The Hub for Better Movement

The truth is we can't help everyone. Many times, we tend to disregard an entire profession based on one bad experience or thought process. I've definitely done this multiple times myself.

But every profession has their own specialty and philosophy in doing things. If it didn't work for you, doesn't mean the profession sucks. It just means that it didn't work for you. But they are able to help many others, which is why they still get good reviews and are in business.

I've spent the last 2 years networking and learning about every medical and health profession I can link up with and I am humbled by how everyone I meet has their own philosophy to treatment and training. Not one is better than the other. It just depends on what you need the most, at that particular point in time, for your specific goal or condition.

I'm grateful to have met these professionals and made my gym a central hub of connections so if there's a specific case that I can't handle. I can pinpoint and refer my clients to a specific person that has the highest chance of helping with that case. Be it chiropractic, physical therapy, natural path, acupuncture, structural integration, sensory deprivation, massage, NKT, osteopathic, Ortho etc.

Because I actually spent time and took sessions with every one of these professionals. Asking them how they work, what they do, why they do it, experienced it and felt the difference. I know that I can trust my clients with them when I refer them to these pros. It's not about money or ego, it's about making everyone feel better... Because feeling like shit sucks... And what's worse about feeling like shit is not know why. So let's figure out why. Then we can help :)

Success = Breaking Your Routine

Most of us live a very regimented lifestyle, and society typically tailor things to the type A personality. Everything has to be in order, have structure and make logical sense. Which I totally agree with, I'm a very logical person myself and abide by all these guidelines... most of the time?

But what I've come to realize is this: While it's important to have a basic structure and routine for your daily lifestyle to keep consistency and productivity, it's equally important to break that structure and routine once in a while, probably more often than you think you should.

As one sticks to structure for too long, tension builds up over time and your mind or body will naturally collapse, (getting sick, stress, depression, anxiety, angry outbreaks etc.) forcing you to reset and start over.

This is why Vacations, diets, fasting, de-load/rest periods in workouts, on an off seasons in sports, lunch breaks etc. have been created. But this is generalized and not tailored to you.

If you know me, everything I preach is about balance, personal customization and building our own intuition so we learn to know what is best for us, at any given time, whenever we need it.

In regards to your workouts, there are general guidelines of course. The Fundamental Movements, number of reps, sets, duration, intensity etc. But remember, all these are simply Guidelines, not Rules.

I challenge you to NOT just follow the list of exercises and abide by the reps, sets etc. But to keep working on the fundamental movements and base your workout, reps, sets, and duration depending on how you feel instead of what is on your "routine for the day". Of course, it takes time to build your own intuition because we tend to not pay attention to ourselves since we are so focused on external factors of life.

So start the fundamental movements with a solid routine in the beginning. But once you get better at the routine, I challenge you to break the routine and listen to what your body is telling you, magical things will start happening and you'll end up knowing what you want to do to make your body feel better.

Let's break free from the social norms of what you HAVE to do and listen to your body so you end up doing what you WANT to do.

Much Love

Andy

Top 5 Tips for Pain Management

So you have been through physical therapy, chiropractic, get massages, do your stretches all the time. But those aches and pains never go away. What is happening here?

This is the question that really dug into my soul. I got so frustrated seeing so many of my clients still suffering from injuries, nagging aches and pains that never go away. Especially when they just came back from rehab. And either their condition is just "a little" better, stayed the same. Or it felt good for a while but the pain came back. Why? What is going on here?

After networking and learning from over 30 of the best fitness, rehab, injury prevention specialists from all over the globe. I realized not one system works for everyone. That is ironically one of the things all the specialists agree on, yet many of us are fighting others on whose profession, system, technique is better. I spoke about this in my previous blog. (The disconnect in health and fitness industry.)

So instead of looking at what was different in all of them. I put all their systems together and looked at what was similar.

That is probably what we should be focusing on in order to truly help people move better, feel better and get out of pain.

So here are the Top 5 things that most health and fitness pros agree on in regards to pain management.

1) Stress - One of the biggest factors that cause pain, inflammation and inhibit the body to heal. Almost every Non-genetic medical condition (eg. heart disease, weak immune system, cancer etc.) can all be related back to some sort of stress. We all need to find some way to manage it. Whatever method that works best for you, do that to help relieve stress.

2) Resetting the Fundamentals - Most injuries are caused by poor movement patterns. For example. We didn't "tweak our back" because we picked up something heavy. We tweaked our back because we have been picking things up incorrectly, over time repetition after repetition, the back muscles got overworked then it tweaked.
We didn't tear our ACL in the knee because of jumping or cutting, we tore the ACL because our body doesn't know how to jump or cut properly. Certain muscles were not working properly and other muscles were working too much, causing imbalances over time. And one day, the ACL tears. The list goes on and on. Everything goes back to the movement fundamentals.

3) The 6 Movement Fundamentals - Push, Pull, Squat, Hinge, Carry, Rotate. These are the 6 main movements that the body is supposed to do pretty well. As we age, because of lack of movement, strict workout routines or just plain ignorance. We miss some of them in our workouts and poor movement patterns develop over time. Eg. Back pain comes from not being able to hinge properly when picking up something, knee pain comes from not having a good squat or rotational pattern, shoulder pain comes from not being able to push or pull well etc. the problem is you can do well in 5 of the 6 movement patterns, but the 1 that you can't do well is probably what is causing the rest of your body to get injured or be in pain. Original Strength, Animal Flow, DNS, Foundation Training, Primal Movement Chains are all systems built to reset movement patterns that help bring the body back to "normal" I combine all of these systems in my facility.

4) Lack of awareness - Not knowing how the mind and body is feeling. Sensory acuity is something we all need to build up consistently. We get so focused on the world around us that we forget to focus within. When we forget how to manage how we feel mentally and physically, our body falls out of alignment and pain, illnesses develop and we have no idea why. Resetting the fundamentals and relieving stress are awesome tools to help you build up awareness in your body.

5) Relying on others to do your job for you - Most trainers, Chiro's, PT's, Massage therapists etc. Give you homework that you need to implement into your daily routine (if they don't, find someone else). Roughly 70-80% of patients/clients never do their homework CONSISTENTLY after their rehab so the pain comes back or doesn't go away at all. Here is a quick video explaining this:

What we all need to understand is that professionals are just a guide to AID you in getting better. We can't do the work for you unfortunately. We can help you get out of pain, but you need to train your body to be able to maintain it and remember how to STAY out of pain.

So look at the 5 again and see what you might be missing in your daily routine. Pick the one that you feel you need the most and begin working on that asap and let me know how it goes!

I really hope this article sparked your curiosity and helped you look deeper into what is happening that might be causing your body to be in pain. A lot of the things you probably know, but have not implemented yet or don't know how or where to start.

I would highly advise you to reach out to me, If you're not in San Diego I can get you in contact with someone that might be able to help you. I know great professionals from all over the world so definitely shoot me a message, comment or email and I can find a way to help!

Much Love

Andy

The 6 Fundamental Movements

Most people cringe when they smell dirty underwear or food gone rancid. I cringe when I see poorly executed exercise programs and bad form. Too many "10min fat burning routines" or "Get shredded fast" routines are out there. Most of these routines are poorly designed and prone to lead to many muscular imbalances and injuries in the long run. If you want to lose weight, get toned, gain muscle, be healthy, have more energy etc. You MUST learn how to move properly first, once you can do that, every goal that you have wanted to achieved can be achieved, you just have to move!

This blogs main focus is to educate you about the most fundamental movements that should be incorporated in a workout program. Dan John, one of the best strength coaches in the world came up with the big 5. I added a couple more movements as accessory and corrective work:

• Push (Push ups, Bench press, Shoulder press, Sled Push)
• Pull (Rows, Lat pulldowns, Hamstring Bridges, Sled Pull)
• Hinge (Deadlifts, Single leg RDL's)
• Squat (Squats, lunges, lateral lunges, step up's)
• Loaded Carries (Farmer carries, Waiter walks)
• Rotation (Wood Chops, Cable rotations) and Anti-Rotation (Pallof press, planks with one leg extended to side)

If these 6 movement patterns are not incorporated in a weekly workout routine, a lot of muscle imbalances start happening and you are more prone to injuries over time. Most of us(including myself) do too much sitting and slouching with our eyes glued to the screen all day already. Then we do a lot of Push, Crunching and Squats, but not enough Pulling, Hinging and Loaded carrying exercises that cause our entire posture starts changing from bad... To worse.

My old man used to smack me on the back every 10 min to make me sit straight I was a kid. Then one day he got so fed up that he tied a cross to my back forcing me to sit up straight, that didn't work very well for my self-esteem, nor did it last very long. My posture only started getting better once I started working out correctly with the right selection of movements and incorporated corrective strategies to loosen up the tight muscles that are pulling our posture forward instead of pulling us upright. 

But main take away today is incorporate all 6 fundamental movements into your workout routine and you'll see a lot more balance and complete program!

Comment below if you have any questions!

Stay Healthy, Stay Motivated!

The Disconnect in the health and fitness industry

New groundbreaking research is being released every month. New professionals are coming up with different strategies to implement and help people alleviate pain. And that's amazing to see. I'm super grateful to be a part of this community.

hough there seems to be a disconnect in the different professions. I just learned that the Obesity rate just increased to 40% in america this year. So how can the number of health and fitness professionals be exponentially rising each year, but the same is happening with Obesity? Something is not right. What the heck is happening?

In my opinion. I think it's because we all think "our system" is the best, and not enough health and fitness professionals like to integrate their practice with different practices in fear they might lose business.

I feel that this is probably the biggest downfall of the health and fitness industry. We all signed up for the same cause, to help people feel better and have a better quality of life. Yet we fight over business, the business of sick people and people in pain. I feel we should all unite to the same cause and find some common ground in each profession. There is always something that overlaps that we can all see eye to eye on.

But we need to have a good understanding of what other professions really do. Not just what we "think" their profession does. Eg. We probably think that a chiropractor just cracks joints, an acupuncturist just pokes you with needles, doctors just give you pills, a trainer makes you sweat etc. But that is all a VERY generalized perception of what they really do. There is so much that goes on in each profession and if we take the time to learn from each profession instead of judging them. We might just end up making a difference in this worldwide obesity crisis going on.

It's not the food, lack of movement, sitting too long, drugs etc. that is causing this. It is all of it combined. And I'm thinking the root cause is actually because of the disconnect from each other. We live in a world that is connected with technology but disconnected with human connection. And that is not helping anybody.

In conclusion. I feel we should just all learn, grow and help each other. We all have a common goal. To help people feel better, move better and be happy right? If so, what the heck are we fighting about? Let's begin to put all the best practices together and create something that will make a true difference in this world.

all me naive but thinking this way is probably better than fighting over who has the bigger stick.

Andy Hsieh
Founder of Movement Reborn

I was 22 in a 60 year old body

When I was 17, I was the skinny kid, 5'5" at 118lbs. I could literally fit in a basin. I wanted to gain a lot of muscle, So I did. Packed on about 40lbs of muscle in a few years. At 22, I was the biggest and strongest I've ever been in my life. But I felt like crap (I hid it from everyone, even myself). I was always tired, aching, bloated, stiff, sleeping poorly and I had no idea why. I kept looking for a solution to actually feel my age or even younger.

Back then I was obsessed with getting fit and looking good. "Push past the pain" was how I lived because that's what every "fitness pro" I followed back then told me. Only slowly did I realize that yes, almost everyone wants to look good. Because we think that looking good will make us feel good, more confident, be healthier etc. I learned the hard way that this mentality was completely false. I was at the peak of my youth and ideal weight, but never felt more alone, unsatisfied and most of all, in pain.

Then this quote stumbled across my news feed one day... and it really resonated with me. And finally learned that there is a difference between feeling good and looking good.

I poured all my money into attending every workshop, book, course I could find. I mentioned this in my previous articles too.

Over the years, I found some awesome systems to help reset the fundamentals to help your body feel like a kid again. Ironically, it's simply doing things that you were doing when you were a kid. And these workouts were even harder than lifting weights when I first got started.

But over time, I felt looser, fitter, stronger and started doing some kick-ass stuff that I didn't know what possible, with MUCH less pain and stiffness than I did a few years ago. And it keeps getting better over time. I now feel like a 27 year old in a 27 year old body. And the goal is to feel 30 when I'm 60. I firmly believe that if you keep doing the fundamentals and learn to "feel your body" more every day. You will age much slower and feel better as you keep aging. Obviously, time will catch up in the end. But the idea is to die young as late as possible. And that is the path I chose to live my life. I wonder if that might be yours too.

Now I've worked with over a 100 trainers. What sucks is barely 10% of them get their clients on the floor and play around because they think other people will judge them and call them a "bad trainer" that does not know what they are doing. We still think that these don't "get people results". But we have not taken the time to really try and work on it. It's truly awesome and super powerful.

If you're not rolling around on the floor for your workouts, I highly recommend you do. You'd be surprised what happens to your body. Don't care about the other people watching or judging. They have no idea what this is... but I'm hoping if you keep doing it and feel better ever time you try it. Others will start to take notice and ask you what your secret it. I feel this is what will shift the mentality of what health and fitness actually is.

It's simply movement, of any kind, that will lead you to become a healthier and better version of yourself.