Chip Conrad digs movement, music, and mutts, along with being a perpetual student of a dizzying array of strength and flux outlets, he has a hankering for physical culture history, having studied with Jan and Terry Todd, Mel Siff, and Tommy Kono, among many others. He’s competed and coached nationally and internationally in multiple strength sports but won’t let any of that get in the way of a good tumble, tree climb, or river dip. He is the founder of BodyTribe in its many incarnations, including an actual gym of almost 20 years, some books, some DVDs, and now a new series on YouTube called BodyTribe Anywhere, in which he, after turning 50, travels the country doing groovy workouts in interesting locations while sometimes interviewing important strength philosophers.
Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Chip Conrad about how fitness should be fun.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
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Links Mentioned:
bodytribe.com
Connect with Steven:
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Xeroshoes.com
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Episode Transcript
Steven Sashen:
You’ve probably read books, or taken classes, or worked with trainers, something that you’re trying to do to get fit. What if the entire fitness industry is basically wrong? That’s what we’re going to be talking about on today’s episode of The MOVEMENT Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body, usually starting feet first, because those things are your foundation. We’re going to break down the propaganda, the mythology, often the outright lies you’ve been told about what it takes to run, or walk, or hike, or play, or do yoga, across whatever it is you like to do. And to do that enjoyably, effectively, efficiently, did I mention enjoyably? I know I did, it’s a trick question. Because look, if you’re not having fun, do something different until you are, you’re not going to keep doing it, if you’re not feeling good… won’t keep doing it if you’re not having a good time, there we go, that was English.
I’m Steven Sashen from xeroshoes.com, your host of The MOVEMENT Movement podcast. And we call it that because we are creating a movement, and that we includes you. It’s easy, it’s free, I’ll tell you more in a second. Now, about natural movement, we’re helping people rediscover that natural movement, letting your body do what it was designed to do is the better obvious, healthy choice, the way people currently think of natural food. And the way that you can participate in that movement is just spread the word, share like, review, et cetera. Go to dubdubdub.jointhemovementmovement.com to find previous episodes, all the ways you can interact with the podcast. Again, there’s nothing to pay, there’s no fees, it’s just, spread the word about natural movement. What else can I say about that? Oh yeah, and again, like, share, review, all those things you know how to do. In short, if you want to be part of the tribe, just subscribe. So, Chip, welcome.
Chip Conrad:
Hey. Thank you.
Steven Sashen:
This is the first time I’ve seen a human being this close in quite a while, it’s all very exciting. Tell people who the hell you are and what you’re doing here.
Chip Conrad:
I have no idea. I’m Chip Conrad. I have a training concept that I use called BodyTribe Fitness. I created it many, many years ago. I had a gym for 18 years. Pandemic said, maybe you want to do other things. And so, I did other things. I teach workshops on movement and strength all around the country, I’m a competitive strength athlete. And I kind of want to tweak the system.
Steven Sashen:
So, given that we started the conversation or at least started the whole thing by saying the fitness century is wrong, aka upside down or whatever, however else we want to frame that. And given that what you just said sounds like you’re a part of the said fitness industry, would you like to clarify for the people who are wondering, what the?
Chip Conrad:
Yeah, that’s fair. I’ve always been a bit of an outlier, and on the fringes of the, what we jokingly call the fitness-industrial complex, and the goal was always to try to offer something that’s actually different. And so, although we still had a product that was fitness-related, we defined it differently, we defined strength differently, and we pursued it differently. And it involved, you mentioned enjoyment, you even said it twice, and
Steven Sashen:
And in fact, one of the reasons we’re having this conversation is when I got introduced to you, I saw that that was something you really focused on, and that’s why we’re here. So say more about the enjoyment part, but also get a little more specific about the what’s different part aside from that, if there is anything other than that.
Chip Conrad:
I believe the industrial complex, as I call it, doesn’t necessarily pursue joy. In fact, it’s-
Steven Sashen:
Wait, are you suggesting that people have adopted no pain no gain as a mantra because some company that I won’t mention spent billions of dollars suggesting that’s the only way that you can get fit and healthy.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah. Go figure. If you look at the hyperbole for a lot of current gym dogma, it’s all about hardcore, extreme. And 85%, roughly 85% of our culture doesn’t participate in purposeful movement, gym memberships or whatever. That means there’s 15%. It’s been that way for decades. And so, we’re doing something wrong, the industry, and I want to separate myself from that now, and I’m trying to deliver a different product. And so, if our welcome wagon isn’t very authentic.
Steven Sashen:
Welcoming.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah, very welcoming. If it’s not offering an authentic experience, then why would that 85% want to join? At this point, it’s kind of the 15% selling to itself over and over again. Oh, you’re in the 15%, cool, let’s get you new gear, let’s get you not just a gym membership, but also that yoga club membership, let’s see how many categories, and products, and ways to make a product out of movement that we can possibly give you.
Steven Sashen:
So, say more then about how you’re injecting this whole enjoyment piece into the puzzle. And again, the things that you’re, if there’s anything else on the more technical side that you’re doing that’s different, since you are talking about being contrarian, how you want to delineate that as well.
Chip Conrad:
Well, one of the things I do see a lot is the industry really makes a big point of packaging movement. And as soon as you start packaging movement and you give it labels, you’re actually offering limitations.
Steven Sashen:
Like give me an example.
Chip Conrad:
Yoga, CrossFit, powerlifting, anytime you hear a category or a label, you’re actually buying into its limitations, not investing in its possibilities necessarily because every one of those has limitations. If you’re doing yoga, you’re missing out on a whole bunch of other things in life. If you’re doing CrossFit, you’re missing out on a whole bunch of things. And so, what I want to do is focus on skills. What are the skills we could learn that would give us at least a foundation to then go try anything? And so, exploration is really big on my list because that’s where enjoyment is. If we explore, we can find some fun out there.
Steven Sashen:
That’s an interesting thing. One of the things that I’ve noticed is that people are looking for simple answers. And when I say people, I just mean humans, we’re wired for this. We’re wired to think, here’s a goal that I want to achieve, there’s got to be a step-by-step path of getting there. And if you can present at least the idea that there is a step-by-step path, a fixed rigid thing with those boundaries that you’re talking about, we get that.
Chip Conrad:
I think you hit upon the key word though, and that’s goals. A lot of people, generally, humans want the simple answer, as you mentioned. The thing is, they don’t know what the goals are. You can’t really pursue a goal if you don’t have much experience in that particular thing. And so we’re sold the goals first.
Steven Sashen:
For most people, of course, they’re thinking they either want to look better, lose weight, or do something that they think is going to make them healthier in some imagined future.
Chip Conrad:
Right. Without defining what healthier necessarily is. They’re sold the idea of what healthy is. I mean, we’re actually given the marketing for it, and so, they buy into that, they invest into what they believe healthier is.
Steven Sashen:
Wait, are you suggesting that the entire world of testosterone replacement therapy or hormone replacement therapy may just be catering to an ill-defined goal about what that will give you? I’m just throwing that out-
Chip Conrad:
Ill-defined, gosh, how dare you say that? I’d say the vast majority of what happens in the fitness industry is ill-defined.
Steven Sashen:
I don’t know why that one just popped into my mind, but I mean there’s so many… it’s funny I read something recently from someone who’s a big deal paleo guy, who, when I first met this guy 10, 11 years ago, my first thought, and he’s a good 10, 15 years older than I am, I don’t know, somewhere around 10 years older than I am, my first thought was, what’s he juicing with? And not too long ago put out a blog post about how taking supplemental testosterone is actually paleo. Well, that was kind of my reaction.
Chip Conrad:
Oh, boy.
Steven Sashen:
But again, it’s like people have this idea, I mean, it’s just one of those contexts where people think, it’s definitely going to make me healthier, and it’s not very defined what the healthy part is. And of course, some of the long-term consequences depending on what you’re taking are completely not… we don’t have that data because people haven’t been doing it that long. So, that’s a really interesting one for ill-defined goals. Other than sexual performance, that’s like the only goal that is… not actually for that, sexual performance, losing fat, and gaining muscle, those are basically the three things that people say… that’s the pitch for doing testosterone replacement therapy. And of course, people then say, well, that must be healthier.
Chip Conrad:
Well, and two of those at least are the pitch for fitness in general.
Steven Sashen:
Sexual performance.
Chip Conrad:
Okay, all three of those. Well, because ultimately most of what is sold to us as goal of fitness is what the mirror and the scale tells you.
Steven Sashen:
Right.
Chip Conrad:
And then they have to package it, so you don’t feel… We’re in an age now, back in the ’80s, that was all you needed, but now we’re in an age where we feel guilty if we want that vanity. And so, we have to repackage the vanity by saying, oh, it’s also healthier, oh, it’s empowering, or whatever catchphrase you happen to pick. And so, we can thank ourselves, pat ourselves on the back, by going, well, I’m getting healthy by being in the gym, when in reality it’s just the scale and the mirror that we’re trying to change.
Steven Sashen:
So, let’s dive into some specifics. We talked about, one way of bringing enjoyment into the mix is related to bringing skills in rather than packaged plans. So, talk to me about, somebody comes in to work with you in whatever context they’re doing that, whether it’s online, in-person, net, or whatever. So let’s talk about what skills means from your perspective and how we start to bring that into play.
Chip Conrad:
I have a basic collection of foundation skills that I think we should all be pursuing to some degree. It’s funny that we actually have a direct correlation in our ideas because you always talk about, start from the feet up.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Chip Conrad:
I think start from the ground up. And so, no matter what level somebody is, in terms of their athletic performance or skills, when they come to me, we start the same, and that’s on the ground. Because as humans, we’re scared to get on the ground, as westernized adult humans, we’re scared to get on the ground.
Steven Sashen:
I spend a lot of time sitting on the ground. Even though we have a couch in our room where we have our television, I often find myself sitting on the floor doing various things. And almost every time I do it, I think, I never saw adults doing this when I was growing up.
Chip Conrad:
Exactly. And it’s still pretty rare. And especially in westernized cultures, because if you start traveling-
Steven Sashen:
Oh yeah, all the time.
Chip Conrad:
… people are on the ground all the time, because it’s a great way to… it’s just grounded. To use the word grounded literally, it grounds you and it can be very comfortable, but it’s also a great way to embrace one form of movement, let’s start moving on the ground. And if you know people who do sports that are related to the ground, wrestling, jiu-jitsu, parkour, or things like that, they just move better.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. Well, they have a bigger repertoire of movements to draw from.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah, exactly.
Steven Sashen:
I think if I was a gymnast, and I don’t know anyone who isn’t or wasn’t a gymnast who doesn’t, wait, let me see if I can get that right, every gymnast that I know finds himself thinking at some point, I got to get upside down, and I’ve never heard a non-gymnast utter anything like that.
Chip Conrad:
Oh yeah, exactly. And you’ll see that some of the things that are upside down, I think is important, hanging and swinging from things I think is important. And these are things that adults don’t do. In fact, when I walk into a gym, I automatically look up to see if there’s anything to climb on and get on. And most gyms, there’s not. You’re working your average gym, maybe there’s some pull-up bars, beyond that, unless you go to a specialized climbing gym or a parkour gym, there’s nothing to get up on. And I think that’s part of our skills. So, we start on the ground, and we work on getting up from the ground and onto things. Then, of course, I also do think that there’s some skills in being able to move objects. And so, the three, I always say, and these are just skill categories, there’s a lot of sub categories, but one is, pick something up, put it over your head, carry it. And so, the first three foundations are roll, crawl, and get up.
Steven Sashen:
Interesting.
Chip Conrad:
And then those are the basic six foundations. And what’s interesting is when you work with athletes, even super, in fact, when you work with high-level athletes, they’re going to be very specialized in maybe one or two of those categories, take the Olympic weightlifting, pick something up from the ground, put it over your head. Take strongman, pick something up, put it over your head, and carry it. Take powerlifting, maybe pick something up from the ground. So you’re going to take these elite athletes, and they have a few of the categories. If you see a pie chart, those pie chart slices are huge, and the others are gone, if they’re there at all.
And so, I want to take everybody, no matter who comes to me, we go back to the ground or we go back to the basics, we make sure that we have some modicum of ability on all of those because that gives us more possibility. And for me, possibility is where joy is found. If you’re too specialized, you’re actually losing it. It could be for running, it could be for CrossFit, it could be for yoga, if you’re specializing in that, again, you’ve bought the limitations, you’ve invested in its limitations, not its possibilities. So, my programming, I do actually program stuff, but it all comes from the idea of these skills. Let’s all bring these skills up. Then, if we have a base level of these skills, and we want to go try some stuff and specialize in some stuff, we have at least some idea of our body to go do that.
Steven Sashen:
So, somebody comes, again, comes to work with you, we know that we’re going to start on the ground, working on, we’re rolling, getting up, what was the one that I missed? Crawling.
Chip Conrad:
Crawling.
Steven Sashen:
Rolling, crawling, getting up. So again, I’d love you to give people an idea of how they could explore this, whether they’re, we’ll talk about how they might interact with you later, but if they’re going to do this, talk about, again, the fun and enjoyment. Pardon me, look, I get it, because rolling around, and crawling, and all those things are terribly fun, at least for me, but for someone to not turn it into a rigid program of crawling, rolling, getting up, let’s give them a flavor, something they can do to feel that enjoyment to get started with the fun component.
Chip Conrad:
There’s a thing that adults instantly do, and that’s fear everything, and they fear being a beginner. And so, one of the greatest things I want people to be experts in is being a beginner. If we can all become experts at being a beginner, the world opens up to us. And so, when I get people moving… The other thing, I’m going to be all over the place because I’m just going to draw on my diatribes here, the other thing that the industry does that I think is very wrong, is it introduces people to movement by teaching them exercise. The very first thing it does is teach exercise. Now, all exercise is movement, but not all movement is exercise. So I think a trainer’s job is to teach movement first because we’re supposed to ultimately make them movers.
So, I just get people moving on the ground. I have a system that I use that I’m not telling the person because I don’t want them to think it’s a system, it’s a process, and so, we just start doing a few things. For instance, we just start in a basic cradle roll, grab our knees, and just start rolling on the ground. That leads to the next thing, which is rolling into another position, and then rolling into a position where you can actually come up. Now, if they can’t do any of those, I know ahead of time. I don’t have to say, stop, you can’t do it. I can progress them through that without it being exercised, without it being a judgment. Oh my gosh, assessment testing is a thing that I think is a detriment to getting people interested in movement. Because being tested without being taught anything, what class has ever done that? You go to a math class, you take all the information, then you’re tested. You go to calculus, you go to biology, whatever class you took in school, they gave you the information, then they tested you. You go to a trainer now, they start testing you right out of the bat. We can assess without having to test.
I mean, if we’re movement experts, get on the move, and then we can learn about them. At the same time, we’re teaching them how to move. And it’s kind of playful. If you’re on the ground rolling around, you’re probably going to giggle a little. It’s just kind of goofy. And that’s the thing, there’s goofy elements in it, and we just are having fun. Part of the reason adults initially fear it is because they don’t want to look silly.
Steven Sashen:
Oh dude. When I’m teaching people how to run naturally, or especially if I’m going to teach them how to run barefoot, one of the things I do is we go out to a park, take off your shoes, and I go, “Just pretend you’re like a two-year-old, so your head is way too big for your body.” And the way two-year-olds move is they kind of lean forward or lean in some direction head first, and then try to catch up to their giant heads, which they can’t do, and then they move their head in some other direction, like their arms are kind of flailing.
And I go, “So let’s just do that, and we’re going to do it until you stop…” I don’t say it this way, but we do it until people stop caring if anyone else is watching, and stop caring if it’s right or not, until it just becomes goofy and fun. And I say, “Look, if anyone’s watching, guaranteed, they won’t recognize you. And so, you’ll never see them again, so who gives a crap? And if they do, they’re going to think, God, it looks like you were having a lot of fun.”
Chip Conrad:
Do you remember the Phoebe run from Friends?
Steven Sashen:
No.
Chip Conrad:
Oh my gosh.
Steven Sashen:
Wait, hold on, I was singing Smelly Cat.
Chip Conrad:
Oh, my gosh.
Steven Sashen:
I swear to God, I was singing Smelly Cat this morning, so I love that you brought that up. So, no, what did she do?
Chip Conrad:
The Phoebe run, she was out running with one of the other friends, I don’t remember, and she just had this ridiculous run. It just looked ridiculous. And her friend, I don’t remember which one it was, Monica or whatever, wouldn’t run with her for a while. But then Phoebe explained, “I’m just having a good time, who’s to say what’s right or wrong?”
Steven Sashen:
That’s great.
Chip Conrad:
And then, of course, Monica tries it and has a fun doing it, and then they run into each other in the middle of the park going crazy, and then-
Steven Sashen:
I love that.
Chip Conrad:
And I think that’s great. We should normalize what is kind of considered a little ridiculous, because if we think about what’s actually done in the gym, it’s kind of ridiculous.
Steven Sashen:
I had this argument with some guys who are all about, it wasn’t functional movement, but it was basically, what did our ancestors do? And I said, “Let’s just call a spade, a spade, we can’t fake it, we can’t imitate that. It’s not the same when you are climbing a tree to get food from that tree or escape something, or it’s not the same when you’re carrying rocks from the river up to where you’re building a house or where you’re… The movements that we’re doing, the exercises that we’re doing are even one giant step removed from that, but even the ones that people do when it’s about doing things naturally are a little artificial.”
Chip Conrad:
Yeah. Yeah. And if you look at the actual gym culture of what’s supposed to be normal, you’re picking something up and then putting it back down again over and over, or maybe you’re sitting on this machine where you don’t have to do much of anything except push a lever. It’s a heavy lever, but you got to push a heavy lever. How is that not ridiculous?
Steven Sashen:
It’s a good point.
Chip Conrad:
And you were talking about, we are removed from the primal thing. In fact, the word primal is always a little weird, because, yeah, we’ve got this basic DNA that we’re all still holding onto, but we have evolved in terms of creating a whole different world. And to think that the primal self is going to adapt to that whole different world, no, it’s a modern… we should give ourselves credit in other words, we’ve gone beyond the primal. And so, I mean, if you look at sports today and a lot of what’s happening, that wouldn’t have happened hundreds of thousands of years ago. This strongman community is doing amazing things, the running community is doing things that probably have never been done.
Steven Sashen:
This is actually the whole premise behind… So Dr. Daniel Lieberman from Harvard, his latest book is called Exercised, Exercised with a D at the end. I wish I could remember the subtitle, but it’s something like, why it is that we do these things that we didn’t evolve to do? The book has very contrarian principles in it, including that what we’re doing right now, sitting, everyone says, sitting is the new smoking and it’s horrible. It’s like, no, not really, our ancestors just spent a lot of time sitting, they just also moved around a lot. They weren’t just sitting in a fixed position. So yeah, things have evolved quite a bit.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah. And we should probably give ourselves a little pat on the back for some of that. We are evolving creatures and it’s awesome. Yes, we got stuff that we can probably hold on to, we should play on the ground, and we should crawl and stuff.
Steven Sashen:
Let’s talk about playing on the ground a little more because it just-
Chip Conrad:
I’m a fan.
Steven Sashen:
I know. You just made me think of watching primates, watching baby chimps, is what was actually the image of my head, and it’s just a lot of rolling around, and not just rolling around, being pushed around when you’re on the ground. And, I mean, it’s an interactive thing as well, not just you doing your own, whatever you’re doing, but the ground is critical, and that’s how it all starts, that level of play. And I just love that image in my mind of baby chimps.
Chip Conrad:
You can’t not love baby chimps.
Steven Sashen:
I know. I don’t have much on my bucket list, playing with a baby chimp-
Chip Conrad:
Oh my God.
Steven Sashen:
… it’s on my bucket list.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah, all right, I’m going to put it on mine now. My name is only one letter away from chimp, so.
Steven Sashen:
That’s a good point.
Chip Conrad:
And we now are just looking off in the distance pondering-
Steven Sashen:
Chimp.
Chip Conrad:
Chimp, Chip.
Steven Sashen:
Sheep. I can’t think of any others.
Chip Conrad:
No, that’s about it. When we play on the ground and we move on the ground, we have less fear of the ground, when we have less fear of the ground, we’re more capable to explore other things. I mean, one of the reasons… Do you ever post something on the internet and then, being somebody who moves a lot and explores a lot, you post something on the internet and somebody inevitably is going to say, oh, my back hurts just looking at that. Somebody always has to throw that comment. Great, I’m super proud that you’re disabled that way, okay? I’m super proud for your dysfunction that you don’t move well.
Steven Sashen:
You know what it is? I think it’s different. I mean, I want to hear where you’re going, and one of the things that human beings do that I find really weird is we bond over limitations and problems.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah, yeah.
Steven Sashen:
It makes sense because when the world was a very unsafe place, that’s a smart thing to do to share the what’s the problem, but now the world is pretty safe and yet we still do this, we bond over limitations and problems. I find that really confusing. I don’t find it confusing. I find it really unethical.
Chip Conrad:
To the point where we compete as to who has the biggest limitation.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Chip Conrad:
I mean, it becomes a game of a status, and that’s weird. But if we aren’t scared of the ground, if we aren’t scared of tumbling and rolling, and actually falling, we learn to fall properly, we have a whole new world of possibility above the ground open to us. I think that’s the biggest thing I notice with people when I work with them for the first time, even if they have a huge gym background, they don’t know how to fall or how to be part of the ground. And it’s a whole new experience, and it’s either scary or it’s enjoyable, and I try to make it a little bit of both, because I think that’s a good place to be.
Steven Sashen:
It’s that edge of pushing just a little bit to kind of test the limits. I mean, this is the part where we’re thinking of, we think about enjoyment as part of the mix, like having a bigger repertoire, and then once you have that, then kind of seeing what’s next. So we’re going to start getting off the ground, what are we doing then?
Chip Conrad:
Then you start seeing the world as your playground. I like to think of it this way, when we were children, at least when we were children, I’m guessing, but I don’t know what kids are doing these days, I don’t know how old you are, I’m 51.
Steven Sashen:
Chip Conrad:
Okay. So when we were kids, we have far fewer boundaries. A friend of mine says that our boundaries are much greater.
Steven Sashen:
Totally.
Chip Conrad:
In other words, now, I don’t know if you can go down the street without your mom saying, hey, you can’t go down the street that far, the end of the block. I grew up in Hawaii, and I found out it was this way in other parts of the U.S. where you just went and you came back later in the day, and then you just explored.
Steven Sashen:
Well, you know you had that ocean to keep you on the island.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah, no, we honestly went up the mountains in the morning, down at the beach in the afternoon and we could explore, we had those boundaries. And I want us, as adults, to see the world that way now, because if we look outside, I mean, I’m looking at the picture behind you, and I’m thinking, look at all the places to play in that picture.
Steven Sashen:
Wait, for people who are watching, here it is.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Okay.
Chip Conrad:
And I was hiking at the Pueblo Reservoir where I camped last night, and it looked a little bit, there’s parts of it that look a little bit like that. And I just want us to look at that and go, where can I go? And that’s a concept we use in my gym a lot, we call it, where can we go from here? Okay, you can do that, where can you go from here? And you see a lot, especially on that, when gyms closed, did you see how people freaked out when the pandemic hit and all the gyms closed? And all the gym people thought, what am I going to do?
Steven Sashen:
Right.
Chip Conrad:
And my gym folks were like, oh, well, we know what to do, we’ve been training for what to do, get the hell out of the gym.
Steven Sashen:
Funny.
Chip Conrad:
That’s what the gym’s for. We don’t live for the gym, we use the gym to go live.
Steven Sashen:
I have to tell you, I have a moderately extensive home gym that I’ve put together, but the joke is I don’t do workouts. The gym is, I have to walk by it basically four or five times a day, and every time I walk by, I just do something, whatever it is that catches my attention.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah, okay.
Steven Sashen:
And so, even though some of the movements are relatively prescribed, I mean, some of them very much so because I’m doing them explicitly for becoming a better sprinter, for example. But nonetheless, if it becomes like work, I just don’t want to do it.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah. Yeah. If we can get people to understand that the gym and the workouts are simply to make us better movers to then go have a life outside the gym, the gym is not our movement practice, the workout is not our movement practice, it’s just training to go have a movement practice. And any other skills like that, you apprentice at a skill so you can go actually do the skill. Why don’t we treat the gym like that? But for so many people, and you saw this when the pandemic hit, everybody freaked out because the gym is their movement practice, and for the gyms to close, everybody… that’s how invested they are in the fitness-industrial complex.
Steven Sashen:
How much of that do you think is also just the social component of going to the gym?
Chip Conrad:
Sometimes, yes. For as much as I think they’ve done wrong, CrossFit has done right in one thing, and that’s created a community, and they taught other gyms how to do that. Because up until that point, a community would grow in a gym by luck.
Steven Sashen:
Right. You see the same guy.
Chip Conrad:
Exactly, you see the same people. I remember working in gyms back in the ’90s, and you see the same people all the time, you wave and say hi, and that was it. You felt comfortable because you saw the same people, but it really wasn’t a community. And that still exists in a lot of gyms, they’re not really communities except for that new model that CrossFit introduced about 27 years ago. And because of that, now people are missing the community aspect. So, why can’t they do that outside of the gym now? Why aren’t they taking those movers in the gym and going with them somewhere else? Like I know of great hiking communities, great parkour communities, great running communities, even great lifting communities. I have a lot of friends in California that when I left there, they were building these lifting communities, and they got together, and they had their strongman weekends together. And they’re still doing that now. In fact, I’m going back to go hang out with them a little bit.
Steven Sashen:
So, backing up then, so we’re off the ground, we’re into whatever above the ground is, what are some of the things, the skills that people are playing with there?
Chip Conrad:
The first one, there’s a category I call rise, and rise has multiple subcategories. One, is get up off the ground, two, is get up out of a seat, which is a squat. And I think squatting is an important skill. We focus on it maybe too much sometimes and we become squatters, and when the skill becomes the goal, then you’re starting to miss out. I call it the 800-pound squat syndrome when you… I’ve taught a lot of powerlifters, I’ve done a lot of powerlifting, and I’ve worked with a lot of 800-pound squatters, they get to the point where the squat is all they want to do. They’re working so hard on making their squat better, the squat is no longer making them better, because the squat can make us better, but there’s a point where we become a little obsessed with it and all the other stuff disappears, so the squats are no longer making them better.
But as a general skill, we should all be able to squat. So we should be able to get up out of a seated position and then we should be able to get up onto things, and that’s the fun one for me.
Steven Sashen:
So, getting up-
Chip Conrad:
I’m a climber. Not just a rock climber, but I’m a climber, trees, rocks-
Steven Sashen:
Let’s just say, if we’re getting up onto things, we’re either climbing or jumping.
Chip Conrad:
There’s jumping, there’s landing, there’s holding on and grabbing, there’s swinging. I mean, if you think of your average American Ninja Warrior course, that’s a fun version of getting up on things.
Steven Sashen:
I hate them. You know why? I’ll tell you why.
Chip Conrad:
I don’t know.
Steven Sashen:
Of course, you don’t know why. And by the way, we have a bunch of ninja warriors who love our shoes and we’re supporting them, so it’s not that I really hate them, it’s just that, what I really mean by when I say I hate them is, I hate the fact that I can’t be a ninja warrior. And the reason I can’t be a ninja warrior is that those courses really give precedence for grip, and upper body strength, and endurance, and I don’t have that. Any of the lower body stuff, any of the sort of gymnastic things, of course, I’m all in, but if I’ve got to be holding onto something for a minute, I’m in the water. So, I’m jealous, is what it really is, that’s why I hate it.
Chip Conrad:
So, bringing that up, that would be a reason I have people work on actually hanging and swinging from stuff. I mean, I want people to be able to hang from things for 30 seconds to a minute, and be able to move from that thing to something else. I don’t think a pull-up in itself is that that important. A pull-up is just simply getting up to then be able to do something else. A pull-up is like kindergarten for getting up on things. And so, working on your pull-up is great, but when I see a workout that’s like 50, 60, 80 pull-ups, at that point I’m like, why? Once you do one pull-up, maybe you do a couple more, but what’s next? Why are you doing all those pull-ups? That’s not a skill in itself necessarily. It’s great to build lats, okay, great. It’s great to build your grip, but a pull-up is simply the kindergarten skill to then be able to get up on something further.
Steven Sashen:
All right. So again, we want to give people things to do if they’re, so now they’re up, and so, let’s say a little more about climbing, and jumping, and grabbing on-
Chip Conrad:
Hang from a tree. Just grab a branch and hang. And then if you can put your feet on that tree and climb up into it, do it. But if you see, I mean, if a tree is something that you can climb, then you have this giant world of possible things to go play on out there.
Steven Sashen:
It is your obligation.
Chip Conrad:
Oh yeah, exactly.
Steven Sashen:
Backing up though, this is one of those things that I know, look, even for someone like me, whatever that means, the idea of… I mean, I spend a lot of time climbing trees, but I haven’t climbed a tree in a while. And there’s some trees, not to… Wait, I’m trying to think of when the last time was, I’m not sure there.
Chip Conrad:
There’s a couple out in your parking lot, they’re actually climbable, just letting you know.
Steven Sashen:
That’s a good point. And it’s not that I’m actually afraid of climbing the tree, but I can definitely feel the self-conscious component kicking in.
Chip Conrad:
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Steven Sashen:
In a way that-
Chip Conrad:
I couldn’t call it adult side.
Steven Sashen:
Adult side, oh, I like it. And I find it ridiculous because the number of things that I do where I’m not self-conscious, like go into stores and bare feet. But for whatever reason, I just realized tree climbing was kind of not on my radar for now, and I’m going to have to do something about that.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah, because you’re in Colorado.
Steven Sashen:
Well, yeah, that’s true. But I also just like the fact that I noticed just the idea of doing it, what it brought up, the resistance that it brought up, it’s like, well, that makes no sense, why do I have that? And am I willing to go do something fun and explore that, get over that, not care about that, whatever the that is.
Chip Conrad:
And there’s that being a beginner again.
Sometimes we fear something just because we don’t want to be a beginner at it. I get a lot of people who I train, who come to me from a time off, they were gymers, they did the gym thing with fitness-industrial complex investments for so long. Then they took, I don’t know, a month, a year or several years off for whatever reason, and then they come to me, and they explicitly tell me, “I hate the fact that I have to be a beginner at this again.” And so, I got to turn it around and go, “Why?” That means there’re so many things to do from being a beginner. When you’re an expert, there’s no place to go, once they’re a beginner-
Steven Sashen:
What’s their answer for why?
Chip Conrad:
Usually it has to do with… Okay, what I’ve noticed, their answer and how I’ve boiled it down are the same, but they sound different. Ultimately, it seems to be that our culture suppresses being a beginner and celebrates being good at stuff. And so, if we’re not the best, we’re frowned upon. And so, one of the things I want to teach people, it’s not about being the best, because there’s only one of those, it’s about being your best. And when working with high-level athletes, getting them to understand that is tough.
Steven Sashen:
Dude, I’m having a hard time with it because at 59, as a sprinter, if you look at the All-American times, or the time you have to run 100 meters or 60 meters to become an All-American, they get slower, and slower, and slower as you get older, and I’m having a tough time adjusting for that. I’m literally, because I’m at the phase now where the odds are, I’m not going to get much of any faster than I am right now, and I’ve got to slow down how much I slow down, and the adjusting to that changing goal. It’s not difficult, difficult, but it’s something that I’m very aware of. When I turned 50, I was at the first Senior Games and a bunch of 60-year-olds came up to me, and said, “Once you turn 60, it gets really bad.” Then a bunch of 80-year-olds who were listening said, “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Chip Conrad:
I just turned 50, and I’ve been hearing that since I turned 30. Every time they tell you that decade is going to be the one where it starts falling apart.
Steven Sashen:
You know, 60. It depends. I mean, there’s definitely individual difference, but statistically you see it happening. But to your point, the finding the, actually here’s my favorite part about finding the goal, finding your best, Jack LaLanne, when he was 90 something, he was on television, and they showed him, he’s still working out, so he’s on a universal gym because he helped invent it, and he’s bench-pressing. And he is working hard, hard, hard, and clearly enjoying how hard he’s working. And then I looked in the back, you could see he was lifting 20 pounds, but that was the best he could do at 90, and at 90, not bad.
Chip Conrad:
Right, right.
Steven Sashen:
But that’s a really interesting adjustment to make, to see what’s possible for you. And I’m not saying reality is going to get in the way of that, but it occurs to me that, like, if I’m starting something new, I definitely want to be good, I definitely want to impress who I’m learning from, and I know that that’s all ridiculous. When I am learning something new, I usually say that to someone, it’s like, “I want to impress you, and I know that’s really stupid, but I have to say that out loud because otherwise it’ll be this thing kind of looming over, at least in my head. And when I say it, then it becomes silly and I don’t care anymore.
Chip Conrad:
Oh, well that’s good.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Chip Conrad:
And so, I call it, and then this is a term, it’s not my term, but a lot of people refer to it as the child’s mind. And one of the reasons I love that is because children don’t judge movement, whereas somehow in the system that we have been brought up in, we judge movement as adults, and there is where the fear comes in.
Steven Sashen:
We do it as kids. So again, we’re in a similar age, did you guys have the Presidential Physical Fitness Test?
Chip Conrad:
Oh my gosh, yes.
Steven Sashen:
So that starts when you’re what? First grade, second grade?
Chip Conrad:
I think we finally got it in second or third grade, yeah.
Steven Sashen:
And so, there the judgment kicks in, right? And my favorite story about the judgment of that, we had one girl in our class, she was the one who matured before everyone else, she was 5’5″ when everyone else was two feet tall. So there’s a 600-yard run in the Presidential Physical Fitness Test, she was always last by a long shot. But the reason that we didn’t judge her for being slow, we judged her for something totally different, because she ran so slowly and her head was always down, she always found money. And so, we judged her, like we’d all finished, and looked at our times, we go, “Joy, how much money did you find?”
Chip Conrad:
She comes in with eight bucks, you’re like, no, no, no.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, it totally reframed the whole thing.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
It’s like, we want to see how much money she got.
Chip Conrad:
So, it’s interesting that you mentioned that because that Presidential Test was created by adults. Adults wanted to judge children. And I know the origins of that, Bonnie Prudden and her mentors helped usher that in. And even she got fed up with it when the government took it over, because once the government took it over, they turned it into something completely different, and she went, oh, that’s not actually what I was going for.
Steven Sashen:
Interesting.
Chip Conrad:
And that’s what happens when we adulticize something, it just gets in the way, or when the brain decides it knows better than the body, how the body should move, and that’s a big thing is we got to let the brain step out of the way sometimes. The brain can go ahead and organize it, that’s where training comes in. The brain can do the programming, but in the execution and the why, the brain needs to step out of the way.
Steven Sashen:
Granted it is your… I wish I could remember the comment, oh, is, I think Emo Philips who said something like, “The brain is the most important organ in the body, but then I thought who’s telling me that?” Which is brilliant.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
So, one of the things can we do, we’re off the ground, we’re climbing trees, so we’re climbing on things, we’re jumping on things, what else are some things that people should start playing with?
Chip Conrad:
I like to think of training as movement in general, but especially training as looking at an obstacle and it’s in your way, what are you going to do with it? You can go over it, you can go around it, you can go through it, you can move it.
Steven Sashen:
You can go under it.
Chip Conrad:
You can go under it, exactly. So, that’s kind of the fun way to look at it. Get up, get down, move it, groove it, that’s how I phrase it quickly.
Steven Sashen:
I like it.
Chip Conrad:
Get up, get down, it sounds like it should be on a song, but get up, get down, move it, groove it. How many ways can you move? Apply that to your situation? Again, I’m looking at that picture, and I’m like, oh, there’s rocks, I could pick those rocks up, I could tumble down that hill, I could just sit for a while and soak it all in, that’s okay too. Sometimes non-movement is the best movement, and that’s the big goal is, when you learn a small handful of foundation movements, then you can see the world as a playground, and just hopefully explore and want to explore. The key is getting people to understand that just a little bit of movement potential in your body will hopefully make you want to explore.
Steven Sashen:
Well, that’s what I was literally just imagining as you said that is, once you have this, what the word I’m looking for? Kind of library of skills or menu of skills, and once you’ve started to apply some of them at all and gotten over that fear of being a beginner, that fear of being judged, or not even gotten over it if you just don’t care, or you’re willing to have people judge you and all the rest and whatever, it’s like, you’re crazy. I thought so too. Then I imagine there’s an almost cumulative effect, a snowball effect where the more you do, the more you do.
Chip Conrad:
Right, right. I think that’s exactly how it works because you’ll keep asking yourself, oh, where can I go from here?
Steven Sashen:
Right.
Chip Conrad:
Oh, what’s up there? What’s down there? Can I move that? Can I get through, or around, or over that? And there’s that child’s mind again, because that’s what children do, they’re very curious. And curiosity is something that unfortunately our system tends to squeeze out of us, or makes it so rigid and systematic, and that’s a bummer.
Steven Sashen:
I have one that I just remembered that I do that I never see adults doing, that I’m going to give us a suggestion, shopping carts.
Chip Conrad:
Oh yeah, all the time.
Steven Sashen:
They’re awesome.
Chip Conrad:
I ride them all the time.
Steven Sashen:
Exactly.
Chip Conrad:
I got a picture of me in Costco riding a cart.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, yeah.
Chip Conrad:
I can’t not ride the cart.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. I’m the same way.
Chip Conrad:
And, I at first thought, yeah, people are going to look at me.
Steven Sashen:
I realized it never occurred to me in a million years. I just, you know, here’s a wheely thing that once I get it in motion, it’ll keep moving, so I’m going to jump on.
Chip Conrad:
And you know how much faster you get to your car from the store?
Steven Sashen:
I know.
Chip Conrad:
Geez.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Chip Conrad:
I mean it’s practical on top of it.
Steven Sashen:
No, I love running behind a cart, and using it to be able to run faster, or jumping on and then hoping I don’t hit somebody.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah. There’s that. I mean, steering them is tough, but it’s worth the experiment.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Chip Conrad:
There you go, we’re just going to say everybody, go push your cart and ride it.
Steven Sashen:
We are not responsible for what happens when you’ve rode your cart. What other things off the ground now that we’ve gotten off the ground or off the floor, if you will, anything else that’s popping into your head?
Chip Conrad:
The word, and this is a big word, because even though it’s almost implied in what we’re talking about, I haven’t actually mentioned it, outside. Just be outside. There’s this experience that people have when they’re outside, where they’re generally just going to feel better. And so, you know when people work out, at the end of the workout, they feel better.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Chip Conrad:
Why aren’t they feeling better during the workout, whereas when you’re outside, you just feel better.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Chip Conrad:
And so, I recommend that we just go outside, then we might start seeing what’s possible.
Steven Sashen:
And I want to highlight, and you can tell me if you agree or disagree, that going outside doesn’t have to be hiking or whatever.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah, exactly.
Steven Sashen:
Like literally just get outside.
Chip Conrad:
Open the door, step out of your house, or your building, or wherever you are, step one.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. I took a couple of things from my gym and I stuck them outside.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah, exactly.
Steven Sashen:
And I could have put them inside, but what the hell?
Chip Conrad:
I have a giant branch that serves as my barbell, and I throw cinder blocks on it. It’s on my YouTube channel, I show it a lot, and that’s my gym-
Steven Sashen:
I love it.
Chip Conrad:
… because it’s just outside, down this giant field in the middle of nowhere with some rocks around it.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, that’s great.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah. So, that’s it. I would suggest, step one, get outside. Step two, build some basic skills so you have possibility, and then step three, put that together.
Steven Sashen:
So, I have to ask this though, so we started on the ground, then we got off the ground, and we have climbing and jumping, but I can’t help but thinking that being in the air is another thing that people are unfamiliar with, it opens up a whole range of possibilities. Is that something you play with?
Chip Conrad:
How do you mean?
Steven Sashen:
I don’t know, actually, it was literally just going, if you’re going to go up, you start on the floor, then you get up, and then what’s up from there is the air.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah, yeah.
Steven Sashen:
And certainly, look as a gymnast, I can think of things that I do that other people don’t do, but that’s what made me think of it. It’s like, that’s another place where people don’t have any real familiarity with what to do. And if you’re rolling or jumping, I mean, there’s obviously an air component.
Chip Conrad:
Right. And if you know how to fall and land, maybe that takes a little bit of fear out of getting up higher.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Chip Conrad:
One of the things I always want to do is kitesurfing.
Steven Sashen:
It’s one of the things that I explicitly don’t want to do because I know myself and I would be one of those guys who starts in Maui and ends up in Kauai.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah, sure. Day one, how far can I go?
Steven Sashen:
Exactly.
Chip Conrad:
I’m just getting, oh look my kite’s up, I can jump that wave. Yeah, I get it, I get it, I’m stupid enough to do it. I don’t know if you’ve seen all the injuries I have, but that’s from me just trying stuff.
Steven Sashen:
Well, those all look like the kind of… the things that I’m seeing, it looks like the kind of stuff you get when you’re climbing onto something or carrying something, or-
Chip Conrad:
That’s exactly what these are. And then I got more in my shin and that’s… So imagine that picture behind you, me somehow falling down that clip.
Steven Sashen:
Got it.
Chip Conrad:
One of the things I learned many years ago is I thought maybe fitness would make me less clumsy, no, it just makes me graceful when I land.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, that’s nice.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
That’s all you need.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
I think actually that’s something that really is highly overrated and misunderstood, or underrated and misunderstood. People don’t get the value of learning how to roll.
Chip Conrad:
Oh, rolling.
Steven Sashen:
I mean, like starting from being upright and then, again, falling and rolling. It was one of my favorite things after doing a lot of Aikido, and of course, as a gymnast. What happens, same thing, when I fall, I don’t just plop down, I roll out.
Chip Conrad:
You roll out.
Steven Sashen:
And it’s just reflexive.
Chip Conrad:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
And that’s so important because I’m not worried about falling.
Chip Conrad:
Exactly. There’s that fear, it’s gone.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Chip Conrad:
And so, yeah, go ahead and try some stuff.
Steven Sashen:
I mean, sure, I wear a helmet on when I’m on my bike, I’m not a moron.
Chip Conrad:
Exactly. There’s external forces at play there, that you have no control over.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. But if I’m going to go over the bars, I don’t really worry about it too much.
Chip Conrad:
Right, right.
Steven Sashen:
And I try not to go over the bars,
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