Ryan Hurst - Smart Fitness: Move Better, Live Stronger

Stuart Cooke (00:01.027)
Hey guys, this is Stu from the Health Sessions and I am delighted to welcome Ryan Hurst to the podcast. Ryan, how are you?

Ryan Hurst (00:07.258)
I'm wonderful. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Stuart Cooke (00:10.364)
look, thanks for slotting me in. You must be a busy man with everything that you've got going on. But first up for all of our listeners that may not be familiar with you or your work, I'd love it if you could just share a little bit about yourself, please.

Ryan Hurst (00:22.81)
Absolutely, name is Ryan Hurst, originally from the United States. Grew up doing gymnastics and martial arts and ended up moving to Japan when I was 19 years old. Lived in Japan for 28 years. Yes, quite a while where continued to do martial arts and other things as well including GMB fitness and two years ago brought my family to the United States so that my children could experience

the glories of the United States and I won't get into that kind of little tongue-in-cheek there but my folks are getting older and my children now are 17 and 15 and so we wanted them to experience the United States and learn English so their main language is Japanese their mom my wife is Japanese and so we wanted to make sure that they were bilingual and hopefully become polyglots one of these days with another language but yeah in a nutshell really

Stuart Cooke (00:56.068)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (01:22.266)
movement and gymnastics, martial arts and fitness and everything. That's been my entire life and 14 years ago two of my friends and I got together and started a little company called GMB Fitness and movement-based we'll talk more about that but yeah that's kind of where things are right now.

Stuart Cooke (01:33.613)
Wow.

Stuart Cooke (01:44.393)
Fantastic, wow, you're a guy with secret skills. I wouldn't want to meet you in a dark alley at the wrong time because I think you'd be quite handy.

Ryan Hurst (01:49.017)
Well, I enjoy martial arts. Yeah, that's my passion. So yes, yes.

Stuart Cooke (01:55.672)
Yeah, okay. Well, I've practiced sprints, so hopefully I could run away, but we'll see how we go. Yeah. So GMB fitness. So tell me about the philosophy then and perhaps how that differs from everyday gym, because I've been into the gym forever, like from 16 years old, just love it. And being through all of the different, you know, the...

Ryan Hurst (01:59.226)
That's all you need. That's all you need.

Ryan Hurst (02:14.083)
Which is great, yeah.

Stuart Cooke (02:19.384)
classes all the way to CrossFit and we'll talk about that later on as well because I noticed you had a little badge that said Skip the Kip I think and I'm guessing that probably does relate to that in some way shape or form but tell me about the philosophy because I know that I think you're going to share a few secrets that might be of interest to many people.

Ryan Hurst (02:39.027)
Sure, of course. Yes. We don't think anything is wrong with the gym at all. I think weightlifting is fabulous. I think CrossFit is fabulous. The one thing though is very important to us in GMB is does it serve you? Is it good for you? And according to your why, why are you doing this? And I think a lot of people feel that they have to do something just because other people are doing it or whatnot. But our big thing in GMB is figuring out exactly what you need for the activities in your life.

That's really what it is. And being able to have the strength and mobility as well as the control in your movement so that you can further, well, better enjoy your activities and live the life that you really want to live. We were talking about this before we started the recording. We want to be able to move. You know, we're both 52 years old right now. I don't plan on stopping, literally forever, you know? And so...

Stuart Cooke (03:22.221)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (03:33.547)
What we're really after in GMB is not to do more exercise but to find out what is going to be good for you and build that physical autonomy, the freedom within your body to know that you have that strength and mobility and control to do the things that you want to do in the manner that you want to do it without fear of injury. So that's really important as well. So the movements and things that we do here aren't your typical gym movements.

You'll find us using a lot of locomotive patterns, locomotive patterns, crawling on the floor, jumping, turning, twisting, rotational movements. We're using gymnastic rings, we're using the bar. We're using our body in order to gain better spatial awareness of what's going on, learning and becoming more aware so that we can apply that to the things in our life that we wanna do. So the method is something over the years that we really, really

have focused on and my business partners Andy is educator comes from education background. Jarlo is a very high level physical therapist. My background in movement and teaching and the things that I've done which we put together and we really look at creating this method that can be applied not just to.

the animal movements if you will, but pretty much everything and making sure that you're focusing on doing the things that are gonna help you. And just to give an example of again, we don't teach bodybuilding, we don't teach power lifting, I don't teach CrossFit, but if you need that, then fabulous. It's like the person who comes to us and says, hey, can you help me to get as humanly huge as possible? And I'll say, no, I said, you'll need to go and you'll need to lift.

Stuart Cooke (05:23.097)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (05:26.078)
heavy, heavy weights and just eat, you know, and eat. There's a way to do that. And so we stay within our wheelhouse to help people to be able to improve the way they move so that they can be better in the other things that they want to do. And so again, we could talk about CrossFit later, but spend a lot of time working with CrossFit people, a lot of times, a lot of time with sports people.

I even worked, I've worked with the FBI and the hostage rescue team twice now helping them just simply to move better so that they can do their job. I went and I stayed with them for a full week where I met with each individual on the teams, just two teams. They have three teams I met with, two because the other team was somewhere doing their thing. But basically what it is is again I'm not trying to build as much muscle as possible. I think I simply want to help you to.

Stuart Cooke (05:57.56)
Well.

Ryan Hurst (06:20.171)
better so that you can do the things in your life that you want to do. Just enjoy the process.

Stuart Cooke (06:26.81)
So you mentioned body control and awareness as well and those might not be two phrases that we would think. No, no, no, you're right. I mean, we don't hear it a lot, we don't think about it. I wouldn't perhaps consider it as much, although I've been speaking to a few guys where I train and they're very much starting to think more along those lines. So tell me...

Ryan Hurst (06:34.57)
You don't hear that a whole lot. You're right. Sorry to interrupt you. Please go ahead. Sorry.

Stuart Cooke (06:53.346)
why body control and awareness are so critical then for everyday life as we age, as we progress.

Ryan Hurst (07:00.553)
Absolutely. This applies to literally everything that we're doing in our life. The way we sit. The way that we put our seatbelt on. If you're in the States, typically if you're driving it's going to be from left to right. Australia is going to be the opposite way. Japan opposite way. But what I'm getting at is we tend to have certain movements that just become... We don't even think about them anymore. And unfortunately what can happen is we can...

create these patterns in our body that don't actually help us for the things that we want to be doing by bringing better awareness in the way that you do to the way that you do things will allow you to better understand your body help you to better listen to your body and what it needs. We have a concept auto regulation and auto regulation is truly listening to your body and say OK even though on this piece of paper today it says it might be a high intensity day.

Is this truly what I need this day? And so by being aware and having this awareness in your body going into the session, but more importantly, when you're performing a movement, you'll be able to assess your body and know exactly what you need that day. I'm not saying that you shouldn't work out that day. What I am saying is that it might be better for you not to hit it as hard so that you can come back tomorrow.

the next day and literally for the next 20-25 years to keep at it rather than just blowing through a particular movement hurting yourself and this little tweak ends up becoming an injury that sidelines you for one, two, three months at a time. again, looking at auto regulation, this is a huge topic that is a part of the method in GMB Fitness, but really

Looking at awareness comes down to truly what do you need and how are you moving when you're performing exercises, whether it be the barbell squat, burpees, chin ups, sitting in your chair, picking up your kid, anything.

Stuart Cooke (09:08.063)
And it do use tech as part of the tracking mechanisms for that as well because you mentioned You know might be let's say it's leg day if you're like I do conventional training at the moment You know leg day is a Monday. I have wear an aura ring and I check a few things You know HR HR V etc recovery

Ryan Hurst (09:18.782)
Aha, yeah.

Yep. Fabulous. I think it's great. Yes. Yes. I think that's great. Yeah. We don't we don't incorporate that directly into the training. But what we do is we have our scale. And so rather than giving a number to things rather than using perceived rate of exertion or looking at that, you one through five, change it from one to ten. What we actually look at is using particular words.

Does it feel smooth? Does it feel scrappy? Okay. Does it feel clunky? where are you? What are you truly feeling in your body that day? And when looking at it that way, I'm not saying it can be better because I still believe that if you wear your oar ring or your whoop, hope I'm saying that correctly, Jarlo and Andy, my business partners, both wear hoops.

Stuart Cooke (09:56.727)
Yeah.

Stuart Cooke (10:02.937)
Hmm.

Stuart Cooke (10:14.966)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (10:20.761)
I used to wear a garment as a matter of fact right here to track my sleep to track everything. I think that's still fabulous but more importantly to me personally is you fully understanding where your body is that day without even needing tech. The tech is great because it gives you more precise reading to let you know exactly where you are. But there are those days where let's be honest you don't feel like working out and

if it weren't for that tech, would say, no, no, no, you're rested, you're good to go. You might have like skipped that workout that day when just because it's a mental thing. And what I'm getting at is by understanding to have this awareness of your body, I always like to say at least step on the mat and do the warmup. And you do that, that's gonna give you a good feedback kind of where you are.

Stuart Cooke (11:13.124)
Mm.

Ryan Hurst (11:17.023)
And let's be honest, there are those days where we go into our workouts, I call them sessions, I don't call them workouts. And the reason why for that is because I feel that everything that we're doing is a practice session. It's not a workout. Because literally every movement that we do, we should be learning more about how it's helping our body and looking at it as a practice session. But coming back to what I was saying is when we go into and step on the mat and we do that warmup.

Stuart Cooke (11:22.755)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (11:42.697)
Chances are even if we didn't feel like it at the beginning that might have been one of the best workouts that we've had in a long while. And had we not stepped on the mat because we simply didn't feel like it that day then we could have missed out on that opportunity. But again this comes back to auto regulation and coming back to your question in tech we do use tech in a little bit different way. We created our own platform which is called Praxis which for those of you who don't know means practice and practice.

SIS, excuse me, has all of our programs and within there, at the end of our session, when you go through our 5P, our method, the last P there is Ponder. And the Ponder in there is asking you, okay, how did it feel? How was this particular movement? And you you choose the words, vernacular in there, did it feel smooth? Did it feel clunky? And then by doing that, you can track and see how things went according to the movement.

and the overall session. So, it's not necessarily looking at your heart rate, it's not looking at perceived, rate of perceived effort necessarily. It's just a different way so we can bring that feeling back into what's going on in the body and again, bring it back to awareness. I hope that answered your question, yes.

Stuart Cooke (12:45.305)
Mm.

Stuart Cooke (12:58.138)
Fantastic. No, it did. Absolutely it did. so it led me to think then about benchmarks for assessing where we currently are. And I'm aware that, and I have daughters too, so of a similar age to you, and they're very involved in their fitness. And oftentimes they'll come back to me and they'll say, we were doing deadlifts today. And I thought, really? You're young.

Ryan Hurst (13:08.764)
Absolutely.

Ryan Hurst (13:18.643)
Fabulous to hear.

Stuart Cooke (13:26.266)
That's a technical movement and I know there's a lot of bravado going on as well about who can lift the most in a very, could potentially be quite problematic. What do you do? If I came to you, you know, I'm 52, I've been fit and healthy all of my life, wanting to get better or at least consistent as I age, how do you track me in terms of mobility, flexibility and tell me the list of things that I should be focusing on and the list of things that I should stop right now?

Ryan Hurst (13:30.217)
yeah. yeah.

Ryan Hurst (13:42.032)
yeah.

Ryan Hurst (13:56.678)
Absolutely. So first off, feel you, you know, when your daughter came to your city doing the deadlift, my son is just going into high school. I know it's secondary school where you are. I believe it's what you call it. Is that correct? Is it secondary school? Is that. OK, OK, so he's just going in and it's four years over here in the United States and he's going into his weightlifting class. And so in the summer.

Stuart Cooke (14:01.719)
Yeah.

Stuart Cooke (14:11.737)
But we use both. We use both.

Ryan Hurst (14:25.871)
every day for two months. He and I actually went to the gym and I helped him with form for all of the lifts because I knew that he was going to be going to class. Anyway, I just I was scared too. I was like, you're going to go dead lift. Anyway, coming back to assessments, though, we do have an assessment that we use. It's called it's the AAA framework where we assess where you're at. We address the issues and then we apply the proper protocol in order to help you to move forward with that. And so an assessment

Stuart Cooke (14:32.525)
Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (14:55.811)
is like any assessment seeing where you are for what you need. And so a lot of the times when a person comes to us it's not a blanket assessment necessarily. It's really looking again at okay what do you need for the things that you want to do. But generally generally we can look at using what's called the A-frame. Looks like a yoga downward facing dog but we're not doing yoga and this is very important to say here because

Stuart Cooke (15:20.15)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Hurst (15:25.221)
If I were to say downward facing dog, you might have an image of thinking it has to look a certain way. We're not saying that it has to be a certain way. We're using that particular position. And so the setup for this is very important. Starting your hands and knees with your shoulders over your hands, hips over your knees, 90-90 position, fingers facing forward, and then you drive your butt up into the air as you try to push your heels to the floor. Now, again, it's not a downward facing dog. What we're looking at now,

is we can gauge the wrist strength, if you will. It's not a full load straight over the top. There's an angle, but we can also look at the range of motion in the shoulder. We can look at lumbar. We can look at hamstring flexibility. There's a lot of different things in there that we can gauge. And all we're trying to do is, as a coach, take a snapshot of that. And I do encourage people actually to take video when they're doing this, not just a photo, but...

Stuart Cooke (16:10.425)
Mm.

Ryan Hurst (16:23.374)
video how they get in and out of the positions is as important as the in position. But then we're looking again at what's the what's the angle of the shoulder what's the angle you know what's the pelvic tilt what's going on with the hamstrings and things like that. So this way we know exactly where you're at. We're not trying to push ourselves into a position we're trying to get into a position simply to use that as a measuring stick to see possibly what we need to work on. That's one. The next one.

is a simple, I say simple, is squat down to the floor. That's it. We're not going up and down. You're squatting down and trying to get into the best squat that you can do. And this is very important. There is no right way that I'm looking at for you to get into a squat. I simply say, okay, get into your best squat. By doing this, I can look at dorsiflexion of the ankle. I can look at what's happening with the hips in relation to the squat.

can see sway of the body if you happen to favor maybe one side. There was an injury or something. I can look at the rounded back. There's a lot of different things that we can look at when we're doing this. Again, taking the video of how you're going down into that squat and coming back up also lets us know how you're moving in and out, knees buckling in or whatnot. Again, there's nothing bad about any of this. It's simply giving us feedback so we can be more aware of what's going on. Another thing I call the tabletop position.

Stuart Cooke (17:39.308)
Hmm.

Ryan Hurst (17:51.974)
Very similar to the setup to the A-frame, but your hands on the ground, knees on the ground. This time though, with your toes up and back and your hands on the floor, you bring your knees off the floor just slightly and you round your back. This is really gonna test the core and then there's some movements that we can use from that to see how that is in relation to that. And then we flip it. And so in this case, you work to a spine position, the crab position.

where you're sitting on the floor, hands are beside you, you have your fingers turned out to the side, elbow pits facing forward, shoulders pulled back and down, chest up, head neutral, knees together, and I ask you just to float your hips. So these are our basic assessments, and these are all in our Elements program. A lot of people will think you're like, okay, that sounds very simple.

A lot of people say it sounds simple and then they come in and they do it. And the cool thing about this is it can really help us to bring better awareness in you so that then you can start to say, wow, okay, I didn't think this was happening in my body. And so then we can start looking at really, you know, addressing some of the things that are happening. And so again, the eight frame starts off, it's not much pressure on the wrists at all. And then

Stuart Cooke (18:54.03)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (19:10.585)
the squat, zero pressure on the wrist, but then when we do the floating tabletop, we're looking at this flexion and seeing if a person comes to us and says, I want to do a handstand and the flexion in their wrist is only like this, it's kind of like, well, you got to work first on that, you know, the wrist. And so this is how we can use assessments. It goes for anything. Looking at bench press, looking at whatever, your front squats, if your wrists are bad, there could be a possibility that you actually hurt your elbows due to the fact

that the simple load on your hands can't handle that due to the lack of range of motion in your wrist. So like little things like that where we can assess for that. So coming back, these are our general assessments that we like to look at and say, okay, let's work to improve this a little bit for the things that you want to do. So again, long explanation there, but really that's our assessment, which is the AAA framework.

Stuart Cooke (20:02.881)
Yeah, makes perfect sense.

Ryan Hurst (20:09.381)
You take an assessment, you address what's going on there, and then you apply the protocol, which is basically, usually just follow the program that we have, and then there's adjustments within that program where you do the same movements, but we tell you how you can make slight adjustments depending on what you need, whether that be lifting your butt a little higher if you can't go all the way down in your squat, alleviating some of the stress onto your wrists by shifting back.

Little things like that, yeah.

Stuart Cooke (20:41.261)
You mentioned that A-frame and I was visualizing it in my head and I thought, boy my hamstrings are tight when I'm visualizing that. Yeah, I just know, like I know.

Ryan Hurst (20:50.062)
Right? Yeah.

And this is the thing is we don't our program elements is that's where we want everyone to start. I mean it the answer to everything for us is do elements. And the reason for that is because what we're trying to do is help to shore up the general issues that we see. And so by going and working through those 42 sessions there's actually a couple more extras in there. But by working through these sessions

then what it's going to do is everything we talked about before, the strength, flexibility, mobility, because flexibility in motion, and then that control component of that, teaching spatial awareness, and then while you're working through as you're doing this in motion. And so this is very important. And so the A-frame is again, just an assessment. We put that into motion in what we call the bare walk. And so by actually moving,

you're going in and out of these positions, it's actually more natural, if you will. So it's not this static hold. Isometrics are fabulous. But when we can actually put something into motion and have the control to support ourselves, this is where mobility and range of motion increases. And so this is really what we're after. And I even look at things like a barbell squat. If you really think about that, that is a stretch. It can be a stretch.

And you know, depending on how deep you go. But let's be honest, a lot of people tend to overload the bar and that's fine if you're looking at, you know, pushing weight good on you. But there are other ways that you can help to practice those movements to allow you to actually lift more weight by increasing your mobility under load in a safe manner. And so there's just one example of.

Stuart Cooke (22:44.953)
Mm.

Stuart Cooke (22:49.218)
Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. mean, personally, the squat, back squat on the deadlift is something that I've removed from my program because I just think there's too much provider, there's too much that can go wrong. And I don't think I'm, I don't think I'm ready for that kind of stuff. So it's, yeah, it's, it's fascinating that that got me thinking about perhaps then the difference between strength for longevity. And you mentioned your background in gymnastics and that that's kind of strength.

Ryan Hurst (22:59.834)
Yep.

Ryan Hurst (23:12.675)
Yes.

Stuart Cooke (23:16.694)
on steroids versus strength training for vanity, which most people, and I'd put myself in that bucket as well, to a degree, you go to the gym, you want to look good and you want to feel, yeah, 100%. So how does your approach then to strength training perhaps differ from that vanity driven path?

Ryan Hurst (23:17.251)
Yes.

Ryan Hurst (23:22.969)
Sure.

Ryan Hurst (23:30.703)
absolutely, everybody wants to look good naked. Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (23:42.841)
Sure, now very good question and we get this a lot. Again, if you're simply looking at hypertrophy and actually packing on as much mass as possible, please go get under the bar or lift heavy things basically. That's really what you need to look at doing. Whether that be barbells, strongman, even kettlebells to a sense can help of course with hypertrophy. But we again are really looking at

Can we create a body that's good to go for whatever? So that it's almost our strength, you will, preparing you for whatever else that you need on top of that. So we do have a program called integral strength and integral to endurance strength. Because what we're looking at in this is being able to use our body in a way that's going to allow us to do sport, martial arts.

Stand-up paddling Playing with our kids, whatever it might be. So you will find a lot of the movements in there are not The bro type movements and sorry to say it that way. We do of course have you know, when we're using the rings ring push-ups dips You know inverted presses, but we've got broad jumps in there. We've got 180 degree jump

with a land and this is where we're further looking at control. We're looking at building this body that is resilient. This is really what we're after. NGMB is creating a body that's good to go and I can't say this enough really that's what we're after. We're not looking at.

Ryan Hurst (25:27.439)
I don't know how to say this in a way that doesn't sound condescending but not. We're trying to be strong as long as we possibly can and build a body that we know we can depend on so that when you do go into the gym and if you do want to lift heavy weight that will help you and not take away from your practice. So again our strength type training isn't looking at how physically strong we can get. It's again go to the gym.

strong man, whatever it needs to be. I'm not a big guy, but pound for pound I'm pretty strong and all I need to be able to do is get on the mat and strangle the young guys and I'm good to go.

Stuart Cooke (26:08.314)
Yeah, that's good. I need some of that. tell me what your thoughts are on cardiovascular training. How does that fit in with your philosophy? Because VO2 max is a great indicator of longevity as well. And it requires lots of...

Ryan Hurst (26:24.812)
Yes. Absolutely.

Stuart Cooke (26:32.535)
Well, different levels, I guess, of fitness. This super high intensity versus lots of zone two, stuff like that. What are your thoughts on that?

Ryan Hurst (26:34.796)
Yes.

Ryan Hurst (26:39.361)
Yes. Yes.

Interesting that you've been interesting question because literally next Monday we're releasing our newest program in which it is a conditioning program in which we look at three the three levels. So we're looking at high intensity training. We're looking at medium intensity and we're looking at LSD. And so within that rather than looking at it in using Tabata.

rather than looking at using a bicycle, jump rope, sprints, running. We're using body weight movements to do this. For the purpose that in order to move better, we need to learn how to move better under pressure. And so our conditioning is that. So for example, in the 15 minute session that we have, you'll start off with general warmup.

Stuart Cooke (27:32.462)
Yep.

Ryan Hurst (27:42.945)
You're going to practice the three movements in that session that day for 30 seconds each just so you can get familiar with the movement and then you hit it and you're going to do 30 seconds of work as hard as you possibly can and then you're going to have a small breather of rest period where you're going to focus on power breathing inhalation through the nose heavy exhale through the mouth then you get right back into exercise number two same thing number three and you come

Stuart Cooke (27:49.155)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Hurst (28:11.537)
and you continue to do that for rounds. some of the movements that we're using and the purpose for using these movements is like we were talking about. We want to be good to go forever, forever. So that's why these movements are getting down to the ground, flipping over, getting back up off the ground, jumping from the ground, going down to the ground, putting your hands down to the ground, twisting, turning, extension of the body. Movements

Stuart Cooke (28:23.459)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (28:39.904)
where you might not think about for conditioning, if you will. But if you look at it...

The better again that we can move in these positions under duress if you will, the better off we're going to be. Your heart rate is going to go up so high when you're doing this. And so this is again in that hit version that we're doing. As you work through the program, it's 42 sessions again, this one, is you're taking individual movements and working towards combining them so that by the end of the program you have this little flow combination if you will.

that you're doing within the 30 seconds that is really going to truly condition you in different ranges of motion, level changes, using hip hinging, opening up the body, and really help you to be able to, again, do the other stuff that you wanna do in your life. That's the 15 minute session. The medium one is where we're looking at the 20 minute session. We're looking at, it's about 40 seconds per movement when you're doing this.

We've got a little longer for rest period because you want to focus on a controlled breath. So during the break we use box breathing in order to bring that breath back down so you're ready for the next round. Finish up with a little stretch at the end. Then we're looking at our LSD, the if you will Zone 2 training here. We're really focused on being able to have a conversation as you're doing these movements for a longer duration of time in order to build up volume and the capacity to be able to do

Stuart Cooke (29:55.481)
Mm.

Ryan Hurst (30:14.935)
work. And so again we're using these movements but it's a 35 minute session which sounds kind of strange but the thing is is with these movements because we're trying to sophisticated the movement and because they are quite I don't want to say unique in that I created the movements there's no movement that hasn't been created it's just that you're not running in place. So there's a lot of things going on when you're doing this anything more than 35 minutes is going to be

moving possibly beyond that point of which you can perform the movement at a very high level of quality of movement. And so during that time, it's typically looking at a circuit fashion. So there's three movements in a circuit fashion. And then what you'll do is you'll use diaphragmatic breathing in order to keep your breath at a pace where you can again, zone two, and then you repeat that circuit. So yes, cardio I think is absolutely fabulous.

People have been asking about this for years and we finally just said, listen, we're going to go ahead and we're going to do it. And I've got to say, I'm really excited about this. And I didn't even know you were going to be asking me about this. So it's not like I'm trying to promote this program, but this is one of the programs where simply because it's so different than the cardio programs out there, if you will, it's, it's, it's G and B. I mean, it's just like 100%.

Stuart Cooke (31:16.483)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (31:42.367)
conditioning GMB and I've been doing this with my daughter for past two weeks and tonight we just did it, kicked my butt and you know I've been doing these movements for a really long time. So you know this is one of those things where again though we're using awareness when we're doing this. In the program I teach people how to make adjustments to the movement so that they're doing them safely. The last thing we want is someone to get injured.

Stuart Cooke (31:53.795)
Ha ha ha.

Ryan Hurst (32:08.528)
Last thing we want is someone to look at a movement that I'm doing and say I can't do that and not do it so my big thing is You can do any movement you might not be able to do the full movement But you can do any movement as long as you see and say what part of that movement can I do and that way you'll still be benefiting and reaping the benefits of

the movement, whether it be in our elements program, integral strength, or this particular program called triple shot. We just thought it'd be kind of funny calling it triple shot because it's that triple dose of energy. But really we're looking at three different movement patterns and so that's actually why it's

Stuart Cooke (32:43.352)
Yeah.

Stuart Cooke (32:50.967)
I'm very keen personally to get my hands on that little program as well. I'm fascinated by the nuance of strength versus conditioning, but I'm also an advocate for minimal effective dose. And I know that we can put so much time, energy and effort into something perhaps that doesn't give us the best results. And hence, so I've included more walking just into my day. And I...

Ryan Hurst (33:04.741)
Yeah, yes.

Stuart Cooke (33:19.704)
I did little personal experiment last year. I wear the Auraring and I just thought, you know what, I don't really use the activity tracker on there. And I thought as we were entering the new year, what would happen if I walked 20,000 steps a day for a year, see what happens. And so I did it. We've got a big dog and he likes lots of walks. I just like, walked him around the block forever, across all the beaches and did 20,000 steps for a year. Now at the end of that year, I tested my VO2 Max and hadn't really done anything.

other than just the walking and of course strength training in the gym. And I was surprised, like was pretty good. I was up there, it was sitting at 57, I think, millilitres per kilogram per minute or something along those lines, which put me right up there just from walking. And so I personally think it's so underrated as a...

Ryan Hurst (33:58.172)
It got better. Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (34:03.853)
huh. Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (34:12.882)
It's fabulous. Yeah. Yeah.

Stuart Cooke (34:18.699)
as a tool to use in our fitness and lifestyle and longevity toolkit. So I'm pleased to hear that you're supportive of that.

Ryan Hurst (34:25.107)
I agree, Absolutely. This in fact before you know making this program and we will still tell people to walk but that's just always what it's been. I have a dog as well and every single day twice a day we go out there and we're walking and so I think for numerous reasons not just the benefit of health physically but mentally being outside. I think that's extremely important.

Stuart Cooke (34:34.85)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Stuart Cooke (34:50.329)
Mmm.

Ryan Hurst (34:52.81)
Leave your phone at home. I mean take it for safety measures, like Be outdoors, you know, I think that that is something as well that needs to be discussed more is Getting out of nature and how how much walking can help us Yeah, yeah, yeah

Stuart Cooke (35:11.202)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We have a saying and I think it's motion equals emotion and if you're feeling in a bit of a funk, just walk around the block and you'll feel better hands down and if you don't walk around again. You mentioned mindset as well and that led me to think about...

Ryan Hurst (35:18.633)
Down.

Love that. That's great.

Stuart Cooke (35:33.497)
cultivating a positive relationship in an environment and we're thinking about like exercise and gym and I know that sometimes we can embrace things so much that we really do push ourselves into burnout and I experienced that back in the day when I gave CrossFit a shot years ago, did it for about three years. You know, had a great time.

Ryan Hurst (35:52.73)
yeah, great. Good, good.

Stuart Cooke (35:57.015)
but was really into CrossFit, know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, different sessions, and it did lead to a burnout of sorts. And so what are your thoughts on the delicate balance between giving ourselves enough time to rest and recover versus just pushing ourselves too much and really inhibiting any growth and potentially pushing us over into the wrong direction?

Ryan Hurst (36:14.378)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Hurst (36:25.16)
I love this question. You can look at the same thing with the martial art. You can look at it within community sports, really anything where you have a community in which you really want to get better, of course, personally, but also challenging each other. And so if you're looking at CrossFit, I love CrossFit for what it's done, but

Stuart Cooke (36:44.729)
Hmm.

Ryan Hurst (36:54.045)
But I will say that.

it can get to be a bit much. I can say the same thing about martial arts. Jiu-Jitsu, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I've been doing that for many, many, many years.

There's a tendency for people to get so excited to be a part of something. They go every day and they go hard every single day. And it's not sustainable. It really is not sustainable. I think one thing, unfortunately, I do know for a fact that if you look at the top athletes in the world, they don't train that way. They don't train that. They don't go...

Stuart Cooke (37:23.427)
Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Cooke (37:27.917)
Hmm.

Ryan Hurst (37:40.649)
100 % every single day. They look at balance. What do they need? Coming back to auto regulation, think that understanding what you need is more important than trying to be the best, if you will. Where we're at, if that makes sense. I'm not a professional athlete. Like this is my job, but I'm not a professional athlete. So if someone feels that they need to be better than me,

I say, go ahead. You know, like, if you need to outperform me, I'm like, that's totally fine because I'm happy not doing that so that I can continue to do it. again, though, we do need to look at your why. Is that more important to you? And if so, great. But again, coming back to what we were talking about in recovery, I think that...

Stuart Cooke (38:12.995)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (38:33.788)
what was the saying? You're not overworked, you're under recovered. And so looking at this, recovery can simply be looking at using that auto regulation that day where we still step on the mat. We just don't push ourselves to the point where we think that we need to sweat buckets and buckets of sweat in order to have a quote unquote good workout. Because the way that I look at these sessions now that I do,

If I learned something that day to help me to improve and make me a little bit better, that was a successful session. And I think a lot of people, they might get under the bar, they might not have been able to hit the same numbers that they hit last week, and they think they're a horrible person or they're failing or something's wrong when it could simply be that you didn't get enough sleep the night before. It could simply be that you're thinking so much about something else and it's affected you that

You brought that into your workout and sorry, it's just not gonna happen that day. So there's so many different things happening here and I can't tell a person that they're a bad person and thinking that they should push themselves. But all I'm trying to say is again, bring it back to your why. I think this is the most important thing. Why are you doing this? And I think a lot of us put so much pressure on ourselves to think that we have to look like that person on Instagram or

you know, act like a particular person instead of truly being us. And, you know, as we get older, I think that we start to see that a bit more and start to move towards what's better for us when we're young. It's tough. Let's just be honest. But I think that that is a big part. And so knowing what's going to be good for you is very tough. Coming back, though, and looking at it community wise, this is something that we were really

big into NG &B is that we wanted a community of people that supported each other. I don't care if you didn't get a particular skill. It really does not matter. What matters is the simple fact that you keep going and you enjoy the process. To me that's more important than thinking that if you don't get a one arm handstand that life is you just might as well just quit. I mean that's silly. You know what mean. So

Ryan Hurst (40:59.58)
This is why our community, it's kind of a joke. We call it the Alpha Posse, the A Team. And some people hear that, like, Alpha, yeah! Well, that's kind of a joke for us, you know? And so, reason why is because we understand that life is too serious to be taken seriously. So, if you look at it, you gotta enjoy the process. So find like-minded individuals that can support you and help you grow and not just...

Stuart Cooke (41:10.766)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (41:27.271)
crush you into the ground and then a couple of months later go, where did Bob go? I don't know. And you're done. And so I do the same in my martial arts group as a matter of fact. And so when I moved to the United States, really enjoyed training with the different martial art dojos, gyms that they had here, but they just didn't feel right for me. I was the oldest person there to be honest. And so what I did was I just created my own group.

Stuart Cooke (41:34.787)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (41:53.095)
and of like-minded individuals about my same age and we don't spar hard. You know we're just in it for learning and enjoying it and trying to help each other to get better. So once again big spiel and I've got a lot of thoughts on it but I just think if we can really find those people those like-minded individuals to help bring each other up I think we'd all be better that

Stuart Cooke (42:16.792)
Yeah, I love it. love it. Tell me about your own training routine. So what does it look like at the moment and how perhaps has that changed over the years as we grow and age and learn?

Ryan Hurst (42:30.075)
Yeah, yeah. One thing is I don't work out as many times a day that I used to. I used to work out, it was three times a day. And the reason I say three times is because I would typically have some sort of skill work in the morning that I would do. Then I would do my strength session and then I would typically go to my martial arts practice. So that was a lot of work. And right now I do one session a day.

Stuart Cooke (42:53.998)
Yeah.

Stuart Cooke (42:58.99)
Right.

Ryan Hurst (42:59.985)
You know, even my martial arts now, even though like I love my martial arts, I'll only train maybe three to four times a week now. And when I do that again, it's not at this crazy and you know, high intensity that I used to do. I worked for a martial art, I worked at a martial arts complex in Japan for eight years. And that was my job. And all day long I would be doing martial arts and just get my butt kicked and just, it was crazy. But.

Now at this time in my life there's no way one I could do that nor would I want to to be honest. So right now what I'm really focused on again is how can I continue to step on the mat like literally like the martial arts mat until I die. That's for me. And how can I better help my people in GMB by not actually

Stuart Cooke (43:35.084)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (43:58.599)
injuring myself and you know just doing silly stuff so when I every morning at 8 30 a.m. it's when I do it 8 30 a.m. I go in there and I use I always do my warm-up which is light movements typically is just going to be the movements that we have in elements it's only about five minutes I don't now I don't really have a prescribed mobility routine

Again, I get on the mat and I kind of get into this A-frame position. I'm like, I'm kind of feeling it here today. And then I'll move around and work things out, if that makes sense. So that's my warmup. And then after that, I love the gymnastic rings. And so I'll do it's very simple session, but it's based off of our integral strength program. And I'll do a push, a pull, a press, a squat.

hinge. But the thing of it is, there's no weights except for my body weight. And right now I only do two sets. Two sets and that's it of each exercise. And I thought I'd do that Monday through Friday without fail. And so you know one example would be tonight. Actually a lie. I didn't do it at 830 this morning.

Stuart Cooke (44:59.523)
Okay.

Ryan Hurst (45:24.154)
The reason why is my daughter wanted to work out with me today. So I picked her up after school and we went to the gym. So I worked out a little earlier, pardon me, a little later in the day. But still that incorporated the movements that I just described. And so it was more dynamic. It was actually the conditioning movements from this new program. I mentioned triple shot because she really wanted to get her sweat on. So was like, okay, cool. But we're still looking at these hinging patterns.

level changes, jumping, rotational, diagonal sling movements we're using within this framework, if you will. my training is, go ahead, go ahead, yes.

Stuart Cooke (45:58.873)
Mm.

Stuart Cooke (46:06.216)
Are you looking, sorry, sorry to interrupt, just thinking, are you looking to maintain or build or progressively build?

Ryan Hurst (46:17.446)
So I've actually stopped chasing skills in terms of, you know, one-arm handstands used to be something I absolutely love. You know, my one-arm chin-ups, planches, planche push-ups, you know, things like that. I haven't done those for years. The reason why is I think they're great movements. They just don't serve me right now. And so what I'm looking at right now again is I guess you would say maintaining, of course. I want to maintain.

Stuart Cooke (46:21.709)
Yeah.

Stuart Cooke (46:39.278)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (46:47.738)
But more importantly for me is I want to feel better after my session than I did before. And I know that might sound weird but what I'm getting at is if I'm in the middle of doing something and I'm like man my shoulder just whatever it doesn't matter what it is I'll stop that movement and find something that doesn't aggravate my shoulder. And my shoulders not sore but I'm just giving an example there. So really what I'm after is if it's if it's a push day.

And on a piece of paper it says, you know, ring push-ups with rings turned out extension at the top. And I'm doing that and it starts to aggravate my shoulder then I'm going to be like, all right, I'm just going to do a different pushing movement today that's going to be better for my shoulder. so in that regard, yes, I'm still trying to build, but it's more a matter of maintaining my health and, keeping my body in a way where I can continue to go.

Because again, this resiliency is so important because I do get on the mat and I'm wrestling and I'm grappling and my son is a wrestler 15 years old and he's getting strong. And we wrestle and like I want to be able to continue to do that. So I'm actually not looking at building muscle. I'm looking at not losing muscle and continuing to stay strong but strong in a way that still allows me to grapple, to strike, to...

Stuart Cooke (47:58.926)
Mm.

Stuart Cooke (48:09.433)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (48:16.895)
throw, you know, to do all those things that I want to do. I hope that answered your question.

Stuart Cooke (48:20.376)
Yeah, it does. No, very smart indeed. We are coming up on time, but there's a question I always like to ask my guests, which is really relates to your daily non-negotiables. And that can be completely outside of what you do for work and more for pleasure and more for...

more to enable you to crush your day and it could be the little things like you get outside and you like to stare at the sun for five minutes, write a few notes and go and drink a green smoothie. Something along those lines. What might those curve balls be for you?

Ryan Hurst (48:51.106)
Yeah.

I'm pretty boring right now in my life because I have my little routine. I wouldn't say routine, but it's kind of the things that non-negotiable. In the morning when I get up, I've got to have my espresso. I drink a single shot espresso in this tiny, tiny cup and I sit there and talk with my wife and that's it. We both get up pretty early. And then after that, I take the kids to school, but I have to go on the walk with my dog and we go out into the woods.

Stuart Cooke (49:09.39)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (49:24.814)
have to do that and then I have to 830 in the morning do whatever exercise I'm doing and I finish up with Zen meditation and then the rest of the day doesn't matter like literally like that's what I do and those days where I don't really have that I still good but doesn't feel complete for me to be honest so yeah yeah

Stuart Cooke (49:47.255)
Yeah, okay, no, that's perfect. So I want to just dive into that meditation component a little bit. How long, what type?

Ryan Hurst (49:53.219)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (49:58.532)
Yes, so I do four hours. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Everybody, what the heck? So I actually don't sit that long anymore. So when I first went to Japan, I went over and I went over there for uni and I went to a school up north and I was what's called an uchi deshi, which is a living student for martial arts. And this was part of in the martial arts is like, hey, we're going to be

Stuart Cooke (50:01.113)
yeah. Yeah, what?

Ryan Hurst (50:28.228)
meditating before you know, I was like I had no idea what was going on. But then later when I moved to Osaka, I really got into Zen meditation and so, whoops, just dropped my pen. But the style that I do now is very different to be honest than the typical focus on the breath, gradually work on just letting those thoughts pass by as if you're, you know.

Sitting on the hill, watching the cars go by and just letting those thoughts just kind of move through. Right now what I'm really focused on is I have three things that I say to myself in order to help me to become the person that I want to continue to be and work towards being better. So I have I am statements, I use those three. And when I sit, I sit on my zapoton, my zazen pillow.

and know, lotus position, standard zen position, but what I'm doing is using these mantras if you will. And I just focus on the breath. And so the breath inhale is I am and the exhale is that particular thing, which I won't share because personal, but yeah. And I'll sit for 20 minutes. And the thing of it is it's pretty wild because I don't even time myself now. It just kind of ends up being right around 20 minutes and

Stuart Cooke (51:41.153)
Yeah, sure.

Stuart Cooke (51:52.887)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (51:54.315)
I'm like, okay, I'm good. And so some days of course is a little bit longer. Some days is a little bit longer, but a little bit shorter, a little bit longer. But yeah, I've been doing this for a long time now, like a really long time. And it has changed considerably over the years. But yeah, I mean, at least COVID from COVID, I'm allowed to say that. I don't even know. But.

Stuart Cooke (51:56.227)
That's excellent.

Stuart Cooke (52:21.442)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (52:23.115)
Some people are like, no, don't say that, but yeah. But really, I just keep it simple. just really, it's the breath, you know, and posture, posture, of course, so important. Good posture and the mental state is I'm very much into where am I mentally and making sure that pushing out negative thoughts if they happen, which they typically don't because I'm focusing on my mantras anyway.

Stuart Cooke (52:24.877)
Don't say that. No,

Stuart Cooke (52:48.675)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (52:49.002)
And so just those three things over and over and over over over and over and then boom, it's like, it's 20 minutes. So yeah.

Stuart Cooke (52:55.309)
Yeah, no, that is, it's a practice that comes up a lot in the questions that I ask all of my guests. it's, yeah, it's one of those things that typically are non-negotiable and that really does make in that minimal effective dose. Pull in 10 minutes of quiet time and the whole day just works.

Ryan Hurst (53:01.317)
okay, great. That's fabulous.

Ryan Hurst (53:11.778)
yeah, absolutely. And I do that, you know, if I don't travel as much as I used to, but I love being on airplanes because I can just sit there and I, yeah, cause I can meditate.

Stuart Cooke (53:20.035)
Mm.

Stuart Cooke (53:23.275)
really? Right, okay, just do your own thing.

Ryan Hurst (53:27.338)
And yeah, and most people are like, I hate flying and they get stressed out. And I'm just like, this is my time. This is awesome. You know, I'm like, this is great. yeah. Yeah.

Stuart Cooke (53:34.032)
Bring it on. Extended meditation. I love it. What's next? What have you got on the calendar for the... I mean, we're coming up to the end of the year, but I guess you mentioned the program, like the cardio based program.

Ryan Hurst (53:48.396)
Yes, we do. We're very excited about this program. It's been a while since we put out a program of this size. I'm just thrilled. I just really love what I'm doing and sharing this. So, you know, what's next? To be perfectly honest, I just want to continue to share with people who need this, to be honest. You know, I'm not pushing this on anybody.

Stuart Cooke (54:12.877)
Yeah.

Ryan Hurst (54:15.948)
But I really do believe that there's a lot of people out there who need to move better and need to just feel better in their bodies. You know, not stop what they're doing with their sport or whatever else they do, but really, really look at how they're moving and how not being able to move is affecting everything else. so really that's what I'm trying to do right now. I'm just really trying to step up my game and I'm kind of doubling down with GMB at the moment.

and looking forward to whatever's going to be coming.

Stuart Cooke (54:50.923)
Yeah, whatever comes over the hill. So for all of our listeners that want to get more of you, your message, your personal stuff, GMB fitness, all the courses that we've spoken about today, and of course we'll put all this in the show notes, where should we send them?

Ryan Hurst (55:06.272)
GMB Fitness literally we're not on Twitter, but anything else if you were to just type in GMB Fitness This will come up and Yeah, that's it Instagram YouTube I'm trying to put out a video every Wednesday which would be your your Thursday actually and so I'm trying to go out every Wednesday, you know Instagram just

Facebook, whatever, GMB Fitness, check it out, yeah.

Stuart Cooke (55:37.027)
Brilliant, fantastic. We will spread the word. And I've dialled into a lot of your videos before as just in preparation for this and there is a huge amount of learnings in there. So it's a fantastic resource that's available to everybody 24 seven. So thank you so much for what you do and I really appreciate your time. hopefully we will cross paths again in the future but until that time, thanks again.

Ryan Hurst (55:49.122)
Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Ryan Hurst (55:58.303)
Yes!

Thank you.