know, the squat. The dead lift. Brace and stiffen the core. The power comes from the hips. It doesn’t come from the core, right? Stuart, you are right when it comes to deadlifting and squatting but when he equates the dead lift with sprinting, he’s made just a cardinal mistake because if you cannot brace your core and limit the bending motion of the spine to run fast and efficiently, and if you look just on the…
And this is where it’s like the king isn’t wearing clothes and that is why I bring up Stuart McGill and it’s a contest of ideas, okay? I mean no disrespect and not a personal attack but there are personal feelings associated with your positions, okay? So when somebody tells you that you’re wrong there’s a natural reaction to that, right? And so many people in the fitness industry take stabs at other people and it’s more malicious than it is just wait, let’s put the ideas in the arena and we don’t have to fight. Our ideas are in the arena. And what I’ve done is I’ve figured it out. Nobody knows locomotion like me. And I’m not being conceited but nobody knows it like me. And the invention that I showed you earlier that we can talk about now, that changes the game for everybody.
Ben: Yeah, and we talk about the club in the video that I’m linking to in the show notes and the Bosu ball and the Royal coil and so you guys, go watch the video for this. Explain to me this latest thing.
David: Okay, let me just talk about coiling the core real quick versus bracing the core?
Ben: Yeah.
David: Okay, we’ll clarify that. So coiling the core basically your most important core muscle, your lats, okay? The lats have the most origin points, the most real estate. They expand the hips to the shoulders. They’re capable of contracting upon their own origins while lengthening the insertion So other muscles can raise and lengthen the top of the lat whilst the bottom of the lat is contracting. Name me another muscle that can do that. And Gracovetsky has this wonderful video where he has a man with no legs who was walking by side bending and counter rotating.
Ben: It’s that fish you’re talking about.
David: It’s like the amphibian who became a million who stood up because it’s the spinal engine. And now Gracovetsky himself didn’t understand it fully because he put too much emphasis on the multifidus, the small central proximal muscles. Those are non-volitional muscles. “Okay, right now ready? I want you to flex T7 multifidus.”
Ben: Right.
David: They can’t do it, right? It’s reflexive. And so basically the multifidus, that’s like they’re playing the orchestra. They’re playing the piano and it’s like Rachmaninoff and it’s right here right now. I’ve got to micro adjust it to maintain the balance, the rhythm, the harmony between these final facets and you know the different vertebrae. That’s what they do. They’re the fine tuners that make sure that the global movement is okay at that micro level. That’s what they do and it’s reflexive and they’re playing the piano gorgeous.
And then you come along and you do an exercise like the Pallof press, this anti-rotation exercise where you’re bracing against the twist not even a rotate, and it’s like going chooooong on the piano. ‘Cause you don’t want to light up every multifidus muscle and make it just brace and squeeze as hard as it possibly can. There’s no coordination in that. And this is what’s being prescribed. And Stuart McGill is one of the most influential people in the entire world when it comes to these practices because he’s the guy that the best and the brightest listen to. He’s the guy that the best and the brightest cite. He’s the guy that the best and the brightest based their programming choices on. And he’s telling you that the core does not generate power, rotational power, he’s telling you that you have to brace it. He’s telling them that a fundamental law of human movement is the proximal stiffness is how you move that this looks remedies fast as the most powerfully. I think correct. And the irony is it violates common sense because these people are too smart that they miss the forest to the trees, and so if you ponied up at the bar with a high school buddy of yours and you’re having a beer and he’s a contractor and you say, “hey you brace your spine in neutral when you hit a baseball?” “He’s like he says, “what are you talking about, right?” “I think when you hit a baseball you bend just fine, right?”
Ben: Yeah. Don’t brace it you bend it.
David: And here’s the other thing. It’s not like bracing as opposed to wet noodle limp.
Ben: Yeah, holds for me ‘cause I’m a tennis player, right? So for me.
David: Think about it. (laughs)
Ben: (Laughs). I’m serving. I don’t brace. If you can bend.
David: There is no time on the tennis court when you were stiffening your core on purpose to mimic a dead lift.
Ben: Yeah.
David: Okay, never. Alright, so anyway, now to get into sort of this new device. So the coiling core is contingent upon lat function. You want to train it with ipsilateral focus and it’s basically you just train the lat to optimize itself which optimizes the spinal engine. Every other muscle in the core in the body is gonna come along in plain ice and do their job if the lats are optimized.
Ben: So in layman’s term you’re teaching the body with this device how to engage the lats while you’re moving.
David: Here’s the thing: the coiling coil exercises teach you to use the lats to harness the spinal engine which is the set-up, that’s the proximal, the center of the core. So now use this invention that I have that is distal, it’s in the hands. So basically what I’ve discovered is you don’t wanna swing your arms to run, okay? And this goes back to when our ancestors had to carry the sticks and stones. You’re forced to carry a big long stick, it’s very hard to pulse your arms, it’s just carrying the counter balance with the arms, right? But if I remove the need to carry a stick and my hands are empty, I don’t want to swing them because I’m not optimizing the function of the connective tissue, the fascia if I swing them. As the arms come forward and up, the breaking force is now muscular not fascial or connective tissue. ‘Cause I can keep raising the arm up, up, up, up and my elbow and my humerus get even with my ear before the connective tissue stops it and that’s not fast. That’s not energy efficient.
So from a sprint I have to pulse the arm down with the very specific arrangement of the arm, the elbow, the wrist, the hands to create a fascial stop, a terminal range of motion down that creates a pulsing force up. So the up is now free and you’re using the momentum and the body weight down to hit the ground harder, to get off and faster for sprint. If you’re going to teach somebody how to run faster regardless of distance, you have to teach him how to sprint that fast.
Ben: Yes. Looks like you’re moving your arms in a spiralling motion while you’re running almost.
David: There’s no straight lines in the body, right? And you definitely want to coming toward the midline, so this idea that you got to keep your arms perfectly sagittal. That’s just wrong too.
Ben: That’s the way most people are train to run.
David: Yes, I mean the luminaries like Kelly Starrett who is extremely intelligent. He’s contribution to the mobility and the release, I mean, he’s expert in the world, right? But when it comes to his book, “Ready To Run”, he doesn’t understand it.
Ben: Yeah.
David: He just doesn’t understand it. So he’s telling you to do things that are incorrect and again, it’s just a contest of ideas and I invite the people to scrutinize…
Ben: Oh yeah, they will. If you want to scrutinize, go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/weck and leave your ideas especially you Stuart and Kelly, if you’re listening in. Just I know you guys listen a little bit as well. So these things that you’re in your hands, what are they called?
David: Yes, okay. Right now they’re called Pulsers. So you all that are listening to this interview, you’re hearing about this device when by the time you’re hearing it they are out there and they’re starting to be marketed and people are gonna know about it, but right as we’re taping this podcast, they’re still private. They’re still secret, okay? So, they’re called Pulsers and the technique for sprinting is called the Double Down Pulse, and for distance running, you use either a passive double down pulse or a winged pulse, okay? And this new invention is a hand weight with a shifting load inside the chamber, steel shot that allows you to harness the momentum of the weight without the inertial force putting on the brakes because it shifts. So when you pulse down and it’s very specific, you pick it up pretty known quick…
Ben: I pick it up and dude, I was running more efficiently within like 3 minutes.
David: Bingo! And that’s what make this so special.
Ben: Up and down the driveway.
David: That’s what make this so special is that this invention takes something that’s extremely difficult to do and it makes it relatively easy to do. You’ll get it if you try, let’s put it that way and here’s the kicker… you can actually run faster holding these hand weights then you cannot holding them. So training with them will pattern the muscle memory and give you the ability to run faster than you could before without holding ‘em, for all the activities where you can hold them but if you wanna run your fastest, holding these weights is faster. And that is the most counter intuitive concept that there is, that you could add mass to the diesel strip and be faster.
Ben: Right. They’re not super heavy but at the same time you’re like all these weights and running faster. It was actually quite a word because you’re changing your entire biomechanics.
David: Correct. Now, there are natural athletes who do these things like the double down pulse and I’m the guy who has literally thousands of hours in studying videos. I have files and files and files, okay? Here’s running, here’s jumping, here’s punching da da da da, right? I wanna understand it. The only way that you can understand it is frame by frame. My college football coach used to say, “The eye in the sky does not lie.” It can be misinterpreted which it is when you don’t understand it but it doesn’t lie. And when you understand it then you say, “Oh yeah. Now it makes sense” right? What was not obvious all of a sudden is obvious. And there’s tremendous resistance to change. The best example of a paradigm shift in sports is Dick Fosbury doing the high jump.
Ben: Right. So this is doing the Fosbury flap.
David: Yeah. So Fosbury flap. It was the western roll you went over the barb, with your front facing it or you scissor kick over it and what the problem with that is you center of mass has to go over the bar. What Fosbury discovered was that if you go over bending your back and your back faces the bar, your center of mass doesn’t have to go over the bar. So the center of mass is lower than the bar but you’re getting over the bar.
Ben: Yeah.
David: And so it’s an advantage that you have to exploit. It is impossible to jump your highest without that technique. Now, Dick Fosbury demonstrated it in 1968, in the Olympics he won the gold medal. In 1972, the western world won the gold medal. Because you didn’t have social media and the power is the B in like the Fosbury flap. And so Dick Fosbury gonna have a conversation with Ben Greenfield back then but it stayed in that room, and you go to the authorities and the head of whatever, the track and blah blah blah, well, no we disagree, we don’t like it. So the message we send out is. “No. That’s nonsense, it’s bad, it’s dangerous, it’s a fluke.”
Four years after a man demonstrated that it’s superior. Four years later, they’re doing field tip. Guys are superior athlete and none of the guys got in the game, to do the superior technique… so you wanna talk about when the kings not wearing clothes, and he’s walking down the street, there’s a vested interest I, “Hey, if I’ve been saying that those robes are gorgeous and oowing and eyeing at the king’s clothes. When the little kids says, “Hey, he’s naked.” Well, maybe that’s difficult for me to reconcile. ‘Cause now I feel foolish, now I fell wrong. Now I don’t feel vindicated if I’m in the fitness industry, what am I trading on? I’m trading on my expertise. Why do you have expertise Ben Greenfield? It’s because you live what you teach. You can discuss the sublist little nuances of everything that you teach because you do it. That’s like Steve Cotter teaching the kettlebell. He can give you the sublist little Q because he does it.
Ben: Yeah.
David: And expertise feeling is knowing. Now, you bring me back to pot, right? Feeling is knowing (chuckles) I could tell if a fly landed on my body and it would set me into motion when I first started doing the pot, and that’s why I love this… I would go to Eslan Institute and I’ll be standing down to those pools. I’d be naked in the sun and I’ll be like, Tru-ahhh! You know, being one with gravity.
Ben: It’s good visual, man. Send me that photo. I’ll make it as the featured image for the podcast.
David: Oh, back in those days I was… I look like you back in those days.
Ben: That’s funny. Hey, so we’re comin’ up on time and you’ve highlighted these pulsers that you’ve invented.
David: Yes.
Ben: Now, when I put together the show notes for everybody, by the time this podcast comes out, are these gonna be available on your website for people to get?
David: Yes. Let me tell you real quick. So, I’m doing it the same way with the Bosu bar. Remember that I said earlier that the train have to leave the station? The reason why they’re gonna be public by the time this post because IP will be in place. Okay? That’s how it works. The IP is in place, patent pending, and now I can start to share, okay?
Ben: Right.
David: So, that train has left the station but the next station isn’t for a while ‘cause you got to prototype, you got to draw, the CAD files, 3D printing. It takes time but the marketing, that stops the next second away, social media. So what I’m doing is I’m doing the same exact way I did the Bosu ball. I’m building hand-made prototypes in the beginning. If they function fantastically, you felt it…
Ben: Yeah. The one I put in my garage, that looks hell but it works.
David: Exactly, exactly. And so basically, what I’m going to do is I’m going to market it completely organically, they are not a big old where I throw a bunch of money at it, put on a socket marketing where I can sell as I can sell the truth. That’s all I can sell. You make me a marketer, you sit me around the table and I got to come over an idea to sell something I don’t give a crap about, well, guess what, you don’t want me in the boardroom. My ideas aren’t good that way. So, I’m marketing this thing as it look. You want to do it now and you wanna do it better now, buy this thing and it’s from my hands to yours. I would not be doing the whole process coz we’re gonna have to make a ton of these but my hands will have touched every single unit that goes out and I’m going to make a certificate of authenticity because these things are going to be a collector’s items, okay?
Ben: Cool.
David: That’s what I’m going to do because we live in a world with so much big ass and I can’t take it. I can only remain sane if I just not wearing clothes. Donald Trump is a freaking idiot, I hate Hilary too ‘cause they don’t tell me that I’m this or that. Can’t someone tell the truth.
Ben: I can tell that until you’re no BS guy. Although I’m gonna talk to you during dinner. We’re gonna have dinner here pretty soon. We’ll hit the hot tub or go have dinner and I’m gonna see if I can convince you to hook my lists coz I put some kind of an insider deal on these things.
David: Ben10, Ben10, your discount code.
Ben: There’s something more.
David: No, no, no. We came up with the rhyme. Hey, listen. Last night I text Mary at whatever time we were emailing. I said, “Mary, can you set up a code.” And you know, da da da. She text me when I land. The code’s Ben10.
Ben: That’s funny coz that’s what I’ve used in the past. That will give people or send people to your website, that’ll give people if I send people over to your website, that’ll give them a 10% discount on this stuff.
David: A 10% discount basically on anything that we sell.
Ben: At Weck method website.
David: Yes. That’s correct
Ben: Okay, cool. So you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/weck because I understand a lot of these stuff is pretty visual. I’m got videos of David demonstrating some moves in my driveway. I’ve got link to his website with plenty more videos, I’ve got the podcast I do with the guy who introduced David and I and that’s Chris Holder. I put a link to that podcast with Paul Chek, the “Awareness Through Movement” book, all the things that David and I talked about in today’s show. And David, you are one crazy, unique guy… and you wanna say something, so go ahead.
David: Alright, yeah. I wanna say two things now…
Ben: Alright. You ahead. It’s all yours. Wrap things out for us.
David: Okay. So there’ll be video links on there for this pulsers double down, passive pulse and the winged pulse, okay? So that’ll be on there too.
Ben: Okay.
David: And… let’s just talk about crazy, okay? Dude, Apple computer did an amazing advertisement years ago. Thank God, for the craziness, right? Thank God and everybody’s got a little bit crazy. And most people are terrified to acknowledge it and reveal it but you know what? Again, we got a strip away of all of the non-sense and we got it the only way that this world goes forward and we make it and we enjoy all of the amazing things that are happening is if we can cut the BS. Okay? Guys like Donald Trump is the president, he can’t continue to do that, okay? Hilary Clinton can’t continue to do that. We got to figure out new ways to do it. That’s my political economy sort of coming back again to it. What I care about is legacy. I care about what contribution I’ve made to this world, to care about my kids. That’s my legacy and I care about my grandkids, I care about those and we’re in for you know, see that they can be massively wonderful or they suck big time. I wanna be a force for making it wonderful.
Ben: I dig it bro.
David: Thank you.
Ben: Even though Donald Trump might be a listener.
David: Good! Good! Trump, you’re a punk.
Ben: (laughs)
David: You’re a punk.
Ben: Alright, dude. Let’s go and hit the hot tube, have an amazing meal. Thanks for coming on the show. Folks, check out bengreenfieldfitness.com/weck for all the show notes and more videos, the website for David Weck, everything you need is right there. David, thanks for comin’ on, man.
David: Thank you, Ben.
Ben: Alright, folks. Have a healthy week.
David Weck is slightly insane.
You may already know this if you have seen any of his crazy “Weck Method” videos.
And the dude is wicked smart. He is the creator of WeckMethod and the CEO and Founder of BOSU Fitness. He is the inventor of the BOSU Balance Trainer, the new WeckMethod BOSU Elite, the RMT Club, and other products. He has worked in fitness for more than 22 years and has helped people of all fitness levels including elite athletes from multiple sports. He is a consummate student of movement who believes physical education is the foundation for a happy and healthier world.
Not only that, but just a few weeks ago, he descended upon my home in Spokane, and you get to listen into the pure fitness madness that ensued – and pick up some very fringe, little-known tactics that are going to make your core absolutely unstoppable.
During our discussion, you'll discover:
-The crazy thing that happened to David when he was just six years old…[11:45]
-How David's father's expectations for him to be “the best” transitioned into violence, trouble, and drinking…[23:27]
-How David ate 10,000 calories a day in high school and college…[26:17]
-How David, while playing D3 football, invented his own defense system using brains, not brawn…[27:40]
-The reason Ben reads a book a day and why David learned speed reading too…[31:00]
-The rollerblading obsession that turned David into a student of biomechanics, with very weak feet…[39:30]
-Why David consumed 4-6 drinks a day and a bottle of Aleve a week for years, and eventually developed a toxic, “oozing” body…[44:50]
-The very first core “breakthrough” David had after seeing Paul Chek land on a stability ball…[48:40]
-How David built the very first ever Bosu Ball – and turned it into a global phenomenon…[54:00]
-The stimulating THC experience that allowed David to make huge strides in his movement training…[62:30]
-The electroconvulsive therapy that David used to break his addiction to weed…[69:00]
-Why David thinks so much of what is done in training today is complete nonsense, including the movement advice from people like Stu McGill…[84:00]
-The reason most people train their core completely wrong and the new handheld device David invented to fix that…[86:25]
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-And much more!
Resources from this episode:
–Facebook Live video shot with David in my driveway
-The Bosu Ball (Use code Ben10 for 10% off)
–RMT Club (Use Code Ben10 for 10% off)
–Awareness Through Movement book on Feldenkrais
–The podcast about the Circadia device that Ben uses for mild electroconvulsive therapy
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