“Be consistent before you’re heroic.”
— Kelly Starrett
Kelly Starrett, DPT (@thereadystate) is one of my favorite performance coaches. When I have problems other people can’t solve, I call Kelly. He’s also a treasure trove of one-liners.
He is, along with his wife Juliet, co-founder of The Ready State. The Ready State began as MobilityWOD in 2008 and has gone on to transform the field of performance therapy and self-care.
Kelly’s clients include professional athletes in the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB. He also works with Olympic gold medalists, Tour de France cyclists, world- and national-record-holding Olympic Lifting and Power athletes, Crossfit Games medalists, professional ballet dancers, elite military personnel, and more.
Kelly is the author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers Becoming A Supple Leopard and Ready to Run. His new book is Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully, co-written with Juliet Starrett.
Juliet was the U.S. National Champion in extreme whitewater racing from 1997 to 2000 and World Champion from 1997 to 1998. She returned to the sport in 2018 to become World Champion in the Masters Division.
Please enjoy!
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#664: Dr. Kelly Starrett — The Magic of Movement and Mobility, Training for Range of Motion, Breathing for Back Pain, Improving Your Balance, and More
This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1 by Athletic Greens, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.
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Want to hear the first time Kelly was on this podcast? Check out my conversation with him and Dr. Justin Mager where we discussed the difference between being well and thriving, the fringes of physiology, exceeding “optimal” performance, correcting circadian rhythms while traveling, pattern recognition and “chunking” for improved talent acquisition, Kelly’s mattress selection, rebooting the parasympathetic nervous system, and much more.
#3: Kelly Starrett and Dr. Justin Mager
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
- Find The Ready State Online:
- Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully by Kelly Starrett and Juliet Starrett | Amazon
- Becoming a Supple Leopard: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance by Kelly Starrett and Glen Cordoza | Amazon
- Ready to Run: Unlocking Your Potential to Run Naturally by Kelly Starrett | Amazon
- Hokkaido | Travel Japan
- Winter Outdoor Activities: What is Skinning? | Hike it Baby
- The Ultimate Guide to Onsen Hot Spring Etiquette and Where to Enjoy a Japanese Bath | Live Japan Travel Guide
- Over 75s Make Up over 15{1652eb1ffa4184925f6a63a9c04ea6b421acb7a78117241e7d4325cdca8339fa} of Japan’s Population for First Time | The Japan Times
- Older Japanese Get Fitter and Children Fatter | The Guardian
- Sitting Seiza: 3 Comfortable Ways to Sit on the Floor | Japan Objects
- Muscles and Meridians: The Manipulation of Shape by Phillip Beach | Amazon
- Hatch Squat Program
- All Rise Now — Just How Fit Are You? | Harvard Health
- What Is the Sit Rise Test and How to Do It Properly | Ed Paget
- “I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up!” Compilation | iiAFX
- What is Range of Motion and Why Is it So Important? | Motion PT Group
- Training for the Centenarian Olympics | Dr. Mark Hyman
- Dr. Andrew Huberman — A Neurobiologist on Optimizing Sleep, Enhancing Performance, Reducing Anxiety, Increasing Testosterone, and Using the Body to Control the Mind | The Tim Ferriss Show #521
- Gordian Knot | Wikipedia
- Walking This Number of Steps a Day Only a Few Days a Week Has Major Health Benefits | Today
- Dr. Peter Attia on Longevity Drugs, Alzheimer’s Disease, and the 3 Most Important Levers to Pull | The Tim Ferriss Show #517
- These Lymphatic Drainage Workouts Are Basically a Detox on a Mat…or Trampoline | Well+Good
- Everything You Need to Know about Cankles | The Vein Institute
- Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) Symptoms and Causes | Mayo Clinic
- Ankle Pumps | Michigan Medicine
- Older Adults and Balance Problems | National Institute on Aging
- SlackBlock | Rogue Fitness
- Can You Stand on One Leg for 10 Seconds? Why Balance Could Be a Matter of Life and Death – And How to Improve Yours | The Guardian
- How Japan Keeps Clean | Life Where I’m From
- The Key Differences between Yoga and Pilates | Harper’s Bazaar
- The English | Prime Video
- Sit and Reach Test | Physiopedia
- Can You Pass the Old Man Test? | Squat University
- The Airport Scanner Test | The Mail
- How to do Downward Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana) | Alo Moves
- Concentric, Eccentric, Isometric, Tempo… What Does it all Mean? | Fitbliss Fitness
- Torture in the Tower of London | Historic UK
- Jefferson Curls: Weighted Mobility for the Posterior Chain | GymnasticBodies
- A Powerful Breathing Exerciser | The O2 Lung Trainer
- Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises & Benefits | Cleveland Clinic
- Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor | Amazon
- Breathing Method for Mind, Body and Sport | Oxygen Advantage
- VO2 Max: How to Measure and Improve It | Cleveland Clinic
- How Much Protein Should You Eat? | Peter Attia
- EC Synkowski: 800g Challenge | The Ready State Podcast
- Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food by Catherine Shanahan | Amazon
- EWG’s 2023 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce | Dirty Dozen
- A Guide to the Delicious Sandwiches of 7-Eleven Japan | Grape Japan
- Functional Movement Systems
- Dave Spitz: Olympic Weightlifting, Regret vs. Disappointment, and the Transformational Mantra “Never Do Nothing” | The Ready State Podcast
- California Strength
- Timed Up and Go Test (TUG) | Physiopedia
- Seven Benefits of Doing Squats and Variations to Try | Healthline
- Couch Stretch: How to Do, Variations, Muscles Targeted, Precautions
- What Is a Couch Stretch and How to Do It | Gealthline
- How to Do a Warrior One | Howcast
- How to Do Chaturanga the Right Way | Mindbodygreen
- The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman by Timothy Ferriss | Amazon
- The Karate Kid | Prime Video
SHOW NOTES
- [08:05] Where in the world are Kelly and Tim?
- [13:34] A lesson in how our environment shapes us.
- [19:12] Optimizing vital signs and range of motion as we age.
- [30:31] Walk and fidget more for better sleep and body maintenance.
- [40:37] Balance training: not just for “old” people.
- [50:51] Extending the end range of motion.
- [54:58] The old man shoe-on game.
- [59:50] The airport scanner shoulder test.
- [1:05:55] Simple corrective exercises.
- [1:09:44] Tower of London.
- [1:12:41] Breath as a mobilization device.
- [1:19:13] A reasonable amount of daily protein.
- [1:23:09] 800 grams of fruits and vegetables.
- [1:32:27] Never do nothing. But my something doesn’t have to be your something.
- [1:43:23] Cultivating cross-cultural, timeless movement in a busy world.
- [1:53:43] Who is Built To Move for?
- [1:58:54] Parting thoughts.
MORE KELLY STARRETT QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW
“We want to more tightly conjoin our day-to-day processes with understanding who we are.”
— Kelly Starrett
“Joseph Pilates was not messing about.”
— Kelly Starrett
“In the Tower of London there was a torture device where you were kneeling. You put your chest on your legs, and then someone would screw a vice over your back, basically like a wishbone, and compress your back until you couldn’t breathe anymore. But I was like, that’s a clever way to get into the upper back. I’m going to try that. … and I discovered [it] was a really wonderful way to help get this global flexion of my back.”
— Kelly Starrett
“If you’re on your Peloton bike and you think you’re killing it, ask yourself, ‘Is there a position on this Peloton bike where I can take a bigger breath?’ And you’ll start to organize your body, and guess what? You’ll power more effectively. Because if we see better function of the body, we see better output of the body.”
— Kelly Starrett
“I didn’t even say ‘Eat organic bananas.’ I just said, ‘Whatever you can afford, whatever works in your socioeconomic system, is going to be a better health outcome than not getting enough protein and fruits and vegetables.’”
— Kelly Starrett
“The objective measurements — obesity, diabetes, chronic pain, persistent pain, injuries, surgery, depression — what we see is that those things are trending in negative ways. If fitness is a trillion-dollar industry, and we’re not making people fitter and expanding their fitness besides “I look great on Instagram with my abs,” just expanding that definition a little bit, then we have to start asking a different set of questions around this.”
— Kelly Starrett
“Be consistent before you’re heroic.”
— Kelly Starrett
“The glacial pace is the breakneck pace.”
— Kelly Starrett
PEOPLE MENTIONED
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