stretching secrets exposed · 2020. 1. 10. · stretching secrets exposed - audio transcripts page...

Stretching Secrets Exposed - Audio Transcripts

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Chris Guerriero: Hello, this is Christopher Guerriero from the National Metabolic and Longevity Research Center. And I'd like to welcome you back to our one-on-one Power Interview Series where we get a really special chance to get up close and personal with some of today's leading health authors, as well as some of the real movers and shakers in the health and fitness field.

Now, before we get into today's interview, I want you to think about this fact for a moment. No matter how much you diet and no matter how much you exercise and no matter how many times you vary your exercise routine, one fact remains constant: you will never be able to get optimal results unless you keep your muscles pliable.

I mean there's absolutely no getting around that. If you fail to keep yourself flexible, then your muscles just cannot perform at their optimum level. Meaning that you won’t get the results that you truly deserve from your exercise routine, meaning that you'll experience far more joint pain than normal. And meaning that your body won't be able to take on that long, strong look that it could have if you simply implemented a structured stretching routine.

But, if you do that, if you follow a few proven rules to become more flexible, then the results you get from any other training are going to increase, and they're going to increase greatly.

So, today we're joined by one of Australia's leading sports trainers. He's got more than 20 years of experience helping people achieve more in life.

He's regularly sought out by champion athletes to help them improve their flexibility, he's a speaker for Sports Medicine Australia on injury prevention, and he’s a founder of The Stretching Institute. And he's donating an hour of his time today to share with you a few of the same Golden Rules that he teaches his clients at The Institute. His name is Brad Walker, and I'm really excited about having him with us today, because I know that most people could learn more in just a few minutes with him than if they hired and spent hours and hours with a personal trainer. So, let’s dig right into the meat of today's particular power interview. Brad, are you there and are you ready to get started?

Brad Walker: I am, Christopher.


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Chris Guerriero: Terrific. Now, listen, I've got a bunch of questions here from people who are regular listeners of ours, and I want to just throw them at you. And I'd love to, you know, just have you randomly answer these things and give me as much as you possibly can for each one of these questions.

But, I also want you to feel as free as possible to just ramble on and on about other things that you think are really pertinent to each one of these things. And, if you think there's anything important that comes up, you know, that you think needs to be added please just throw it right in, okay?

Brad Walker: I will do. Chris Guerriero: All right, great. Now, the first thing is, most of the coaches and

personal trainers that we’ve worked with in the past that we've had in the Metabolic and Longevity Research Center, they've focused on nutrition or strength conditioning or things like that. Why is it that you decided to focus just on stretching?

Brad Walker: I agree that stretching hasn’t really received the attention that it

deserves over the last few years, but I think that’s challenging and that's definitely a good thing. I was fortunate enough to work with a number of professional coaches in my early days, both competing as an athlete and as I started to move into coaching and conditioning and so forth.

And what I started to see was a lot of athletes coming to us with injuries and muscle pains and joint injuries and these sorts of things. And when we started to look at what they were doing and what was causing the problem and so forth, we continually in just about every circumstance found that they lacked flexibility either overall or in a very specific area. And this was one of the things that was contributing to their injuries and their pains and in some cases it was actually ruining athletes careers. So, this got me interested in the field of stretching and flexibility, and we started implementing a number of stretching techniques, and we experimented with different flexibility methods and so forth and we started to get some really fantastic results with the athletes that we were working with. In some cases we were, you know, turning athletes around in a matter of a couple of days. You know, athletes would come to us and some of them were literally on the verge of quitting their athletic career. And you know, in a matter of a couple of days we


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were able to identify areas where their flexibility was limited or where they were having problems. And, you know, we were able to turn that around for them in record time. And they were getting results from literally, you know, a couple of days of work with us, whereby they couldn't get anywhere near the results with months and months and months of work with other coaches. So, that's what got me excited about the area of stretching and flexibility and when I first got into it, it was very new, there was literally nothing written on stretching and flexibility. Now, we're talking like 20 years ago, you know, when, you know, aerobics was big, you know, when everyone was doing aerobics and running and all that sort of stuff and, you know, stretching. If it got maybe, you know, a mention in some article in a health magazine that was a big thing for stretching. So, that's what got me interested. And just seeing the results that we were getting I knew that there was more to stretching and flexibility than just, you know, throwing your legs over a park bench and seeing what you could do. So, you know, that really got me into the field and I started studying it and learning it. And I was fortunate enough working with some coaches that I was able to experiment on different athletes and try different things and, you know, from there it's just grown and grown. Fortunately, the attitude toward stretching and flexibility is changing and people are becoming more and more aware of the benefits of it and you know, people are seeing it as very much the underestimated part of their training at the moment, and that’s really exciting.

Chris Guerriero: All right, well, I want to dig more into some of the things

that you said in there where you said you were able to turn people around in just a couple of days, whereas they, you know, they failed to get the same results with other coaches after weeks or months of training.

But before we get into that, I think it's more important that we talk about precautions, you know, some kind of precautions that people need to take before they start any kind of a stretching routine.


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And, you know, this is more of I guess a medical question on my part, because, you know, when we do a lot of these interviews, I always want to cover the safety early on in the interview and then get into more of the technical stuff. So, let's get into the safety part. What are some precautions people should take before they start a stretching routine?

Brad Walker: Stretching, you know, just like any other athletic activity, you know, it has its own rules and regulations, it has its own, you know, do's and don’ts and certain precautions that you should do while you're stretching.

Some of the more common ones are the fact that we need to warm up first. You know, a lot of people look at stretching and warm-up and they don't differentiate between the two, you know, a lot of people when you say to them okay, we're going to do a warm-up, they think that stretching is the warm-up. Well, that's not the case. You know, we need to warm them up first with some light aerobic activity, we need to get the blood flowing, and we need to get the oxygen and nutrients going through the body. We need to increase the muscle temperature and the core temperature and all that sort of stuff to get the muscles ready for stretching. And when we do warm them up properly, then the muscles are in the perfect condition to be able to take advantage of the stretching that we're going to do after the warm-up. Now, that's one thing that we really need to keep in the forefront of our mind when they're doing stretch training. Another thing that a lot of people neglect is that it's really important to stretch both before and after you exercise. You know, a lot of people say, "If I stretch after exercise I'll count that as my pre-exercise stretch for next time." It really doesn't work that way. You know, the reasons why we stretch before exercise are different than the reasons we stretch after exercise. You know, so the reasons why we stretch before exercise is we want to lengthen the muscles out, we want to increase our range of movement or, you know, how far our limbs can move. And this allows the body to move freely and reduces the risk of injury and so forth. The reason why we stretch after exercise is totally different. The reason why we stretch after exercise is to help in the repair process


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and the recovery process. You know, we're lengthening out the muscles again with an effective cool-down, we're helping the muscles to relax, we’re getting the blood flowing through the muscles and we're getting rid of a lot of those waste products that build up during exercise. And stretching after exercise is one of the best times to help improve your flexibility and so forth, so it's important to keep that in mind. Some other things to always consider is that your stretching should normally be done in a controlled, relaxed state. You shouldn't do any bouncing or heavy jerky-type movements even with the dynamic flexibility that's popular today. Even though those movements are dynamic in nature, they're still very controlled and they're still very, you know, smooth. They never should become radical or jerky or, you know, bouncing around and putting excess, you know, explosive force on the muscles and so forth. So, there's some of the, you know, initial things that you should be looking at and you know, if you keep those in mind than your stretching will be quite safe and you'll also get the maximum benefits out of it.

Chris Guerriero: All right, you know, one of the things that I hear a lot in The

Research Center is, "Well, we don't have time to do stretching." And obviously we overcome that relatively quickly, but I want to hear your views on this also. And I'll tell you what we do.

I mean, it’s really just a misconception that you don't have the time for stretching. Because the stretching itself so substantially increases the rate at which you reach your goals that just by implementing stretching, I mean, it cuts down, you know, the time between now and the body that you're looking for, or the help that you're looking for in your muscles. However, the other thing that we tell them is, you know, the warm-up plus the stretch really only needs to take five or ten minutes. It's not the 30 minute process that a lot of people believe it has to be in order to be effective. So, what are your viewpoints on that?

Brad Walker: We find that most people who say, you know, I don't have time to stretch and so forth don't actually fully understand the methods of stretching. And they sort of look at stretching as something that, you know, they sort of have to do but they don't understand why


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they’re doing it, or what they're going to get out of it, or the benefits and so forth that come from it.

And you know, once we sit down and explain to them what you're actually achieving while you're stretching, and you know, we like to use the analogy that stretching is the icing on the cake. You know, you've got all your other aspects or components of fitness. You know, you've got your aerobic fitness, you've got your strength training for athletes, they might have some strength training or plyometric training or balance training. And then you've got your diet and nutrition and all that sort of stuff. And people understand why they’re doing that sort of training and they can see the benefits of that. But what we try to do is we try to explain to people that the stretching is the icing on the cake. It's the activity that's going to bind all of those other components together. It's going to help you get the maximum benefit out of all those other components, it’s going to help you recover quicker, and like you said earlier, it's going to help you achieve those goals earlier by incorporating stretching into the routine. It doesn't have to be something that's just tacked on the end or thrown, you know, in at the beginning for a few minutes. It can be incorporated into the warm-up, and to be incorporated into the body as a work-out and into the cool-down so that it just becomes a natural part of what the athlete is already doing. And it doesn't necessarily have to take any longer, it's just a matter of restructuring things a little better and, you know, just incorporating stretching into the routine at those right times to make sure they're maximizing the benefits of all the other training that they're doing.

Chris Guerriero: Right. That makes a lot of sense. Hey listen, before we keep going,

and I know we've got a ton more to battle through over here, we're just touching the, you know, the tip of the iceberg here. I want to get into what the stretchinginformation.com is.

You've got something that you're offering people and it's a ton of great information, and it's something that they can grab right now at www.stretchinginformation.com. Why don't you tell me just really quickly a little bit about what people are going to find when they go there.

http://www.stretchinginformation.com/


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Brad Walker: Well, what we've done over the course of years is basically

compile all the information that comes into The Institute. As you can imagine, we get, you know, every journal article on stretching, we get every book written on stretching, every CD produced on stretching and so forth. And what we've done is we've compiled all that information into some really simple, easy to understand handbooks and workbooks and reports and all that sort of stuff that makes stretching understandable. We've got some handbooks that are written in a real layman's terms so everybody can understand exactly why they need to stretch and how they need to stretch. You know, we've compiled, you know, masses and masses of photographs of people stretching, so that you don't have to rely on some, you know, little stick figure or some line drawing or someone who's done some little carton figure of someone stretching. You know, we've actually got photographs of real people doing the stretches so you can see exactly how the stretch is supposed to be formed, and it just leaves no room for guessing as far as, you know, how to do the stretch properly, and so forth. So, you know, we've compiled all that information together. We've got lots of free information. We've got some paid stuff as well, if you want to go into a little bit more detail. But, you know, if you want to visit stretchinginformation.com you'll find heaps and heaps of resources on stretching and flexibility.

Chris Guerriero: All right, I'm going to just so that everybody has the spelling of

this right now, grab a pen and paper and I want you to write this down. It's www.stretchinginformation, and I'll spell that for you, it's S-T-R-E-T-C-H-I-N-G-I-N-F-O-R-M-A-T-I-O-N.com, all one word, doesn't make a difference if it's lower case or upper case, you know, just type it into your browser and it will bring you right over to Brad's site, where you can get a ton of information. I was on his site just this morning and playing around once again on there because he's got so much great stuff to read, downloading a bunch of other cool stuff that I wanted from his website, so I suggest you guys jump over there also. And now, Brad, I want to get into, one of the things that people say, which is just a pet peeve of mine, I've got people coming in that say, "I heard that's a bad stretch," or "This is a really good



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stretch and I want to keep it in my routine." And, you know, that whole myth of the good stretch/bad stretch thing, can you just speak a little bit about that and what your thoughts are on it?

Brad Walker: Yeah, I certainly can. Definitely one of my pet peeves as well. It

sort of lets you know the stage at which information on stretching and flexibility is at the moment. You know, if you were to go to a strength trainer and say that, you know, this exercise is bad, you know, that strength trainer would say to you, "Well, not necessarily."

It's the way you use it. It's the person you use it on, you know. If someone has an injury and you try and do that exercise, of course it's going to be bad. But, you know, if it's in this person in that situation, then that's a good exercise. And it's exactly the same with stretches. You know, you just can't say "that's a good stretch" or "that's a bad stretch." There are too many other things to consider.

You know, one stretch that may be great for me may not be appropriate for someone else. It's the same stretch, but just because it's not appropriate for someone doesn’t make it a bad stretch.

And the other thing that sort of annoys me is that, you know, people say that "this is a good stretch." And that gives people the impression that they can do that stretch anytime they want, anywhere they want, and it will be good for them, and that's not the case.

That's actually dangerous, you know, it's the same as saying to someone, you know, "These exercises are good exercises and everyone should do it." That's just not the case.

We need to get a more balanced view, a more mature view about stretching and flexibility, and look at the individual that's going to be doing the stretch. You know, look at do they have an injury or some sort of ailment in that particular part of their body that would prevent them from doing shoulder stretches, for example.

Now, there's nothing wrong with shoulder stretches, but if you have a shoulder injury, you don't want to be doing shoulder stretches. That doesn't mean they're bad stretches, it just means that you have to make sure that the stretch is specific for the person that's doing it and for the purposes that they want to achieve by doing that stretch.


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So, yeah, that's one of the attitudes that we're trying to change at the moment, and you know, I can see changes taking place in individuals, which is a good thing, and hopefully in time we'll overcome that.

Chris Guerriero: Yeah, so let's think about this a little bit larger now. We're talking

about specific stretches being "good" or "bad" which, you know, now we know that pretty much, and I hate to say a blanket statement like this, but I'm going to just for general purposes.

Pretty much any stretch could be worthwhile for certain individuals, and dangerous for individuals who may have pre-disposition to a weakness in that area of their body or a, you know, an injury in that part of their body that it gets affected or whatever.

Let's go a little bit larger now. Instead of speaking about specific exercises, let's talk about types of stretches, because I know that there are some types of stretches that are even more result-producing, a little bit safer, and there are certain types of stretches that put you a little bit more into the risk zone.

So, can you get into the different types of stretches out there, and shed some light on that for us?

Brad Walker: Look, stretches in general can basically be broken down into two

different categories. And they are basically static stretches and dynamic stretches.

Now, static stretches are those type of stretches that you do where you get into the stretch position, and you hold that position for a pre-determined amount of time. You want to hold that for 15 or 20 seconds and then you relax. And then you go into the position again, you hold it, you're in a still position, that's why they're called static stretches, you hold that for a certain amount of time and then you relax again.

Now, the other types of stretching exercises are dynamic stretches. And they are exercises that use a gentle swinging motion to stretch the muscle groups and so forth.

And the difference between those is that the two different types are suited to different scenarios or different purposes and so forth, and it's important that you know what type of stretching you should be doing to achieve the goal which you want to achieve. Say for


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example, static stretching is a fantastic form of stretching for doing after your workout to increase your flexibility.

Dynamic stretching on the other hand is a fantastic form of stretching to do as part of your warm-up to prepare the body for physical activity and so forth if you're going to be doing during your workout. So, it's important again that you know what type of stretching produces the different results and helps you achieve the goals that you want to achieve to make sure that you maximize the time that you spend stretching.

Chris Guerriero: I think what I'd like to do if it's okay with you is I want to get real

specific if that's okay and I'd like to say, let's take a specific person. Let's take, and you tell me what you would like to do, would you like to go, would you like our example to be a business person who has no time, or would you like it to be a specific sports type of person?

You tell me, because you know your population of people a little bit better than I do and I want to make sure that the example that we choose really gives the most to the audience who's listening to this audio.

Brad Walker: Although obviously we see a lot of athletes come through The

Institute here and we work with a lot of sports people and athletes and so forth. But increasingly we're seeing more and more people who are not athletes coming to us with back pain or with hip pain or something or other.

So, we're seeing more and more office workers, business people, especially people who spend a lot of time sitting behind a desk. Or maybe they have like a driving-type job where they're driving a truck or they're, you know, they're spending hours and hours in a seated position, and this is a really common problem that we're seeing more and more of.

Chris Guerriero: Okay, so let's take this, because I'll tell you right now that

the majority of our clients inside the National Metabolic and Longevity Research Center are, we deal with a lot of actors, actresses, models, people like that, but that's our small population right now.


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But our main population is, and I'd say 70% of our population are business people, whether that means receptionists, or it means CEOs of these, you know, public companies.

It really varies in there, however, there is one thing that pretty much remains constant among all that whole employee group or business person group, and that is you know, they sit down quite a bit.

And even people who think they have a relatively active job, as long as its an office job, you know, they're still sitting down for hours. And a lot of time they're sitting down with one elbow on a desk, because that hand is connected almost directly to their mouse on their computer, so we find that they all have some, or they're developing some kind of structural balances.

So, let's just take that example for a second. What kind of stretches would you suggest that somebody who is a businessperson who sits in front of a desk? Maybe in front of a computer or on the phone, what would you suggest they do in order to increase their "performance?" Because their performance now is not measured on the track field in seconds, but it's measured financially.

Brad Walker: You know, we’re seeing more and more of those people coming to

us with problems resulting from staying in that seated position for a long, long time. And maybe the best way to approach this would be to look at a couple of examples, a couple of common examples that we’re seeing with people and just explain how we’re doing things a little bit differently and how we’re getting results that, you know, people haven’t been able to get with months and months and months of other treatment.

And one of the most common things we’re seeing at the moment is pain in the upper back,. And that’s right in that region between the shoulder blades, right in that upper back area and then this tightness in that area. And it’s caused because most people are sitting over a computer or over a steering wheel, they’re getting this hunch-type posture where their shoulders are hunching forward, their chest is getting tighter, and they’re getting this incredible pain in the middle of their back.

And every time without fail when someone comes to us with this problem they say, “Look, I’ve been doing stretches for my back. I’ve been doing this stretch and that stretch. And I’m trying to stretch my back this way and I’m trying to stretch my back that way and nothing seems to work. I’ve been to a physio and they’re


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showing me stretches to do, and I’m doing this and I’m doing that but it’s just not working. The pain’s not going away, you know, what am I doing wrong?”

And the first thing we say to them is, instead of stretching your back, you need to stretch your chest.

Chris Guerriero: Oh, very good. Brad Walker: And they go, “What? No, no. The pain is in my back.” We say yes,

you need to stretch your chest and shoulders. “But that doesn’t make sense, you know, the pain’s in my back, why do I need to stretch my chest and shoulders?”

And when we start to explain to them, well, it’s your chest and your shoulders that are tightening up, it’s that tension in your chest and shoulders that is producing the pain in your back, and as soon as you relieve the tension in your chest and shoulders, the pain in your back goes away.

The pain in the back is just a result of another problem. So, if you take care of the source of the problem, you get rid of the pain. So, we’ve literally had people who have spent months and months trying to get rid of this pain. We showed them a few simple stretches to do, and the relief is literally amazing, and they just shake their head and they go, “This can’t be right, I’m stretching my chest but my back’s getting better. How does that work?”

So, it’s great to see people get the relief that they’ve been seeking for a long time with such, you know, simple little techniques but it’s usually those simple little things that make a big difference.

Chris Guerriero: Yeah, you know, I heard a story a long time ago. I’m probably

going to get it wrong, but it so clearly illustrates this exact same thing. It’s the $600 plumber story.

Have you ever heard that? You know, somebody calls a plumber up, they’ve got this leak that they just can’t fix, you know, the father of the household who thinks he can fix everything, you know. That’s normally me. He goes downstairs, he tries to fix this leak, can’t do it, can’t do it, can’t do it, finally gets frustrated, calls this plumber, the plumber comes in and goes downstairs, five minutes later comes up and hands him a bill for $600 and they guy goes, “What are you talking about, $600? You were only down there four or five minutes.”


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And he goes, “Yeah, and I can show you how to fix it next time.” So, he goes downstairs, shows him all you have to do is take a little hammer and you tap this right over here and it’s fixed.” So he goes, “So, it’s $600 to just tap a pipe?” And the plumber goes, “No, no, no, it’s not $600 to tap the pipe, it’s $600 to know where to tap the pipe.”

So, you know, the problem was not in the person’s back. But the problem was in the fact that their chest needed to be stretched so that their body could be balanced when they sit in that position.

Because as you sit in that position more and more in front of your computer or on your phone, your body takes on this new “morphed” position. You know, it’s morphing, it’s becoming, you know, the body, and I say this so many different times when I’m talking on stage, the body is a miraculous machine. It will adapt to whatever you demand of it over time.

So if you demand, and what you’re doing with your daily actions is you’re demanding that your body change just a little bit, so your body’s changing, and then that changing process causes pain, you know?

It’s changing to become tighter in your chest because that’s the position you sit in for so much. And that tightness in your chest then causes challenges in your back. So, you take that tightness away from your chest and it allows your body to then relax and go back into alignment.

And we do seminars on that as well, and it’s so nice to hear a professional in the stretching field just say, you know, because it’s just so simple, you stretch the front, you stretch your shoulders a little bit, and your body can then go back to a natural position.

We’ve interviewed a lot of exercise physiologists as well and they say the same exact thing, but in reverse. They say, you know, you’ve got to exercise the back a little bit more to tighten up those muscles, and the tightening of those muscles then, what it’s doing, if you know anything about the physiology of the body, is stretching the chest muscles.

Brad Walker: Yeah. Chris Guerriero: So again, it’s balancing it out from a different standpoint. Now,

what if we’ve got, now we’re going to get away from the office worker and we’re going to just get back into what we were talking


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about and where we left off really was injuries. What if somebody’s got an injury, what type of stretching should they be doing if they’ve got an injury?

Brad Walker: This is another common area where there are a lot of

misconceptions, and so forth, especially when you’re talking about the soft tissue injuries that the majority of athletes and even everyday people suffer from, like sprained ankles or a torn hamstring or a sore shoulder, or something like that. They’re the soft tissue injuries that affect the muscles and the joints and the tendons and the ligaments, and so forth.

And one of the mistakes we see a lot of people doing is, and especially when they come to us they want to impress us that, you know, they’re doing some stretching. And they say, “Oh, you know, I hurt my hamstring but I’m doing stretches, I’m doing stretches.”

And we say, just back off the stretches for a minute. There’s a time and a place for stretching and you know, immediately after you have a soft-tissue injury is not the time to start stretching.

So, you know, there are other rehabilitation methods that you should be using in the initial stages of a soft-tissue injury. And it’s only after the first, you know, 72 hours or so that you can start some stretching, and even then you’re just looking at very, very, very gentle, light static stretching activity as well as the other injury rehabilitation methods that you should be using alongside your stretching.

So, initially you’re just looking at very gentle, static stretching. Once you start getting some strength back into the area and the injury is starting to heal, then you can go on to using some more advanced forms of static stretching where you may want to use a partner to do some sort of assisted-type stretching. And a really good type of assisted stretching to do, in the later stages of injury rehabilitation, is a method of stretching called PNF stretching. Or it’s actually called proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation.

And that’s where a partner assists with the stretching and it’s a combination of working, stretching, and strength exercises at the same time. And that further helps to both lengthen and strengthen the muscle during the rehabilitation process in speeding up the recovery and so forth.


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And then later on you want to start using some dynamic sort of stretching exercises to really get the conditioning back in the muscle. Make sure it’s not only flexible but it’s also strong again, you know, we have a saying here at The Institute, whenever anybody comes in with an injury it’s always our goal to rehabilitate the area to 110% of what it was before the injury.

People say, “Well, you can’t do that, how do you do 110%?” Well, you can do that and we do that by making the area stronger than it was before the injury, more flexible than it was before the injury, and more conditioned and so forth so there’s less chance that that area will become injured again.

Chris Guerriero: I want to point something out that was very important and

something that you skimmed on when you just started saying this. And I’m not going to elaborate on what you said because you said it so eloquently. But I want to just repeat it so that everybody who’s listening to this knows how vital it is.

One of the things that irks me when I’m dealing with professionals is that sometimes you get somebody, and we do a lot of these power interviews with some of the top people in the world in different industries, including doctors, including surgeons, including, you know, people in so many different fields. And one of the things that I hear so often is some people, in an industry, they’re so trained on one subject that they believe that that’s the cure-all for almost anything out there.

For example, there’s people who believe that they should adjust you in certain industries, and that can cure everything from the common cold to a back or a neck injury. That may be true to an extent in certain types of injuries, but I’m not one of those people who believes that one industry is omnipotent in their knowledge of anything.

And one of the things that you said, which I think is so perfect for this particular interview, is that you know what, there’s a time for stretching and there’s not a time for stretching. And for somebody who is the founder of a stretching institute, somebody who is the author of several books on stretching, somebody who has professionals from all walks of life beating down his door to learn about stretching, and for somebody like that to say, “You know what? Today might not be a good day for stretching for you,” or, “You may be better off doing something else other than stretching right now in your rehabilitation of a certain part of your body.”


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And if you think I’m using that word rehabilitation strongly, I’m not. What I want you to think about when you think about rehabilitation is if you’re an office worker, whether you’re the CEO of a company or you’re a, you know, somebody who works in general management or another part of the company, it doesn’t make a difference.

You still have certain fundamental things that are happening within your body, and you need to rehabilitate a pain. Not, you know, when I say rehabilitation I’m not talking about, “Oh gosh, you know, I just tore my ligaments.”

I’m talking about, you know, you’ve got a pain, now you’ve got to go through some kind of rehabilitation therapy, which may just be some simple warm-up and a stretching before you start your office work.

Or mid-day, or at the end of the day before you get in the car and drive home so that you arrive at home a little bit more flexible.

Whatever the case is, there’s a time for it and there’s a time not to do it and when you go to, and I highly suggest that you take a little bit of time right now and stop this recording and go to stretchinginformation.com. Take a look at a lot, because, you know, we’re just skimming the surface of what you should know.

What we’re trying to do right now is wet your appetite and get you a little bit more focused on the fact that you need to know a little bit more about stretching, whether you’re a professional athlete, you’re a novice athlete, or you’re somebody who’s just trying to live a better life.

If you’re a mother of a kid, you know, you’ve got children running around, you pick them up, you know, my wife had back pain for a long time after our first child. She had hand pain after our second child.

The solution in both of those situations was stretching, you know, and it was because we had to rehabilitate those little areas because she was going through different, you know, different movements in her life and it’s the same with everybody else.

I don’t believe there’s anybody that walks the face of this Earth who does not need to do some kind of stretching on a regular basis. And that doesn’t mean daily but if you go to www.stretchinginformation.com, you’ll get exactly what you need



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to know depending on what part of your life you’re in, what little cool things you’ve got going on in your life right now and how to make sure that you are living peak performance every day of your life just by staying a little bit more pliable and flexible.

And by the way, what I’m talking about, just, peak performance when it comes to being able to move, but being able to age gracefully as well.

You know, that’s something that we don’t have the time to touch on right now Brad, although I know that’s a passion of yours also. But keeping yourself flexible on the inside means that every cell in your body can work more efficiently, every organ in your body now can work far more efficiently, which means that when your organs are working more efficiently, you age at a much more graceful rate. Physiologically, you show the signs of aging far slower.

So, all right, so I’m sorry about ranting and raving about that. I just want to make sure that people get over there and get the information that you’ve got to offer them, because that’s where the real results are going to come from, once they get that kind of information.

But right now, what I want to get into again Brad, you had said something earlier about different times that people stretch, and I thought it was real important that there are different times that people can stretch.

Before a work-out, after a work-out, mid-day, whatever the case is. What’s good to do before a work-out, what’s the latest studies on all that kind of stuff, what’s good to do after a work-out, can you just dig into that stuff if you don’t mind?

Brad Walker: Yeah, most definitely, it’s actually a topic that I’m quite interested

in at the moment. Because there’s been a few studies done recently that look at the different types of stretching being done as part of a warm-up, and has come up with some really fascinating results and information.

Unfortunately, people aren’t reading the research material completely and they’re starting to make some blanket statements as far as what those studies have come up with. And one of the results from the studies have shown that static stretching immediately before power-based type activities like sprinting and jumping and so forth can have a detrimental effect on performance.


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And this is something we’ve known for years and years, not through research and studies and so forth but just through practical experiments and so forth that we’ve done with athletes and so forth.

And the problem is that these studies have said, okay, static stretching is not the best type of stretching to use before power-based activities, but people have taken that and they’ve said, “Okay, we don’t do anymore static stretching anymore. No more static stretching, static stretching is bad, no one should do that anymore, we’re only going to do dynamic stretching.

Now, you know, and this is where the stretching and flexibility industry hasn’t matured to the same point that say the strength industry has whereby coaches and trainers can look at the research material, take a step back from it and see how it applies to specific situations.

So, unfortunately some people have, you know, thrown the baby out with the bathwater so to speak and just, you know, made these blanket claims that, you know, because this study found that static stretching shouldn’t be done before power-based activities. And, you know, we’re just going to get rid of static stretching altogether and you know, unfortunately that’s not the case.

Static stretching definitely has a huge role and a very important role to play in overall conditioning of athletes and all people, for that matter.

So, it’s really important to know when to do what type of stretching. And when you’re getting into your warm-up and you’re getting ready for activity, then that’s the time when dynamic sort of stretching is the best stretching to do because it prepares the muscles for the type of activity that you’re going to be doing.

You know, if you’re doing some running, you’re going to be working out at the gym or you’re going to be, you know, playing a game of basketball or tennis or whatever, well, you know, they’re dynamic activities. That’s where the body’s moving around and jumping side to side and back and forth and, you know, you’re getting fast movements in the muscles and so forth so dynamic stretching reflects that sort of activity the best, and that’s why it’s most effective as part of a warm-up.


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But when you look at stretching after exercise or stretching for the purpose of improving flexibility, then that’s where static stretching comes into its own. That’s where the big benefits or the big gains in improving flexibility can be had by using static stretching instead of dynamic stretching.

And you know, that’s where it’s really important to be able to look at an individual, look at what they want to achieve and then match the type of stretching that they need to do to the type of activity that’s going to get them close to their goal.

Chris Guerriero: That was a perfect answer, you know, that went every direction.

I’m writing notes over here trying to figure out, you know, what I’m going to ask you to clarify that, and every single one of them I’m crossing out as you’re finishing that statement, so that was great.

I’m actually going to make wide right turn here if you don’t mind because that was very sports-specific. And what I want to do is I want to make a wide right turn and I want to get away from sports and I want to get into just that normal office person again, or the normal worker, or the person who does not do sports. And I want to sort of wrap this whole interview up with that person in mind because I think we’ve spent just a little bit more time on sports than we did on that kind of population, and I want to even it all out right now.

And I want to ask you, you know, what, when people come to your Institute who are not just sports-specific people, when they’re coming to your Institute and they’re coming with a, you know, with a desire to, “Well, you know, I’m 40 years old now and I know that I should be a lot more flexible, I’m noticing a lot less flexibility in my life.” So, they come to you with that and they just want more flexibility, or they’re coming to you and they’re saying, you know, “I’m starting to feel aches and pains that I never had before.” Tell me, from those populations, what are the most common complaints that they’ve come to you with, you know, back pains or things like that.

Brad Walker: Yeah, back pain is definitely right up there at the top of the list, I

think we covered a little bit about that before with the upper back and so forth.

Chris Guerriero: Right.


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Brad Walker: One of the other areas that we’re seeing a lot of problems with is around the hip and groin area. And again, it’s got a lot to do with this seating position that we spend so much of our time in, and obviously if we just spent more time being a little bit more mobile then some of these problems would just take care of themselves. But, you know, we all have to work and we all have to do what we do and, you know, we find ourselves in that seated position a lot.

And so, when people do get up from that seated position and they want to go and play tennis, you know, one night a week or they want to have a game of basketball with their friends or, you know, they just want to go out for a walk with their wife or whatever and you know, just enjoy the day, they find they start to tighten up in the hip area. And they get this hip pain, this really, really sharp hip pain right deep within the bones in the hips area. And, you know, a lot of people come to us with this sort of thing and say, “I’m trying to stretch this muscle, but someone told me that this stretch is really good for hip pain. I’ve been doing it, but it’s just not giving me get the results that I want. And they come to us and say, “Can you help me?”

And, I mean, the first thing we do whenever anybody comes to me is we always assess the individual and have a look at that individual’s unique situation. We’re not one of these organizations where people come through the door and everyone gets handed a list of ten stretches to do and it’s the same list of stretches for everyone who comes through the door. That’s counterproductive, it’s dangerous. Anyone listening to this call and you go to a gym or a personal trainer or anyone who just hands you this list of exercises or this list of stretches to do and it’s the same photocopied list that everyone else has got. Put it down and run. Just get out of there! Get out of there!

So, you know, we take the time and assess every individual, you know, we look at every individual situation, we do some flexibility testing to see where the flexibility may be limited and so forth. We do some sort of balance-type exercises to see if there’s, you know, some imbalances within the muscle groups that are causing problems and so forth, you know, and then we go away and we, you know, we devise something for them that’s really specific to them.

Chris Guerriero: Well, let me interrupt you. And I don’t want you to lose your train

of thought, so pick up right where you leave off right here. However, with that said, with the fact that, you know, if you’re


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going to a gym or you’re going to a health club or you’re going someplace and they’re handing you this blanket statement. Okay, the very first thing you need to do before we actually have our meeting is sit down and do these ten stretches or whatever the case is.

That’s a no-no, without a doubt, that’s one of the big don’t on the list, don’t just follow something for the general masses. However, there is a way for your to get amazing results without having somebody like Brad sit down next to you and personally give you one of these one-on-one assessments.

I mean obviously, that’s where you’re going to get stupendous personal results, however, you know, if you go to, for example, you go to Brad’s website, it will be able to give you resources that you can use to make your own diagnosis of yourself.

For example, there are resources there. And Brad correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s resources that you give people that educate them to know a lot more about the physiology of their body, and exactly how to put their bodies in a position that allows them to get the best stretch possible and the shortest, safest time period to get rid of these little aches and pains that they’ve got going on inside their body. Is that correct?

Brad Walker: Yeah, that’s exactly right, yeah. Chris Guerriero: Yeah, so, I didn’t want people to think, and I apologize for rudely

interrupting you there. But I didn’t want people to think that what we’re saying is contradictory to what we were saying earlier on in this interview where they should go grab all this great information and then learn.

You know, they get their learning process from there. I don’t want people to think that, you know, now we’re saying don’t go and grab the information. What we’re saying is don’t go to somebody that is going to hand you a Step One, Step Two, Step Three kind of a thing and assume that you fit into the exact same skill level as everybody else, whether they’re a professional athlete or somebody who’s never exercised a day in their life.

That’s not what Brad’s site is, that’s not what The Stretching Institute is all about, that’s not what stretchinginformation.com is all about, that’s not what any of our programs in my research center are about either. We are educators so that you can lead a far more fulfilling life.


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Okay, so, again, take it from there, I apologize for interrupting you.

Brad Walker: Yeah, no, look, I appreciate that because you know, a lot of the

resources that we have actually help people to learn how to assess their own situation. And we show people how to look at their own body and see or recognize maybe an imbalance in their body, or a lack of flexibility in a particular area. And then we give them the resources to go away and say, okay, well you know, “I’ve identified that I have this pain in my hip, you know, now what do I do to get rid of it?”

And then we show people, okay, well here’s X amount of stretches that are specific to your situation. And we show them how to put together a routine and how to structure that routine so they're rotating through the stretches and, you know, they’re doing it for the right time and all that sort of stuff.

So, you know, yeah, there’s heaps of resources there where you know, we educate people in being able to assess their own situation and you know, come up with a solution to whatever problem that they have.

Chris Guerriero: Okay, so, we’ve covered just about all the surface facts that we can

cover in this kind of an interview where we talk about sports people. We talked a little bit about the fact that whether you’re a sports person or not and you find that when you’re just out playing with your kids that you’re feeling a little bit of pain, that pain very possibly may not be associated with something that you just did with your kids.

More than likely it’s a pain because you allowed a weakness or a specific muscle area to become weak from something that you do during the day on a normal basis. If you sit down in front of a computer on a regular basis, you’re going to develop some weakness in a part of your back or other parts of your body.

If you’re sitting in a truck all day long, driving. If you’re doing anything where you’re sedentary for any length of time during the day or not, you know, maximizing flexibility during the day, then you’re developing these little weak links inside your body and then those weak links then show as pains when you do other things.

So, the solution to a lot of our every day aches and pains is normally just to implement a very short but effective pliability


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program, some sort of program that allows your muscles to become healthier and elongated and stretched, is that correct?

Brad Walker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s exactly right, yeah. Chris Guerriero: And unfortunately, you know, we can’t get into, and I know, you

know, Brad and I have had conversations about this in the past. And one of the things that we tried to avoid a lot during this particular call is to say specifically I want you to get on the floor right now, I want you to lay on your back, and I want you get yourself in this position or that position or another position and hold this for ten seconds while we’re on the phone because I want to make sure that you understand blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

That’s not what this kind of an interview is all about, because if we were to do that, then we know for a fact that we’re going to have people that are doing it improperly.

Brad Walker: You know, I’ve been on other calls where people have asked me to

do that. And I’ve refused to do it because I know that the people out there who are listening, you know, I’ve got no way of knowing who’s listening to what I’m saying and what their specific requirements are.

And if they have an injury or anything else and, you know, I could be doing real damage just by giving some standard, run-of-the-mill stretch that so-called everyone can do, so, you know, I’ve actually been in the position where I’ve actually refused to do that.

Chris Guerriero: What I’ve found works really best, understand the fact that we

can’t have every single person in the world who wants results actually come to one of our areas and lay down in front of us and actually show us the position that they’re in.

Since that’s not possible, what I’ve found works really well is a combination of an audio like this, something that shows the general nature of things. And then combine that with the written things that they’re going to download on their site, you know, a written description of, this is what you should be doing.

And then delve a little bit more into what Brad’s got to offer, and look at the photos that he’s got there, so you can see the before, the middle, the after of each one of these kind of stretches. Because that’s where you’re really going to be able to see the marriage of


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the three medias, hearing our voices, reading it, and then seeing the photos.

That’s where you’re going to be able to, and if you think that’s too much to go through, just think, my gosh, the massive benefits that you're going to be able to experience in every area of your life. And Brad, you know, we haven’t touched on hardly anything that, hardly any of the real benefits that people get from stretching.

You talk about stretching from the standpoint of developing better performance in sports and in your regular life. When I’m talking about stretching, I’m attacking it from a different level and I’m telling people, listen, because you know that we deal mostly with entrepreneurs in my research center.

So, we’re dealing with these high-end entrepreneurs who refuse to have a less than 100% kind of a day mentally as well as physically.

And I tell people you know what, by implementing a very basic stretching routine in your day, it allows the blood to flow better throughout your body, which means when your blood flows better your body can bring the oxygen in your brain far better and faster and more efficiently, which means you can think better.

When you work at peak performance, that means that you’re, you know, doing a little bit of stretching, doing a little bit of activity during the day, you’re eating a little bit more in tune with the results that you’re looking at so you have that nutrition in your blood as well.

You’re doing some mental training exercises, you’re doing a little bit of all these things, but when you miss one aspect then you’re not working at peak efficiency. And the number one aspect that people usually delete from their program because they think that it’s inconsequential is the stretching.

You know, people come to us and they say, “Well, tell me how to diet. Tell me how to exercise. Tell me how to think more clearly. Tell me how to this, that and the other.” The one thing that they delete from their routine the fastest is the stretching module, which usually takes the least amount of time and it gives you really such tremendous impact, and that’s what Brad’s focus is all about.

That’s why I thought it was so vital to have him on our Power Interview Series today.


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Brad, do you want to wrap up with any final thoughts before we let everybody go? And I want to remind everybody again, before you give us your final thoughts, it’s stretchinginformation.com.

Go there, you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t go there and partake in, you know, Brad’s free information as well as, get a handbook. You know, the handbook itself, I don’t know what it goes for but I’ve got it right in front of me right now sitting on my desk because I think it’s such a terrific little manual on stretching. But, www.stretchinginformation.com should be in your Favorites list of your browser so that whenever you have a stretching question, you pop over there and you get your questions answered.

Brad, why don’t you wrap up, give some final thoughts for the day.

Brad Walker: Yeah, look, I just want to you know, back up what you were saying

then, you know, stretching is the usually the forgotten little secret to optimum health and performance.

You know, everyone is doing their strength training and they’re worried about what they’re eating and they’re doing their, you know, their running and their cardiovascular work and all this sort of stuff. And they’re forgetting that one little piece, and when they incorporate that, and it’s not a matter of having to add X amount of hours of stretching time to your week, which, you know, no one’s got, you know, another couple of hours to do stretching.

It’s just a matter of incorporating it into what you’re already doing, and the results are just remarkable. It’s like, stretching is just like one spoke in that wellness wheel, but if it’s missing, the wheel doesn’t work properly. And when you get it all flowing together and it’s all in the right place, you’re unstoppable.

Chris Guerriero: And I’ll tell you the reason I think, and this is just personal, you

know, I haven’t done any surveys on this. The reason I think it’s so easy to pull that cog out of that machine is because one of the very first things that we learned in our gym class in school is stretching. But it’s one of those things that is such a basic, little, itty-bitty thing that it’s not that important.

So, we belittle it just a little bit thinking that, well, you know, stretching is something that you do when you’re in gym class. It’s like jumping jacks or push-ups as opposed to going to a gym and doing a real work-out with machines like real men and women do. You know?



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So, they think it’s so basic, but really it is the small, basic things. And I’ve said this so many times that, you know, my audience knows this but the people who are listening to this audio may not know this, it’s the small, basic things that have the greatest impact on our lives, if you’re smart enough to just implement them.

It’s the small things that take the least amount of effort sometimes, a couple of little stretches here and there. Like Brad was talking about before, we’re talking about five minutes or so just doing those few little things, those simple Golden Rules are going to have such a tremendous impact on everything else in your life, if you’re smart enough to do them.

If you’re one of those people who says, “Well, you know what, it’s only five to ten minutes so it’s not that important” then you’re missing out on something that I think, I really feel bad if you’re going to pass it up. You’re going to miss out on some of the magic that life has to offer you in every other area of your life.

So, again, this is Christopher Guerrero for the National Metabolic

and Longevity Research Center and we had our interview today with Brad Walker from The Stretching Institute and www.stretchinginformation.com.

And I hope that at least a little bit of what we discussed today seeps in and made a little bit of sense to you and at least, at the very least, it motivated you to go over to www.stretchinginformation.com and download some of Brad’s free information. Hopefully get onto his list so that he can drip some more great information to you as it comes out in his research. And for those of you who are really looking to take some action, then jump onto one or two of his programs over there.

You don’t actually have to go to The Institute to get this great wealth of information if you just grab some of his programs over there. He’s got something called The Stretching Handbook, which again I’ve got right in front of me over here, I love it, we're sharing it amongst everybody else in The Research Center right now.

And I like it so much that we’ve been talking to Brad about doing some work with us on some other projects that we’re working on. So, go get it, it’s going to change your life. A lot of the things that Brad has over there are going to be able to change your life in small, subtle ways. And in such small ways that you’re not even going to give Brad credit when they start popping up in your life. But that’s okay, right Brad, you don’t have big ego?




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Brad Walker: No, no, no, not at all. Chris Guerriero: It’s okay if they forget that you’re the source that has allowed them

to lead a better life with less joint pains and with more peak performance in every area of their life. It’s okay. But I highly suggest you get over there to stretchinginformation.com and stay tuned again for a lot more great power interviews with us.

Again, it’s Christopher Guerrero and thank you again for being here, and I wish you all the best that life has to offer.

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