David Morrow (01:49.683)

Folks, I’m sitting down with Yogi Aaron. He caught my eye because he has a really interesting take on attacking your chronic pain. Should I call it a mantra? I’m gonna call it a mantra, but you can correct me on that. Is stretching is killing us. I love it because this has been something that I’ve been harping on for a while is that stretching, although there’s a time and place.

Yogi Aaron (02:07.182)
Hahaha

David Morrow (02:19.195)
It’s your mobility and your ability to move better, which is going to help reduce your chronic pain. I want to hear more from Aaron and I’m sure you do as well. So Aaron, welcome to the show and let’s get right into it, man. Like, why is it that you think stretching is killing us and what brought you to that conclusion?

Yogi Aaron (02:39.64)
So first of all, thanks for having me on the show. and it’s great to, I always loved having this conversation, especially with other fitness buffs. So I, like you have been surrounded by fitness all my life. went to an all boys boarding school where we did these 50 miles, snowshoe races, three week canoe trips, week long dog sledding trip in the mountains, cross country running, trail running, and

David Morrow (03:04.925)
Wow.

Yogi Aaron (03:09.518)
You know, I started to notice like most people, like your body just starts to tighten up. And I remember around 18, 19, I was facing that decision. Do I stay tight? What will this tightness do to me? So I thought, well, I need to stretch. And like most people you think, okay, I have to stretch to stay healthy and stay young. And if you look at, you know, old people who seem to be young, they have a lot more mobility.

David Morrow (03:39.026)
Mm-hmm.

Yogi Aaron (03:39.47)
So I got into yoga and almost immediately I remember my back gave out on me one day and I was like at 18 and I was kind of like, huh, well, I guess I should stretch more. I’m a, I’m a real A type personality with, you know, lived in New York for 10 years. So

David Morrow (03:46.523)
No. At 18 years old? Wow.

David Morrow (03:57.075)
More is always better, Aaron. More is always better.

Yogi Aaron (04:06.796)
More is always better. So I actually dove deeper into the practice of yoga. I got into a style which is called a Shtanga and a Shtanga is very aggressive approach to yoga stretching really. And, but what started to happen was a couple of things. One, every morning I would wake up so tight and sore and have this pain in my back.

David Morrow (04:08.828)
Mm-hmm.

Yogi Aaron (04:35.724)
And then I would go do my yoga practice 90 minutes. And then afterwards I would feel okay. And then I would wake up the next morning and it would just get worse. And so this kind of went on and on and on for the better part of 25 years. And during that 25 years, it was a lot of chronic pain. lot of other issues started knees, lower back, and then neck and shoulders. actually had.

David Morrow (04:52.835)
wow.

Yogi Aaron (05:05.91)
suffered for a long time. was like somebody was driving a knife into my shoulder blade and sending sharp pain down my arm. so I finally around seven, six, seven years ago now, so it’s 25 years later, I ended up in the emergency room of a hospital in so much pain, like such debilitating pain that I could barely walk with an orthopedic surgeon saying to me that you

probably are going to need a spinal fusion. And that’s exactly why I was doing all of this stretching business to avoid, you know, the spinal fusion. And so that was a really hard pill to swallow David. Like you think you’re doing something, my whole ego, my whole sense of self and identity was wrapped up in

David Morrow (05:46.941)
chorus.

Yogi Aaron (06:02.338)
yoga and stretching and, you know, helping other people. And the very thing that I was teaching was the thing that led me to that place. And so that kind of led me to asking one simple question. What don’t I know? You don’t know what you don’t know until you know that you didn’t know. And all we can do is try to lessen a little bit of what we don’t know. That led me into

David Morrow (06:20.435)
You don’t know what you don’t know.

Yogi Aaron (06:30.75)
muscle activation technique, which was created by Greg Roscoff. And he discovered that the source of muscle tightness comes from instability. And so what that means is like when the body doesn’t feel stable, when the joints of the body don’t feel stable, the central nervous system basically sends a message out saying, tighten up, tighten up, tighten up. And this happens at.

the level of unconsciousness. Like you’re not consciously thinking, my God, tighten up. But it’s like a kin, you were to step on ice and your body senses instability, cause now you’re on a slippery surface and you immediately tighten up. And then you consciously think, okay, I’m going to walk very carefully. And so that’s what happens in terms of, there it is. In terms of

David Morrow (07:27.195)
I got it right. That’s him.

Yogi Aaron (07:28.812)
Yeah, that’s absolutely that’s Greg. there are a bunch of meatheads over there at muscle activation technique. I love them. They’re, it’s such a great community of people and they’re all like, they’re all like bodybuilders and, they’re very invested in helping people become pain free. It’s, it’s, it’s a remarkable community. As I got into muscle activation technique and I, and I decided to start studying it because I wanted to learn.

David Morrow (07:39.201)
Those are our people.

Yogi Aaron (07:57.248)
about what I don’t know. I also wanted to understand my body better. As I got into it, I very quickly realized like, like immediately right out of the gate. I don’t know shit. Here I was a yoga teacher teaching for 25 years. I thought I had some knowledge of the body and I realized like the knowledge I had about the body was basically crap.

David Morrow (08:23.667)
It’s like ego, I don’t need this anymore. And just like, just chuck it, right? It’s like, it’s gone.

Yogi Aaron (08:26.638)
Well, you know, one of the, one of the things I quickly realized after when I started my MAT training was how much yoga teachers make up shit. And, and I was, and by the way, I’m putting myself right, you know, at the front of the lane line. I didn’t realize how much I was saying stuff that just doesn’t make sense. I’ll give you one example. I could pull out a few, but this is probably the best one.

is when you hear yoga teachers say something like, okay, class, we’re going to open the hips today. It’s really important to have open hips. And that doesn’t make biomechanical sense. Like if you’re going to think about it biomechanically, open hips means a dislocated hip. And the fact of the matter is a lot of people who have a deep quote unquote hip stretching practice to open their hips actually end up needing hip replacement, which I think is

kind of interesting. So it just doesn’t biomechanically make sense. And we just say a lot of things that just don’t make sense. If you ask most yoga teachers, and I would actually say even fitness professionals, what are three muscles that attach to the hips and what is their muscle function and how do we improve it? You would be hard pressed for most of people to even just give you one muscle, let alone three, let alone their function.

David Morrow (09:27.859)
What?

Yogi Aaron (09:54.678)
And how to improve muscle function. And so that’s the lane that I drive in. am, you know, when I got into muscle activation technique, one of the first things I realized, I don’t know anything. If I don’t know anything, other yoga teachers don’t know anything. And if, if they don’t know anything, how can we start educating people more into anatomy, but also make it more experiential and, also to improve muscle function.

And so that’s was the crossover. And that’s how I came up with a Yama, is to start sharing with not just yoga teachers, but any fitness professional. This is applicable to anybody who is wanting to learn and understand the biomechanics of muscle function. Like how do we improve muscle function and by improving muscle function, whether you’re a yoga person or a fitness person.

you can start to actually have better workouts or a better yoga practice. Whatever you’re doing, you’re going to do it better. So.

David Morrow (11:00.313)
Interesting. Okay. So we’re on your website right now. Looks very good, Aaron. Very well done. Very well done. So let’s get into this. Your trademarked Ayama applied yoga anatomy and muscle activation. I want to know more about this. Let’s get into the details. And before we do that, am I going to get some hate from the yoga community in the comments? Is this like, is there like a organized like yoga?

Yogi Aaron (11:04.898)
Yes. Thank you.

David Morrow (11:27.385)
Federation that are going to be like, this guy again, because if so, I bring it on like send them all my way that they’ll just bump up my algorithm. I love it. Okay, To the comments.

Yogi Aaron (11:34.222)
I keep, I keep trying to troll people and a lot of people don’t, buy, bite very often. What I have noticed is once in a while you get people that will make off-handed ridiculous comments. Like, you know, who is this clown was one email I got back and, then sometimes somebody will give, you know, write something like you’re just crazy. You don’t know anything.

David Morrow (11:45.992)
Mm-hmm.

Yogi Aaron (12:04.098)
but they don’t actually engage and they don’t actually say anything that makes sense. And this is the thing, like instead of what I have found is that people in the yoga community, this blows their mind and their circuitry so much that they really have, they just don’t have any place to go because they don’t know anything. It’s really hard to argue a point when you don’t know anything that your whole sort of philosophy is we need to stretch that’s yoga.

David Morrow (12:23.923)
Mmm.

Yogi Aaron (12:33.102)
and tight muscles are bad. Yeah, I mean, that’s kind of the only thing that they understand. And by the way, I’m saying that because I was there. Like, I’m not saying that because that’s my judgment or, you know, a sort of outside opinion. I was in there. I know how these people think because I thought the same way.

David Morrow (12:38.609)
Yeah.

David Morrow (12:53.015)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. you know, from our context, if we want to call us quote unquote, warfighters, right? There’s a certain balance that has to be struck. And really depending on the sport that you’re playing, flexibility is a component to athleticism. However, just the the power curve of a longer muscle. So I’m a big guy, I’m 6’4″. Okay, so my ability to express

power through my legs is greatly reduced because I have such a long lever to move through. So if I make that even longer, let’s say like I used to play basketball, then I wouldn’t have necessarily the ability to explode and jump as high as I would like. There is a certain tolerance that you have to ensure stays relatively quote unquote tight to be able to express that explosivity. And so for a lot of us veterans too, you

We lack flexibility, we also lack mobility, but the job we had was very athletic and explosive, but we also didn’t recognize that when we were in it because we joined when we were 19, 18, and we just do it where section commanders or squad commanders tell us to do, which basically touch your toes, walk around a little bit, rotate your head from side to side. But funny enough, I found yoga before I deployed to Afghanistan because I was just looking at

Yogi Aaron (14:03.788)
Hahaha!

David Morrow (14:15.347)
How do I ensure that I can control as much as my reality as possible? I’m over there. So fitness was really important. And I recognized that I wasn’t flexible. So I looked at it from that point of view. I’m like, I’m not really flexible. And I don’t want to roll an ankle. I don’t want to twist a knee. I want to prevent it as much as possible. So I started doing hot yoga. And I thought it was great because the women there were incredible. So that was a big bonus for me. And then I actually got more flexible.

But then when it came home, I stopped doing it because then I found mobility training. let’s get into your Ayama. That was my initial question because I want to know more about how you see your technique improving the lives of folks with a novel approach.

Yogi Aaron (14:53.762)
Yes.

Yogi Aaron (15:02.552)
Yeah, sure. But can I just add one thing before we continue? Cause I think it’s important. you said that mobility is important. I completely agree with you and backed by mobility from an MAT perspective, from a muscle activation perspective or an IYAMA perspective, mobility equals stability. when we have, Greg always says when we have stability,

David Morrow (15:25.587)
Hmm.

Yogi Aaron (15:29.238)
Let’s define very quickly what stability is. Stability is when the muscles are working properly. So muscles need to shorten in order to work. And that’s a really important thing for people to remember. Muscles contract to do two things, also other things I know. But basically two things, to move bones and to stabilize joints. They stabilize joints by pulling, let’s talk about the hips for a second.

to pull the femur bone into the hip socket. And so they’re pulling it in and keeping it there as you’re going through different ranges of motion. Same thing with the shoulder, you know, have all these muscles that are hugging the humerus bone into the shoulder joint to stabilize that joint through different ranges of motion. If those muscles aren’t working, the shoulder or the humerus bone, the arm is just kind of hanging out there.

And that’s not a good thing. And that’s what leads a lot of, especially bodybuilders or fitness enthusiasts to rotator cuff injuries or a lot of yoga people to, hip replacement surgeries. So muscles move bones, they stabilize joints, they do that by shortening. And what we want to do is improve those muscles ability to shorten from our perspective. healthy muscle is a muscle that can contract and contract on demand.

When it can’t do that, the body tightens up in response because it just sends out like an SOS message, like tighten up, tighten up, tighten up. And so when we feel tightness, it’s a result of muscles not working properly. So if we just stretch, we’re always going to lead to more instability. What we want to do is improve our mobility by improving muscles, you know, to do their job properly. And when we do that,

David Morrow (17:05.426)
Mm-hmm.

Yogi Aaron (17:24.418)
Then we have all the mobility in the world. Greg says mobility or sorry, when you have stability, you have mobility. When you have flexibility, you always have instability. And when you have instability, you’re open and vulnerable to injury. So it’s a great, it’s for me, there’s a big distinction between flexibility and, and mobility. a Yama came about because when I got into MAT, I quickly realized like I can’t

Like just translate this into yoga, like, cause it’s, it’s such a one-on-one kind of modality. You’re doing a lot of manipulation, palpations kind of AKA massage on people. So the big question was, how do I translate this into yoga? And that’s how sort of a Yama came about. I, I realized like, okay, we, you know, as we go through different yoga postures, for example, forward bends.

Well, what is moving us into a forward bend? It’s our trunk flexors and hip flexors, like all the muscles in the front part of our body. So if we’re going to do a forward bend, if we want to improve that range of motion, then we need to get these muscles working properly. So part of Iyama is about flipping the script in yoga or even in the fitness world. If you can’t bend forward, you’re walking by

You see David who’s the symbol or the emblem of what I call stiff biff. And he’s trying to touch his toes and he can’t get his hands back past his knees. So we say, well, you know, why can’t David go further? Because he’s got tight hamstrings. He’s got tight back muscles. And so the traditional approach is like, let’s stretch the hamstrings.

But from an Ayama perspective, if we want you to touch your toes or we want you to even better still improve your range of motion, the fact that you can’t get your hands past your knees is probably because none of the muscles in the front of your body are working properly. Meaning that none of your, even though you can do a hundred sit-ups and hold plank for 10 minutes, those muscles,

Yogi Aaron (19:46.976)
are actually not working properly from a neuromuscular standpoint. That’s a really important distinction I want to draw because it’s not about how much weight you can lift or how long you can hold plank. It’s about how well is your brain communicating with your muscles. so Greg refers to that as the neuromuscular connection, the connection between the central nervous system and the muscles. And it’s like a telephone line.

David Morrow (20:05.522)
Mm-hmm.

Yogi Aaron (20:14.614)
And that telephone line has become compromised due to stress, trauma, and overuse. The result of stress, trauma, and overuse is inflammation. So inflammation literally gets in the way and eats away at that neuromuscular connection. so really the brain isn’t communicating well with those muscles or in vice versa. And so what we want to do is improve that communication system. Once we do.

The muscles are able to contract and contract on demand and you actually start to get stronger and you improve your mobility. So a big part of a Yama is flipping the script. The applied part comes into the experiential part. So if I see you and, I’m teaching you, okay, David, you need to, we need to get your trunk flexors working. The reason why you can’t pull forward is all of the trunk flexors and that’s the most.

the muscles in the front of your torso are not shortening properly. And this are some techniques to get those muscles working. Do you feel your trunk flexor is engaging now? yeah. So it’s not just this abstract idea, which is what happens a lot in anatomy. We learn a muscle and then we learn that we should stretch it and we don’t really have like more direct knowledge than that. So

David Morrow (21:17.522)
Hmm.

Yogi Aaron (21:39.34)
My goal is to actually get people in touch with the muscles that are working to know where they are and know how to start activating them so they can actually start helping themselves rather than having to see somebody all the time. And then the muscle activation is kind of self-explanatory. We’re looking to engage muscles and start to improve that neuromuscular connection.

David Morrow (22:05.948)
Okay, so if I understand correctly, the first step is making that mind body connection to the actual parts of your body that need to start firing, which is something that especially with, you know, kids have young kids, establishing those movement patterns early on is being a coach for many years, like you want to establish that so that they can have the movement patterns that are quote unquote, normal. like jumping, squatting, running, picking stuff up.

picking stuff off the ground, rotating, like all these things that we take for granted. I used to see actually when I used to teach track or coach track, a lot of kids, and maybe you can talk to this a little bit more in depth, but I was noticing that a lot of kids, they didn’t know the motor patterns for running, which I was kind of blown away with because my first day of coaching was, okay guys,

Yogi Aaron (22:56.93)
Hmm.

David Morrow (23:03.645)
I want you to just run laps. They’re like, how fast? Just run. Just go. Just have fun. Go run. And I would take notes and I would video and I’d be like, okay, where are my runners at? And I’m like, okay. And then there’s some guys that are just so poorly coordinated and just with running, you’re like, that’s not how a human runs. What’s going on there? So run again, please. That’s weird. Arms at the side, weird gates.

Yogi Aaron (23:06.488)
Mm-hmm.

Yogi Aaron (23:23.509)
Hahaha

David Morrow (23:32.093)
doing a little bit more digging, realized they were never really allowed to just play. And that basically kept them underdeveloped. But I think there’s something there as well for just a lot of us in general, whether we got to play a lot or not, maybe as we progressed, we didn’t take on any athletics, which forces you to kind of be able to make the mind body connection. How do you start that process of

identifying, well, you know, I’m not moving properly. Is there a certain protocol? Is it something that you go over in your content? What’s the first step if folks want to take some actionable steps here?

Yogi Aaron (24:10.094)
So there’s a few things to kind of unpack in what you just said. One of the things that you said was mind body connection. And so that’s one of the gifts of specifically yoga is that we’re working to improve the mind body connection. But what I’m actually talking about is improving the brain body or brain specifically muscle connection, the neuromuscular connection.

David Morrow (24:22.749)
Mm-hmm.

David Morrow (24:38.271)
Good point.

Yogi Aaron (24:39.274)
And this happens in the autonomic nervous system. So like your, your heart, which is also a muscle is beating and we’re both not sitting here going beat, beat, beat. to breathe. So it happens.

David Morrow (24:53.927)
Although if you do smoke enough weed, sometimes you think, think I have to control this. I’ve been there. It’s not, it’s not fun. It’s, it’s a bad place to be. Stay awake, stay awake or it’s going to stop.

Yogi Aaron (25:02.734)
So I can’t speak to, don’t have direct experience of what you just said, but, but, so, but what is interesting, David is that as people start, what I have constantly seen is that people improve that unconscious connection. The mind body connection improves.

David Morrow (25:12.05)
It’s not good. Kids don’t do drugs. Kids don’t do drugs.

Yogi Aaron (25:32.876)
Like I talked to most yoga people about their pubic symphysis. They don’t even know where it is and they don’t even know what muscles attach there, which is horrifying to me because that’s where all your core muscles are inserting to and they need to lift up in order to engage. So

David Morrow (25:49.299)
Is that related to the kegel muscle activation or anything like that? What is that exactly?

Yogi Aaron (25:53.078)
No, your, your core muscles like, well, a little bit, but your core muscles, like your transverse abdominis, your obliques and your rectus abdominis and your psoas minor. Like you’ve, you’ve got these, your psoas minor, not major. You’ve got these major muscles that are lifting up and we need to engage those properly. So they just don’t understand like where that is. But from an Ayama perspective, once we get those muscles activated,

David Morrow (26:01.725)
Gotcha.

You’re so us. Okay. Yeah.

Okay.

Yogi Aaron (26:23.072)
I’ve had hundreds of people coming up to me after classes that I teach on the road say to me like, that was the first time I’ve been doing yoga for years. That was the first time I felt like I was in my body. And so that’s like a huge thing to answer your question about what is a simple hacker? What’s a simple way? One of the things that I learned and I probably feel like you learned this too, but you, I I don’t know.

But when I started getting into fitness, one of the things that was taught to me is when you start working out, do the first set or two and also do some pre workout drills really slowly. And this is like one of the best advice. And I kind of blame yoga a little bit for this modern quote unquote yoga that

in order to stretch, a lot of people have to move fast. You know, they’re going through these sun salutations really quickly. They’re not even breathing. They’re just moving really fast. And now we look to the fitness world, we don’t even see people preparing properly. And when they do prepare properly, like if they’re doing like a shoulder thing, they’ll just start to windmill their shoulder arm as fast as you can. Dude, you’re going to just…

destroy your shoulder. In fact, you’re probably shutting down all of those muscles, meaning like you’re actually causing more stress on that neuromuscular connection, weakening the shoulder rather than improving it. So one of the best ways to work out, think, or at least from a preparation standpoint, but I actually carry this a lot through my whole workout, just move really slow and move slowly. Now, why is that important?

because in your muscles, you have two kinds of muscle fibers. You have slow Twitch and fast Twitch. And so when you see people moving faster, like you said that you need to have that instant like spring or jump that’s fast Twitch muscles. That’s not slow Twitch. And so you need to have that burst of energy, like a sprinter that’s like fast Twitch muscles. And they train for that, but

Yogi Aaron (28:41.354)
It’s our slow twitch muscle fibers that are actually doing the job of stabilizing the joints of moving, you on command. so when I said that a healthy muscle from our definition is a muscle that can contract and contract on demand, that there’s instant connection to like instant communication connection that

those muscles actually start to work. And the way that we start to build the, one of the ways that we start to build those muscles up is through just moving really slowly. And I’ll give you one quick example. So you have your upper traps, one of the most abused muscles in the body. Of course there’s others we can pick on too, but one of the most abused body muscles, and it kind of starts right at C7 and goes all the way up to C1, even into T1 a little bit.

David Morrow (29:19.048)
Mm-hmm.

Yogi Aaron (29:35.128)
T1 to C1. So in the back of your neck. And this muscle is responsible for, you know, shrugging your shoulders. So if you want to improve your upper traps, just simply do some shoulder shrugs, but move really slowly. And this will start to actually turn those muscles on, which is what you actually want when you’re doing any kind of like workout, playing basketball.

working out in the gym doing army presses or lat pulldowns, you need to have those upper traps working. So just doing simple shoulder shrugs as opposed to just like, okay, one, two, three.

David Morrow (30:07.123)
Mm-hmm.

David Morrow (30:18.503)
That’s my favorite. That’s my favorite. Grab the heaviest dumbbells in the gym and just, yeah.

Yogi Aaron (30:23.446)
Yeah. So that’s, that’s just a simple way. And you look at a lot of these kids that, you know, you look at a lot of kids these days, there’s just a lack of stability. Get them to do some drills, like spend 10 minutes every day beforehand, just doing simple, slow movements. kind of like, almost like you watch when people are practicing Tai Chi.

There’s this very slow movement, methodical movement. It’s very nice to practice that way, obviously doing, taking that kind of concept and then bringing it into other practices.

David Morrow (30:50.813)
Yeah.

David Morrow (31:04.563)
That’s really interesting. Every time I have a conversation with somebody on the podcast, obviously I learned something, but this is, this is cool in terms of the Tai Chi that you just brought up, the slow, the deliberate movement because there’s, there’s obviously, well, I’m going to say obviously, but there, there’s a truth to a lot of things. And I think because of the podcasting space where we’re starting to kind of figure out like the fundamental human truths. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that

Yogi Aaron (31:14.562)
Hmm.

David Morrow (31:31.443)
Tai Chi which is a form of Kung Fu kind of has existed for thousands of years and The individuals that I see doing Tai Chi like in the park over here. There’s a group that does Tai Chi. They’re older But they’re all thin. They’re all fit. I I’d like to pull them be like hey, how’s your chronic pain? How you there’s got to be a correlation obviously to what you’re saying and and and obviously the reduction pain So that’s my next question. What is it about your method? That is?

actually helping people with chronic pain issues? I’m sure like I’m curious, I’m sure the folks that are listening want to know as well, like is it just a matter of you know, doing a few like shoulder shrugs very slowly? like if that’s the case, like I will do them religiously all day. And I’ll thank you and I give you a virtual high five. What is it that’s actually making the making the chronic pain subside?

Yogi Aaron (32:11.989)
You

Yogi Aaron (32:16.248)
Hahaha!

Yogi Aaron (32:26.382)
So let’s continue the conversation about neck. If you’ve got pain in your neck or pain in your shoulders, very, very common. And so why is the pain there? Well, pain is the result of inflammation. If you have inflammation, you’re going to be in pain. And of course, chronic inflammation then leads to more drastic measures, steroid injections, know,

David Morrow (32:31.697)
Yeah, very common with our, yeah, very, very common with us, yeah.

Yogi Aaron (32:54.872)
taking anti-inflammatories, maybe even heavy duty medication, and then again, surgical intervention. know, different pain can result, but pain is always the result of inflammation and inflammation is the result of stress. So if we decrease the stress, we can get rid of inflammation like that. And I’ve seen it happen time and time again, people have…

like issues with their neck or shoulders and just getting them to start activating the muscles. So the stress is there because there’s a lack of stability at that joint, meaning that the muscles around that joint, around that access are not doing their job. There’s three muscles that I always tell people, you want to get rid of pain in your neck and shoulders, make sure that you start doing these three.

or started dressing these three major muscles. So we look at the pecs. The pecs are a huge muscle, a huge muscle that support the whole clavicle and the shoulder joint. They attach to the arm. Okay. Then we have the serratus anterior, which attaches right underneath the shoulder blade and comes around and attaches to the ribs. Really important for shoulder blade stability. And then of course the traps.

David Morrow (33:55.539)
Mm-hmm.

Yogi Aaron (34:20.396)
lower, middle, and upper traps. These are three muscles. If I tested a thousand people’s traps, pecs, and serratus, I would be hard pressed to find five out of a thousand people that have those muscles strong. It’s just, you just, most people are just walking around with muscles that are not at their disposal, muscles that are not working for them. So by doing simple things,

We can start to improve that brain to muscle connection. And so those muscles regain their ability to contract and contract on demand. They start to stabilize the joint body is stable. There’s less stress or no stress, hopefully. And as soon as there’s no stress, the inflammation goes away. And that’s how that’s kind of the roadmap to no pain. David, this can happen by the way. Excuse me. This can happen.

very quickly. I’ve seen it. I’ve had people come in with nine out of 10 pain with sciatica related where they have like enormous pain in their back going down their leg after an hour and a half with me. The pain has dropped to either a one or a point, you five out of 10 and it can happen that quickly. The body responds.

David Morrow (35:29.251)
Mmm, yep.

Yogi Aaron (35:47.628)
really fast. Like the body wants to be stable. It’s doing everything it can to maintain stability. The problem is, is that by us stretching and forcing muscles to open, we’re actually violating our body’s own self-protective mechanisms. Okay. So what we want to do then is start to look at, okay, how do we get these muscles working? Let’s just address the lower back because that’s a huge issue for a lot of people.

David Morrow (36:17.393)
Yeah, I just had, I just got over a flare up a month ago. It was bad. I couldn’t walk. When it happens, it’s just, it’s all consuming. So yeah, it’s a good one.

Yogi Aaron (36:17.57)
So we look at like.

Yogi Aaron (36:25.954)
Yeah. I’m going to tell you a little secret. Most lower back issues, not all, and of course I know everybody’s individual, but one of the number one places I always go to to fix lower back issues, hip flexors. What is the number one hip flexor? So as major. And so as major is the only muscle that connects the lower body to the upper body. Sorry that that’s, said that incorrectly. Lower body.

David Morrow (36:43.045)
So was he.

Yogi Aaron (36:53.994)
AKA the legs to the trunk and spine. And so as literally is responsible for maintaining stability of the lower back, actually connects to the whole front part of the spine, the lower back. If it’s not working, your lower back is just kind of hanging out there. And so you start to go through ranges of motion without this muscle supporting you. And if that muscle’s not working, it’s

opposite muscle is also probably not working. Its opposite muscle is the glutes. And so the glutes have to, they work in synergy. When the glutes are engaging, the psoas should be relaxing. When the psoas is engaging, the glutes should be relaxing. So they’re synergistic, well, agonist and antagonistic muscles. And so they work in tandem with each other. The glutes,

are also, always call them like the shock absorbers of the body, like the suspension system. So if you’re going, whatever you’re doing, walking from your house to your car, going grocery shopping, going for a run, hike, playing basketball, whatever you’re doing, if those glutes are not working properly, all of that stress now goes into your back. If your back is stressed out, all the muscles supporting your back start to also shut down.

David Morrow (37:57.512)
Yeah.

Yogi Aaron (38:18.978)
So getting the glutes and the psoas working, mean, that right there, I’ve just helped 70 % of your listeners. they listen to that advice.

David Morrow (38:28.151)
Yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s bang on that I was exactly my problem. I got injured and I had like typical like flat white guy, but I like, was just like, had like thick legs. I’m a big guy, like bigger upper body. I was always doing bench press, you know, but my glutes, like they were just underdeveloped. And what I realized is just, they weren’t underdeveloped, but they weren’t firing. So I worked with a coach and he’s like, yeah, your glutes aren’t firing.

Are your glutes sore when you do squats? I’m like, my glutes. I’m like, no, it’s my legs. He’s like, well, you’re not activating it. So, and what part of the reason was I started putting a foam roller on my piriformis and I almost went through the ceiling with pain because it was so tight. Same thing, my psoas, my osteo started digging into my psoas and I was like, tears, tears. Like they were just.

Yogi Aaron (39:02.232)
Yeah.

Yogi Aaron (39:16.558)
Yeah.

Yogi Aaron (39:26.317)
Yeah.

David Morrow (39:27.438)
rock solid. And that took months for me to kind of clear out and then actually have the ability to express motion in a normal human sense without any pain. am I getting this right? Based on what you’re saying, we need to get strong.

Yogi Aaron (39:33.069)
Yeah.

Yogi Aaron (39:49.762)
yeah, but I, I’m very cautious to use that word strong. The better word is stable. And if we’re stable, we’ll get stronger. You know, one of the things that we say in, in our lane and muscle activation is if you start from a weakened place and you apply force, AKA running weights, even lifting grocery bags, whatever you’re doing, if you start from a strong place and you apply force, you’re going to get

weaker. And even if your core muscles aren’t working properly and you go and do like a one minute plank, that’s actually the worst thing that you can do. Do some muscle activation first to get those muscles firing properly. And once you start from a strong place, this cool thing is you actually get stronger. Two things I wanted to respond to really quickly. One, flat butt syndrome. So I have a pet theory about that.

If your glutes aren’t working and you’re doing stuff in your life, even walking, then your glutes are just going to get weaker. And so I think a lot of people, and this is my opinion, especially with runners, you look at runners, they have flat butts because their glutes just aren’t working. If a muscle isn’t working, what is it going to do? It’s going to start to atrophy over time. It’s just going to lose that, that tone, if you will.

David Morrow (41:03.158)
yeah.

Yogi Aaron (41:15.598)
And so if we get the muscles working, it actually will start to build muscle tissue because it’s connected. It’s like, yeah, we have this muscle. Let’s use it. The second thing I wanted to say was, I wish I had met you before you went to go and see this guy and started doing this foam rolling. asked my teacher many years ago, what do you think about foam rolling? And he said, people who foam roll always foam roll.

We never deal with the actual problem. so you were foam rolling to get into your paraformis. Paraformis is actually a rotator, hip rotator. It’s responsible for external rotation and then sometimes internal depending on the degree of the hip. But it’s, but I have a pet theory that one of the reasons why people have tight paraformis is because the paraformis tries to start mimicking glutes.

So you look at the paraformis, it’s this really tiny muscle. It’s very small. It’s not a big muscle and it’s also thin. Now look at the glutes, this huge muscle mass. And so if the glutes aren’t working, the body’s going to recruit something else to take over, AK for stability or movement. So I actually, think that the paraformis starts to play a role in hip extension.

David Morrow (42:26.888)
Mm-hmm.

Yogi Aaron (42:43.016)
And that’s one of the reasons why it tightens up because it’s just not supposed to do that. So this is a long way of saying to you, you want to get rid of a tight paraformis, please stop foam rolling. Cause you’re actually creating more stress instead, perhaps consider get your glutes working. As soon as you get your glutes working, you’re going to notice a huge shift in your paraformis tightness because as soon as the body starts to go, there’s the glutes.

David Morrow (43:05.235)
Hmm.

Yogi Aaron (43:10.946)
I don’t need to tighten up or rely on this other guy and it will immediately start to relax a lot.

David Morrow (43:18.419)
Yeah, that’s a good point. Because I like objectively, I couldn’t tell what had the greater effect if it because I was doing them concurrently, I was working on activating my glutes. We were literally just doing like, he was poking my butt. I was like, in a squat position, it’s like, turn this on. I’m like, it was it’s so weird when you don’t know how to turn a muscle on when you’re doing a movement. Because you’re like, I am he’s like, No, it’s not flexed. It’s like I’m touching it.

Yogi Aaron (43:32.265)
HAHAHAHA

Yogi Aaron (43:41.794)
Yes. Yeah.

David Morrow (43:46.899)
flex it and I go, okay, yeah. Okay, stand back up. And it was just, it took a long time to just make that like brain muscle connection that I just didn’t have, but just assumed that I had. And at the same time, I was doing the foam rolling and stuff. So very hard to tell which one was actually having the greater effect. But from what you’re saying, it was actually getting coached and you know, getting my butt poked to actually say like, get this turned on and make the connection. was just, it was the it’s

Yogi Aaron (43:52.995)
Yeah.

Yogi Aaron (43:59.874)
Yes.

Yogi Aaron (44:14.274)
Yes.

David Morrow (44:16.625)
It’s the way that my coach figured out how to make the connection. So is that something that if you’re working one-on-one with somebody, is that kind of what you’re doing? Like hey, dummy, turn this on. Or like hey, dummy, here. You got to actually get this to turn on. Is that something that you would need an actual human with you in the room to actually make that connection? Does it have to be that tactile approach? Or can you just be mindful and be like, OK, I’m going turn this on, and I’m going to do the exercise?

Yogi Aaron (44:43.042)
Yeah, I don’t work a lot privately one-on-one with people. work more like when I do work physically with people, it’s usually in a class setting. so let me give you one. There’s a couple of ways to turn the glutes on. Probably my favorite way. And I have like a whole program for glutes, but this is my favorite way. This is where I would start is if you’re lying on your stomach and you bend one,

knee. So let’s say your right leg, you bend the knee of the right leg to 90 degrees. Keep the pelvic bones on the ground, but then engage that right glute as much as you can squeeze that right glute. And then see if you can lift the knee up just a little bit. And now you’re starting to use those muscles to start getting that knee up. Now the first time you do it, you’re probably going to feel like that knee weighs

or that leg weighs a hundred pounds and maybe even 200. Like it’s really hard for a lot of people to lift it. Why? Because there’s no neuromuscular activity. Their bodies are so compromised. In your case, I would assume that you were very compromised mostly because you were experiencing a lot of stress in that area. What is the result of stress? Inflammation. Inflammation is always going to impair

David Morrow (45:51.315)
interesting.

Yogi Aaron (46:07.138)
the neuromuscular connection, that communication pathway. But the cool thing is, David, you come up, you hold it for six seconds. That’s kind of the rule in muscle activation. We do an isometric engagement for six seconds and then repeat that six times. do it, you lift the leg up again. And usually by the third, fourth, fifth time, you’re like, my God, there’s the knee. And then you’re able to start lifting it higher. Not that that ever is the goal.

but that you’re starting to build that connection. It’s not that your mind has found the muscles, your body, your central nervous system goes, that’s where the glutes are. Those are the muscles I should be engaging. And so that’s what starts to build that connection up, if you will.

David Morrow (46:59.663)
Okay, that makes sense. Well, clearly I’m going to make a third edition of my book now and add that in. Thanks. Thanks for giving me more work, Aaron. I appreciate it. But it’s all for the community. It’s all good. It’s all good. That I don’t know what I don’t know. And this has been a really eye opening conversation. So you’re disruptor in the yoga industry. I don’t know if you’ve been called up.

Yogi Aaron (47:04.884)
Hahahaha!

David Morrow (47:23.155)
Where do see then yoga going? Because I mean, I’ve benefited from yoga. I’m considering going back just because I’ve always enjoyed it. And not necessarily just for the quote unquote flexibility side of things. It’s also very calming for me. It’s an activity I like to do. One thing that I have noticed though and I’m trying to work on is that things don’t always have to be exceptionally hard for me to enjoy them. Like I want to do hot yoga. I want to sweat. I want to be finished at the end. But then…

Am I doing that just because I feel more accomplished at the end because it was hard because I want to be able to just enjoy it and do it as a practice more for healing myself and just being calm. But there are others, know, that actually want to get, you know, quote unquote, more flexible and see like a benefit physically from from what they’re doing.

Where do you see your method fitting in with the, know, traditional approach and how do you see yoga kind of progressing, especially here in the West that we see it more as like a fitness routine, in my opinion. How do you see how you see that progressing in the future?

Yogi Aaron (48:25.76)
I would, I think that the yoga world is kind of at this crossroads right now. There’s been a lot of scandals in the yoga world, that have come to surface in the last 10 years. And because of that, people are shying away from teachers or having a teacher or the idea of a teacher. So I think that’s having a negative, repercussion and that’s a whole other conversation. But in terms of, of, you know, fitness, I do see.

David Morrow (48:33.777)
Mmm.

Yogi Aaron (48:55.508)
a change in people who have been seeking yoga like me to as a way to get out of pain as a way to stay young as a way to stay mobile and are actually in more pain. get hundreds and hundreds of emails all the time from people who are like, my God, I just found your work and it totally makes sense. And I started doing your seven day pain free series and I’m already feeling

like a huge benefit and, for the first time in my, you know, yoga life, I have hope. I have a gentleman in Norway that works with me and is bringing a Yama to Norway. And he, you know, for years, he wrote me this long narrative about his yoga journey and how much shame he felt because he could never touch his toes, no matter how much stretching he did.

David Morrow (49:49.504)
no.

Yogi Aaron (49:49.85)
And, then doing a yama, it’s like, not only can I touch my toes, but I actually feel solid in my body. feel like I have stability. I feel like my muscles are working. So I think a lot of people are starting to second guess sort of the fitness narratives and are starting to bring back a sense of stability in yoga. You know, as you’re going back to yoga and I have a lot of things to say about that, but

What we’re ultimately looking to do is get people stable. From a yoga teaching standpoint, we want to get people stable. From a practitioner standpoint, we want to get ourselves stable. And stability has a couple of connotations, but obviously stability of mind. You know, when we have a stable mind, we’re able to see life clearly. When we don’t have stability, we have confusion. And my teacher always says a confused mind is not fit for the practice of yoga.

and so there’s a lot to unpack there, but a stable body, my opinion, means one, a body that’s functional. And so in life, you and I are teachers in our own ways. And, and so we know like, we want people to live their best life. And this is why I say stretching is killing you because stretching is always going to lead to more instability and instability will lead to injury.

and more physical pain and suffering. We can’t do anything in life. The times that my neck would go out and I’d have that serine neck pain, I would be like bed bound for weeks sometimes. And all I could think about was like, okay, I need to get home and lie down because, you know, the pain was so intense. My nervous system was on edge. And I know that when I’m feeling good and pain free, I have more energy. I’m more focused on my life.

David Morrow (51:26.066)
Mmm.

Yogi Aaron (51:44.014)
purpose. And so we need to get people stable, physically, you know, pain-free have a functional body so they could play with their kids. They can go play basketball. can go hiking, walk their dogs without the fear of their back going out without the fear of something happening. And that’s my goal. That to me is the definition of stability to that place where I am no longer afraid of

Okay, my body is going to, I can’t do that because I know that my knees are gonna hurt so much I won’t be able to walk for a week or two weeks. That is not living. Living your best life means that you’re also physiologically functional and able to do all the things that you love to do and you should.

David Morrow (52:32.507)
Hmm. You just, you said something that hits home for me. I love playing hockey and I have a beer league and I don’t go because the day after my knees are in such bad shape and I really want to get back on the ice and I, I want to be able to teach my kids how to play too, but it’s, it’s very painful and you know how pain just limits your ability to do things. And obviously going into a painful situation that I can voluntarily not go to. I’m going to not go.

But it’s ultimately something I want to address and correct for the future for sure. So I definitely understand that.

Yogi Aaron (53:06.924)
I’m just going to give you a little tip. It’s related to your, so as in your glutes and I had to hike, hang up my hiking shoes when I was around 30. And when I was in my forties, this was when the whole thing with the hospital happened. And after that, I made a decision. I’m going to get back into hiking. What do I need to do to get there? And hip flexors and hip extensors, get those working. can now go out and hike. No problem.

David Morrow (53:28.497)
Mm-hmm.

Yogi Aaron (53:35.062)
No pain. My sister who’s also a photographer and outdoor hiker, obviously she’s an outdoor photographer. She actually literally yesterday called me and left a message on my WhatsApp saying, cause we were talking about her own Ayama journey and she’s like, I can go out. went out seven miles. walked the other day. I had no pain where before I would be in pain for like two weeks and just really stiff.

She says, I’ve got nothing now. So you can get back into hockey. I’m here to tell you, we can’t get you there. Go Canucks. Okay.

David Morrow (54:08.611)
That’d be great Aaron you’re speaking my language here, man. You’re speaking to my Canadian heart right now This is great there go I’m a much on my Habs fan. So Yeah through and through but This has been an awesome conversation Aaron like honestly Getting a getting insights into something that I had a blind blind spot on is why I have these conversations

And I want to know where can I find out more, where can folks that are interested find out more and look at the idioma method and then start applying some of the things that we just touched on here.

Yogi Aaron (54:48.792)
Well, go to my website. You were just on my website earlier, yogiaron.com. When you pulled it up earlier, there was a pop-up that came up and there’s other places that it comes up as well. I don’t know if it will come up again because you were already there and clicked off of it, but there was a pop-up that came up and it said seven day pain-free journey. So just get into that. Just sign up, just do it.

David Morrow (54:52.371)
Mm-hmm.

David Morrow (55:16.167)
There we go.

Yogi Aaron (55:16.17)
Learn about, yeah, there it is become pain-free in seven days. And it’s just a guide to the major muscles of your body that you need to get working. AKA glutes and so as, and, and it just, is it gives people a taste. And then once they have that taste, they can then start to apply this knowledge. then if they want to go further.

we’re taking people on an extended journey. I I’m all about giving out free content. people can go as far as they, they want to get the book, stop stretching a new yoga approach to master your body and live pain free. And it’s just a great way for people to start understanding and empowering themselves. Listen, here’s the fact. People just don’t know in the fitness world, people have forgotten.

And I literally mean that, like you said, what is your philosophy, Aaron? This isn’t a philosophy. I’m just taking scientific facts about how the body works and then going, okay, how do we improve it? And so we know that stretching disables us. know that when we isometrically contract a muscle and shorten it, engage it for a certain amount of time, it improves that neuromuscular connection. it’s just.

starting to work with that. But here’s the thing, you can empower yourself and have more knowledge about your body than a lot of people touching it and working on it. So that’s my big message, empower yourself and go out to live your best pain-free life.

David Morrow (56:55.801)
I love it, Aaron. That’s a really important message for not only myself, but the community as a whole. A lot of us get stuck in the story that the pain is permanent. It’s never going away. And there’s nothing you can do other than take pharma meds and just wait for your day to die where it officially goes away for good. being in control and being empowered to actually take action is such an important message because if you’re in pain, I know

Yogi Aaron (57:02.563)
Yeah.

David Morrow (57:24.753)
firsthand, you know firsthand that your whole world just gets funneled right to that pain and there’s nothing that you want to lose more than that feeling of pain. So getting anything done in terms of, know, whether it’s business, whether it’s hanging out with your kids or, you know, just wanting to, you know, enjoy life, it gets severely hindered. So I love your message, Aaron. I’ve just signed up to…

Yogi Aaron (57:45.998)
Thank you.

David Morrow (57:47.565)
to your newsletter and to get my free piece of content. can’t wait to start looking deeper into this because yes, I definitely want to get back on the ice. if and when I do, I’ll have to post about it and give you some shout outs and see like, hey, see Aaron’s method works. See, it works really well for all us Canadians out there that have bad knees when they get on the ice. This has been great. It’s been awesome.

Yogi Aaron (57:51.726)
Yeah.

Yogi Aaron (58:05.038)
Yeah. And, please, please, you know, from a fitness perspective, send me feedback. love to hear feedback. We always are looking for ways to improve our message, to get it out there because I really believe that we need to flip the script on our, as you just said, our pain journey, that it doesn’t have to stop us in life, that we do have solutions and

and can flip that script. So thank you so much.

David Morrow (58:36.189)
Right on. Well, Aaron, thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Continued success. And folks, don’t forget, go check out Aaron. Go check out his work. And train hard, fight easy. We’ll see you on the next one. Peace.