Strength, Agility, and Flexibility
– The MOVEMENT Movement with Steven Sashen Episode 125 with JujiMufu
JuiMufu is an award-winning weightlifter who gained widespread recognition thanks to a viral video of him lifting 100 lbs while doing weighted chair splits. He competed on America’s Got Talent season 11 where he showcased his talent on the show by lifting Heidi Klum over his head while simultaneously doing the splits. Jujimufu became an internet sensation with his acrobatic arts known as tricking, he built an online community of followers long before the evolution of social media.
Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with JujiMufu about becoming strong, agile, and flexible.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
– How having big muscles doesn’t mean that you can’t be flexible.
– Why strength actually helps mobility and flexibility a lot.
– How everyone can do the splits, their brain simply isn’t letting them.
– Why people should think of stretching as another kind of strength exercise.
– How you must figure out where you need flexibility and then work backwards.
Connect with JujiMufu:
Guest Contact Info
Instagram
@jujimufu
Links Mentioned:
JujiMufu.com
Connect with Steven:
Website
Xeroshoes.com
Twitter
@XeroShoes
Instagram
@xeroshoes
Facebook
facebook.com/xeroshoes
Episode Transcript
Steven Sashen:
When you get to be a big strong guy, you know what comes along with that. You get muscle bound. You’re not flexible. You don’t have that agility. You can’t move or run. I mean why would you bother doing that? Because if that’s what you believe, you’re totally wrong. And you’re going to find out more about that with today’s guest, who you may know as JujiMufu, this is going to be a whole lot of fun onto days 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. You’re going to learn a whole bunch of things you didn’t know about that today. And this is usually starting feet first, because those things are your foundation. On this podcast we tend to break down the propaganda, the mythology, sometimes the lies you’ve been told about what it takes to run, or walk, or hike, or lift, or do CrossFit, or yoga, whatever it is you like to do, to do that enjoyably and effectively and efficiently.
And did I mention enjoyably? Of course, I did, because it’s a trick question. So, look, if you’re not having fun, do something different till you are, because you’re not going to keep it up if you’re not having a good time. I am Steven Sashen your host for this event. I’m the co-founder and CEO of Xeroshoes@xeroshoes.com. And more importantly, we call this the Movement Movement because we’re creating a movement that involves you. It’s free. It’s easy, I’ll tell you more in a second about natural movement, letting your body do what bodies are made to do. If you want to find out more, you can go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. Find all the previous episodes. There’s way more than I remembered.
And all the ways you can find a podcast on all the normal places. You find podcasts. And then of course our social media on Instagram and Facebook and YouTube and the movement part what you are doing to help just share, like give us a thumbs up, hit the bell on YouTube. You know what to do. If you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe. So, let’s get started. Juji it is a total pleasure to do this. We’ve had a couple of phone calls over the years. It’s our first time doing this. So total treat having you here.
JujiMufu:
Hey, thank you. That was a good intro. I was impressed. I have done a lot of podcasts and I’m just sitting here kind of cracking up at a smile like dang. It’s like he’s reading from a teleprompter or something. I know you’re not though.
Steven Sashen:
In my brain, baby.
JujiMufu:
Really good. But thanks for having me here. We’ve kept in touch here and there and it’s been great. For me it’s an honor to have the time with you because I run my own businesses. I’m an owner of two businesses and even the YouTube channel kind of counts as a business. The amount of work it is, but you’re the CEO of a shoe company man. That’s got to be hard, I’m thinking man colorways and sizes for pants and stuff is nothing compared to difficulty of being able to figure out how you’re going to do that with shoes man you got 25, 30 different sizes for how many colorways for how many styles guys that is so… I don’t want to know how hard that is.
Steven Sashen:
Well, let’s just say, I’ll say a couple things, one so we just moved into a 90,000 square foot warehouse. So that answers part of that question.
JujiMufu:
Oh my God, it’s huge.
Steven Sashen:
It’s crazy. It’s literally, it’s three. It’s about 110 meters in one direction. And I’m really bummed because I wanted to lay down a hundred meters worth of track surface so I could train indoors, but turned out that, that was going to be prohibitively expensive. So, we didn’t do that. But there’s also just the making of footwear. Footwear is really, really challenging to make. And we had guys like seven months into the business who sat down with us who said, they started at Reebok 35 years earlier. They’d been at Nike and Adi and Puma, you name it. They said to me and Lena, we believe in what you’re doing. And we believe in you guys, and we would start this business with you, but we’ve been at footwear so long that we’re not stupid enough to try and start a shoe company.
JujiMufu:
It’s kind of like, Elon Musk does cars. It’s like, wow, starting a car company and being an innovator in an industry, that’s mature already. Like you’re doing that with shoes. Shoes are no joke, man. That’s how hard industry to crack into and you came in with… When did zero shoe start?
Steven Sashen:
Well, technically we started in the end of 2009. That’s when we were just selling a do it yourself, sandal kit. And it was just, it started out we thought it would be a little lifestyle business. We did not ever imagine that we’d have 65 employees that we would hear from hundreds of thousands of people who said that doing this changed their life. We didn’t expect to find out that what the footwear industry has been doing for 50 years is frankly completely unacceptable because they know that they’re misleading people. So, it’s been a wild ride.
JujiMufu:
Wow. It’s amazing. I just want everyone watching this and kind of has some context to how amazing that is.
Steven Sashen:
Well thanks.
JujiMufu:
Your shoes are great. I’m wearing them right now. The latest ones, the 360s you sent me thank you. 10 out of 10. I can’t remember last time I had a pair of shoes that didn’t have some sort of con. Pros and cons list zero cons. This is like negative about the shoes it’s perfect. So, great job.
Steven Sashen:
Thanks. We’ve got a great design team, great development team. Things are getting better, but enough about me, let’s talk about you. So, let’s start with this thing. Many people know you from being on America’s Got Talent. And was that your first time on national TV?
JujiMufu:
The first time that I went and did a performance or something, because a lot of the footage that I’ve released over the years have been licensed to companies to resell to other companies to do ads with. So, one of the media companies that license out my footage will sell it to, I don’t know, some large company like Google. And then I will have one of my clips flashing a Google ad, which when I was sitting in my living room, and I knew this was happening for last year.
They never tell me who they sell it to. I just see some money going to the bank account randomly when the ad is done. If the money goes into the account, you can’t see the ad anymore. It’s gone, they stop airing it. So, the first time I saw one of my things appear is I’m sitting on a couch and there’s Google and there’s me. I’m like, oh, I’m getting paid, I’m getting paid real big now because Google’s a good payer and it was during the Olympics, it was aired. That was in 2000, I think 16. But America’s Got Talent was the first time I was on a show like that. Yes.
Steven Sashen:
So, let’s first describe what you did on that show because they may not put two and two together until you describe the thing that you did, I will let you have the pleasure?
JujiMufu:
Yeah. So, I just did a routine that was a mixture of acrobatics, an extreme display of flexibility and some strength and some yelling and just being a little more muscular than average and you put those things together and it’s kind of a quick way of describing what I do all right.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, since you’re not going to do it, let me do these more specific version. So, you basically stood on two folding chairs, put Heidi Klum over your head and moved the chairs out by the magic of gravity until you were doing the splits suspended by those chairs with Heidi Klum over your head.
JujiMufu:
I did the splits with the barbell overhead and then I did the splits with Heidi later. So, I didn’t have enough sense.
Steven Sashen:
So, barbell, nonetheless.
JujiMufu:
But it was funny because the producers of the show, the barbell between the chairs, the barbell waited split between chairs, it’s the hardest thing I can do. And it’s the hardest thing I have done. It is very difficult to do that skill. It takes a lot of warm up, a lot of preparation right before you do it. And it’s just fricking hard to do that. And I was worried about the chair placement and the barbell like the type and the plates and stuff. I wanted to make sure that everything was set perfectly for me when I went on stage, and they were like yeah whatever we’ll get it. And they were more worried about me dropping Heidi. I was like that was easy. I was like no. Don’t worry about that. She’s like, do you need to practice to someone?
I was like, no they were like, what do we do? They were freaking out because they didn’t understand a thing that was hard for me. They weren’t taking seriously. And the thing they thought was dangerous like lifting Heidi overhead, they thought that was the hard thing. I was like, no that’s the easy thing. I wasn’t even worried about that. That’s an easy technique pressing a human overhead and in the front splits on the ground it’s not a problem for me. But the chair splits between… The side splits between the chairs with the barbell. That’s fricking hard, man.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. Well, I just love that they let you do that. When we were on shark tank, I was going to do… I had this line when we were on shark tank about how I’m one of the fastest guys over 55 and well then over 50 in the country. And I was going to make some comment about… At that time, I was deadlifting about 424, 425. And I’m not a big guy. I was at the time 5’5 now, thanks to spinal problems. I’m like five, four and a half, but I was like 5’5′ 150. And I was expecting Mark Cuban to kind of scoff if I said I was pulling 400 plus, and my plan was to then throw him in a Fireman’s carry over my shoulders and just squat him a few times. And I told this to the producers, they’re like, whoa, no, you can’t touch the sharks. So, the fact that you put Heidi in what many people think of is a precarious position. I just thought that was just genius.
JujiMufu:
That is, yeah. I think pressing, I think Heidi is a little bit more fragile than Mark Cuban or not fragile, but precious it’s more precious than Mark Cuban.
Steven Sashen:
I don’t think Cuban ever had his legs or boobs insured. I think Heidi did both of those. I might not be totally right about that. So, let’s back up a little bit, because what we just talked about doing the splits between chairs or on the floor with some weight over your head, this is the kind of flexibility that most people. And if people are just listening to this, actually let’s do that for people who are just listening, why don’t you describe as best as you can, your size and shape?
JujiMufu:
I’m about 5’10 right now. I’m about 260. And when I first did that stunt, that was about 230. So anywhere, I’m a 230-pound dude about 5’10 doing splits between chairs. Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
And 260-ish this is not like a guy who just weighs 260. You are lean. So, this is 260 pounds of a whole lot of muscle. And again, what people associate with that is being “muscle bound”, not having flexibility, not being able to move, not being able to run or I mean a bunch of things and you prove all that wrong. So, if you can’t, again, I’m putting you on the spot. Describe just a handful of the things that you do that are the opposite of what I just laid out that people believe.
JujiMufu:
Okay. So, I’m going to go ahead and say that the flexibility and mobility being reduced as you go open size, that’s a myth. That’s just in no way man. Like bigger doesn’t mean stronger, but usually bigger muscles there’s the capacity for strength. Strength is one of the things that helps mobility out the most, the flexibility out the most. So, I mean, as I’ve gotten older and larger, the flexibility has not gone away. It’s getting a little bit better. If I train it more and it’s just like, it’s amazing. I love stretching, I love moving through different ranges of motions stuff. It feels good. And the size doesn’t affect it at all zero. It is okay. Now I also do acrobatics flips and stuff. And that was my background. That gets harder as you age. I mean you’re about to turn 60. I think you said was your birthday.
Steven Sashen:
I got 60 coming up soon and thanks to COVID. I haven’t been in a gym in a couple years, so I’ve got to go find a gym and throw a couple of standing back flips before my 60th birthday.
JujiMufu:
Yeah. You’re going to do a back flip on your 60th. I want to see that.
Steven Sashen:
You’ll see it.
JujiMufu:
But the weight and size do affect acrobatics because there’s more mass moving around the air. Age will, I’m curious I got to ask you now. You’ve been doing back flips for almost longer than I’ve been alive. I think you said.
Steven Sashen:
I did my first standing back flip when I was maybe 13, 14.
JujiMufu:
So much longer than I’ve been alive.
Steven Sashen:
40 years.
JujiMufu:
I didn’t just call you old in a roundabout way though.
Steven Sashen:
I’m okay with it. No, I’m enjoying, in fact I’m turning 60 in June, but I’ve been telling people I’m 60 now. Because it’s super fine. And in fact, I was supposed to go out and do some videos with a guy who does a bunch of strength things that I can do, not as well as him, but close. And I was looking forward to just saying over and over dude, I’m twice your age. So, we haven’t gotten to do that yet but yeah, it’s, but it changes no question about it.
JujiMufu:
Yeah. I think it’s mainly, so it changes. It’s mainly the speed kind of slows down as you get older. That’s what I’ve noticed is the first thing to kind of go. So, the acrobatics has gotten harder as I’ve gotten older because I’ve been putting on size because I’ve been practicing, adding some mass for fun. And it’s just the speed goes away first, but the flexibility, mobility, the quality of basic movements like that no man, there’s no reason why those should go anywhere.
Steven Sashen:
So how did the acrobatic stuff start for you? What was the original thing you were doing?
JujiMufu:
Yeah, so originally, I got my intro into fitness training that this entire world was through Taekwondo was a kicking martial art way of the foot is what Taekwondo translates to. And I did that for about a year and a half, two years before I found some videos online around the year 2000 where these people were doing acrobatics with kicks. It’s called tricking. And it was the west coast martial arts schools over there were bringing this stuff kind of posting videos online. And the first time I saw the stuff, it was like seeing a color I’d never seen in my entire life for the first time. That’s how blown away I was. I was like whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a second.
That is what I want to do. Because I’d never seen anything like that. So, I started going my backyard and I’d sit there with the space bar on these MPEG files. I’d download from the internet right click say target as to a little file link. And I’d sit there and play this potato quality video with a space bar hitting it repeatedly trying to pause, play to see where his foot placement was. Where he was looking what was happening in the skill. And I just run in my backyard, and I tried myself and that’s how I trained to do all the acrobatic stuff I can do. I just taught myself how to do it.
Steven Sashen:
So, wait hold on you taught yourself to do a standing back flip?
JujiMufu:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
What was the progression like? Because most people when they try to do that, they first freak out and land on their butt or if they’re slightly “better they land on their head.” But that’s a weird thing to learn cold without someone there to give you some serious guidance.
JujiMufu:
I don’t have any guidance, but I did get a spotter. So, a spotter is someone who just stands there, and they have one hand on your lower back and one hand behind your hand and do your hamstrings. And when you jump, they just kind of roll you over. They just kind of try to catch you and keep you from landing on your head. But I mean the first few months I tried to do a back flip; I was doing everything wrong. I was getting mattresses, I was jumping off boxes from a height, I was trying pools and it was freaking me out, man. I was scared. It was the fear component that was getting to me. And then what I did is…
Steven Sashen:
Let me pause there. Jumping basically backwards is not what human beings naturally like to do.
JujiMufu:
No, it’s not. Yeah. Your body is going to tense up because it’s unfamiliar with it. It doesn’t know it’s going on. So, it’s going to fight it and then it’s going to freeze you and then you’re going to land on your head. But the way to get over fear in any movement that scares you and fear in general, I think the way of kind of overcoming a fear is just building familiarity with what it is that you’re scared of, so I didn’t know what I was doing, but the process I went through after that was the correct way of doing it. I was daydreaming about back flipping. I was visualizing, I was studying it. I was becoming familiar with it more and more. And then one day I just woke up. I was like, I think I get it now.
It’s kind of like something clicked. I just it’s… I can’t explain like you just know when you know. I just knew, like I kind of get it. So, I had my friend come over it’s like, I think today is the day I’m going to do a back flip and sure enough it was. I had them spot me. And after a couple times reviewing the footage, I was doing 15 minutes later I had it. And ever since then, I’ve had my back flip since I was 13 or 15, rather 16, not as young you or how’d you learn yours, then you were 14.
Steven Sashen:
Well, what happened for me? This is fun. I had dinner last week with my gymnastics coach who I met when I was 13, I think junior high school, whenever that is. And so, he was a gym teacher. He was five-time national tumbling and three-time world tumbling champion. He was a gymnast from Ohio state, became a gym teacher. And he just one of the greatest teachers of all kinds I’ll give a shout out is Jack Leonard. And so, this is our first day at junior high middle school for people who know it that way. And the three gym teachers were giving like a talk on what the gym program was going to be like. And while the other two teachers were talking, Jack just very quietly, got out of his chair, stepped behind them, did a standing back flip, and then just quietly sat back down. And I want to be that guy and…
That’s how it began. And I’d been a diver before that, but that’s how it started. And my flashback is that when I first learned to do a standing back and I don’t even remember how I learned it, but I remember at lunchtime going out on a little patch of grass in the parking lot and just like getting psyched, just like working my… Just getting psyched to throw it. And then at some point, God knows when I could do a standing back flip as easily as I could walk. I mean, I just didn’t have to think about it at all. And it stayed like that for decades and decades. I mean, I’ve done literally tens of thousands of them.
JujiMufu:
Wow. Yeah. I don’t have that many, but I have a lot of back flips under my belt too. You’re probably going to agree with me on this one. This is probably something from your experience. I’ve been back flipping for almost 20 years now. You’ve been back for longer, there’s periods when you’ve lived this long where you don’t back flip for six months, maybe a year you know what I mean? This has happened several times and the thing are like, you just know how to do it, if you’re still in pretty good shape or you’re in the right shape for it, the software that you’ve…
Steven Sashen:
It’s wired. So, I did research as an undergrad in cognitive aspects of motor scale acquisition. And the gist is you do these things long enough and this is true, whether you’re running, whether you’re lifting, whether you’re doing anything where it eventually just gets way back into your brain and it just you kind of flip a switch and it just goes the last time I did a standing back I think it was, I might have been 55, 56. I’m not sure it was a number of years ago. And what was fascinating is I did a couple on the trap just to make sure I didn’t have my head up my butt or wasn’t going to land with my head up my butt. And what was fascinating is my body knew how to do it, but my brain was in a whole different space.
So, I set it up and then I kind of blacked out until I’m ready to put my feet on the ground. I had no awareness between the setting up and then having it finished. Which was a weird experience. And that’s just from not having done it for a long time. But it’s still wired in there. You know what it’s like, I saw a video of Ben Johnson, the sprinter who got busted for doing drugs that he never took just for the sake of saying that. And Ben hadn’t been on the track and God knows how long he’d put on 50 pounds since he was a competitive sprinter.
But watching him come out of the blocks and run, he just looked like Ben Johnson sprinting. I mean it was just locked in; it was gorgeous. So yeah, this is the thing that for any movement you’re doing the better you get and the more you do it, the more it just gets wired. Now the problem of course is you start doing something like wearing big, thick padded motion and drill shoes. You’re wiring for a movement pattern that is not ideal. And then it takes a while to unwind that and lay down new neural pathways. But I want to back up to something you said that I really love. And I want you to elaborate for people who don’t get it. When you made a comment about flexibility being as much about strength as just about things like stretching. Can you say more about that?
JujiMufu:
Yeah. I mean, basic flexibility science is that one of the things that well, we were talking about a back flip a second ago, how the body is, you must teach it how to do it. And then it gets hardwired. But in the process of learning, you’re scared because your body’s like I don’t know what this is. You know what I mean? Like what are we doing? You’re going to hurt yourself. Therefore, it could be a little dangerous but flexibility’s the same thing. Your body’s like well no wait this range of motion, isn’t safe. I’m not going to let you go there. So, it tenses up. So, you’re here and if anyone’s listening to this, I’m coming kind of forming like a triangle with my fingertips touching and you’re here and you’re trying to go further in a split.
And your body’s like, no wait this isn’t okay. The thing is that if you stand next to a chair and you put one leg up on it in the sides of the position, you can do that one leg. All right. Now you’re going to do it with the other leg. Okay. So, you’re just proven yourself. There are no muscles that run in between the legs. So, there’s no reason you can’t do the split other than your brain isn’t letting you. Okay. So how do you get your brain to let you go to those ranges of emotion that it doesn’t feel comfortable going to.
The thing is that you must show it that you’re strong enough in those ranges of motion that it’s safe, because strong is safe. So how do you build strength in those positions? Well, the basic technique of doing any sort of flexibility exercise, where you’re really testing good in ranges of motion, like a split is a good example is you just get in that position where your kind of forming a triangle with your legs, trying to go deeper. And then you just flex your muscles. So, what’s going to happen is when you’re flexing your muscles and I’m pretty sure you know all this Steven, but you’re probably aware of this.
Steven Sashen:
Not for me baby.
JujiMufu:
For the listeners. Yeah. You know, this is called the isometric contraction is you’re just flexing your muscles. And what it does is it’s shutting off something called a stretch reflex in the brain. And so, when you shut it off, it kind of scrambles it. You just kind of showed your body that it’s safe in that position. And it’s going to allow you just to go just a little deeper, just a little, maybe half an inch to an inch. And then you’re going to sit in that position and your body’s kind of acclimating itself to being in those deeper ranges of motions. So over time, just like straining with weights, your body gets stronger. As you continue to progressively overload, you kind of progressively overload these positions until you’ve kind of shown your body like, Hey, it’s safe in this position. And then you’re just in the splits. And for-
Steven Sashen:
Go ahead, sorry, go ahead.
JujiMufu:
I was going to say like for me this-
Steven Sashen:
Right. No.
JujiMufu:
Okay. Me, I was going to say for me, splits are a skill. That’s almost kind of like permanent, like the back flip too. So, I’ve taken time off doing front splits and side splits before and I’ve come back. And the only thing I noticed when I haven’t done them for a long time, is it just takes a little longer to warm up to get into that position. So instead of like being able to get into it in full, deep split in like 15, 20 minutes, it might take me 35, 45 minutes and it’s more uncomfortable, but the skill is still there.
Steven Sashen:
What’s the warmup that you’re doing to make that happen.?
JujiMufu:
Okay. So, a lot of it is kind of working backwards from what the actual end position is. So even for a side split, for example, I’m going to do some upper back stretching because the body must be upright. And then I’m going to kind of warm up the groin muscles. I’m going to use some exercises, like even just like attach a band to the bottom of a rack, hook it on the end soul of my foot and just kind of like do like bring my feet together. So, it’s kind of even like a little groin pump. And you do a lot of caustic stretches, which is just a basic stretch, a very good stretch where it’s just kind of like it’s moving through in ranges of motion without getting stuck. So, it’s or any sort of stretch where there’s movement, but not necessarily motion. So, it’s just a lot of movement, a lot of tensing, a lot of just kind of getting everything moving and then taking rest sets in the process.
So, you don’t just do all this nonstop. You do rest sets, and your body is going to, things are going to happen in the cells of your body, where it’s acclimating to these stimuli that you’re giving it. And the response is going to be that well, it’s the reason why you take rest sets when you strength train, it’s like nobody does five by five dead lifts all in a row. You have rest set. It’s kind of like… I try to explain it to people who are stretching and trying to get more flexible. It’s like, well you do sets. And you’re what you’re going to find is that when you do a set of a split and you do it, the technique that I’m describing and you do a rest set of two and a half minutes to five minutes, you’re going to come back and wow, wonder of wonders. You’re going to be going deeper and you’re going to be stronger in that position. You’re going to feel confident. And it’s going to feel more solid.
Steven Sashen:
I think this is really important because I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who breaks down stretching, certainly thinking of it as kind of a strength exercise, which it is, or, and they think of it often as just kind of like a bit of a warmup, but that’s not doing it justice, because if you don’t have the strength to go with it, you’re not actually supporting the joints. You’re putting yourself in a vulnerable position. And I don’t know, I’ve never heard anyone else talk about doing flexibility training in that same way, as you would think about doing weightlifting strength training and that’s so valuable. The challenge that pops into my brain is, many people are going to go, ah, crap, more stuff to do, but I’m hoping that we can impart the idea that this is the way you need to do it to make your body work better for whatever else you’re doing. Not just for the sake of being flexible, but because flexibility, or yes, flexibility is a function of strength that if you really work, that it’s going to help the other things that you’re doing.
JujiMufu:
Oh yeah. So, what you just said a second ago, you said, oh, no, another thing I must do. And I think that’s the reason why a lot of people don’t stretch is the first thing that pops into their mind is, oh, a laundry list. They think of a stretching book of exercises of 24 different stretches like, oh God, I got to do all that. No, you don’t. No. What you really need to do is figure out where you need flexibility and mobility and work backwards from there. Okay. So, if you need a squat, well, break down the movement, because if you’re a power lifter, for example, break it down, work backwards from there. And figure out two stretches, don’t do five, 15, 25 different stretches, just figure out two movements that are going to your best bang for your buck and do them the right way at the right times.
Do them while you’re, and kind of like integrate them into your warmup or just at the end of a session, it does, you don’t have to have an entire flexibility workout unless you want to be flexible or do something like the side splits. You just kind of find the right place for it and what you’re already doing. And if we’re just talking about straight up quality of life, just dude flexibility is like, I’m so thankful for it all the time, because I mean, we just moved to a new warehouse too. It’s not 90,000 square feet, but we were moving boxes, hell of boxes for two days and all the dumb positions that you must put yourself in when you’re just doing manual work, just moving boxes from point A to point B across town. I’m just like, dude, like I’m able to stick my leg up on this truck bed in this crazy looking way.
And it’s both comfortable and intuitive and very functional and useful for me. I’ve built that capacity and I could just move in useful ways all the time. And I feel so cool doing it. I’m like I can, you know what I mean? Just like get underneath and around things, this large man just moving around like a spider. It’s so fun and it’s just so useful to have. So, I really think it’s worth putting some development into, for not just sport athletics, but quality of life. And it doesn’t take 15 different exercises on its own. Apart from what you’re already doing when you’re training. It’s just moving intelligently throughout your environment, just being conscious of it. Well, I mean, what’s your take on it?
Steven Sashen:
Well, first, there’s two things or one thing you said that I really love that I want to highlight. And that is that once you start developing these new ways of moving, whether from flexibility or from anything else, it opens your sort of repertoire of possibilities. And when you have that, that does change the way you live your life. I mean, speaking as a gymnast or pardon me, a former gymnast, I don’t know anyone other than gymnasts who says things like, ah, God, I got to get upside down. Because there’s something about being upside down that’s really satisfying. But most people just don’t have that as a part of the repertoire of movement possibilities.
And what you just described is opening the set of possibilities, which really does change the way you live your life. Things that you think of, that you can do that you didn’t have in your toolkit until you develop these new skills and developing new skills. This is a weird one. I do little things like my latest project is, or I’ll ask you when you put on your pants, which leg did you use first?
JujiMufu:
God, I never thought about that. It’s the right leg.
Steven Sashen:
I noticed that it was my left leg first. So now I’m making a very concerted effort to go right leg first and I’m going to keep doing it. I don’t do it every time. Because it’s so habitual that I do left leg. But my goal is to get to the point where I can’t remember which leg I use first normally. So, and I’ve gotten there like crossing your arms when you cross your arms, which arm is on top.
JujiMufu:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
You got your arm on top. All right now switch. Get your right arm on top. Isn’t that weird?
JujiMufu:
That feels pretty good. That feels pretty good. That one does. So, I’ll tell you what feels weird is brushing your teeth with the other hand. That drives me nuts.
Steven Sashen:
I had shoulder surgery and I’m right-handed. It was my right shoulder. I learned to do a lot of things with my left hand. Do not touch that line. So, anyway, the second thing you said that made me think about something in terms, just quality of life. If you had to think of, I’m going to make up a number and you can change it. If you had to think of five stretches or five parts of your body that you wanted to build, let’s call it strong flexibility with, what would you tell someone to do?
JujiMufu:
I’ll tell you my go-tos. So, these are obviously, I don’t need to tell you how important they are. If I do them all the time, they’re obviously important. I do them all the time. One is just basic hanging. So just like just passive hanging from a pull-up bar or a set of rings or anything like that, that you can just kind of switch between arms again, do sets two sets, one rest break in between two sets. I feel like that does a hell of a lot of good for your shoulder health, your upper back health, all that stuff.
Steven Sashen:
I’m going to interrupt you on that one. Because I just read some research that I love about stretching under load. And when you’re hanging, you’re stretching under load that just stretching under load builds strength.
JujiMufu:
Yes. It does. I mean your body’s heavy. Gravity’s pulling it and there is some resistance there. The isometric stretching, I was talking about a second ago is a technique of building the splits. You don’t have to flex your muscles in this position. It’s just holding weight load. Like you said, it’s just another way, because there’s no way you can fake it. It’s like, look, you could squat with a barbell with no weight and try to make it heavy by acting like it’s heavy or you just add weight to it. Which one are you going to do? You’re just going to add weight dude. So, you can just do some stretches with holding a small amount of weight. That way you don’t have to fake the tensions. Other stretches that are good that I really like to do. Hangs are perfect. I’m always going to do them until I’m dead. The caustic stretch is another one because it has so many possibilities. You can kind of move your foot position around.
Steven Sashen:
Wait, so what’s this one?
JujiMufu:
The caustic stretch. So, you kind of squat down and you kind of come down on one side and straighten the other leg. You know what I’m talking about? And then a warrior lunge is good. So, a warrior lunge is you kind of get into a staggered stance. So, like you’re going to do a lunge with weight, but then your back knee is on the ground and then you just kind of move your front foot forward and you could either have the knee go over the toe or you can have the foot go before. It doesn’t really matter because really what you’re focusing on is stretching just kind of the hips, the very back of the front leg is you’ll feel it. You just kind of move in and out of it, switch sides. I mean, and then aside from those three, which are more like static stretches or more like slow movement-based stretches, I just think slinging your arms around is healthy, dynamic swings of the arms, just slinging them around working up to doing them a little faster, doing a little wider range of motion.
I’ve even seen athletes that like football athletes do a lot of those type of stretches too intuitively without even knowing that they were doing them. You know what I mean? They just kind of unconsciously knew that was, if they’re nervous, they’re just like, this is what they’re working on. So, I mean, those four are good enough to work with. Other than that, just kind of look at the different places in your environment. And during your day that’s like sticking points where you can squat down a deep squat to get something underneath the cupboard or a table, you should be able to do that.
Steven Sashen:
One that I do, you just reminded me of it. And I don’t even think about it because it’s just part of my brain is I’ll put the newspaper on the counter, or we have a kitchen island and I’ll stick one leg up on the counter. So, I’ve got, so basically, it’s sort of a side split, or half side split and then I switch legs and just not for any reason, it’s just like, instead of standing, I can do some other thing that feels good that gets the blood moving in a different way.
JujiMufu:
I’ve noticed that when I’m having long conversations with people, like let’s say it’s in a gym or it’s in a parking lot or something and it’s, have you heard of the term parking lot syndrome or it’s like two people are talk… we had a joke for parking lot syndrome is when you had two people who just finished, maybe it was a dinner or it was a workout or something and just standing, talking in the parking lot for a long time and nobody’s going to leave before the other person. You know what I mean? It’s just like, and eventually, all right, bye. You know what I mean? That’s parking lot syndrome, but during situations like that, I’ve found that I’ll do what you said. I’ll just start to prop up a leg on something or just kind of angle or just start taking my arm and wedging it. It just intuitively just like, just because I want to. Because it feels good.
Steven Sashen:
You just reminded me of another one that I’m doing. I noticed that when I put my, if I put on a jacket, I was doing left right arm first and then reaching behind my body to do my left arm. And so, I’ve switched that around. So, I’m going left arm first and reaching behind my body to do my right arm because my right shoulder’s the one that’s usually a little tighter from gymnastics things. So, it’s building flexibility just by putting on my clothes.
JujiMufu:
Yeah. Man, that one sounds hard. I have a hard enough. No, no it does. I have a hard enough, I mean I have a wide shoulder. So, putting on backpacks is a pain in the ass for me because like they’re not big enough. I’ll have to take that slack in that backpack buckle and just go all the way towards all eating up. And I’m still sitting there fighting to get this and then it catches on my watch and I’m just like, God, you know what I mean? It’s just a pain in the ass.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, my God. No, I know that one. So, I wear this, I got this bracelet that I’ve worn for 30 years and coming through TSA, I was putting my backpack back on, then I got into the plane, and I realized it was gone, the backpack had hit the little thing that knocked it off. And amazingly, when I landed, I think I was going to Europe, and I called back, and they found it. And so, I was greatly relieved because it was a gift that I really treasured and, so I don’t have the same issue putting on backpacks so I’m way smaller than you are. But I get it. Yeah. You’re at a point now where just getting clothes that fit are challenging, which is why I am guessing why you started one of your businesses.
JujiMufu:
Yeah. Close, I don’t want to go there man. It’s just like, I can’t even imagine if you’re that much bigger. It just gets ridiculous. But one of the things I sell is a pair of pants called JujiMufu Pants. And they’re the most flexible pants in the world. That’s marketing math. And they are, you know what I mean? It’s like, you can really pick up your knees and move through full ranges of motion and the amount of freedom they have is just incredible. And then you can also pull them up to right below your kneecap. So, a lot of people wear sweatpants and they’ll just kind of like a cup freestyle. But a lot of times sweatpants will just roll back down or just fall. They will stay. And it’s just, once you put them on, like you’re good, they’re comfortable. And I’ve gotten a hell of a lot of good feedback and still sell them. So, I love them.
Steven Sashen:
I almost hate to ask this question because I think more people have probably asked you this than many of the other questions, I’ve asked you that many other people have asked prior to me, how did JujiMufu happen?
JujiMufu:
Yeah. So, I was 13 and I was trying to get a new screen name on America online. And when you type in a name that’s already taken, it’s going to throw a bunch of numbers at the end of it. So, you want to be Goku, oh, I’m sorry. You’re Goku 1,333,452. Great. I’m just a big number string. So, I was trying to think of a name that wasn’t taken. I can’t believe how many names were taken back then because everything I tried for half an hour was taken, I didn’t want a name with numbers. And as a 13-year-old, I had the self-awareness to realize I had been sitting there for half an hour trying to think of a name. I was like, I’m wasting my time. I just need to pick something.
So, I just, yeah, JujiMufu. Juju just spats it out quick. And it logged me in. I was like, well, okay, well I guess I’m JujiMufu. And the thing was Steven that I started using that to communicate with people on forums and online. And I built a web community a couple years after that it had many members, I was stuck with the name, and I just never bothered to change it. So, it’s just some, I’m shared a 13-year-old made.
Steven Sashen:
There are decisions that 13-year old’s have made that are way worse than that one. So, I think you came out well unscathed.
JujiMufu:
Two reasons I’m okay with it is one is, when people realize that’s how I came up with it, they realize I’m not trying to come off a certain way. They’re like, oh, you made that when you’re 13, you got stuck with it. I get it. The other reason is it’s such a dumb name. It really kind of keeps me levelheaded. Like I can’t be super, take myself super seriously one of my names is JujiMufu. You know what mean? It’s such a dumb name. I’m a clown, I guess. So, it’s been a blessing. It’s been a blessing.
Steven Sashen:
I think you need some sort of stuffed animal that is the embodiment of JujiMufu, something, I don’t know what it would be, but something where people can take at home with them.
JujiMufu:
No, it’s a stuffed Juji.
Steven Sashen:
I mean you got to get something. It’s got to be one of those Olympic mascots except not one of the creepy ones but something that gives people that thing where I think… I’m totally serious man. I think people would totally get off on it.
JujiMufu:
Okay. I must think about what that would be.
Steven Sashen:
You’ll need to find some sort of fabric artist who gives you a few ideas and then you’re going to go that one it’s going to be… I don’t even know what… I can’t even imagine what it would look like, but it would be a fun one.
So, all right. So, onto some other things for humans. So, we’ve talked about flexibility. We can talk about strength too. And we talked about agility and gymnastic things and by the way, I’m going to recommend that’s another thing I kind of recommend for almost anyone is go find a basic gymnastics class or go hang out with some cool break dancers or trickers or somebody, just wait to again to learn some new thing. And to discover that you can do something that you didn’t know you could do. It doesn’t have to be a standing back flip. It could be a handstand, it could be a Cartwheel or a round off, but just something I think that people don’t have a, I’m using the word repertoire a bunch, a repertoire of movements that is as big as it could be. And there’s so many that people could find.
So that’s sort of where I go wait and then of course strength training. This is one of these things where the research could not be clearer that strength training is beneficial. In fact, here is one that I found out about just a little while ago in a podcast I did with Dr. Isabel Sacco. She took a bunch of runners in regular shoes and had half of them do an eight-week foot strengthening exercise program. And those runners had 250% fewer injuries than the runners who didn’t. And it was a really… It’s a program you could do at home. I’m trying to put it together into an e-book. And I mean that’s an amazing thing to have two and a half times fewer injuries in this study by just doing a little eight weeks strengthening program that you’re doing mostly sitting down watching TV if you want to.
JujiMufu:
That’s Crazy.
Steven Sashen:
It’s outrageous, but basically because regular shoes don’t let your feet move. So, they get weaker over time. And building back that strength. So, let’s talk about the strength training thing and you already mentioned progressive overload, which I’ll have you define that for people as well. But it amazes me that runners for example, they don’t want to strengthen train because either they’re afraid of getting bigger because they think they’re going to be unable to do all these things that you prove that they can still do, or they think it’s going to be more difficult, or they think it’s just… I need to be running. It’s like take a day off, take two days off or add something. So, let’s talk about whatever insight you want to give about adding strength training in a way that again, doesn’t become yet another thing on your to-do list.
JujiMufu:
So that might be kind of hard for me because my universe is kind of like strength training is a center of it and kind of goes outwards. So, I wouldn’t really know what to recommend to a runner and how to integrate strength training into what they do if they’re really focused on running. So, I don’t know about that but…
Steven Sashen:
Then let’s just do strength training 101 then for regardless of what someone’s doing.
JujiMufu:
Okay. So, I mean, basically it’s, if you’ve never done any strength training before, what I… Instead of getting the specifics like, oh, you need to do this exercise with this rep set scheme and this load and blah, blah, blah and this, I mean really what I tell people is, and this is the way I started Steven is go to a gym and so the reason I was in a gym when I was younger was because it was daycare for me. My parents bought me a gym membership which is right across from my high school. And this was before I couldn’t drive. And they’re like, look we bought you a gym membership this is where you’re going to stay until we pick you up you can work out if you want or you can just sit in the lobby and do your homework.
We don’t care what you do. So, I was like okay whatever. So, I’m sitting in a gym. I’m like, well why wouldn’t I work out? I hate homework. So, I just started doing things, I’m like I don’t know this is a machine that you pull towards you or something. Okay. So, I’m just kind of doing that. I’m like, hey, what’s that guy doing? I think they’re called dips. Okay, I’m going to do dips. I just did what I wanted. And I was just had fun. And what I realized was it was more fun to push myself and to do more weight or to try to go heavier or do it better. So, because it’s boring if it’s not a little challenging. So, I just started trying things. And then after a couple years, I mean it was years before I started doing squats and deadlifts and stuff.
I still built a good physique just doing whatever workouts just going in there and just doing this and that usually you do 10 repetitions because that’s about right to get the feeling that your kind of chasing and I think that’s a healthy way of getting into strength training. That way you’re not sitting there doubting yourself or trying to hold yourself to a standard that you don’t need to have. You just need to move and feel good. And you’ll find what movements that you like best. And then as you get more into it, you’re going to start to look at the things that you probably need but haven’t been doing and then just kind of go from there but…
Steven Sashen:
Well, look I don’t want to pat myself on the back too much about this, but what you just said is part of what I said at the intro, it’s like if you’re not having fun do something just until you are. Find one exercise that you can do in a way that you find enjoyable, challenging enough that you’re going to want to try and do it better or more or something, just do one and take it from there. I think that would be a super way for someone to think about getting into it. That doesn’t feel like a thing. And again, you can do it in odd. You don’t have to go set aside sometime when you’re washing the dishes, when you’re watching TV, I started doing this thing after dinner. I just realized this. I have a little… It’s a weird, it’s hard to describe what this is. Let’s call it a little stepping thing. It’s hard. It’s a thing where you’re kind of walking in place. Best way I can describe it. There’s a fun story about it. It’s the best purchase I ever made on Craigslist.
JujiMufu:
Is it a dune?
Steven Sashen:
No, it’s called the Xiseer. And it’s like 500 bucks. It’s crazy. And I saw one on Craigslist and it said $20. It’s from California. And I called the guy. I said $20. He goes, yeah, I got a friend he’s got a garage little stuff. And he just wants me to get rid of it all. I think this thing’s like worth a hundred dollars and I didn’t say it’s worth $500.
I said you’re not supposed to buy things at a distance on Craigslist. So, I feel a little anxious even sending you 20 bucks sight unseen. He goes, I’ll just send it to you and if you like it, you can send me 20 bucks back. It’s like, okay. It cost him $30 to send it to me. And he took $20. So anyway, I set it up so that after dinner, when my wife… I make dinner and then Lena and I will go down and watch TV, watch a movie and so I just spend the first 10 minutes just on the stepy thing, because it’s just a way to digest my food, do a little movement it’s not getting in the way of my life at all. It’s like while she’s flipping through the channels to find something, I’m just doing a little something that I find fun.
JujiMufu:
That’s great. I like how you said digest your food too. Because I’ll do movement cardio walk or something like a lot of people won’t move right after eating. Well, it kind of helps to know, it’s great I mean it is, it really is. So, it’s interesting what you just said a minute ago you said find one movement that’s fun that you like to do. That’s exactly what I tell people when they ask me how do I get into the acrobatic stuff that you do? How do I start? I’m like, well you pick one move and just one. And then you get that. And if you want to do more after that, you do more. And usually I tell them, you mentioned cartwheels and handstands and going to a gymnastics gym and getting a little bit more library of movement in your repertoire.
It’s good also going to those gyms has another benefit, as you know of you take your shoes off and you get to move around on the floor. I mean I’ve been training like again I started doing the acrobatic stuff by going in my backyard and trying moves that I saw on the internet. You know what I mean and just learning one move, I just want that move, I just get that move, I get another move. But it all involved jumping around barefoot in my backyard. And I spent gosh more than half my life doing hard skills on grass outside barefoot you should see my feet man. They’re wide as hell. When I take off my shoes, people in the strength industry make fun of me. They’re like look at those hobbit feet. I was like yeah, they’re called muscles. I got lots of muscles in my feet. They’re strong robust feet. They’re very, very good. But it all came from doing things barefoot.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. Well, that’s the interesting thing like backing up to the Isabel Sacco study about reducing injury risk by 250%, by doing this foot strengthening program, there’s research from Sarah Ridge that says you can get the same benefits from doing a foot strengthening program by just walking around in minimal shoes or she didn’t do barefoot. She did it in shoes, but obviously just walking barefoot would give you that same kind of benefits. And it’s one of those things that it amazes me when I see older people who are having mobility issues having doctors recommend that they get into some big thick stiff padded shoe. It’s like, you know that the higher you get the tippier or your balance is and if you can’t feel anything, you’re not getting feedback that you can. I mean, it’s a mystery to me how things have gotten so perverted.
JujiMufu:
I mean, using your feet is a skill. I mean there’s a language of describing how to use your feet. Rooting is one of the words that’s used, it’s how you kind of… You probably know the exact definition but what I know of rooting is it’s kind of a spread of your toes where you’re almost like kind of grabbing the ground. You’re not clawing it but it’s just like you’re just kind of rooting yourself into it. Is that right?
Steven Sashen:
Well in Ta-chi they refer to it sort of the other way around that when you get your foot and your body in the right alignment, you feel like there’s something coming up from the ground into your body to hold you up and you can get that feeling where it just feels effortless to have this kind of strength that doesn’t feel like what you are doing it feels like it’s almost happening to you. It’s just proper alignment. But yeah, some of it really is just letting the toes spread. So, you’re not gripping, but they’re engaged and you’re engaging the foot kind of from heel all the way to toe.
So, it’s giving you that contact so that if someone comes and tries to push you, it feels to them like they’re trying to push over a tree they’re pushing, you’re not making effort for it, you’re not trying to resist it’s just that everything is lined up well. And so, it does feel like simultaneously you’re putting these roots into the ground, and you’re being supported by the ground in reverse. It’s basically Newton’s law equal and opposite reactions.
JujiMufu:
Yeah. And I think knowing consciously it starts by trying to do it intentionally. But the more you do it, just like we’re talking about back flips, the more you do it the more it automatic it becomes you can just do one anywhere. You know what I mean? When you’re in condition for it. So, it’s like you don’t even have to think about what you’re doing anymore. Your feet are just… They’re doing the right thing. You’re just kind of… You’re in a better position. And it just… Especially people ask me sometimes how do you not get injured? Because I do so many different things like chair splits and like some dumb looking lifts. Most people like, dude, you’re asking for an injury. It’s like, I do not get almost any injuries. You know what I mean?
I’m very good at it. And I think it a big part of it Steven. It’s just not the robustness of my feet from training barefoot for so long. It’s like a guardian angel. You know what I mean? It’s just something there is protecting me and the longer you do it the more automatic it is, the more habitual you’re just doing things in that way. And then it’s hard to put on normal shoes sometimes. Like my pinky toe of my foot will bust out the side of
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