Build Muscle, Great Posture & Resilience to Injury | Jeff Cavaliere

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Longevity ultimately is being able to maintain function as you age cuz again it’s it’s not the the number of years but the quality of the years. So, all muscles in your body serve a function. You’re training these muscles to get stronger and you’re training these your your balance and your These are all skills that can be learned and improved. They’re all trainable. If it’s trainable, it’s fixable.

Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I’m Andrew Huberman and I’m a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Jeff Cavalier. Jeff Cavalier is a Master of Science in Physical Therapy and a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist. He is considered one of the world’s foremost experts in training for both men and women to increase the strength and size of their muscles, their overall health and longevity.

Today we discuss some of the things that are not often discussed and considered the small things but that are actually the big things because they allow you to do the big things for your health and fitness and longevity decade after decade after decade and to do so pain-free and while making continual progress. We also discuss the typical big things, the specific multi-joint exercises and cardio workouts that create the greatest results. Today you’ll learn some simple exercises that will strengthen and protect your back, your shoulders, even improve your foot strength which most people don’t think about but turns out to be foundational for everything, your pressing and pulling movements, leg training and your cardio and that will allow you to live your daily life with vigor and ease at any age. I must say I’m a long-time fan of Jeff’s work which he’s been publishing to YouTube and elsewhere as Athlean-X. As you’ll soon realize from today’s episode, Jeff is far more than just another fitness trainer.

He has deep knowledge of human physiology and kinesiology and he really understands that everybody’s situation and body is different and thus needs different tools to address and solve their specific problems and to achieve their desired results. I should also mention that Jeff and I went to the legendary Gold’s Gym in Venice, California, where he took me through an arm workout. So, biceps and triceps and forearms, and he showed me what has become his kind of signature move, which is face pulls, which are essential for improving your posture, for your rear delts, and for general stability of the shoulders. So, you can find a link to those workouts in the show note captions. Before we begin, I’d like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today’s episode does include sponsors. And now for today’s discussion with Jeff Cavalier. Jeff Cavalier, welcome back. >> Thank you for having me.

This time actually nice to come out to California. Yeah, get a little work out in. >> Yeah, we have a studio this time. Last time we I think we were in a in a rented apartment in in New York >> city. It worked.

I said it then, I’ll say it again, you’re the man. I’ve been watching your videos and following your training advice for many years. I would say Mike Mentzer, Dorian Yates, and you. >> That’s That’s uh >> I’ve merged the principles and um >> Very high humbling praise for me, for sure. >> Well, you’re 50, >> Mhm.

never touched gear, that’s uh slang for steroids, you’re not on TRT, you’ve never done it, >> Nope. >> and you look amazing. I know you’re very disciplined with your diet, your training, but you know, you have a you’re married, you have two kids, you’re you put in the work all over life, and you know, you’re a testament to what’s possible if people do things right. So, today I want to talk about a number of things, but something that I believe is not discussed enough, which you discuss a lot, and it’s just been transformative for me because I also happen to be 50, is we both know that the big things, like doing the regular compound multi-joint lifts regularly, that’s all critical. We know the big stuff is critical.

And people talk about the big stuff all the time. But you talk about the small stuff that makes the big stuff possible for decade after decade. And I credit you for fixing my back pain. I credit you for the fact that I basically have no pain despite training very hard for, you know, more than three decades. So, let’s talk about the small stuff, which is not actually the small stuff.

These are I think of it as the the kind of hinges and and uh bolts on the system that allow that system to work. So, low back, shoulders, neck, these are the pieces that nobody wants to train, no one wants to think about, no one wants to talk about. So, let’s start right there. How can we keep our lower back strong and pain-free while also doing things like deadlifts and squats, etc.? >> I’m glad you’re talking about all of this.

Obviously, it’s like uh it’s such music to my ears, but I think the background of being a physical therapist is is what set the stage for my focus on these things cuz when I was younger, pre-physical therapy days, uh I did all the dumb stuff, too. And I did all the things, just the big things, and realized that it wasn’t necessarily a path to longevity, but in the in the immediate and in my 20s, I was really breaking down then. Like I had knee pain then. I had back pain then. I had shoulder pain then.

So, I think people who are in their 20s these days have the luxury of having access to videos like this, where they don’t just say, “Oh, that’s just um maybe a hard workout. ” Now they start to say, “Well, maybe I’m actually doing some damage here, right? Maybe I do need to pay attention to the smaller things. ” And when you have enough videos out there that showcase these small things, for instance, you mentioned back pain, we talk about a major cause of back pain not being structural back pain, right? A lot of the times, the back pain that we suffer from in our lives is not surgical.

It doesn’t need surgical treatment. It just needs the right addressing of the muscles that contribute to that, or how we allow muscles to get tight that that shouldn’t get tight if we did full range of motion on certain exercises. All right, so in in in particular, I mentioned the gluteus medius, right? And the gluteus medius is is a muscle that is going to control hip position, hip movement. So, if it’s controlling the position of our hips, that means it’s controlling our pelvis.

And if our pelvis is tilted or twisted or forward or backward, obviously the spine is literally adapting to the position of the pelvis beneath it, cuz it’s connected through the sacrum. So, how is that not important, right? So, all these muscles that connect to the pelvis that change its position are inadvertently going to change the position of the low back directly to the lumbar spine that is going to likely cause dysfunction down the road if you don’t address that. So, it is these little tiny muscles and these little tiny exercises. So, I made a video years ago about an exercise that you could do to help to loosen up if there was a a knot in the gluteus medius, right?

An area of spasm, a localized area of spasm, cuz when the spasm’s there, you adjust the way you move, right? You’re in pain, so you’re trying to move around that spasm. Something as simple as this leg raise down and back while holding down that that pressure point on the gluteus medius helps to alleviate some of that that that discomfort and and and that spasm to the point where you could restore normal motion again, cuz you