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April 13, 2026

Why You're Still in Pain: The Truth About Aging and How to Fix It with Coach Brandon Day - 101

Learn how to live without pain and enhance your mental and physical performance.

If you're feeling the effects of aging or dealing with persistent aches, this episode offers a shift in your perspective on health.

Coach Brandon Day explains that pain is a signal from your brain, not just a part of getting older.

He provides a practical framework to regain your vitality without relying on endless stretching or rehab.

Learn why pain is often a protective response to issues like dehydration, poor posture, or stress.

Brandon shares insights into the neuroscience of muscle tightness and offers techniques to rewire your nervous system for easier movement.

Simple breathing exercises can significantly reduce pain and inflammation. You'll find strategies to support your body's healing, including specific exercises that promote faster recovery and resilience.

We also discuss the concept of flow state, where your brain performs at its best. Brandon explains how athletes and teams use flow to achieve success and how you can apply it to your life. You'll discover how to challenge your skills appropriately and use environmental cues to improve focus and mobility.

Understanding and managing pain and stress is crucial for personal growth and happiness. By recognizing pain as a signal and mastering your nervous system, you can take control of your health and well-being.

This episode is ideal for athletes recovering from injuries, busy parents feeling the effects of aging, or anyone seeking improved focus and energy. It provides actionable insights to help you move, recover, and thrive.

Brandon Day is a neuro trainer and health optimization coach with a reputation for innovative approaches that connect mind and body for lasting resilience.

Join us for an in-depth exploration of pain, neuroplasticity, and achieving balance through movement and breath. Gain back your energy and embrace the power of flow.

Main Topics:

Understanding pain as a neurological signal
Strategies for restoring vitality
Neuroscience behind muscle tightness
Techniques for reducing pain and inflammation
Achieving flow state for optimal performance
Practical tools for athletes and busy professionals

Want help applying this to your own health, weight, energy, or lab numbers?

Coach Brian Parana offers Health Hot Seat coaching segments for men who want a clear next step with nutrition, fitness, weight loss, blood pressure, cholesterol, A1C, or daily consistency.

Learn more about The Call To Rise, a 100-day coaching program for driven men over 40 who want to lose weight, improve their health, and rebuild confidence:

www.thecalltorise.com

To connect with Coach Brian:
brian@brianparana.com

Disclaimer: This podcast is for education and coaching support only. It is not medical advice. Always work with your physician before changing medication, treatment, or medical care.

You know that nagging pain? The one that keeps showing up at all times of day when you stand up from sitting too long. When you get out of bed, maybe in the middle of the night, you're like, "Ah, you're feeling your age." I'm starting to feel it now at my young old age of 43 and I don't like it.
I'm like 43 and a 23 year old 25 year old B mind. I'm just trying to run around here. So, this happens as we get older. It's just a natural process, but we can also fix that as well. And we're going to go over aches and pains and how to stop them from keeping you be your best version of yourself.
And we're also going to talk into what flow state actually looks like. This is something that I actually chase myself and have been chasing with our guest Brandon Day. We're going to go through all this. I shared in our pre-in a screenshot that I have from 2017 where I wrote down on my list flow state. I want to achieve flow because that's that state of consciousness.
It's like game time. You're all in on that. And we're going to go over all these things today. And Brandon has a unique view on pain and talks about how it signals that your body is out of alignment in a couple different ways. and we'll go through make sure that you understand what you're doing, how to do it your best because this is what he does in his practice working with his clients is get them to achieve just a a healthier youthful state and a body but also a mind and that flow.
Welcome to Driven for Health podcast episode 101. Brandon Day, here we are. Welcome. Welcome. >> Nice. Thanks, Brian. Good to be here. >> Yes. Yes. So, let's jump into aches and pains. It's just a it is unfortunate fact of being a human. You're going to have aches and pains, but we don't have to just let them get us to be older and I'm 43 and my back hurts and next you know I feel like I'm 60.
We don't we don't need to identify with pain slowing us down in our life. So, let's jump into some what does pain mean to you and and what is some of the main what's one main takeaway that you want to share with our guests today? So, this is like bam that with our audience that they'll they'll grab on to. >> Yeah.
So, man, there was a lot we could unpack in that little intro around pain, but it's the big thing that sticks out to me is that um pain is not a natural process of aging per se. Although we do tend to get more aches and pains as we age, but they are not mutually exclusive. They're not they don't one doesn't happen because of the other. >> There's no direct correlation of I'm getting older, so I should be in more pain. Right.
>> Right. And there's plenty of evidence out there of that. I'm sure you know people that are in their 80s or above and are doing great. No pain, >> doing whatever they want. and a 83y old talking about they're getting ready to try and run another marathon or something. It's like, holy cow. I couldn't keep weight on them because they were so active and we actually had to add an extra 500 calories to their nutrition because of that activity to get their weight up a couple pounds.
It was pretty funny actually. 83 years young and just still going. such a good example because that's what we all I I assume mo what most of us want is even if we don't want to go run a marathon. We want to be able to know that we can. >> Yeah. >> Right. When we're that old and that requires some things like I imagine she's not dealing with an aching back all day every day.
>> She can know. >> Yeah. Um so there's plenty of examples like that. My uncle um was uh a a qualifier. He was tried to qualify for the Olympic team back in like 86, >> okay, >> for gymnastics. And he taught gymnastics for years. And he rides horses every day. And he hikes in the mountains and he hunts his own food back in Montana where I'm from.
And he just lives an incredibly active lifestyle. He can still do the full splits. And he's 80 years old. >> That's awesome. I can go front. I can't go side to side though. I can go front and back. So, >> and he's just been doing it like every night. He just does his stretches. He does his hiking. >> He works on it every day. >> He can still do like 20 pull-ups.
>> It's just incredible. And it's just a it's a it's an indicator of of a deeper thing um a deeper principle which is use it or lose it. >> And that's how the brain works. That's how the body works, >> right? We got to keep doing the things. um if we want to maintain our ability to do those things.
So when it comes to pain, like that's the biggest thing like pain does is not a consequence of aging. It's a consequence of our brain's perception of threats from the environment. >> Mhm. >> And as we get older, we accumulate threats that you know ankle injury from when you were 20 years old that you never fully rehabed, right? It's still hanging out.
>> Still hanging out. Like causing a little bit of threat. Like your brain is is saying >> as we walk around the world, this thing is not perfectly stable. It's not as well mapped as it used to be. Still a little blurry down there. It wasn't fully rehabed. So if we do step off this curb, I don't know if it'll support us.
We might fall, hit our head, and die. >> So I'm going to create some extra tension around that place. And that along with the poor sleep you've been having for the last three years, along with the poor diet that you have, along with the excessive stress in your job, along with, you know, having >> newborn triplets that are all sick right now, you know, >> we all got threats in our bucket, man.
>> Yeah. Now, the other one point out is >> dehydration. A lot of people are underhydrated and consequently they are dealing with muscle tissue quality, poor muscle tissue quality which is ultimately just think of like beef jerky in your calf when it's trying to support you and and yeah, we don't need that.
But a lot of people are just literally dehydrated as a result too. >> And think about that in the terms of in the applied neurology world, we use the analogy of the threat bucket. And so it's useful to know how your brain works to keep you alive because that's really its only job is survival when it comes down to it.
And so how it does that is it takes in information from your environment. We call those inputs. It has to interpret those inputs and decide whether or not we're safe or unsafe. And then it'll give you an output. The outputs that we want are fluid movement, good balance, no pain. Those are great. Good strength, speed, reaction time, all that.
If the brain perceives the inputs as a threat and our threat bucket starts to fill, then we'll get protective outputs. Pain, stiffness, tension, uh restricted range of motion, even anxiety, autoimmunity, all of these can be considered protective mechanisms to keep us small, slow >> or safe, >> alive. Ultimately, at the end of the day, that's the brain's job >> 100%.
So if we look at it from that lens, the dehydration, like what a what bigger threat is there than being dehydrated, >> right? >> I would think of maybe only one and that's being >> not being able to breathe, >> right? Yeah, >> that's a very immediate one, right? No breath, which then you've got what water takes, as they say, three days to die without water.
Then food, you can go a number of weeks without food before things get really bad. >> But yeah, >> but it all comes back to fuel for the brain. >> Yep. >> If the brain doesn't feel like it's getting good fuel, then it will increase the threat dramatically just to give you a signal like, hey, we got to go get some fuel.
We're starving here, >> right? >> And so oxygen and glucose are the main fuels, right? And you got to have blood flow to deliver them. So the dehydration is a big one of course, but the oxygen piece is huge. Especially these days where we sit all the time and we're in a stressed out state all the time. We end up creating habits of over breathing, upper chest breathing really shallow.
>> And the the weird counterintuitive thing that happens is that you actually end up in a hypoxic state in your brain. Your brain is starving of oxygen even though you are over breathing and breathing in more and more oxygen all the time. And the key there is the CO2. You have to have carbon dioxide to deliver oxygen to your tissues and to fuel your brain.
So, if we have low carbon dioxide or a low threshold for carbon dioxide where every time it starts to rise up a little bit because we're doing some exercise or, you know, starting to get stressed out and over time a little bit of carbon dioxide triggers the brain to go, we got to breathe.
Then we just over breathe, over breathe, over breathe. We end up hyper oxygenated. So, we got all this oxygen floating around in our bloodstream, not enough CO2. None of that's getting into your brain. That's really interesting. And we sit uh even I imagine our screen like state of scrolling just there's a lot of an uh absenteeism going on there.
you're just zoomed into this thing. And I I even have caught myself I don't I I try religiously like not to get sucked into screens and and wasted time because attention, but I'll catch myself really shallow breathing. And I just imagine it's even more prevalent now because people literally will just sit for hours not moving their body at all or getting any type of different levels of respiration going on from just sitting to walking to actually doing some form of exercise or activity where where we get the heart rate up and that just
doesn't happen much these days. Yeah, that's that's absolutely right. And that's good awareness for you. I think if mo more people had that awareness, it'd be really helpful, >> especially around screens and like social media >> cuz they're they're engineered to keep you in a constant state of hyper arousal. >> Yes.
>> Just to like trigger it a little bit like, ooh, I got to look at the next thing. Ooh, ooh. Like little dopamine hit. And that keeps you in this state of just lowgrade stress. And often times with that coupled with the posture that we're in there and our eye movements, by the way, our eyes being converged on a point right in front of us, it activates an area of your brain called the midbrain, which is going to increase your sympathetic nervous system.
And that's going to lead to more shallow breathing like hyper oxygenation like we're talking about. The term is over breathing or or chronic hyperventilation, which sounds like this almost panic attack, but it's not. It's really just chronic shallow breathing where you're taking in more oxygen than you need and can utilize. >> Yeah. I I'm not going to lie.
I'm over here listening in taking deeper belly breaths. >> Good. Good. But for for our audience, let's go through just real quick timeout since I'm I'm actively paying attention. They should as well. >> Let's take a quick time out. How do you actually belly breathe? And how do we get more oxygen into our body and not and have that carbon dioxide instead of this more you say rapid breath and over oxygenated state? >> How do we do that? Well, the simplest tool would just be focusing on long exhales. So, make your exhales twice as
long as your inhales. >> And just by doing that, you're going to start to raise CO2 levels a little bit and you're going to kick on your parasympathetic nervous system and calm yourself down >> and deliver some oxygen to your brain. >> So, if you did nothing but just >> right >> focus on maybe two in, four out, or just lengthen it out as far as you can, that'd be a great tool just to start doing right now.
even without having to worry about, you know, the mechanics of breathing. But then you could definitely get into like am I up in my chest? Am I focusing tension in my neck and my jaw? And is that related to all my breathing being up here in the chest? And shifting that to your diaphragm and your belly is really powerful as well.
It's for the same reasons. So, I like to >> How about through the nose or the mouth? >> Oh, yeah. Always breathe through your nose unless you have to breathe through your mouth. >> Like, we're talking right now, so I'm going to be doing a little bit of breathing through my mouth, but even then, I want to ideally always breathe through my nose.
Breathing through your mouth is should be saved for high intensity activity. When you breathe through your mouth, you're actually triggering to your brain that we need more oxygen and stress level is going up. like we have to fight or flee. So, it's going to kind of ramp things up a little bit in order to do that. So, just the act of breathing through your mouth is going to raise up your sympathetic kind of autonomic nervous system a little bit and keep you in a little bit more of a stressed out state.
So, always breathe through your nose and try to breathe into your belly. I usually say like um 360 degree breathing. Like I want you to breathe into your belly, push out the sides and into your back to activate the full diaphragm. >> Okay? >> And something like um as simple as like a sho string around your midsection and try to breathe into each part of that string >> can be more than enough to bring your awareness to that and get you breathing down in your belly and calm calm your nervous system down. Now, when he says
breathing into the belly, we're activating the diaphragm. So, the diaphragm is pulling down on your lungs to increase that intake of air and that oxygen CO2 exchange. He's not actually talking about breathing into your your actual stomach and and having burps or something like that. >> Yeah.
You don't you don't fill your air, >> right? Right. So we're we're just elongating the lungs in the actual proper way that you are meant to breathe. So excellent. So we had some breathing down and we need to have that proper oxygen exchange and how does this relate to aches and pains. >> Yeah, >> coming back to that. Yeah, perfect segue because I was going to say like breathing oftentimes is one of the main contributors to low back pain and really just widespread or transient pain in general.
Transient meaning comes and goes. It might shift around. A lot of times I'm looking at breathing as a main issue there because that fuel problem in the brain, it's like your brain doesn't feel pain, right? So, when it's low on fuel, what's it going to do to tell you that it's low on fuel? Well, it doesn't really have a good mechanism except for pain.
Pain's a great mechanism to get your attention. And that's really all pain is. It's a signal to get your attention to get you to change something or stop doing something. So um pain in general if we can view it from this neurological lens that it's 100% an output from your brain to keep you safe to protect you from something then we can look at all of these different systems these inputs to try to remove threat and deal with the pain.
So you know you had mentioned that you have been having some like uh sitbones like glute pain. >> Yeah. I was playing with my kids on a the last heavy snow of the season and I I I I tweaked it or say agitated it on a run. >> I ran two extra miles I guess than I supposed to or whatever, you know. Come on. But that that that got it sore.
And then four days later it snowed heavy. Want to take my kids out to sled ride, spend time with them. They they literally there was three out of the four were there, but the the middle two boys, they just wanted to wrestle with Papa and they would not let me up the hill. And I'm just fighting and and pulling and they're pulling on my leg and and we're slipping and sliding and just having a blast.
But then like 20 minutes later, I went to run foot slips on the the ice snow stop and there goes my glute. And I knew instantly this is not a good this is not good. And within 20, 30 minutes, I had the bracing and the tension and tightness. I could barely stand up. It's a lot better now. I can squat.
I can do I I biked two and a half hours yesterday or two days ago outside. Bike two hours yesterday. Uh as long as I'm not sitting on that that point on where the it's definitely feels like it's pureformis, feels like it's on the sipbone, the the tendon connection there. But I'm about five, six weeks out and I probably based on everything I know and research and and all is still going to be another I'm 50% the way there as long as I stop agitating or I don't try and go run again because the last time I went and ran two miles it felt like a two week timeout set back
because it was just agitated every single step and it to to describe to people where it's at. it's on my left leg and when I reach out and my foot is getting ready to brace on the ground, that's when it starts to activate and it's that that bracing sensation that is causing the pain so that people understand and not necessarily so much of a the movement pattern through the walk, but then when I start to lift up again and start hitting the hamstring and the the glute that that fires it up again. So there you go. That's the glute
pain hanging out. >> Yeah, great description. So, what I want to kind of point to is number one, it's been well, you had a little bit of a reagravation. >> Yeah. About three weeks in, I re I went out to run. It was the first nice day was 50 degrees. I was like, "Ah, Brian wants to go run and tested and that wasn't a good idea.
" So, we know from like regular tissue healing that if something was, you know, micro tear in there or a strain of some kind, >> it can take three to six weeks. >> Yep. >> To heal that. So, you were at the front end of that tissue healing, right? >> And then reagravated it and it's been two to three weeks since then. Okay.
>> Yep. >> So, yeah. So we would want to in in a regular rehab kind of process we would want to not reagravate it right so that tissue can heal and that's fine and you can do other things as long as you don't reagravate it right cool >> well the no big deal kind of stationary I can bike and I just have to make sure that I'm not actually compressing the tissue on my sitbone on the seat so I have towels I have a towel that I sit behind my sitbones.
So, it raises my butt off the seat and I've been managing just pretty pretty good with that. And I get up every I'll bike upwards of an hour to two hours at one go, but I'll I'll break it up and take 20 minutes and then I'll I'll go walk a little bit to just relieve the tension in the movement pattern and then start biking again or I'll break it up into two sessions in the day while I'm working.
>> Nice. That's a great protocol because what you don't want to do is not do anything. >> Ah yeah, my I feel my fitness and my my mus my leg muscles are deconditioned and feel like all of a sudden I I just lost like a year's worth of leg training if I just sat around and did nothing. >> That'd be horrible. >> Yeah, you would.
And >> where did my quads go? My quads don't fell in my shorts when I go to put them on this summer. Like where'd they go? >> Exactly. >> Oh yeah, I just sat there for 10 weeks. beach season's coming up. >> Oh, exactly. >> But the So, and this has changed recently in rehab um kind of research that um we don't want to we don't like the worst thing we can do is do nothing, especially when it comes to tendonopathy or tendonitis type.
>> Yeah, that's exactly soft tissue things. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. Um what does that actually mean? It just means inflammation of the tendon. >> Right. There may have been some little micro tears. It's likely that there was based on the trauma there's a pop you experienced. >> So there was something happened. >> Yep.
>> Did it get black and blue? >> Uh I didn't look at my butt cheeks, but I I don't think so. >> That's okay. >> That's okay. >> Honestly, I never thought about it. >> There's likely some tearing um in there a little bit. >> So you had to you have to go you have to go through the tissue healing process. Um I doubt that you caused much damage in that 3-w week little reagravation like you would have felt pretty intensely the pain and maybe another like pop or strain if you reinjured significantly.
It wasn't. >> That's probably more of a just a >> protective mechanism. Like your brain's like, "Hey, Brian, >> we just went through this. What are you doing? >> Don't go run yet. Quit it. >> It's not stop." >> I mean, Brandon, my my oldest son, Levi, he challenged me to run a marathon in September. I mean, come on, man.
I got to be ready. I got to go. And if I can if I have more time, then I don't have to do a lot of miles in a week. But if I start having less time because of injury, then I have to start running more, which will then increase my likeliness of injury again, and I don't want that. >> Yeah.
So, here's here's what I would do with you if you were my client. First of all, I would continue what you're doing on the bike because most important thing for a marathon is your cardiovascular health. >> Yeah. >> And fitness, right? >> So, you can get that on the bike, on a rowing machine, >> whatever. You could get that in the pool >> doing some swimming.
um whatever you can do that's painf free and then we rehabilitate the actual um sight of injury and reintegrate it with your running mechanics. So um the first thing I always do with anybody in pain even if they're in the acute phase is that I'll go to a different area of the body that communicates with that area. And this is the joy and pleasure of working with the nervous system directly is that when you know that pain is just an output from the brain.
Okay? Then we can do anything to affect that pain. Anything that removes threat from the bucket and tells the brain that we're safe, then that can help to reduce pain and reduce inflammation and all that. So we have a concept called opposing joints in um neurotraining or applied neurology. Yep. which is based on your gate but explain it.
>> So based on your gate mechanics we are contrateral bipedal humans which means we move with opposite sides of the body. My brain knows actually it's not even this is not even at the level of the brain. There's something called central pattern generators that live at the spinal cord level that tell your body to move without your brain's input.
Walking is one of these. You don't have to think about walking. You just start the movement and your brain, your your spinal cord and your muscles just take over. >> Swallowing is another one. Breathing is another one. Like swallowing, you just initiate it. Then all those muscles of your esophagus and then all your digestion, it just takes over.
So those are like spinal cord reflexes. We could consider that. So because of how that works, my right leg moves forward. My left arm knows that it needs to move forward too. So with opposing joints because we make this big X then we can work with the joint on the opposite side of the body to get a lot of times 50% or more relief in pain for that joint without working at it at all.
So if my if if we use yours you're like well let's just say it's your hip because it's easier to think about for a second. my left hip hurts, then the opposing judge for that is going to be the right shoulder, >> right? >> So, I can take that right shoulder and I can move it in a very specific way or I can just do some circles, maybe do some shoulder presses, right? Move that joint around and that's going to communicate with that left hip.
It's going to work by it's going to work to kind of remap that hip through um force transmission. It's going to work to activate those spinal cord reflexes through something called reciprocal inhibition, which you're probably familiar with, right? Yep. >> When we have a muscle imbalance and one muscle's tight.
A lot of times when we go to activate the other muscle, it's antagonist. It won't work very well because this muscle that's tight just won't shut off. Usually, like when I do a bicep curl, my triceps got to shut off. we need to inhibit that muscle so it can lengthen out, right? >> But sometimes in pain conditions like that, that's kind of it's misfiring a little bit.
>> Well, when I activate this right shoulder, because of that spinal cord reflex, and it knows that when I move my left leg back into extension, my right arm and shoulder has to go into extension. Those muscles kind of activate together. So, if I want to turn off the extensors over there because they're causing this sitsbone pain because the glute won't shut off and the hamstring is tight and won't shut off, then I can take that other shoulder, the right shoulder into flexion and do some circles, do some exercises in flexion
and that's going to activate the hip flexors over here because they work together thereby inhibiting the glutes in the back. Okay. So, in a roundabout way, again, those two joints are communicating each other on opposing sides of the body. So, that's a great tool and it works for soft tisses then, right? >> Well, so the way to get really precise with it is we got to talk about when is it actually hurt and you said it's when you're going into the heel strike phase of gate.
Is that correct? Yeah, when I'm in lootion, another time that I feel it is when I'm sitting and my there's an overstretch on my hamstring. So, think of a car seat. I get into a car and and the butt goes down and the the thigh knee part is up, right? I'm in that that more of a stretch and I'll feel it there and I have to sit more on my right side to elevate my left >> hip to to take off the stretch there.
I haven't stretched my hamstrings much. I probably should start here at some point. >> Well, so that's actually an interesting um like counterintuitive thing with tendon injuries or soft tissue injuries, >> especially with the hamstrings. The hamstrings often feel tight, but for most people, they're not tight.
They're actually lengthened. >> Mhm. >> And they're loose and the quads and hip flexors are tight >> and they feel tight like they need to stretch because the pelvis is anteriorly rotated. So the connection where your sitsbones is at the sacred tuberous um ligament there and all the way down past your knee into your calf.
That whole hamstring is lengthened out and it feels tight, >> but really what it needs is it it needs strength. it needs to shorten. >> A lengthen muscle is a weak muscle for everyone listening in. And then take the the >> example that I always remember really well about what he's talking about anterior posterior tilt.
Your hips I have a are a bowl of water. And anterior tilt means that the your your bowl is going to spill water out the front. And so what he's saying is the back of your hips are higher and causing this hamstring to be elongated while your quads are squeezing and pulling the the the bowl forward causing it to pour out.
And this is this antagonistic at what he's talking about. So the quads are firing not allowing the hamstring to work. And consequently, you think you have tight hamstrings, but they're actually lengthened and weakened. And we need to actually do some corrective exercise here with hamstring strengthening and relaxing the quads so much.
And chances are in that situation there's probably a lot to do with your posture of sitting a lot and having tight hip flexors and quads and such. And then you are um just you just never stretch your quads either. So they're just naturally tight from sitting. It could be. Yeah, for sure. And that's exactly right. That's a great visualization.
And what we know from um research on tendonopathy specifically, the kind of exercise that's really helpful is eccentric loading. So, it doesn't have to be super heavy, but doing some um like Romanian deadlifts >> or something that's going to kind of elongate under load, pretty slow and controlled. and then you know either dropping the weight and coming back up but avoiding the concentric shortening phase >> because that's where most of the injury hurts where most of the injury happens.
Um but then doing just eccentric loading in your rehab phase >> can be really helpful. And then RDL's and and Brandon, that's where I feel it whenever I lean forward. Say I'm brushing my teeth and I'm leaning forward getting ready to spit out the toothpaste after I'm brushing. Then I'm feeling my sitbone firing because of that stability and that squeeze.
But I need to start strengthening. This was a good tool to be able to start correcting that. I over the summer I had a couple calf strains because I The last 10 years I've been I have four kids and my oldest is 16. So do some math. My youngest is 10. So do some math. I was in crazy parent mode and child rearing and and bringing up a young family.
And I could find time for lifting weights, which I wanted to primarily make sure that I maintain muscle mass in my 30s getting into the 40s, which I think I did a pretty good job of. And then I but I couldn't have time to run or develop my cardiovascular system. So that had suffered in a sense because of that. I walked like crazy just so much walking while I was on phone calls and just a very busy time of life.
So I'm getting deconditioned in in my cardiovascular system and my say my calves coming from a heavy endurance background running marathons ultramarathons bicycling triathlons all that stuff in my my late teens and to about 25 to 28 probably about 28 is when I started to shift and so I start running again because I have more time available and I can squeeze it in my day more.
my kids are at school and stuff and I end up straining my calves because I'm running too fast. And that was a whole summer predicament. And the whole reason I bring this up is >> it it if finally after straining them, it was just the right leg, then the left leg, and then the right leg. And if I tried to run too fast, I' I'd pluck that Achilles and it fire.
And it ultimately came to my attention that my calves were weak. And I had not considered that with all the walking, but the lack of running in a sense or cycling and all those things that made my legs strong was not there after 10 years. I still have say shape to my calf. They still look like a runner's calf, but the the capacity and the fitness and the strengthening and all that stuff that was there, it wasn't.
And I was trying to place the same amount of load because Brian's 43 with a 25year-old brain. So like let's go and my body is not quite there. So I had to basically do calf raises, standing and seated calf raises and that did the trick. Like within two to three weeks calves stop being annoying and started working and now I just start I just make sure that I add calf training at least once or twice a week to do a couple sets and it's made a significant difference in keeping calf strains down.
Uh it took a minute to figure that out. Sorry to interrupt, but Oh, no. >> Can you tell us tell us like what you're >> how you're loading it? Are you doing like 100 reps? Are you doing like 80 for strength? Really? >> Yeah. I I would do it with a dumbbell. I I had an 80 lb dumbbell. You could actually the the treadmill right behind me.
I would just get up onto that and I hold 80 pound dumbbell and just do some standing ones. And then right in front of me is the Smith machine and I would use the crossbar and then the little the little lip of the the foot of the the bench that I have and I would use that as the heel lift and I would do seated ones as well.
So I'd intermix those standing and seated but generally the range is about 15ish or so and that worked out just fine. >> Nice. Yeah. So what's crazy about loading in your calves is every step that you take walking you know you know ground reaction forces are right. >> Mhm. >> Every time we step for your audience we accept the same well we accept more than our body weight up from the earth.
This is Newton's third law of motion. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So every time your heel hits the ground, your the earth presses up against you. And because uh it's not perfectly efficient, the earth's usually presses up more. So you're accepting about one and a half times your body weight with every step you take.
Which is why in all training senses, if you want your body to change in a certain way, fix your gate. Fix the way that you walk. that will help your posture and the way your body looks and everything more than anything else because you're accepting a ton of load. Like if you only walked around all day and you took 10,000 steps, 10,000 I mean I'm 200 lb.
Two 250 or 300 lb in each step 10,000. That's like a billion pounds or something. It's a lot. >> It's a lot easy there, right? >> Yeah. If you are jumping, you're going to be getting like five to six times your body weight. And if you're sprinting, it's going to be up to nine times your body weight with every step. >> That's an insane amount of load.
If you were to go in and do calf raises >> to try to get that much load, you'd have to do like 500 lb on your back on one leg like 100,000 times. >> It's insane, right? So running and sprinting are some of the best ways to load up your lower body and to do lower body training. But yeah, like you like you experienced, you can't just go from zero to 100 right away.
>> So many people come to see me after injuring themselves after sprinting without doing the proper prep, >> right? >> It's so common. Um, and it's, >> you know, the other thing. So don't do that everybody, >> right? >> Take your time. Take your time. >> A simple question I'll throw out there. >> Yeah.
A simple question that I always pose to my clients because this is back from my personal training days years years ago many moons ago 200 and four or so. I became a personal trainer in the gym and quickly quickly quickly I learned that I do not over exercise or potentially hurt my client. Why? Because that directly affects my bank account, right? because they don't come in the next time because they're sore.
And if I do that repeatedly, they stop being a client and they go to the guy, >> my coworker, and work with them because Brian's too hard. The quick question for anyone listening in that I always shared was, "Can I work out tomorrow?" For 99% of anyone that we that Brandon and I would ever work with, that's really legit advice.
You don't need to overdo it. It's progressive overload over time and that's just the way it works and yeah >> so that that's how you should follow that and you should be able to train tomorrow in a sense and not >> do too much today. >> Yeah. And there's lots of great tools out there to kind of assess your readiness like HRV and >> and everything like that >> or even the body battery on a Garmin or something, right? Strain and the Whoop and all that. Yeah, they're great.
They're great and they can be pretty accurate. Um, as a, you know, you want to look at patterns over time, of course, as a tool. Yeah. >> But the best tool that anybody have, and of course I'm biased because I'm a neurotrader and I'm a brain guy, >> but being able to actually have a dialogue in a sense and be in tune with your own nervous system uh, and therefore your body and judging your readiness that way.
And we use a very simple assessment process that anyone could do any time to judge in a moment your nervous system's level of threat. And therefore, when you start to do this for a while and you start to get in tune with where you're at, you can judge very accurately, you know, how your body's readiness dayto day and in the moment and also be able to change it in a moment instantaneously.
Um, and therefore make yourself ready or make sure that you're accurate in knowing that you're not ready. Right. >> Yeah. >> You built some good suspense here. I'm I'm interested. It's a simple thing. >> It's It's very simple. And we really just use any kind of any kind of proxy to see how the nervous system is organizing movement and we can judge the level of threat based on that.
So, if that sounds like gobbledygook, that's fine. It's it's a it's a range of motion or a strength assessment or a balance assessment or if you're in tune with it, your gate is your best assessment. Like, how am I walking? How is it fluid? Am I steps narrow or are they wide, right? Am I loud and clunky? Or am I soft like a ninja? >> These my wife, I'm always loud.
So, >> yeah. So that that's inefficient. >> Look like an elephant. >> Like a horse. Like clunk clunk clunk. >> 93 I weighed on the scale the other day. So it was like I'm not the lightest guy. I'm going to make noise when I move. >> I will push back on that because who was it? I think I want to say it was Shaq, but like okay >> some of the biggest guys in the world can move soft.
So >> one of the best examples of this is like I worked with a um a shot putter and >> those are usually big guys. >> This dude >> this dudeful this dude was 285 but jacked >> like so huge >> and he walked like a ninja. You could not hear him coming around the corner because his gate was so efficient. He was not expending any more energy than needed to. Right.
And then I've seen, you know, a you 100 pound woman walk like a Clydesdale. Not >> size, but loudness, right? >> You you could never she could never steal anything from anybody. They'd hear it coming a mile away. And it's all about the efficiency of the force transfer. Right. Back to Newton's third law.
And for you and your your your injury, that's a big part of it is like when you step every step with that left foot, that force needs to be transmitted throughout the entire system. And if it's getting stuck somewhere, yeah, >> like at your sitsbones, which is right where it crosses over >> into the other side, >> then it's all of that force is going to come up against a wall >> and it's going to create >> like it might create damage actually if it just gets stuck there and it has nowhere to go or it's going to go right back down to the ground and you're going
to end up with foot pain, ankles, knees, even hips. Um, >> real quick on that, just to throw it out there, just make sure people are paying attention. We have pain and at a spot that goes upstream or downstream. So pain, say at your knee, if you have knee pain, there might be something in your foot or your toe causing issues or in your quad or your hip that is causing the knee pain.
Just to throw that out there. And that's exactly what he's referencing is if if it's getting blocked and it's going to send the energy back down my leg, next thing you know, my big toe is hurting. It's like, why are my toe hurting? But that's caused from the hip and and this compensation that's happening in the toe joint to move my body in an inefficient movement pattern.
So then next thing you know, I am the Clyde horse walking around because I'm wobbling around and stuff. >> Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's the reason why a lot of times the pain will move around after we're walking on it for a while. So great example the um the just because I want to like give somebody the tool because I don't want to I don't want to leave a loose end there.
>> If you were to close the loop if you were to Yeah. So if you were to assess any range of motion and I usually usually ask somebody like you know what can't you do? Show me what you can't do and you be like ah well my shoulder gets a little stiff. So okay, show me that shoulder flexion.
Let's see where it's at. Like how much room you got in between your ear there. >> And then we'll do some kind of input. Anything. Could be a vision drill, a vestibular drill, a breathing drill, a movement drill or exercise. and then we retest it. So, one of my favorites of all time is to just smell because it's a input that goes straight to your brain and it's very quick.
>> So, usually one side or the other will be a better smell for somebody and it could be anything. Like I just have my coffee here. I love the smell of coffee. Usually, you want it to be something positive. Like if it's >> dog crap, you might not enjoy that very much and it might increase your threat level, right? So just be choosy.
>> So if I smell it >> on that right side, >> then it will improve my range of motion significantly. Right. >> Yes. So if anyone's watching on video, if you're not listening, he originally lifted his arm up and got about maybe an inch. Yeah. I mean, you weren't move. You're just doing it. And it was maybe an inch bicep from his ear was about an inch. And then he smelled his cough.
He just took a big drag up the nose. >> And then it easily fluidly went straight up to his side to to his ear. There's effortlessly in the visuals here. Just want to call that out for anyone listening in. And so that just tells us that my level of threat overall reduced. And so my range of motion improves when threat goes down.
The brain will just kind of take the foot off the brake and our performance will improve. Now that'll probably go back. It's already starting to stiffen up a little bit. Yeah. That's about all I got. It's back to what it was. >> Mhm. >> And that's normal. Like it's a functional change that can happen in an instant.
But as threats accumulate, like I got some pretty bright lights in here, right? >> Mhm. as the threat level creeps back up, the joint starts to tighten. So, like anything, if we want something to change and stick, then we need um we need repetition and intensity. So, you know, that's where our corrective exercise comes in. That's where, you know, repeated bouts of training the nervous system and the brain comes in, >> right? >> In order to get neuroplasticity and leverage that and actually create those new pathways and make them stick like you were slaying. Uh, I think we talked
about this before one time, like greasing the groove. >> Yes. >> Right. As you go down the hill, um, you make your first tracks, there's a little friction. You don't go so fast. >> You definitely don't go fast or far. >> Yeah. But as you continue going down that same path, >> it gets more slick.
It gets faster and faster and faster. That's >> I'm just going to say this, Brandon. the the best at where we were at. The best is that I was able to get all the way to the other side of the block. That's how good of a run that we were able to grease that groove and go all the way down and and each time you can get a little bit farther than just inch an inch and then and then all of a sudden next thing you know I'm all the way to the other road.
It was it was pretty epic. My kids were there. They saw me. >> That's awesome. >> Yeah. And how do you make it faster, quicker? You get a running start. >> Yes. >> Right. >> Or you add some load in the sled to increase the momentum. That'd be increasing the >> kid in there. Right. >> Yeah. We have someone push us. We've got two people on the sled.
We We've got a running start. There's a lot of different ways to load and recreate that. >> Exactly. And so the brain works the same way same way as the body. You got to load it um with some intensity and repetition in order for things to change. The cool thing about the nervous system and brain is that they change a lot faster than the body.
What would take, you know, weeks for us to see change in our muscles or losing weight, that kind of stuff. >> Muscle hypertrophy, building muscle takes a long time, unfortunately. >> Yeah. Neuroplastic change is a lot faster, which is which is great. Now, back to your pain. I just wanted to throw these couple things out there.
>> Um cuz you mentioned them. I wanted to circle back really quick and then we'll kind of >> close the door on that one. >> Yeah. So the >> a couple things that you mentioned like posture and then of course the activity that aggravates it. Um so posture I'm going to I'm going to link them both into one training modality that they point to for me >> and that's that's kind of two things.
One one is the area of your brain called the cerebellum. It's the little brain that sits in the back on the bottom and it's really dense. It's got 50% of the neurons, but it only comprises 10% of the volume of your brain and it's hugely important for accuracy, balance, and coordination. ABC's of movement. Okay? So, anything that's coordinated movement that requires balance, cerebellum's hugely involved.
That would include running. Right? Now the other thing that is incredibly important that gives a ton of information to your cerebellum about where you are in space and also is just incredibly important for keeping you um balanced and your equilibrium is your vestibular system or your inner ear. So you got these two little gyroscopes that live behind your eyes.
They're about the size of a dime back here in your skull and they are constantly answering two questions. Where am I at? and where am I going? >> And if they're a little bit off, then you're going to require more resources to process the world >> right >> now. That makes sense. >> If we're just walking around the world or we're seated on a stationary bike, they're doing very little processing, right? They're always on, but they're kind of like at gear one >> easy.
>> Okay. >> As soon as we start moving faster, they got to process faster. And if there's just a little bit of discrepancy, then let's say we got a little bit of discrepancy that creates 30% more resources required to process. They're going to fatigue eventually, right? Now, the thing is they don't have a way to tell you that they're fatigued.
They also don't have pain receptors, right? So, they can't feel pain. So, they're going to give you some kind of threat response or protective outputs to tell you to change something. So what I'm saying is is that with you, I would definitely look at your inner ear as a place to complement your regular rehab, like your soft tissue rehab.
And so for that, basically, you can use that assessment process that we just learned, right? Like a shoulder or a toe touch >> or even balance. Balance is a great assessment. and then test, you know, looking at an object and turning your head in different directions, balancing your head up and down, which is a lot of what running does, right? >> Your head's getting up and down and it's moving back and forth through space.
If you can kind of look at those three movements of your head and reassess them and see, you know, is there one that's causing an issue, then that's something that you definitely want to rehabilitate also. And that's a really common one. The reason I bring it up is because it's so common with any of my endurance athletes.
If we have a vestibular dysfunction, it's usually contributing to pain big time. >> Interesting. With my ear, I would not have thought to look there >> or listen in to that. Very good. Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, I will I'll clean it out a little bit more, too. Right. >> Perfect. Yeah, you got to be able to hear your environment for sure.
>> Let's move into flow state. So, we've talked about a lot of aches and pains. Super informative. I haven't had anyone on the podcast to go into depth like you have on aches and pains and stuff. So, thank you so much for that. But I also want to look at the other end of your spectrum, the flow states.
Uh let's talk about what brought it on in the first place. uh first what flow state is, what brought it, the reason why you chased it and to get to it, and then you know where you're at now with it. >> Yeah. Um so that's a great segue because at the other end of that spectrum from pain is flow state.
And simply put, it's our optimal state of consciousness where we feel and perform our best. So, it's those moments of like totally wrapped attention where you're absorbed in the task at hand. So much so that everything fades away. Your sense of self fades away. Your time starts to change, speeds up or slows way down. It's an incredibly rich and enjoyable experience.
And it offers a lot of pain relief, >> you know. >> Oh, yeah. >> Yeah. Endorphins, all sorts of things going on in your body. Yeah. So, back, you know, 50 years ago or so when it wasn't like really well understood, it went by many names and it still does. Runner's high being one of those, >> right? >> And it's really fascinating like the evolution of flow and how it came about in human beings.
And one of the theories is the runner's high theory that it was required for humans because humans can run forever. Like that's one thing that separates us from a lot of other animal species is that we can run for a long time. And the theory is is that that's how we found our prey is that we would just outlast them.
>> Like the deer running on the Serengeti would run really fast and get away from us, but we would just keep trucking. >> Keep trottting. Yep. I >> and if you keep going, you eventually hit that runner's high. And they think that evolutionarily this was really beneficial >> and so it was the trait was carried on because the ones that could cut out the pain and keep going and enjoy the experience would be the ones that got to eat, >> right? >> So they think that maybe that's where it came from.
>> Anyway, it happens. It can happen in any activity granted that the the conditions are right. So it's kind of the um we could say it's kind of like the antithesis of pain. It's like the perfect state of consciousness where you have no pain and everything is firing on all cylinders. And so that's kind of the the the evolution of what I take people through is, you know, aches and pains, my kind of struggling, burnt out, fighting against their body and brain to achieving flow consistently and predictably and whatever their sport is, whatever,
like most of my clients to be honest are are are playing the sport of life >> and they're really trying to get their cognitive performance >> to be the best they can for their family, for their business, whatever it is. Um, and their sports, their athletics is kind of secondary to that. But anyway, it came about for me because I played college football and had a lot of head injuries and a lot of chronic pain afterward.
And we I was very fortunate to play for an awesome team and a great coach and um staff. And I mean, it was pretty magical that time. We were I played in three national championships. We won two of them. Um, and so I had I had easy access to flow states. >> Oh, right. Right. >> That's what it came down to >> all the time when you were in a championship level when like you're sitting the sidelines just like get out there and let's go and it's all in.
>> Exactly. >> And getting the reward out of it. >> Yeah. Yeah. Which was nice. But like you said, you don't get to that level of competition and um like you don't get to repeated national championships unless you have some kind of secret sauce and it was flow states that was our secret sauce you when it comes down to it.
Um and there was a lot that went into that, the culture being the biggest piece of it. But >> right, >> I lost access to that and I didn't know it. And so I kind of floundered around for 10 years uh in pain and having mental health issues and substance abuse issues and just kind of trying to find flow in a lot of unhealthy ways that I didn't know was going on.
Then when I >> if you have no one looking at real quick if you have no one paying attention or help guide or mentor and you've been under a coach and obviously a phenomenal coach and environment then you get left off into your own then you have exposure and that's same thing with say guys in their 40s is all of a sudden yeah >> the I had another previous guest Albert who was a CPA and on episode 90 and he talked about how 40 to 60 is some of the hardest life you're going to live because you're there's a lot of transitions of kids starting to leave
the nest, your parents starting to grow ill and or die, your career either excelling and you're making the most money you've ever had or you have to you get fired, laid off and you have to go another place and pivot. And that's where that say midlife crisis comes in. And so we have this very turbulent challenging time.
And if you don't have someone or something anchoring you, especially amongst the the culture that we're in with intention seeking behaviors and instant gratification, you will flounder. You will not do well by design of our own misdoing ultimately. >> So you so that's what what you started to experience. One more thing is I I I warned my son.
He's very much a attention and driven. He is 16. He ran a marathon already. He wants to run another one in in May. He raced triathlon. Uh he's a state qualifier and he he he placed 22nd, 27th in 100, and 200 yard swim freestyles just recently. So he's he's starting to achieve these accomplishments and and all this. Plus, we've taken him all over the world.
Basically, he's been to all 50 states and multiple countries and continents doing if you name an activity or an experience, there's a large percentage chance that he may have experienced that. And I'm just telling him now, hey, you really have to think about this because if not, you're going to run into a dopamine crash when you're 25.
And the only thing that's going to get you off is doing a a skydive from space or something. >> So be careful. But I will be there to help and support him so that he doesn't >> go a muck and cause a lot more harm than good in a sense. Well, I just throwing that out there to to guys listening in. >> Yeah, we we want in a positive way.
>> Yes, you hit on a bunch of really important points. The last one, maybe the most important, which is that, you know, when we're not aware of it, we can tend to lean on the flow triggers that get us to that state most predictably. And for a lot of men, risk is a big trigger for everyone, but it's it's a trigger that they pull more often than women, for sure.
But if we're not aware of it, then we just keep chasing risk because it gets us to float. And you see this in action adventure sport athletes. You mentioned the skydiving from space. Yeah. 100%. And it's like it's like any addiction, you're chasing that pink dragon of flow >> in this case. And you if you don't know any better, you just keep pulling the risk trigger.
>> But it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be risk to like your body, right? It could be just for risk sake. You could do like risk of um humiliation, right? Public speaking is a great example. >> Oh yeah. >> A safe way to pull the risk trigger, >> right? >> Right. We know it's baked into us that um the fear of public speaking.
>> It's paralyzing for some people. But um the point is is that you can pull risk in other ways. Like here's a here's an unhealthy example, but also pulling the risk trigger. Gambling. >> Yes. >> They're risking their money. >> Sports betting, right? >> Yeah. Which is so huge now. And it's it's it's terrible for young men specifically because they don't.
Just FYI, it's gified and they know what they're doing in the background and they're targeting at risk people to get them to play harder and just if you're out there and you're you're you do listen in and you're you're you do do the apps and the sports betting, >> it's rigged. It's a casino, man. The house is going to win.
Like just not a good gamble. Just say that something's Yeah. And it's no different than social media. They're both engineered to hijack your dopamine doper dopamineeric system. It's hijacking your attention and keeping you there for as long as possible to help you like the draw is flow, but you rarely get there.
But it's the anticipation of it that keeps you going back >> and pulling the trigger harder and harder and harder. And it just doesn't it never leads anywhere good. >> Not usually. >> But if you know that >> some of those addictive behavior, >> if you can be aware of it and what they're doing and like going back to the the risk trigger for like action adventure sport athletes, there's nothing wrong with those sports, they're fantastic and like I love them.
I do I do a lot of them. But you have to understand what you're playing with, right? And if if all you're playing with is the risk trigger, then you will have to go bigger and bigger every time. But if you can throw in some other triggers like the challenge skills balance is probably the golden rule of flow.
If you can increase the challenge in some way that is just above your current skill level, you're more likely to find a flow state. And you can increase the challenge without increasing the risk. For example, I went skiing the other week and I am not super skilled right now because it's been 10 years, right? And I also don't need to be going off a bunch of jumps, right? When I'm not that skilled.
>> Double black diamonds. Let's go. >> I've got a bunch of kids at home that need me to have a functioning brain, right? So, what can I do to increase the challenge? Well, I just started to like I'm still doing the fairly easy hills, but I added in a little bit going up the burm going down. I trying to ski backwards.
So flipping around, it increases the challenge. Yeah, the risk a little bit, but it's nothing like going down a double black diamond that I'm just not ready for or going off a jump that I might hit my head if I fall. >> Right? >> So silly example, but there are many ways to if you can be creative to increase the challenge in anything that you do so that you can have access to more flow.
>> Ah, this is this is good. What what is the thing that you enjoy most to get to flow? Is there a certain process or routines or uh experiences that you look or seek out that that get you to flow? >> Well, that's why my company is called Evolved Athlete and and because sports is like my favorite >> just because I I grew up doing it and I'm a very kinesthetic person.
So, I love movement >> and the complexity of movement and the challenge. So, I like pickle ball. I love I like skiing. >> I like golf and um pretty pretty much any sport, even working out. Like there's pretty good access to flow, but >> sports are more fun because they usually involve other people >> and that's really important.
>> Like you can absolutely find flow like we're we're we're kind of in it right now, right? >> Yeah, we're flowing. >> Yeah. One of the best ways to find flow and a very much a heightened sense of it is what's called group flow, which could be just two people having a conversation or like my college football team all on the same page going for the same goal and just in it to win it, right? We're all on the same page. We're clicking.
We're of a shared mind almost. Those are much more intense and gratifying experiences when you start adding in other people. So, I like to and it could be very simple like a family game night, right? Or getting together with your friends and doing something together. It could be a sport.
It could be, you know, going dancing. It could be game night. >> Something without a screen. >> Something without a screen. People for the love. Just connect. Put him down. Stop staring at him. Connect >> doing something else. Absolutely love. >> That's required. that is required for a flow state. Although you can I'll put a caveat that like social gaming >> um can be one way.
>> Yeah, that can be flow, right? >> But it like video gaming. However, that's a harder one that can be more destructive. So, I just caution people >> um with stuff like that. It's much better to be in person, you know, away from a screen and actually interacting and playing off each other. >> Agree. like improv comedy.
>> Agreed. Agreed with that 100%. Flow state is something that I want to and you do have to prepare for it. There is a preparation. There's a reps. There is sequencing that stacks the deck in a way to create those challenges, those outcomes, those inputs and outputs in your body and your mind. And then what you're able to actually do and accomplish as a result of the flow state's really exciting.
So when you can just sit down, as as my oldest would say, lock in and and get to it, then you can create a lot of really cool impactful things in your life to to better you, better the people around you. And that's that's the probably the biggest reason why I seek out flow is for those interactions to be enriched. For sure.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I always tell my clients like when you make flow the goal, the outcome takes care of itself >> because now you're focusing on the process. >> Yeah. And if you're focusing on finding flow, you're going to you're going to produce your best work, you're going to perform at your highest level.
Every world championship, every Guinness book world record, every amazing work of art, literature, or otherwise is because of a flow state, >> right? Right? So when you make that the goal, you're going to produce that awesome thing, the best thing that you can in that moment. And over time, that starts to compound and becomes exponential because flow begets flow.
And so when you find it, you get more of it. And you start, like you said, this is why sports is so great. Um because it teaches us a lot of things, especially about flow. And we hear about superstitions all the time. And to me, they're just stacking the deck, right? They have a specific ritual that they go through that is going to help them find that state of consciousness.
That's what those are all about. And I would never poo poo them. I think they're important, >> right, for helping people find that state of mind that they need to be at their best. >> So, we can do that with anything we do. Like when I get up and you know, >> I'm wearing my underwear inside out right now for to be prepared for this this podcast. No, I'm joking.
>> Absolutely. >> Do you clean them though at least? >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. But that's, you know, that's what it is for you. Makes makes you feel your best and then that's it. Do it. All right. >> I'm joking. >> But yes. Yeah. There's so many different rituals and all that. This is the flow is is and if someone hasn't been tapped into flow, they should seek it out because it does produce really positive outcomes when done in the environment, the situation, the outcome that you're seeking. Again, we have to focus on the
input of what we do have control over in our world. That's how you create the the long-term outcome of whatever it is that you want. There's a reason why Brandon and I are where we're at in our careers in business because we put in thousands and thousands and thousands of reps working with people to help them better themselves and finding those experts and the and creating the environments with the the clients to become their best as well.
>> That's right. You got to get the reps. You got to get the reps. But I would also say that you can find a flow state at any level of skill. Yes. Oh, very much so. Yeah. It's not years away. It can be literally today you can find flow in whatever. >> It's all about adjusting the challenge. >> Adjusting the challenge and adjusting your expectations.
>> Like I can't go out skiing and expect to, you know, ski like my um I have a cousin who's professional skier, one of the best in the world. His name's Tanner Hall. I don't expect to go out there and be like Tanner. >> No, I need to be like Brandon and like rain it in, buddy, and realize where your limits are and just push up against him just a little bit.
Like what's scary for me >> is nothing to him, right? >> And that's important, right? We need to adjust our expectations and play at the level where we're at right now. And also surround yourself with people that just a little bit better than you. >> Yes. >> So they push you just a little bit because that's also very helpful for getting you out of the comfort zone and into the flow zone.
>> Yes. Exactly. Doing it with other people with a common goal is going to be huge. >> This has been an awesome conversation with you, Brandon, talking about aches and pains going into flow and be able to accomplish that. What is uh let's wrap up. What's one key takeaway from our conversation you want the the people to to take and leave and then we'll talk about where we can find you and all that.
>> Sure. We covered so many so many avenues. I would say probably the biggest thing to take away from this is that number one pain does not equal injury and injury does not equal pain. And that >> how about with this is aches or pain doesn't equal old. >> Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Uh age is just a number and there is no reason to have more pain as you age.
In fact, it should be less as you get better and more in tune with your body and optimizing your brain and your health. So bust that myth and then also you can access flow states in all areas of your life right now. It doesn't require anything but a brain and a body. And if you tune your environment and get rid of distractions, you are more likely to get it with doing nothing else.
So adjust your challenge and your skills. Get rid of distractions, i.e. your screen, and go out there and live live a life that is tuned to flow and you'll find more happiness and enjoyment and less pain. So >> excellent so much. Thank you so much for all the things you shared today. I hope that everyone was listening in took some really good gold nuggets here from this.
Brandon, where do we find you? Uh, you can head to my website to check out my 21-day program that I'm running right now. Um, get athletes out of pain and into momentum to find more flow. That's at evolved.coach. Or you can check me out on Instagram at I am Brandon Day, all one word, or my school community, which totally free.
um at school. That's skol.com evvolved. >> Yep. We'll have the all of that in the show notes for you guys to check out. Excellent. Well, the biggest things that I'm taking away here is that just because my age keeps going up doesn't mean that I have to identify with being old or aches and pains. I can live a life that is fun, that's enjoyable, that's experience focused, and working constantly toward flow and being able to just challenge myself and a little bit more each time. So, I develop reps.
I and I enjoy the experience every step of the way to get to the outcomes that I ultimately want. And by working at it and staying focused on it, then that allows for that experience and expression of who Brian is and how he serves. Even this being the 101st episode of Driven for Health, I there's been a lot of reps.
It's been over 4,000 minutes of me talking to my computer in in the last couple months to create this for flow, for expression, for all these things. So, thank you so much and we will send you off. Uh, everyone else, we'll catch you in the next episode. Thank you. Thanks, bro.