We all have different body types, and for most of us, that doesn’t really impact our performance with particular fitness programs. After all, fitness programs, including our own, are made for the average person.
But what if your body type falls outside that “average” range?
What if you’re very tall or very overweight? Are there certain adjustments you’ll have to make?
Here’s a snippet of what Ryan had to say on the matter:
Our programs are designed for the average person. You’ll have to make adjustments if you don’t fall under that category.
In this episode, Ryan and Andy discuss what to adjust, or at least be aware of, if you do have a “challenging” body type. They also discuss the concept of emulating children’s movements and activities – and why that’s really not a great idea.
- (03:42) Remember that kids can do a lot of things that we can’t do because their bodies are totally different.
- (04:44) Being fearless is not the same as having body control or awareness.
- (07:34) Body type does matter, but how much? And when?
- (10:50) Gymnasts with different specialties have different body types – for a reason.
- (20:47) You don’t need to be perfect before you can start a program. Everyone is somewhat off the dead center of average.
- (24:46) It’s not about how long it takes you to get something. (See our recent video on how long it takes to get a handstand.)
Andy: All right. Breaker, breaker, one-niner on the interweb. Get your ears on for the GMB Fitness Skills Show. Over the next 20 to 30 minutes plus or minus, weâre going to be talking about all kinds of good stuff, how to live a good life, how to train well and how to be a better person. So letâs get started.
My name is Andy. Here with me Ryan Hurst, our program director, head coach, all-around cool guy. You ready to get started?
Ryan: Oh, yeah. Iâm ready to do this. Whatâs up man? How are you feeling today? Iâm digging the wood background today. Itâs a little bit different.
Andy: Itâs a little natural. Actually Iâm starting MovNat.
Ryan: Sweet! Good.
Andy: From now on. From now on, Iâm just doing MovNat and so I have a wooden background in honor of my decision to follow MovNat from now on.
Ryan: Cool. Be sure to tell Vic hello for me.
Andy: I think Vicâs background is bamboo.
Ryan: Yeah, I think it is. I havenât talked to Vic in a while. I need to get a hold of him. So anyway âŚ
Andy: Yeah.
Ryan: Whatâs going on man? What are we talking â well, I know what weâre talking about today but âŚ
Andy: Yeah, all right. Well, if youâre so smart, why donât you tell everyone what weâre talking about today?
Ryan: So actually we got â letâs do some questions. We havenât done any questions for a while. So letâs do some questions. So my question for you is, âHow is Momoko doing?â
Andy: Momoko is awesome. So my daughter is a little bit more than a year and a half old now. She is walking. She is running.
Ryan: Sheâs doing MovNat.
Andy: Sheâs doing MovNat with me. When she sees me climbing trees barefoot, she kind of follows and she climbs bushes though because theyâre more her size and you got to scale. You got to scale.
Ryan: You do. You do.
[Music]Andy: Itâs actually kind of interesting that you mentioned that because we were talking not too long ago. Jarlo and I were talking about how in the fitness community lately and especially in the movement community, people like to talk about idealizing childrenâs movement, right? Itâs actually kind of a naturalistic fallacy, this thing that â this whole original body awareness kind of thing that people like to talk about and honestly, I think a lot of it is total BS.
I have a daughter and she does a lot of things and itâs really interesting to watch her and I love learning from that. But I donât think that itâs really â that me mimicking her movement is something that Iâm going to learn a lot from.
I already can crawl and roll and all that stuff. Children are great because they have a blank slate in a lot of ways and they can learn and be curious and experiment but that doesnât necessarily mean that theyâre wise or theyâre smart or that theyâre doing things in a way that we should emulate. Childrenâs bodies are totally different from adult bodies. Look at the head proportion for one thing. The balance is completely different.
The joints are not fully formed yet. They have much greater range of motion and elasticity in all of their joints. They can do a lot of things that we canât do and so I think itâs great to want to play with your kids and bring them into your practice but I donât know if we should be glamorizing the idea that children are somehow â they come pre-perfect or something like that.
Ryan: I agree with you. I see. I know what youâre saying and I totally agree. Yeah. Theyâre still just learning. I mean they donât know anything. Literally they donât know anything so they just have to try everything out. So âŚ
Andy: I think a lot of coaches train adults and then they see kids and they think, âWell, if only my adults could move the way these kids move, they will be great,â but you and I both trained a lot of children.
Ryan: Yeah.
Andy: I can tell you for a fact and I know you would say the same thing. Children do not how to do very much if you donât show them.
Ryan: Thatâs exactly right.
Andy: They have no fear. They can jump in and try things but thatâs not the same as having body control or awareness or stability.
Ryan: Awareness to be able to do it, yeah.
Andy: Yeah, awareness is really a key because they will just jump and flail into the wall but that doesnât mean that they know how to control themselves when they do that.
Ryan: They are built for that too. Thatâs why they â the way theyâre proportioned. So itâs for protecting themselves. So I mean my son and he has had some falls where Iâm just like I would have been in traction.
Andy: Your son has a very thick skull.
Ryan: I mean crazy. I wasnât aware that a humanâs neck could go in that direction. But yeah, no â thatâs a good thing because thatâs how theyâre built because itâs to help them survive to become an adult.
Andy: Yeah. In like New Age stuff they will say, âOh, listen to the wisdom of the children. They know so much.â No, they donât. No, they donât.
They ask why and thatâs a good thing. Adults should ask why more often I think. We can learn to retain our curiosity but that doesnât mean we should throw out all of our experience and all of the things that weâve learned either.
I think itâs the same thing for movement and for fitness and for that kind of thing too. We have to practice. Nobody is born as some kind of movement savant, nobody.
Some people have a genetic predisposition to be able to be stronger, to develop muscular skill. Some people grow up in an environment where theyâre encouraged to be aware of their movements more. But thatâs totally different from saying that we should just go back to nature.
Going to nature is great. Nature is a whole different thing, but nature is good. But we shouldnât just go back to nature. We should practice things that we know have value.
Ryan: I agree. I agree.
Andy: So thatâs how Momoko is doing.
Ryan: Good.
Andy: Your question.
Ryan: Besides being a famous [0:06:38] [Indiscernible] model.
[Music]Andy: All right. So letâs talk about â the main thing we want to talk about today though is this â we get a lot of questions from people who ask us, âHey, Iâm really tall. Iâm like six foot five. Is it still possible for me to learn how to do ring training?â or âIâve got about 35 pounds I need to lose. Where should I start?â
A lot of this depends on goals but what it comes down to is people have different body types and some goals are more appropriate to certain body types. Some exercises are more appropriate and yeah, thereâs a lot there.
Body type is something that is â it matters. You canât ignore it. So letâs talk a little bit about what body types are maybe predisposed to certain types of movements first and then we will talk about if you are trying to change your body type, if youâre trying to lose weight or if youâre really skinny and youâre trying to put on some muscle or something like that. We will talk about that I think maybe in the next episode. But letâs talk about how body type affects exercise selection and that kind of thing first. What have you got?
[Music]Ryan: Well, if we just look at the bodyweight training, put like the weight training and Olympic lifting, those kinds of things to the side for a sec, if we just look at bodyweight training and we look at a person whoâs extremely tall, theyâre obviously going to have some challenges to simply the way theyâre built. Theyâre very long.
Chances are very lean which is not a bad thing at all of course, but when they want to perform something, letâs say for example the front lever on the rings, theyâre obviously the body with their long limbs. Itâs going to take a very long or I should say longer time to get things.
A good example actually is an acquaintance of mine named Sean Smith. Right now heâs located â I think heâs in Saudi Arabia. He just moved to Saudi Arabia but extremely tall. I mean the dude, very, very tall.
He works his butt off and he has got these skills. Heâs working on his planche and heâs doing this thing. Heâs talented because he spent so much time learning what he has had to do and make changes to match his body.
For everything that weâre talking about today, thatâs all what it comes down to is making sure that you understand what you need to do in order to match your body, the things or change, make changes to accommodate your body.
Andy: So before you go on, I just want to sort of reiterate that no matter what your body type, but especially if you have a challenging body type, being aware and doing practice, right? Practicing and being aware of how it affects you, right?
Ryan: Right.
Andy: Those are keys.
Ryan: Yes.
Andy: OK, keep going.
Ryan: Yeah. To go a little further with that, the thing is, you might see a person and see them be able to perform something and youâre just like oh, that is the coolest thing Iâve ever seen. I want to be able to do that tomorrow.
You have to take into consideration their body type and also their background. Weâre not going to talk too much about their background, just looking at their body type. But this plays a huge part in it. Now, we have the very, very tall person and then we have letâs say a shorter person.
[Music]Ryan: And I want to talk about gymnasts a little bit. Weâre not gymnasts but gymnasts, I think this is something that a lot of people misunderstand about gymnastics. You see a gymnast and you might see a person whoâs very, very muscular, very lean and see them doing all these cool stuff.
The thing is though, not all gymnasts are built that way. So if we look at an all-around gymnast, theyâre not going to be these huge, huge muscular kinds of guys. The way that theyâre built is to be able to perform everything. Then you have the ring guys. The ring guys are jacked. I mean theyâre just â little legs, but theyâre just jacked.
Then you have the pommel horse guys. Now the pommel horse guys, really some of the specialists in the pommel horse, very, very interesting. Extremely skinny, tall compared to the gymnast, for a gymnast. They have long legs. The reason why, it looks very beautiful when theyâre performing their movements on the pommel horse and gives them the length and the movements just look better.
So even within gymnastics, you have these different body types. Iâm just talking about the guys of course. But each of those gymnasts also, theyâre built that way. So they have to focus on what they can do with the body that they have.
So leaning back and looking at all of us, what can we do? Just like what Andy said, we can be aware of our body and then we can practice. So you can â I want to say this but I hate it when sometimes people say that you can do anything you put your mind to.
Yeah, you can. You just have to understand that it might take a lot longer than some other people. Sean is a good example. Heâs great. Heâs very, very good at what he does but Iâm pretty sure that it has taken him a little longer than most people to get to where he wanted to be because heâs so tall. Iron Cross is another example, these long arms. The leverage is just crazy for that.
[Music]Ryan: Another example that we could talk about is if youâre overweight. Now, if you are very overweight, I mean weâre talking obese. OK? The first order of priority is getting to a weight that is safe to allow you to start training. So yes, you might want to start working on letâs say the parallettes or the rings or even tumbling.
But if youâre carrying that extra weight, itâs going to put so much load on your joints that youâre going to end up hurting yourself. Thatâs just how it is.
So what you will have to do is first figure out a way to lose weight. Get to a weight that is going to be safe so that you can start training.
Pardon me as I clear my throat. So thereâs many different ways you can do that. Weâre not going to go into that because itâs not what weâre really about. But you need to find a way to get to a safe starting point.
Letâs just talk about safety. Keep talking about safety. It doesnât matter really your body type. No matter where youâre coming in from, if youâre small, chunky, maybe youâre tall, very lean, it doesnât matter. Youâve got to figure out how you can start safely.
So there are different things that you need to take into consideration. When we put out a program, Iâm sorry, but Iâm not thinking, âOK, how can I program this for someone whoâs overweight? How can I program this for someone who is seven feet tall?â
No, Iâm really just thinking about the average person whoâs coming in and has the OK from their doc, doesnât have a health issue. So that they can start working on this kind of stuff.
Andy: Yeah. Given that somebody is healthy and has a good base, an average program is actually good. You donât need a custom-tailored program if you have an average body. Itâs unnecessary. But if you do have a disadvantage of some sort, then you just need to figure out what part to change.
Ryan: Thatâs right.
Andy: You also donât necessarily need to totally custom program them either but you need to one, most importantly, prioritize fixing or if itâs not fixable, improving that aspect thatâs a challenge for you. Then you will be able to just follow a regular program that works for most people. Yeah.
[Music]Ryan: This is whatâs actually good about our Alpha Posse is because we have a lot of different bodies, a lot of different body types. Weâre able to just say, âHey listen, letâs change this just a little bit.â Just like you said, Andy, usually itâs not, âOh, weâre going to completely redo this program.â No, itâs usually just tweaking one, maybe two things. We find that that makes a huge difference.
So the thing though, we canât stress this enough is understanding your body and this is tough for people. Stepping back and really taking a look at yourself and saying, âI am this,â and the thing is, thatâs a good thing. When you know really who you are, or where your body is, then you can start working on the things that you need to do in order to get you where you want to go.
That can be tough. This can be a very big ego thing. I mean people stepping back and saying, âIâm the same way. I have to understand. Iâm a skinny dude. Iâm not like a huge kind of guy.â I understand that and if youâre comfortable in your skin and understand whatâs going on and maybe some of the limitations that you have, then you can start working on getting better no matter where you are.
Andy: Yeah. That goes for just about anything though too, right? I mean why is it so hard for people to swallow with their bodies? Letâs say if you want to go to Istanbul. Well, you got to understand first that itâs Constantinople.
Ryan: Thatâs right.
Andy: And letâs say you want to go to Istanbul and I also hand you a map and I say, âThis is a map of Istanbul. Go for it!â
Ryan: Yeah.
Andy: You still arenât going to be able to get there unless you know where you are on that map. OK? Thatâs a kind of cheesy example but itâs just true of any âŚ
Ryan: Itâs true. Yeah.
Andy: Knowing the end point and seeing a map of the lay of the land and how things work together is not enough to get you there unless you are very sure where youâre at. If you think you can just like go straight and turn left, but what if youâre coming from the other direction? You have to turn right. Itâs a totally different thing.
[Music]Andy: You have to know where you are. You have to be honest with yourself and a lot of times if youâre really honest with yourself, you will find you have advantages you didnât even recognize either.
Ryan: Yes.
Andy: Which is great. People who are overweight, you know what? Carrying around a lot of extra weight makes you pretty strong especially in the lower legs, right?
Ryan: Yeah.
Andy: So they actually end up when they start to strip off some of the fat with a pretty good advantage of being able to â when they do lose weight, they find that their energy goes through the roof. They find that they have a lot more endurance, a lot more strength than they thought they did because theyâre just not carrying as much.
Iâm not saying that itâs a good thing to be fat. But itâs something that you â until you really look at where youâre at, you donât know what advantages or disadvantages you have. So you really need to make sure that you take that into account.
If you do just have an average body and an average build, well then know that and know based on that, that you can basically just follow a program to the letter and you donât need to worry about customizing, which saves you a ton of time and energy right there. So know where youâre at.
Ryan: Thatâs a good point because a lot of wasted time is trying to think how we can take a program and customize it to ourselves. No, no, no, let me tell you what. The world â as far as me, I know if someone creates a program for me and just tells me, âOK, this is all you have to do today,â and if I just do it, Iâm like, âThank you.â
Andy: Yeah, right.
Ryan: So yeah, I can understand how people would want to customize their program and I think thatâs great but just like Andy said, if youâre coming into this and you have that average â youâre within that average there, stick with the program and really just focus on doing just that. You will see good results. Now if youâre the kind of person whoâs like my friend Sean as I mentioned whoâs like 10 feet tall, thereâs some things that youâre going to have to change.
But again it doesnât have to be dramatic. Itâs usually only just one or two things. Likewise, if youâre overweight, hey, letâs work on getting you to a point where you can start to safely work on this program and thereâs nothing wrong with that. I mean thatâs a good thing because again the last thing we want is for someone to come into a program and say, âOh man, I hurt my wrists so bad. I donât know what the deal is,â and then later, we find out well, youâre 60, 70 pounds overweight. That probably has a big thing to do with it. So those little things like that, stepping back, looking to see where you are and âŚ
Andy: Yeah, itâs not to say that you need to be perfect before you can start a program. Everybody is not average. Everybody is somewhat off of the dead center. Thereâs no such thing as an average person. But by mathematical tautology, 70 percent of everyone falls within what we would consider average.
Ryan: Average, right.
Andy: Seventy percent, right? So thatâs what average means. You canât escape the math. So if you do have a disadvantage you need to work through, it doesnât mean that you canât start until youâre perfect. It just means that you need to make enough headway on it or heal enough, lose enough weight, whatever.
Make enough time in your schedule. You donât need to make a full hour a day for it. Make 10 minutes a day for it and start. Get where you have enough to start with. Get where you have something and then you can start. As you start, then you build momentum and everything.
[Music]Andy: So with that, letâs get some specific examples of â I think one of the big ones that we really get is people who are tall like Sean. We said you need to practice a lot and be aware of how things are affecting you. But what are some of the things especially for tall people? Because we have a lot of people that email us and ask us on Facebook too.
Can I do handstands? Can I learn to do a planche? Can I do levers? What are some specific things that for somebody who has that tall lanky build which seems to be very common? What would you say that they need to adjust on the standard training template?
Ryan: I would say for one that think of going slower than prescribed. The reason for that is the stress on your joints is going to be great than another person.
So if youâre â letâs say for example even just in the handstand, I mean thatâs a lot of distance between your hand and your toes and thereâs a lot of stuff going in there.
So I would suggest taking extra time and Iâm not just talking daily. Iâm talking like in the long term process of taking extra time to make sure that youâre slowly and gradually building up the strength, the joint strength necessary to help you be able to perform that and especially if youâre working on things on the rings or on the floor like the planche.
I mean for everyone, that puts a lot of strain and load on the body and so being in that particular instance where youâre very long and youâre going to have more of a challenge, then just give yourself a lot longer time to perform it so that you do have the proper recovery, so that you are getting the proper â so you are taking the proper steps necessary to strengthen the joints. Thatâs what I would say would be the biggest one.
Andy: Yeah, I think thatâs huge especially if youâve got a really slight build. Your connective tissue is also going to be thinner and less strong than somebody who has a thicker build. So youâre going to have to take even longer to do that and you can tell at the very beginning progressions of any of these movements that youâre already going to be having to take more recovery time. So for something like the planche, plan to add months.
Ryan: Exactly. Some people itâs like, âAh! I donât want to do that.â But you know what? The cool thing is if a really tall dude can do the planche, I mean to me, thatâs some incredible stuff. To me, I mean itâs just like wow.
[Music]Andy: The thing is itâs â and we come back to this again and again with other things too. Itâs not about how long it takes you to get something. You recently put up a video about how long does it take to get a handstand and a few people commented. You didnât say how long it takes!
Ryan: That is the point of it.
Andy: If you actually watch the video, you actually â you understand that there is no amount of time it takes. For everyone, it takes the amount of time it takes. Maybe youâre a lanky person and it takes you more time. But you know what? If somebody is overweight or something, then it takes them more time too. They have to lose weight and they have to prepare and have to get to where they can do it.
If somebody is just busy, it takes them a long time too because they canât afford as much time to training. So donât let it discourage you. Well, Iâm tall. So itâs going to take me more time. So Iâm just going to stick to weight lifting. Because you know what? Weight lifting is going to â you work hard too, man.
Ryan: Have fun with your squats. Yeah.
Andy: Yeah, thatâs the thing. So wherever you are, itâs just going to take you the amount of time it takes and thatâs directly in proportion to â for one thing, the way you approach your practice. For another thing, how well you recover from practice and a lot of that, you cannot change. Itâs metabolic processes that cannot be changed with any degree of certainty. I mean they do change as you age and other things but you canât consciously say, âI want to increase my recovery speed.â
Itâs very, very hard to do. So itâs going to take you the amount of time it takes you. Donât worry about it. Just practice and be aware of how that practice is impacting you. As you practice, dude, you know what? If it takes you four years to get to planche, it doesnât mean that years one, two and three suck.
If youâre working towards something like the planche, itâs not just like well, in my fourth year suddenly I became Superman. No. Years one, two and three, youâre also â youâre training. Youâre getting strong. Youâre getting your â itâs not that you get no benefit until suddenly you have the planche.
Youâre getting benefits all along. So donât think that oh, it takes too long. Itâs not worth it. Itâs totally worth it. Everyday you practice is worth it. So yeah, your body type affects things but donât let it discourage you.
Ryan: Thatâs good.
Andy: My body type is weak. It doesnât get in my way man.
Ryan: Thatâs right. Thatâs for sure. All right. We talked about some good stuff today. Just people say â but you got to be comfortable in your own skin. Itâs tough. To be honest, mostly here, weâre bombarded by images of people that we should look like. Screw that. OK? Just be yourself. Understand that youâre fine and âŚ
Andy: People are going to judge you too.
Ryan: Yeah.
Andy: People are going to judge you and there ainât shit you can do about it.
Ryan: Thatâs right, yeah.
Andy: But not let it bother you. Thatâs the only thing you can do.
Ryan: Let it go.
Andy: Yeah.
Ryan: And weâre going to let this show go. Next time, we will be â letâs talk about training for body composition, something that we donât really talk about too much here in GMB. But I think that would be a good topic for next time. So look forward to it. Letâs talk about that next time.
Andy: All right. Thank you.
Ryan: Bye.
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