#61 The Secret To Flexibility: What is the 1 Magic Fix for tightness?

Always tight and Stiff? Want to know how to solve this issue? JT & Joey let you know exactly how you can remedy your predicament. If you are living the BJJ life and the professional life: tight leather shoes, restrictive long sleeve shirts, glued to computers and living in meetings – your troubles with flexibility and moving well are deeply rooted. The boys don’t hold back when they let you know exactly what you need to do.

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, it’s JT. I’m coming to a city near you. And if you would love to have a Bulletproof for BJJ seminar, contact us, reach out to me@jtbulletproofforbjj.com. And let me know, I will be in Europe, the UK, Brazil, United States and Canada. After July this year, this is the world tour. This is the opportunity we’ll be doing mobility. We’ll be doing strength work. It’s the all-encompassing Bulletproof seminar. So get in contact and it’ll be great to meet you guys face to face

Speaker 2: 0:38

Better. Listen, very carefully.

Speaker 3: 0:43

A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready,

Speaker 4: 0:48

Essentially at this point, the fight is over.

Speaker 5: 0:52

So you pretty much flow with the goal

Speaker 6: 0:57

Who is worthy to be trusted with the secret to limit this power.

Speaker 7: 1:03

I’m ready,

Speaker 1: 1:04

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another Bulletproof for BJJ podcast. This is JT. This is Joey. Oh , so official ladies and gentlemen, we will be discussing the secret to flexibility. Now, this is a funny thing because it comes up pretty regularly, even though we’ve taught about it in different regards. And it came up quite recently with a friend of ours and people say, oh, what’s the hack, or what’s the technique? What do I need to do? What do I need to do? Just make and that , and that’s what they’re saying. Like , what do I need to do? They’re like whats the thing, like the one thing, the one thing that fixes the fact that you’re a tight , that hours of sitting down the , you know, the years of bad posture, the weak loos , there’s restrictive leather footwear. You wear to your office. That’s right. You cramped toes, you know , freshly dry, clean suit that restricts your hip mobility. Can’t even move. You know, like there’s so many things. You , you look good. Oh, you look great. You look smart. Can’t move. And then you try and squat and you’re looking like terribleness. So what is the secret to flexibility? Now let’s just put this into a little bit of context, Joe , can you please Regal us? Well, as we said, the question comes up a lot, but most recently, Monday night we just finished a training session over at Alliance ads actually couldn’t make it. So I covered the session. So I thought I’m gonna take the opportunity to do some cool mobility and movement based stuff, the warmup. Nice. Which the guys always like, it’s a little bit different to, you know what we normally do. Star jumps and. No , just kidding. We don’t do star . Doesn’t make us do star jumps. You know , we’re doing some stuff and I can see that this, this one cat, Sammy, good friend. Oh , good guy. He’s struggling. You can see his ankles are tight. You know, we’re doing some squatting and we’re trying to like address it. Like, you know, we’re opening up the hips out the ankles, but I can see his tight ankles, hard time in the squat position. That’s fine. You see that? Sure. It’s pretty small class. We get through all that. And then we do the class . It’s a great class. Pretty heavy session. Guys are getting ready for comp. So we’re going quite hard. And then at the end of the class, we’re all hanging out, having a stretch. Um, not Sammy, Sammy’s just sitting there. Just. Yeah. Everyone else having a stretch and you know, I’m talking like, Ollie’s there, Dan’s there. Yeah . These guys have really, you know, taken to the habit of stretching and Ollie’s a pretty tight guy too. He is , you know , Savage purple belt . We’ve spoken about him before, but he’s, but he’s aware and he’s trying, and that’s the , that’s the, you know , something impressive about that, more on that later. And so , uh, Sammy’s like, and I’m in my stretch, I’m stretching against the wall doing the , the flexer thing. And then he says to me, Hey, Hey Joe , he’s sitting there with his legs out in a bit of a pancake. So legs straddled. And he’s trying to lean forward, looks a bit, looks pretty awkward. It’s a hard position. If you’re tight, it’s , it’s tough . And he’s like, well , what do I need to do to get better at this? Do I , do I just have to do this more and just push forward? Like, is that , is that just what I need to do? Like bro, shut the up. What you need to do is start stretching. You idiot. Like it’s not about the secret technique that’s gonna make you better at the pancake. It’s about developing the habit. He’s like, yeah. And this is like Sammy. Like I think he’s newly. No, he’s, he’s hitched up again. But he was single for a while there. Right. Eastern suburbs, you know, he’s prob he’s a banker. He’s okay. He’s a banker, you know? So I don’t think he’s struggling on that front. Not at all. He doesn’t have kids. No, he works for another bank, you know, he’s employed. Yeah. Um, uh , you know, he parties on the weekends, he’s living a life that someone in their twenties should be. Yeah. He’s having a good time. But he says to me, two businesses, two kids, the , yeah, he says, I just, I just wish I could do it. I just, yeah . I’m just, I can’t get up in the morning and do the stretching and you know, and I was like, bro, don’t get it twisted. I don’t get up in the morning and have 20 minutes to stretch. I get up. I’m tired. Yep . I’m getting up two hours before. I , I want to, yes. I’m pumping it through, get , you know, getting my cold shower, like grab my food, make it out , get to the gym train. And I’m like, it’s only because I have in my schedule three times a week to do strength and mobility training standards. Yep . That I do it. I’m like, without that it wouldn’t happen. I’m not the kind of guy that has a spare 40 minutes at nighttime to do some stretches in front of the tele . Not at all. Like it’s lucky if we can turn on the tele . Right. And uh, he, you know, he was like, yeah. Oh yeah, I get it. I get it . You know? Um , so he totally understood my point, but he was all , you know, that idea of like, you’re looking at someone that’s flexible and you’re like, oh , it’s easy for them. Yes. They just flexible. They just get time to it’s natural. It’s like, none of this happens without hard work. That’s right. And that’s comes down to habits. That’s right. And consistency and making it a part of your life routine. Yeah, definitely. And I, I think that I have an unfair advantage because I am, you know, obviously I have my partner, but I also do not have children. And so I do have a lot more time up my sleeve. I’m not responsible for anyone really, other than myself. And the thing with this is I’ve had to have it since I was young. I was very lucky in the way, even though at the time, I didn’t feel lucky to start stretching from about five years old, you know, doing ballet, doing gymnastics, doing TaeKwonDo, like stretching was so important. It was so beaten into us that you stretch a certain amount. Now, obviously I don’t have the same routine that I used to have, but we had talked before about, you know, sprinkling in kind of mobility, snacks, spreading it out over the day. That’s how I do it. Like as much as like, I know you are , you are really , um, you’re really routine with your, your three a week with standards. For me. I, I am possibly not as routine in that way, but when I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is I get on the try and listen up to spine, listen up the hips, squat shoulders, just 10 minutes at lunchtime. We’ll always do it before class, before ju to always do it. So the , the unfair advantage we have is we already have a routine built, like we’ve taken the time to have these routines. Yeah. Now it’s not about making time, guys . We all have a certain amount of time. Now it’s not evenly distributed. If you run around after three kids and doing all that, that’s, that’s hard. But if you can’t have 40 minutes like Joe , and you’ve just gotta fit it in where you can, you have to take that time and just go 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there. And it has to be in there somewhere. You can’t hope you have to like plan. You gotta put it in the book. It’s gotta be in the calendar. Yeah . And yeah. And I think like the way you do it, versus the way I do it is just, it’s just knowing yourself and being like, what works better for me. Yeah. Cause I’ve always , I’ve always aspired to have a bit of that. And I’m like, oh yeah. Like, you know, yeah, I can , I can make 15 minutes. I’ll do some fronts with stuff at nighttime. Like when MEA and I are hanging out, but it just never happened . Like I , no, I just end up sitting on the couch, having the hot drink. That’s more background on that in previous episodes. But , um, you know, I just don’t do it. Yeah . So I, I, you know, so knowing myself, I’m like, ah , okay, it actually works better for me when I have like a , a , you know, a full session in it’s , you know? Yeah. So, you know, for folks listening, it’s like, you gotta find what works for you. Um , but there is a way to do it. And I think that if it’s something that’s important to you, you will do it. Like if , you know, if it was, if the doctor is like, Hey man, you’ve got cancer. Um , but if you do these two stretches for 15 minutes, do you know what I mean? And I , you know , and I’m not even, I’m not mobility cures. Yeah. But it’s like, guys, you heard it here first. No. But if it was that serious, you I’ll make time. It costs your time . Yeah . So, you know, the point is, I think, I don’t know if I mentioned this to Sammy, but it’s like, I think I did. I’m like, dude, if you can project your mind to a year ahead and for they saying , do this right now, go a year into the future and think of what , uh , what would make you proud to look back on the previous year and to go , uh , these were the things in my life that I wanted to do. And if you think that it would make you proud to go, to , to be able to say, I really wanted to get more flexible. And I spent, you know, did that 15 minutes, like, you know, more days than not four days a week, five days a week, we doing some stretching. Like that would make me proud. Then like keep attached to that and, and let that guide like how you behave. Yes. Versus another year from now, you’re still the guy that’s like Joey, what’s what do I need to do to get that’s secret ? Yeah . What’s the technique, you know , the one you haven’t posted on Instagram, I know you’re holding out, hold back on us , Joe , man. It’s tough. And I wanna say this as a next step, as people’s relationship to their body. Right? Because a lot of people out there don’t necessarily have a good relationship with their body, male or female. Right. You look at your body and you think, oh , I’m a bag of potatoes. I’m not proud of myself. It hurts when I do that, I don’t wanna do that. It makes me feel like. Ah , I’d rather have a beer, have a beer. I feel good. Takes the edge off. Feel good. I see here , have a beer bit happier, hang out with my friends. You know, that kind of thing. The hard thing is the good thing guys, because after you do it, even though it’s uncomfortable at the time, you will feel better afterwards. And that has a compounding effect winding up. So if you can do that daily and I , I promise you this, I’ll say this to everyone. If you do seven days in a row, like unbroken seven days in a row, just 10 minutes a day, you will actually improve. It’s crazy. Like it’s actually really simple. Strength is actually a lot harder, like to get really strong takes way longer, but to actually improve your flexibility, if you actually chip away at it, you can actually get some, you know, moderate gains in a short amount of time. But it’s the fact that people are like, oh , you , yeah , just, you know, once a week or just, you know, it’s not a habit. So in terms of changing your relationship with your body and you being like, I’m proud of myself for working on my body. And then also when I do this movement, I don’t have pain anymore. I can touch my toes. I don’t feel like an 80 year old person. Like, I feel like a young person, everybody wants to feel that way. So if you can even frame it that way, even if you think, oh , I hate stretching. I hate this, swap it around. This is the kind of hard pill to swallow, do the hard thing. And you will be immensely rewarded. And it’s gonna open you up to so many other things, including better jujitsu. Absolutely. Guys, thanks for listening. If you need help with your stretching, go to the Bulletproof program, take a free week trial. You can see all our great mobility program, Bulletproof of bjj.com . And uh , if you wanna support the show separate from that, maybe you don’t do the program, but you wanna show some love to us. You can find us on Paton. Thank you. And we’ll see you guys next time.