Thank you.
So, the other day, I was giving a talk to a bunch of young models
on having a career in the fashion industry.
And, I really wanted to tell them about my upcoming TED talk.
So I go, "Hey guys, has anyone here heard of TED?"
And in typical model fashion, this is the reply I get:
"Yeah, I've seen them both, and their teddy bear's hilarious."
(Laughter)
Like, what?!
The youth of today, it made me laugh so much.
I mean, I can't really say much.
When I was 15, I wanted to be a bodybuilder.
Not just any bodybuilder though, the number one: Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I actually remember day one on my attempt to get a body like this guy.
There was this local old school gym in East London,
and it looked like something you might see in a "Rocky" movie.
It was this converted garage space with ripped black benches,
rusting bar bells,
and these posters of ex-bodybuilding champions on the wall,
including Schwarzenegger himself as a goal to aspire to.
Now, the day I walked in there, I met the owner,
this proper Cockney guy called Dave.
I described to him my health and fitness goals in great, lengthy detail,
you know, just like an adolescent kid does:
"I want to get massive."
(Laughter)
But he nodded, you know, he really understood what I wanted.
He pointed to the squat rack,
and he says,
"That over there, son, [that's how] you get big legs.
And that over there, pull into the bench press.
that's how you get a big chest.
And these dumb bells - here - for big arms.
And that's about it.
Now off you go, son."
So off I did go, dad.
I mean, it was a pretty simple concept, really.
If you can get from A to B in eight repetitions,
you just add more weight.
Now, at this time in my life, I hadn't yet studied sports science,
so little did I know, but this A to B method I was using,
we refer to as "overload."
Now, the overload theory works like this:
If I push my body to failure,
meaning I no longer have the capability to do any more repetitions,
then when I'm resting, my body simply produces more muscle,
and that allows me to lift more next time.
I can then work around the body using this method on each muscle group,
and, Hey, presto, (Arnold voice) one day you have body like Arnie.
Well, I obviously do not have a body like Arnie. (Laughs)
In fact, I have a body like a fashion model.
That's because I was scouted in the street
and was forced to give up on my bodybuilding dream.
This is one of my first shows.
This is me strutting down the catwalk for Calvin Klein.
The casting director - thank you - was back stage before the show
teaching us how to walk in a strong posture.
Feet straight, belly button in, shoulders back and down.
But why in my early 20s was I being taught how to walk?
More importantly, why did walking this way feel so alien?
But yet, on the outside, to the audience, it looked quite powerful.
I mean, all they were asking me to do was walk like I was supposed to walk.
So I decided to go to a place where just being in strong posture
was common practice.
And I was about to meet the person face to face
that would destroy my aspiration of Schwarzenegger forever.
I was attempting an exercise called a "bridge":
an adult gymnastics class.
And I just couldn't get my arms straight,
let alone my body off the ground.
So the coach calls somebody over
who demonstrates this movement effortlessly.
She was a six-year-old girl.
This is actually her.
Her name is Grace.
Amazing...
Grace.
(Laughs)
(Laughter)
How sweet.
(Laughter)
But what I really began to see
is the principles being used in gymnastics class
were identical to the posture cues I'd been given back stage
during Fashion Week.
It's the language of gymnastics that's not based on individual muscles
but based on movements of the joints and the skeleton.
For example, they use shoulder instead of biceps, triceps;
hips instead of quads, hamstrings.
Completely the opposite to what the fitness industry prioritizes.
Fitness talks muscles before spine.
You see, gymnasts focus on how they are moving their body.
And they also just happen to have awesome posture
and a really strong core.
It's really no coincidence.
This is a byproduct of working with the body.
In fact, prioritization of the spine is a much smarter approach.
If you happen to damage your spinal cord,
you can actually lose the ability to move any part of your body.
And this is something we've been reminded of our whole lives.
"Stop slouching."
"Sit up straight."
"Engage your core!"
"Get your elbows off the table."
They all mean the same thing.
All your parents were saying was:
prioritize your spine.
You see, the thing is, as humans, we were born with full range of motion.
Biochemist Esther Gokhale spent time traveling the world
and researched places where back pain hardly exists.
What she noticed was people's spines with a flatter lumbar curvature
didn't suffer from back pain.
She referred to this as a J-shaped spine,
and you can see the difference in the images here
between the S-shaped spine taught in the Western world
and the J-shaped spine in people where back pain doesn't exist.
Gokhale states the J-shaped spine is what you see in Greek statues
and in young children universally.
What she's saying is, we're all born with a J-shaped spine.
Now, you may have noticed,
when young children pick things up from the ground,
they drop down into this perfect squat.
This kid, unlike myself, did not need a casting director,
nor a six-year-old amazing Grace to teach him this move.
In fact, nobody taught him.
And no, guys, he's not exercising.
This is, in fact, a pre-chair, resting human position.
But unfortunately, as a consequence of our current human conditioning,
or our culture,
this natural resting position is about to be taken away from this child.
He's about to be taught a resting position is, in fact, a chair.
And when he's due to start school,
seven hours of his day, every day,
he will be asked to sit in this - quite frankly weird
and unhuman - position.
Now, I didn't even take into account the amount of hours
this kid spends watching Peppa Pig.
(Laughter)
According to the British Chiropractic Association,
the total number of people off sick from work with back pain
increased last year by 29 percent.
From the survey, the reason for back pain was sitting too long in one position.
So I tried to find a survey totaling the number of four-year-olds
off sick from school with back pain.
But would you believe it, I just couldn't find one.
You see, we are more than well aware.
We are a generation of sitting-on-our-backside human beings.
But, the specific point I would like to bring to your attention today
is the fitness industry's ignorance of the spine,
to have us hooked on task completion.
Time, weight, and distance.
This is, for most people, measures of improvement and progress.
How long can you run for?
How fast can you run?
How much can you lift?
How many repetitions can you do?
How many calories can you burn?
This list is endless.
But they're flawed.
None of these take into account how you're moving,
or more importantly, how you once could.
You see, nothing can ever compare, or will measure up against,
the exquisite movement you had as a three-year-old.
A study in 2012 found that musculoskeletal conditions
were the second greatest cause of disability in the world,
affecting over 1.7 billion people worldwide.
Professor Wolfe, a world leader in healthcare,
describes suffering from musculoskeletal disorders
as being like a Ferrari without wheels.
If you don't have mobility and dexterity,
it doesn't matter how healthy the rest of your body is.
So surely the access to a healthy physicality
is working back towards full range of motion,
to understand how your body moves,
and to be able to function like a human.
Said simply, the ability to move like you once could
when you were a three year old.
We can and should start re-learning how to move
from the examples of children,
ditching these current measures of time, weight, and distance,
and spend time unravelling restrictions,
getting back the movement we actually once had.
All that's left is an aspiration of ourselves
in the school playground as a child,
able to play and move
without fear of injury and using our body's full potential.
And those other results we're aiming for
such as: slimmer physique,
toned muscles,
do come,
but as a byproduct of moving the body as it's designed to function best.
There's a famous Chinese proverb:
"You are as old as your spine."
In all honesty, I'll have more chance teaching penguins how to fly
than humans a better way to sit on a chair.
We're just not designed to do it.
Today, I'm going to leave you with a powerful standing posture.
In cultures where the J-shaped spine exists,
people's butt muscles engage every time they take a step.
It's one reason they have these strong butt muscles
that support their lower back.
To demonstrate how this standing posture works,
I will need a bit of audience participation.
So I need you all to be standing.
Sorry.
Please stand with your feet together
and facing forwards.
Now push the heels of the feet against each other -
not the toes but the heels.
Keep pushing.
Now hold.
Hold this tension.
Squeeze.
I want you to just notice,
just notice,
what happened to the glute muscles
as a consequence of pushing the heels together.
We didn't focus on these muscles,
we focused on a movement.
This is movement-first philosophy, which I spoke of earlier.
Focus on a movement; muscles follow suit.
We move efficiently.
The body recruits the right muscles for the job.
Standing here with your heels pushed together
is now your new stance.
Actually, if I can get you guys to hold this while I finish
you might just have to give me a standing ovation.
(Laughter)
By taking a lesson from my kid self.
It took me two years at the age of 30 to finally get back my resting position.
No, no.
My resting position. (Laughs)
Maybe we should all take a lesson from our kid selves.
We should stop teaching kids how to sit on their ass,
we should lead by example,
and move like them.
Thank you.
(Applause)