Most men want to wake up in the morning knowing their body is ready to handle whatever opportunities and challenges come their way that day. From a real emergency to simply roughhousing with their kids, they want to be able to move without pain and explore the world with confidence. My guest today would say that what this desire is pointing to is the achievement of physical autonomy. His name is Ryan Hurst, and he is a head coach at GMB Fitness, which uses bodyweight exercises and skill-based practices to help people get stronger, move better, and never have to doubt themselves physically.
00:05:42.820And I ended up working at a martial art complex within a shrine.
00:05:47.660And so I worked there for eight years as the interpreter and translator.
00:05:51.280And, you know, thanks to the fact that I was working at a martial art complex and working with all these other instructors, I ended up continuing my study of Aikido.
00:06:01.800But I actually did Daitorio Aiki Jiu-Jitsu at the time.
00:06:47.500And for Judo, you know, outside of Judo, because I was on the Judo team here, and so they would have us do quite a bit of extracurricular training.
00:06:56.620I actually got into a lot of yoga, to be honest, because I knew I needed some, you know, continue with my flexibility.
00:07:04.020And I just liked, you know, the particular style of yoga that I was doing over here.
00:07:09.140It was applicable to the martial art I was doing.
00:07:12.160I continued with that and ended up getting certified in yoga.
00:07:15.120And then I also, you know, got into some other fitness programs, if you will.
00:07:21.100And I ended up being involved with a fitness organization and worked my way up to becoming the program director of that particular fitness organization.
00:07:31.540So while I was at the martial arts complex, I was also doing that with this fitness organization.
00:07:38.040And I actually ended up, after eight years, I quit the martial art complex and ended up going out on my own, just, you know, teaching that particular fitness organization.
00:07:46.800And I would travel around the world, certifying people in that particular fitness organization.
00:07:52.000So yes, so at the same time I was doing my martial art, I was also really deep into my study of fitness and different kinds of fitness and making sure that, you know, basically I had an education in that as well.
00:08:04.980Well, on your about page, it says you had an injury in your martial arts career that caused you to reevaluate your priorities.
00:08:10.840Like what happened and then what shift happened after that injury?
00:08:13.900So this is interesting because that was a turning point in my life.
00:08:19.660And, you know, thanks to that, it really changed the way I looked at everything.
00:08:24.640And so basically I was thrown in judo and I had my shoulder basically just, you know, it was dislocated.
00:08:34.500And I tore the ligaments in my shoulder and a slap tear and ended up having to have surgery for it to repair everything.
00:08:41.280And it really changed the way I looked at everything.
00:08:44.320Obviously, I had to make some adjustments to my martial art.
00:08:47.800I was done because of that in terms of competing.
00:09:01.640But at the time, and then basically it was like, okay, I need to start doing things differently now.
00:09:06.520And, you know, after my rehabilitation and me getting back into stuff and looking at what I needed to do in order to make some changes so that I could continue to at least continue training in this martial art.
00:09:21.160And the multiple martial arts I was doing at the time, it was great because the fitness organization I was actually with, you know, one of my closest friends, Jarlo Ilano, is also in this fitness organization.
00:09:34.240And I was actually overseas helping to assist to teach a particular seminar.
00:09:39.440And during the break, I was kind of messing around with some of the gymnastic moves that I used to do.
00:09:46.520And so to kind of come full circle here was I hadn't done any gymnastics until that time that I really messed up my shoulder because I realized, you know what, these are some of the movements that I'm very comfortable with.
00:10:19.820So this was just me, again, just messing around.
00:10:22.520Well, later on, Jarlo, I mentioned, was like, hey, man, should be teaching that stuff.
00:10:27.100And that is really the start of where GMB came about.
00:10:33.700And that was looking at how can we look at this particular movement that I was doing when I grew up, also looking at martial art, and teach it in a way that's going to be good for people who actually weren't gymnasts, who just want to be able to move better, to feel better in their bodies,
00:10:55.480who might have taken a long break from exercising, and maybe they don't like the gym, and maybe they're doing something else in their life, and they want a different way to move and to get strong.
00:11:07.160And that's really kind of where that came about.
00:11:09.040And so in the very beginning of GMB, it wasn't this grandos idea of we want to change the world or anything.
00:11:15.500It was just simply like, hey, let's teach some fun stuff.
00:11:20.100And so that injury really changed the way that I looked at my own body, but also how approaching other people and how I could help other people who might have also had injuries or had not trained for a while.
00:11:35.900And kind of bring some fun back into the way they train rather than just thinking, you know, you got to get under the bar, it's got to be bench press, it's got to be shoulder press or something like that, which I think those are very, very good movements.
00:12:15.700And while GMB did start off with that, you know, gymnastic flavor, and of course, you know, the influence of martial art there, in the very beginning, it was about skills.
00:12:28.400And we looked at rings, and we looked at parallettes, and we looked at tumbling and things like that.
00:12:32.740But over the years at GMB, and we're going on 10 years right now, it's morphed into mainly looking at just the method.
00:12:42.500We do use things like locomotion, where we're, you know, rolling around on the ground and doing these funky animal-type movements and some other strength movements, looking at also handstands.
00:12:53.860But the thing is, is it's beyond the skills.
00:12:56.420It's looking at, okay, what I said earlier, how can I help you for what you need in your life?
00:13:20.560And I think this is something that people can get kind of caught up in, in the fact that people think that they need to be perfect or something in terms of skill work.
00:13:29.680But really, what is good enough for you to be able to continue to do the things in your life that you want to do?
00:13:35.860Focus more on that rather than chasing skills or thinking that you need to look a particular way or thinking that you need to be able to nail a particular skill.
00:13:46.900Well, let's unpack some of this stuff you've been talking about.
00:13:48.860So, you're kind of hitting on the philosophy of GMB, the big picture, this idea of being able to do the things you want to do and be useful in the world around you.
00:13:57.880One of the goals that you have there at GMB is helping people develop their physical autonomy.
00:14:48.780What I want to do, though, is really take a look at, okay, what do we need to do in order to help you to move towards that?
00:14:56.000And the physical autonomy to me is simply being able to do the things comfortably without fear and without pain and continue to do those things, whether that be a particular sport that you're doing, whether it be being able to go rucking, hiking.
00:15:14.740You know, that's one of my most favorite things, and I do that a lot.
00:15:19.320I want to be able to hike long distances, long distances, under load comfortably.
00:15:27.320It doesn't mean that the trek itself is not going to be tough, but what I mean is, like, I want to know that I have not just the capability to do something, but the ability to do something.
00:15:40.200And that's what we're after, and so physical autonomy is going to be different for everyone.
00:15:45.400Maybe it's just a matter of being able to squat down and play with your dog, play with your kids, you know, be a jungle gym for your kids.
00:15:53.320A lot of people really don't think about that, and so physical autonomy to us is looking at your strength.
00:15:59.000Strength, what sort of strength do you need?
00:16:01.600Because there's different kinds of strength, of course, and, you know, we're just talking about the physical right now.
00:16:06.340Now, the mental side of it is another topic in itself, but if we just look at the physical strength, what do you need in order to do the things that you want to do?
00:16:15.200Do you have good enough flexibility to be able to do what you want to do without fear of being injured or getting injured?
00:17:25.400Do you have the necessary flexibility and range of motion in your ankles and your hips to be able to do that while under load?
00:17:32.200And so that's something to look at there.
00:17:33.920And so if you don't, then what you do is you need to focus on getting that particular range of flexibility.
00:17:41.980Once you have that, then you look at honing that skill and the ability to move beyond that and look at sophisticating the movement.
00:17:50.640And so now you have the capabilities and the strength of flexibility and that control, you can start moving and maybe start working on shrimp squats or, you know, a pistol squat or something else that is going to be able to do it in a way, like I mentioned earlier, where it's not that you're going to necessarily be able to nail that skill right away.
00:18:11.080But because you have built those capabilities, you now have the ability to start training those particular skills.
00:18:18.640And so a lot of people kind of just try to do those skills without having that proper base.
00:18:24.420And so that base is where you need to make sure that you have that and that it's good enough to be able to start working on the ability to train other progressions and skills like I mentioned.
00:18:36.440And something you mentioned regarding having the ability to do skills is being able to do them without fear.
00:18:43.240And one skill I think is a good example of this is the handstand.
00:18:46.920For the handstand, I mean, if you're looking at just going to handstand, there's a lot of the ways that I would really look at it, to be honest, is the two main things for me are safety and addressing the fear factor.
00:19:01.700And so this is where people actually get, you know, caught up.
00:19:05.080And that is they just start working on walking up the wall or they kick up and they put their feet on the wall and that's great.
00:19:11.500And then they go away, they come away from the wall and they start to do a handstand and realize that they keep toppling over and it's also really scary.
00:19:20.040And so my main thing from the very beginning is, okay, let's address those.
00:19:24.380And the way that I do that is we focus on the bail.
00:19:27.200Can you safely bail out of a handstand?
00:19:30.640The way to do that is you work on your cartwheel.
00:19:33.540If you can do a cartwheel, you can bail out of a handstand.
00:19:36.160The better you get at your cartwheel, the better off you're going to be able to bail.
00:19:41.460Therefore, the fear of being upside down is not going to be there as much as it was before because you understand you have the ability to bail out of the handstand.
00:19:55.440And so this is a huge, huge factor that a lot of people don't take into consideration when they're training particular skills.
00:20:01.260Skills, any skill comes down to having the first work and the capability, but then having the ability to perform that movement safely and addressing fear.
00:20:14.300I think really that's kind of that way with everything in life though, right?
00:20:18.060We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.
00:21:43.180You want to increase your barbell squat.
00:21:46.500Now, barbell squats are actually not something that we cover in GMB, but I'm using this as an example because we can all have an image of a barbell squat.
00:21:54.080Now, we know that in order to get super duper strong, we're going to have to load up that bar and work towards increasing the amount of load we place on ourself while we're doing that.
00:22:19.140Another different topic, you know, flexibility, mobility, a little bit different.
00:22:22.720But basically, let's look at mobility.
00:22:24.760And while we're moving, we find that our hip flexibility is having some issues.
00:22:32.180So then what we can do is, even before we start doing those particular barbell squats, we can work on our hip flexibility, whatever is good for us that day.
00:24:03.980If you can focus on making it pretty, that means that you're focusing on the quality of the movement, and you're very aware of what's going on within that movement.
00:24:12.740That is how you can be working on control.
00:24:15.160You're also working on your strength at the same time.
00:24:17.680And as well, you're hitting that flexibility component because you understand that you do need to work on increasing range of motion in your hips.
00:24:24.300Therefore, the movement that the example was using, the monkey movement, before your squats in order to do that.
00:24:31.800Then afterwards, you can continue to work on your hip mobility, flexibility if you need be.
00:24:36.020So while we are looking at all these components, and while some people say, oh, yeah, I stretch before or I stretch afterwards, our main thing, to be honest, in taking these three movements is looking at,
00:24:49.640and I know this is an overused phrase, but the biggest bang is your buck.
00:24:54.440And so what are the things that we can be doing, one movement per se, for example, the monkey, that can give you these benefits without having you to do a 20-minute foam roller warm-up before you go in and do an hour-long workout,
00:25:10.560and then afterwards, 20 minutes of flexibility or something like that.
00:25:14.760Because, let's be honest, the majority of us out there, we're grown-ass adults, we don't have eight hours a day to train, we're not professional athletes.
00:25:24.740I'm not a professional athlete, yes, this is my job, but my job is to work out, if you will.
00:25:31.820But the thing is, is still, I only do that maybe an hour a day.
00:25:35.780And so what we're after is looking at what are the key components that are focusing on the strength, flexibility, and control that are going to help us towards our why, towards our goal.
00:25:50.560In GMB, we're not about trying to work out more.
00:25:53.180We're actually trying to work out less and finding the exact things by using assessments.
00:25:58.540We use a AAA framework, we assess the situation, we address our issues, and then we apply the necessary protocol that's going to help us to move towards our goals faster and more efficiently,
00:26:08.840so that we can move away from doing all this exercise and do the stuff that we really want to be doing in our lives, like paddleboarding, hiking, playing with our kids, or whatever it is out there.
00:26:19.500So, kind of a long answer there, but hopefully that was an example of that, you know, for strength, flexibility, and control.
00:26:26.020Wait, so that was an example of using GMB as a, I mean, it sounds kind of like a supplement to maybe you're a barbell guy.
00:26:41.440We have a curriculum that you can follow and work through.
00:26:45.460Thing is, though, it can be used as a supplement.
00:26:48.300And like I mentioned there, that's just one example of how you can look at just the flexibility component and apply that within a particular, you know, workout protocol that you're currently doing.
00:27:01.420But again, the goal for us really is, how can we help you for whatever it is you're doing?
00:28:13.000If I could take a person and just from the start and they come to me and they're like, hey, Ryan, listen, you know, I just want to feel better.
00:28:24.100I just want to be able to get a little stronger, you know, improve my flexibility and just move better.
00:28:31.780And I would start off with our elements program.
00:28:34.140And our elements program is basically you're going to be using four movements, the bear, the frogger, the monkey, and the crab.
00:28:42.780And people are going to look at that and they're going to be like, those are, like, super easy, right?
00:28:45.820Well, yeah, they look easy, but it's like one of those things, as I mentioned earlier, when you're bringing awareness to what you're doing, when you're able to try and focus on making these movements pretty, making them beautiful, what's going to happen is I ask people to slow down.
00:29:02.400And this is really, really where you start to learn that you might not have that strength that you thought you had while in motion.
00:29:12.740Being under the bar, doing bench press is a lot different than moving around and doing these particular movements or any sort of movement in motion.
00:29:21.940Same with flexibility by slowing things down.
00:29:25.260You're more aware of what's going on and notice that you might need more flexibility in this particular area.
00:29:30.460And so, Elements is looking at this and really trying to help you to build up that foundation so you have the capabilities to start working on other skills.
00:29:40.280For example, moving beyond, start looking at shrimp squats, single leg squats, start looking at single arm push-up type movements, looking at, for example, bar work, ring work, pulling exercises, and moving beyond, maybe going upside down, doing handstands.
00:29:57.880And the thing is, again, it's not jumping up and just trying those skills.
00:30:01.700It's really building that base and looking at, do you have the strength, flexibility, and control in your body while in motion?
00:30:10.980And that's a whole other ballgame right there compared to gym training, if you will.
00:30:56.400Start working on sophisticating the movement.
00:30:58.920The method of this is not just to do more bear, okay?
00:31:03.020The thing is that, okay, you do it in a way to bring awareness in order to get stronger, in order to improve flexibility, in order to improve that control so that we can then sophisticate the movement, start working towards progressions of that bear, working towards doing that motion, doing that particular movement with what looks like push-ups.
00:31:27.120The monkey is where you're in a squat position.
00:31:29.640You have your hands out in front of you.
00:31:31.760You place your hands then to the side, and then you pull your legs over.
00:31:35.440So, you're traversing left and right, and you're going in and out of this squat by loading the arms, and your arms are supporting yourself as you move your hips over.
00:31:45.220And so, that's a monkey that also you start moving in and working towards things, eventually getting towards the cartwheel, which is a natural progression for that particular movement.
00:31:57.060The next movement would be the frogger.
00:31:58.940This is kind of a throwback, kind of age myself, but if you remember that video game called Frogger, and the little froggy jumping from the log to the log.
00:32:07.480What you do is similar to the monkey, but in a squat position, your hands out or in front, and you front load, and so rather than going side to side, you're traversing forward and backward and loading the arms, pulling the hips and the feet forward.
00:32:23.880This is the basic frogger moving towards being able to place more balance onto your arms, working on things, gradually moving into the handstand.
00:32:33.120The last movement would be the crab movement, and basically, this is where you're sitting on the ground with your hands behind you, your feet in front of you, shoulder-width apart, and you simply pull your hips up off of the ground and you walk around.
00:32:47.180So, it's the exact opposite of the bear, and so rather than being face down now, you're face up.
00:32:54.120So, from here, you're walking around, there's some other movements, you're working on that, and what we do is we combine all of these movements, looking at transitions.
00:33:02.460So, it's not just, again, about doing that particular movement.
00:33:06.280It's eventually about taking these movements, putting them into combinations of movements.
00:33:22.920And so, moving in and out of these movements with control is going to be a direct carryover for the other stuff that you're doing in your life.
00:33:29.820A great example, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, so that's kind of like my thing now.
00:33:32.940I've been doing that for quite a while now, purple belt and that.
00:33:36.160And so, these are a direct correlation to a lot of things.
00:33:40.020You can look at it as solo grappling, if you will.
00:33:42.640Well, I know from experience, the frog and the monkey, if you are super tight in your hips...
00:33:57.680I haven't moved those muscles in a long time.
00:34:00.640And that's a good point that you just said.
00:34:01.980You haven't moved those muscles in a long time.
00:34:04.820We do other exercise, if you will, but there's certain things that we haven't addressed.
00:34:11.480And so, just simply by doing the frog or simply by doing the monkey, a lot of stuff can come out of that in a good way to bring awareness and let you know,
00:34:20.360Oh, this is something I do need to pay attention to because I don't want to see people getting injured doing certain activities that they should be able to do naturally.
00:34:32.300And so, unfortunately, the way things are in the world, we see a lot of this.
00:34:37.700Sitting, sitting a lot, not being as active as we were growing up.
00:34:46.500So, what are some things that we can do that are going to help us?
00:34:50.840We can do it in a way that's going to be productive, not just for the other things we want in our life, but also if you want to be able to train better barbell squats or whatever it is.
00:35:54.920It's yes, there's movements out there that we can be looking at specific, you know, prescription, if you will, for particular areas of the body that are going to help you.
00:36:04.480But if we're just looking at, okay, you know, we've been sitting, lying down on our sofa, whatnot, then just get up and walk around a little bit.
00:36:14.600You know, it would be great if you could go out and take a walk.
00:36:17.380I think everyone should be walking every single day.
00:36:20.080But the thing is, it can just be a matter of standing up and just, you know, stretching towards the ceiling.
00:36:26.060You know, just like my dog used to, well, my dog, unfortunately, died a couple weeks ago, but she would do that where she would just stretch.
00:37:37.460Let's just look at something that you can focus on right now and something that you can do every single day, just a little bit, that is going to keep you engaged, that you're going to be looking forward to, and that you know that you're going to do.
00:37:50.940Doing that, you're going to be creating a habit over time.
00:37:54.900Find something that you enjoy and just do a little bit of that each day.
00:38:00.320So, I know you're not overly prescriptive at GMB.
00:38:02.680You're always looking at what people's goals are.
00:38:04.660But I mean, are there some basic skills you hope people can acquire after they've worked with you for a while?
00:38:09.160What are some things that you think you hope people are able to do effectively, efficiently after they've been working with you for a while?
00:38:15.280So, I want to see people move comfortably on the ground.
00:38:20.200And so, to me, what this looks like is, can you go from standing to the floor and back up very comfortably?
00:38:27.500The other thing is, is moving around on the floor.
00:38:29.880So, for example, just using the bear, monkey, frog, or crab.
00:39:05.600Do you have the ability to do an inverted press?
00:39:09.140And so, think about that bear movement that we had, but think about doing that sort of like a handstand push-up, but you're not completely inverted.
00:39:19.880And so, it's carry over for overhead pressing, being able to carry loads, but basically, you know, bending your arms and doing these inverted presses.
00:39:29.360As well, do you have the ability to twist your body in motion, in comfort, with comfort?
00:39:39.860Twisting is also something that, unfortunately, a lot of fitness places out there don't address.
00:39:45.680But think about how many times during the day you have to twist to put your seatbelt on, or you twist to pick something up.
00:39:51.700Having the ability to control your body in motion while twisting is huge.
00:39:57.860And so, a movement that I like to use for this is we have, for example, the swipe that we have, but also just looking at some basic mobility and flexibility movements that we have.
00:40:09.980But yeah, it just really comes down to getting from standing to the floor back up, moving around on the floor by using the bear monkey frog or crab, being able to perform the Spider-Man, which is like a push-up in motion, being able to do a chin-up, being able to invert a press, single leg balance, as well as a single leg squat, if you could, would be fabulous.
00:40:30.500So, those, I think, are the basic requirements, if you will.
00:40:33.280I don't want to say requirements, but that is something that I would love to see everyone be able to do, because from there, you can sophisticate, and that is where the real magic starts to happen.
00:41:15.540We're looking at what we're doing, what we're going to be doing in that workout, in that session, that day.
00:41:22.040And then, we reverse engineer it and say, okay, these are the prep, the joint mobility movements that we need in order to make sure that we're going to be doing.
00:41:28.840We're good and ready to start practicing, which is the next portion of the session, practicing our skill.
00:44:21.740But play needs to happen at a lower level.
00:44:25.520You do not play, you do not explore at the highest possible level that you can do.
00:44:31.420And so, again, exploration is where you're taking a movement you're comfortable with and just messing around and looking for other options.
00:44:41.320The next portion of our session is push.
00:44:44.420This is typically where the majority of everyone lives.
00:44:49.620The reason it's called push is this is literally where I want you to push yourself.
00:44:53.860This is where you look at using movements that are going to help build strength.
00:44:59.180Also, further improve control and flexibility, but mainly looking at strength in order to make that skill better for your next session.
00:45:08.820So you're looking at a movement that's going to be quite a few regressions from your highest level of the skill.
00:45:17.340So let's say, for example, working on the handstand, you can do a full handstand.
00:45:21.800You mess around on the wall when doing these leg shapes or whatever you're doing during play.
00:45:26.420Anyway, push could be where you go to the wall and you just try and hold your handstand with the most beautiful form possible for a minute.
00:46:12.140So again, when you're working on your session, we look at these five P's and we go through that.
00:46:18.340We focus on practicing skills, the highest level possible.
00:46:23.860And then we look at getting stronger with those skills by pushing ourself, but we use a level that's a little lower.
00:46:31.580To give another example quickly for people, if we're looking at, for example, like a pistol squat, you know, during the practice portion of it, you might be doing a full pistol squat.
00:46:40.700But when you go to the push, you might actually only be using like lunges or a movement that is at a lower level.
00:46:48.620But the thing is, is you're doing time under attention.
00:46:52.120We like to say time under attention compared to time under tension, because when you're performing these movements, when you're pushing yourself, you're still focusing on high quality form.
00:47:02.060Even though you're performing these movements at a lower level, but you're doing it for time.
00:47:07.580So it might be a circuit where you're doing 45 seconds with one movement, then you move on to the next movement, you know, three to five movements during that circuit.
00:47:15.980But again, very high quality movements at any time that form starts to break down, then you move down a progression, regression of that movement, but continue to getting quality reps so that you can produce volume, getting stronger for that particular skill.
00:47:32.820So lots of stuff I just threw at you, but that's kind of how we do it.
00:47:37.180Well, Ryan, this has been a great conversation.
00:47:38.460Where can people go to learn more about your work in GMB?