Man Flow Yoga & Fit Father Project: How Men Over 40 Are Losing Weight & Eliminating Pain | Dr. Anthony Balduzzi | Better Man Podcast Ep. 069

Dean Pohlman: Cool. All right. And only took us 5 minutes. I feel like that’s pretty good, though, for figuring us new technology tech.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Tech success. Hey, everyone here really happy. You all are joining us. This is awesome.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. So this is going, by the way, so this is going off to the mental yoga channel. And then if you don’t know who I am, Anthony, you can you can say hi.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Okay. So everyone knows Dean Pohlman, yoga extraordinaire, founder, chief of Man Flow Yoga. I’m Dr. Anthony Ball, the founder of the Fit Father Project. I know there’s some guys here that are joining from our Fit Father Project community, which I absolutely love. And basically we help busy dads over 40 lose weight, build muscle and create sustainable, healthy habits.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: So it’s very true that our communities are aligned between fit father and man flow yoga and this is why we are really grateful and excited to a couple times a year do like a big cross promotion where everyone who follows the Fit Father project. I want them to know about Dean and Man Flow Yoga. Everyone that knows about man flow yoga, you got to know about what we’re doing at the PFP because honestly, we’re just changing guys lives and I’ll go on a little tirade, then I’ll let you on, Dean, because I think, like right now, men need to take their health seriously.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: I think if we look around at the world like we’re a little bit at a tipping point, like there’s so many things that are happening, let’s just say like put all the geopolitical stuff on the side. Like all that stuff certainly happening right now, at least the United States. We have financial issues, but we also have this health epidemic that’s happening right now.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: The stats right now are that over 50% of guys, especially guys that were 40, are overweight or obese. They’re part of this prescription medication cycle system. Their joints are breaking down and they’re heading on a trajectory where they’re just getting weaker and they’re losing their vitality in life. And the thing is, like, to get your vitality back, it requires having some habits around the right inputs.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: You got to eat the right foods. You got to learn how to move your body and restore joint function. And this is exactly what Dean and I do. And we complement each other so well because at the FFP we’re really getting deep into the mindset, the habits around nutrition. Certainly our take on exercise. And then for guys over 40, I don’t think there’s a better way to approach exercise than Dean’s man flow yoga approaches because look, you’re going to be able to restore primary joint function.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: If you have stuff that hurts on your body right now, you’ve got to be able to restore that. So I’m just grateful everyone’s here and you’re taking the time because this is really not just about us sharing our communities. It’s about you and your family. This is about your future. This is about your health. And the guys who are listening to this.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: I know you resonate with that message.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. Perfect. Cool. Thanks, Anthony. So, yeah, guys, if you don’t know me, my name is Dean. I’m founder of Mental Yoga. I focus on helping men get stronger with yoga, with kind of this more fitness focused, more strength focused type of yoga that I developed with men for yoga. My background is as an athlete. Originally, I started yoga completely on accident, and after a few workouts I realized how much stronger I was getting, how much better my body felt.

Dean Pohlman: And I thought, Man, there’s got to be something out there for athletic men. And and there wasn’t. So I started filming workouts in my college apartment, started putting them out on YouTube. And then when I really started creating content and doing this full time, I realized that the people that I was reaching were men who were primarily in their forties, fifties and sixties, guys who struggled to do more traditional workouts because they didn’t have the necessary mobility, they didn’t have the necessary flexibility, core strength, things that help you move well and move without pain.

Dean Pohlman: And so I started creating programs for those guys and really helping with, with just functional fitness and wellness, you know, from a perspective of just being able to do the things that you physically want to do during the day without pain. And really the message that I think resonates the most with with guys in the mental yoga community is this idea of being able to do the things that you want to do physically for as long as you possibly can.

Dean Pohlman: And so that’s who we really structure these programs around. And part of that is having healthy, healthy weight. So I reached out to Anthony on I can’t remember what it was, but I saw his YouTube channel and it took him like seven months to respond and then it took another five months to set up a call. And then we eventually got on.

Dean Pohlman: We were like, Oh my God, why didn’t we do this sooner? Yeah. And so, you know, there’s, there’s so much that goes into weight loss. It’s not just about willpower. It’s about setting up systems, making sustainable, preparing yourself ahead of time. And these are things that I you know, I love focusing on with mental yoga. But Anthony has created this whole program.

Dean Pohlman: He’s done all the other work on top of, you know, kind of just the basic ideas that I’ve done specific to losing weight. And so this is why I love, you know, talking about doctrine and things program is because he has this program that he’s already built with all these homework assignments, with all these systems, all this proven processes that’s going to help you lose weight and keep it off.

Dean Pohlman: So that’s why we’re on today. So, yeah, I’ll flip it back over to you, Anthony.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Sounds good. And first off, anyone in the chat who’s fallen fit for the project programs right now? Holler at us. I want to see I want to see you guys here. If you’re if you’re doing that and if anyone’s following them for yoga right now, please also do some comments as well. One of the cool things about our opportunity to collaborate and have this live video and this whole week where we’re really just cross promoting and making sure that people know about these communities is we have some awesome and we have some awesome programs and offers.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: So like Dean has a strength foundation’s challenge. It’s like a six week strength foundation challenge. It basically introduces you to his methodology and philosophy of how to approach exercise, gives you workouts to follow, and it’ll just help restore your total body joint function if you’re used to feeling aches and pains, recurring injuries and you just haven’t been motivated, exercised is just a feel good strength foundation challenge on sale now it’s literally like $9 for six weeks.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: I mean, like, it’s a no brainer. You literally couldn’t get even a healthy bullet. You’re probably for $9 these days. A little.

Dean Pohlman: You can’t. They raise the prices and I am furious. It’s like $15 for a burrito now.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: There you go. Sardines pissed about that, but he’s happy about this doing foundation challenge. And then, of course, that Father, if you’re interested in what we do and seeing our program and obviously Dean speaks very highly of us, there’s also a deal for everyone in the Mantle yoga community. Wherever you are watching this livestream, you can click the links below and check out some of those things.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: But yeah, I mean, I guess I’ll share a little bit more. We as dads like need to take our health seriously. And I think there’s a number of dimensions that we need to get into that. And one of those is actually in this kind of accountability community dimension, because we all know a lot of the same things to do.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: We all know we should exercise more, eat healthier, and certainly the methodologies between FFP and mental yoga are phenomenal. But I think the fact that you’re here watching this means you’re plugged into an online community of like minded guys. And what I’ve seen, at least in the back of Fit Father, is it is literally like foundation. When you get around a motivational group of guys.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: It’s why Dean and I are such good friends because like, we’re like, dude, we want to be here in this journey, you know, be with each other in our health and fitness journey, to be with each other and our fatherhood journeys and just to support one another like the energy you get when you come into to structured community like this.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: It’s like the glue that brings all these ideas together and helps you stay so much more accountable. And I think that’s a very relevant concept right now. Heading into the back part of this year. The back part of this year is always a seasonal thing where it gets guys into a little bit of a funk. It’s the holidays, it’s colder outside.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Your routine starts to change. You know, maybe there’s the holiday foods and people honestly gain some weight. And what I’m trying to suggest to you is because you’re on this call right now, it is like the end of October as we’re doing this, you have the opportunity to crush it for the next two months. And what that means is you have a structured, clear plan.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: What that means is you avoid some of these holiday pitfalls and then you start the next year, like just with a lot of momentum instead of on the back foot. Like we all know the experience. If you’ve got like a crazy weekend, you eat the wrong foods and then Monday starts and you’re like, Go ahead, take a whole day to kind of like reboot and get up and going and all that.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Like that’s what everyone does to their year through these holidays. And I suggest that there’s a way to celebrate and enjoy this time of the year, the holiday festivity season also being on track. And I think these structure programs are a good approach for that.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, I’m glad that you mentioned that. You know, a lot of people give up those you know, a lot of people just give up because, oh, well, you know, there’s Thanksgiving, so I’m going to have one big meal and there’s going to be cookies around because it’s Christmas, you know. But what you might not be realizing is not only are you going to miss out and start late, you’re also going to have to undo two months of, you know, whatever negative, you know, whatever negative progress you made.

Dean Pohlman: So in reality, you’re losing four months. You could start now and you could be where you are in February, you know, because you have to make up for that time that you missed. So I think that’s a great point. So yeah, and just to kind of recap, so like, you know, for the Man for Yoga Offer, The Strength Foundation challenge, this is it’s $9 for six weeks.

Dean Pohlman: And you actually also get bonus two bonus access to the entire man for yoga app and members area. So you can use all of our workouts and all of our programs. In addition to the Strength Foundation’s challenge, the reason why we use the Strength and Nation Challenge as our kind of our special is because it’s the most transformative in terms of noticing the benefits.

Dean Pohlman: Yes, you’re going to get stronger, you’re going to get better at yoga postures. You’re also going to learn a lot of bodyweight exercises, mobility exercises, things you won’t typically see in a yoga program. But you’re also going to you’re also going to really notice those results in your day to day life. You’re going to feel the benefits of having more muscle.

Dean Pohlman: You’re going to feel the benefits of just being stronger, you know, going up the stairs with more energy. This in your daily life, you’re going to feel a lot stronger. And it’s it’s kind of, you know, we just hear about it all the time, about how many people notice the benefits and how good it feels. So it’s a challenging program.

Dean Pohlman: You know, it’s not for everybody. Some people, you know, if you do it, you might just feel discouraged. We do hear that. So you do have to go into it. Not expecting for it to be just like a series of basic yoga stretches that are really easy because that it will feel good. But that’s not going to get you the results that you want.

Dean Pohlman: But if you can do it for just a few weeks, you’re going to prove to yourself that you can do something. And you’re also yeah, you’re you’re going to feel the results. So and then.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: There’s a question from Bill. He did this recitations a couple of weeks ago, but life got busy. Yeah. Can you do it again? Yeah, man. I mean, like, of course. And I think that’s that’s an important point and something we preach to the FFP the whole time. If we have this idea naturally because we’re guys and we want to do well, it’s maybe even our hunter gatherer instincts.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: We want to be perfect. We want to get it done the right way. We have vision and create it, but like life’s not like that. It’s like constant twists and turns in your health and fitness really is dictated by how often you can get back on the track and just refocus, refocus, refocus. I mean, even guys in the chat who’ve been on FFP for multiple years, please comment and let me know.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Like, isn’t it all about constantly refocusing when stuff when stuff happens? So always a chance to refocus and get on. And then the other thing I want to say too is like we talk about health and fitness often as if someone’s asking, is this prerecorded? You know, where your life we are?

Dean Pohlman: Like.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Okay, so people often think of health and fitness and talk about it as if it’s separate from the rest of your life and the rest of your life, meaning your family, your mental emotional life, your spiritual health. Like, in my opinion, and I may differ a little bit in terms of our spiritual and metaphysical philosophies, but look, when you are consistent with your exercise in your movement, in your food, you’re doing things that are in alignment with what you feel internally is the highest and best for you.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: You start to flourish like on all levels, deeply. And this is where you start to feel this spiritual alignment and congruency in your life. And I just know if you don’t have this part of of yet like this of your life nailed, you know, you’re just not going to you’re not going to feel whole. And I think it is important like Jim made a good point.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: This is not like when yoga is a very loaded term. These days. And I think when people say yoga and Dean can speak to this too, there’s a whole bunch of hot connotations. Is this like Indu postures? Is this pagan stuff of my worshiping the sun, God deemed to be the furthest from that? I mean, explain mental yoga.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: It’s completely non religious, non spiritual approach to just basically yoga postures. So maybe speaking to that.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. So this is a question that we get a lot and it’s just yoga. I mean, it’s, it’s just a I’m sorry, it’s not just yoga. It’s just, it’s just movement. It’s just we’re just doing exercises. We’re basically doing variations of lunges, variations of squats, different kind of planks, exercises. And that is essentially what the physical practice of yoga is.

Dean Pohlman: A lot of the you know, a lot of the things that you’ll see at a yoga studio are it’s it’s it’s not even some of it is yoga postures, but a lot of it just takes influence from, you know, modern day body weight exercises, calisthenics, Pilates, mobility work. So it’s kind of just a catch all term for body weight exercise.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. So like you’re not going to be doing, you know, we just we just don’t have any of the spiritual aspects whatsoever in our, in our workouts. So it’s it’s kind of not even a it’s a non-factor in some people do.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Feel more peace in presence when you’re moving your body and just rest. Right so like I guess that’s where it becomes personally spiritual but not overtly religious, right?

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, I think that’s a good description. So we say non spiritual, but really what we mean is non religious because we’re not drawing in any sort of, you know, structured or organized practice of spirituality, you know. So we just there is something kind of that magical that happens when you are focusing on your body, when you’re focusing on your breathing, in particular, and you’re using you’re using the breath focus to tap into your body awareness and to realize what your breathing does for your physical fitness, for being able to work deeper into the postures, to go deeper in your flexibility, to hold the postures for a longer time.

Dean Pohlman: And then as you’re doing that, you also reach a much it helps you practice being present. You know, being present is a very, you know, be in the moment. That’s a very kind of, you know, buzzword term I think, these days. But this is what it actually is when you practice on when you focus on your body, when you focus on your breathing, it gets you into this place where you mentally just feel more present, you feel less stressed, you feel more at peace.

Dean Pohlman: And I’ve actually had some people who are like, Well, this feels too good. Maybe it’s like, maybe I’m doing something against my religion because it feels too good. And, you know, I don’t think that’s a I don’t think that’s I don’t know I don’t know what to say to that other than, you know, you can feel good and not I don’t know.

Dean Pohlman: It’s bringing back puritan. Puritan ideas.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: I want to comment on a few things that just came to mind that related to that. Our guys look like the process of getting older is, is degeneration. That happens on a couple levels. It happens on a mental and physical level. So with the joints at first, like we have all these different joints that articulate shoulder moves in a circle knees a little more like a hinge joint with a little lateral play.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: As we get older and we get more cartilage damage, injuries, you get more bone on bone stuff. One of the best ways to actually improve your the way your joints feel is to move them through these natural ranges of motion like teaches, insight, strength, foundations and his other mental yoga programs. Motion is lotion for the joints, and a lot of us would like more degenerative joints.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: As we get older, we think that we need to lay off it. It’s good to lay off acute injuries, but actually, like more of the chronic stuff, you actually want to strengthen the musculature around that. And when you move the joint through a proper range of motion and you correct some of these imbalances, you actually get more of this synovial fluid and more hyaluronic fluid going into there and the joint actually feels more lubricated.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: And then as we get older on our discs of our spine, that gets so compressed as we’re sitting all the time. You know, old people are shorter, right? Why do they get shorter? Because they’re literally dehydrating those discs. What all this yoga work does, it does is helps lengthen that spine. And then when you lose the weight with FFP, it takes a lot of pressure off those discs too.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: So like in the final thing I’ll say too is what Dean was talking about presence and why this actually jogged me to start talking about joints in fluid and stuff is effectively your lifeline. How long you live is going to be dictated definitely partly by your weight, how much inflammation you’re creating with your nutrition, but largely how like how peaceful you can stay.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Are you going to be staying in a more parasympathetic like state where you’re actually relaxed, your breathing is deep through your belly, you’re not stressed out, or you’re going to be in a very sympathetic heat up fight or flight state. These are two years of the nervous system, the animals that live the longest humans included, stay in a parasympathetic dominant state.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: A tortoise lives for like 150 years. The thing is not worried about eating eaten. It’s got armor on. It’s going around eating lettuce like a mouse lives for like 18 months. And that thing is worry about getting killed every second of its day. It has a very fast metabolism, a very twitchy, nervous system. And that’s just an analogy to bring up about what the subtle benefits are of doing both of these programs, but in particular, strength foundations in mental yoga is that it teaches you how to take exercise and make it to be a parasympathetic activity that comes into the rest of your day and you feel more relaxed.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: And I’ll tell you, with FFP, when you start eating better and feeling more aligned, that stress and that anxiety in the background of your mind, that negative self-talk, all of that starts to decrease too. And then you’re living longer, not just as a byproduct of your habits, but because you change your nervous time at a foundational level.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. So I can I’m going to speak to kind of the effectiveness of both programs and how long it takes to kind of start working or some of what you can start to anticipate. So, you know, any time you start something new, once you get about, you know, there’s a lot of excitement for the first couple of weeks.

Dean Pohlman: Once you get past the first couple of weeks, once you get into week three, that’s when your body starts to, you know, start to crave the comfort that you used to have. Like, Oh, it’d be so much easier if I didn’t exercise or would be so much easier if I just had that food that I’m used to. So I’m telling you this now, not because I want to discourage you, but because I want to let you know if you can make it through that period.

Dean Pohlman: If you can make it through that week to week three, week four, then you’re going to get on the other side and you’re going to realize, Oh, wow, my body feels so much better when I’m exercising. My body feels so much better when I’m putting good foods in my system. Anthony and I did a really good podcast on this where I asked him basically all of the questions about the psychological difficulties of losing weight, right?

Dean Pohlman: Because if losing weight is if we know what we need to do, eat better, exercise more, sleep better, manage stress, then why is it so hard? Why are 50% of you know, over 50% of men over the age of 40 overweight? And it’s because there are all these other things at process. So understand that it is going to be difficult.

Dean Pohlman: But if you can get through those those second, those third, those fourth weeks of these of these new programs, you’re going to get on the other side and realize, oh, wow, this is what my life could be. So, you know, it’s not without struggle. But what I really like about both of our programs and something actually I learned from Anthony’s program, Dr. Anthony’s program, we integrated this into man for yoga.

Dean Pohlman: He has a very thorough step by step process in his emails that is going to guide you through this entire process of losing weight, of creating the habits, but even more so helping you understand the importance of your weight loss to your overall goals. You know, we ask people, why is it important for you to lose weight? And if all you say is, I just want to be more healthy, you haven’t gotten to the real reason yet.

Dean Pohlman: When you start to realize, Oh, you know what, I want to lose weight because I watched somebody in my family get old too quickly and lose their life too quickly because they were overweight, because they weren’t healthy. And I don’t want to do that to my kids. So when you start to get into that process and you really start to ask yourself why and dig deep, that’s when you’re going to find that motivation and that’s what you’re going to be able to use to show up every day and make the healthy decision instead of doing what’s easy.

Dean Pohlman: And so Anthony does. Anthony’s program does a really good job of doing that, and that’s something that I really like about his program. And that’s why I recommend it, because if again, if all it was was just go eat or let go eat more salads, then everyone would do it. But there’s not there’s a psychological process behind it.

Dean Pohlman: And Dr. Anthony does a really good job of addressing that.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: And then the other thing that you said is just kind of true. I’m just reflecting on my life experience. Like when you make a choice presently, it has a rippling effect into the future in terms of kind of momentum that it carries forward, right? So we make a choice about doing something that’s not aligned. We eat another bag of chips late at night or watching TV or something like that, like that carries over.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: And as a consequence, the next day that creates a momentum versus when you’re on a very aligned, healthy routine and you have create good aligned choices, it makes it easier to make more healthy aligned choices. And so always going to pay or receiving a reward for our current choices into the next moment. So we’re always setting ourselves up for our future experience.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: So I guess even just that metaphor, grain creates more weight around why it’s a good idea to just, like, have a routine and make these healthier choices. I’d love to take a little quick Q&A. And here is there’s a couple of them. Maybe we’ll just popcorn in piece because I think we have some some cool questions. Yeah. There was someone who mentioned that they have no cartilage in the joints, especially the knee should get surgery or as a knee replacement or that can be avoided.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: So I’ll do a quick comment on this one. Dana will go back and forth on a few questions. So, yeah, I mean, I’m going to assume this is like no cartilage, meaning you’ve got an X ray and maybe even an MRI and you have like no cartilage on the knee. There are ways to regenerate cartilage. STEM cell injections from bone marrow are one way to do it.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: I personally have those before and they are effective for regenerating cartilage. But beyond that, like there’s not too much of your cartilage. Is that taint? Then it may be time actually to look into getting a knee replacement. Thankfully, technology is constantly getting better and better, a supplement that people can generally take for their knees that has research brought back benefits is called you see two collagen on denature type two collagen can really lubricate your knee joint and I also highly recommend if people are into this to start making more bone broth or even broth with chicken feet in stocks like that.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Like getting back to more this ancestral nutrition where you’re getting collagen proteins can help, but if your joint is like no cartilage, then I don’t even know if stem cells would be indicated. But if you have cartilage damage, stem cells can help fix that. So, Dean, go ahead and take another one here.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. And my just my $0.02 on that generally. So I live with a physical therapist. My wife is a physical therapist. She has a lot of letters after her name. She’s very smart. And from her, what I’ve learned is you want to figure out before surgery, you want to figure out, can physical therapy help me? Physical therapists are probably the most well trained people, well-trained, well trained fitness professionals in terms of helping you get to pain free in the least amount of time.

Dean Pohlman: So I would explore those options, figure out if doing those exercises, give it a few weeks, can help, and then you can decide if if surgery, you know, could be a thing, but you want to avoid the the the the knife happy surgeon if if if he says yes surgery to everybody. That’s that’s that’s not not something so yeah what are what are growing.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Questions here about the fit father nutrition plan. We have two of them here one is can the plan be made gluten free friendly? The answer is absolutely yes. We have many members, maybe even the majority, that don’t have gluten in their diets. We do have some recipes that have like high quality wheat products, like an easy bread sandwich.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: But obviously those are optional and not required. So if you’re going low gluten, the meal plan will absolutely work for you. And another question was, if you follow a vegan diet. So we have someone here who said, I’m following a vegan for 15 years. I’m able to modify your meal plan. Well, our whole meal plan, it sounds like you haven’t quite ready yet, although you are a member, which I appreciate, has complete plant based meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: So the cool thing about FFP is we’re not telling you the exact foods that you need to eat. We’re giving you the best healthy options and helping you find your unique framework that looks I have followed completely plant based, even vegan diets for long stretches of time in my life. And I learned so much from those and I incorporate those best recipes into the meal plan.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: So yes, if you’re completely plant based, it will work for you 100% cool.

Dean Pohlman: Hey, so here’s a great question that I love talking about. So someone asked, will this program be helpful for someone who is morbidly obese and just starting to get farther project? So I see. So I’m part of the the Brotherhood Facebook group. So Dr. Anthony is Fit Father Project Brotherhood Facebook group on Facebook and guys I see so many of you who are posting about back pain and shoulder pain and pain, pain in general.

Dean Pohlman: And it’s interesting because the general the general request in there is I have bad shoulders. What can I do instead of doing this exercise? When instead I look at that, I’m like, Let me help you. Let me fix your shoulders, let me fix you back. It is not normal to have pain with exercise and you can address them with the right exercises.

Dean Pohlman: So if you guys are struggling with pain, doing your FFP workouts, if you guys can add manual yoga into that three times per week, and these are not competing programs. These are complementary programs. They work together. Manual yoga is not going to get the same, you know, benefits of of of strength training with weights to the same degree as weightlifting.

Dean Pohlman: But it is going to help with your weightlifting tremendously, help with pain. And specifically to that question that I just that was just ask if you’re if you’re obese and concerned, is mantle yoga appropriate? Yoga manual yoga is going to be way more appropriate than a lot of other exercise because you’re learning how to use your body weight for exercise.

Dean Pohlman: You know, if you were to start picking up some weights, throwing those around, you probably don’t have the core strength to do that. You probably don’t have the necessary functional mobility levels. It’s going to be a lot more strain on your joints. So manual yoga is a much better way to build you up to get you to the point where you have a functional body to be able to have the necessary body control, mobility and just basic essential strength so that you can start to do other workouts without pain.

Dean Pohlman: So it’s it’s absolutely a fantastic way to build up. And I would just combine that with walking on the.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: That’s it because Daryl has a good question as I alternate every exercise of man flow throughout the week, is that reasonable? Yes, I think that’s even ideal. Like with baseline walk as much as you can walk every day you can. Good for your circadian rhythm. Just activity mobilizes you really great. There’s a big trend of walking backwards if you want to look a little crazy in your neighborhood, do a little bit of that, too.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: That’s good. And then on top of that, the other high intensity workouts like our or Apex ten or metabolic resistance training workouts, if you sprinkle those in a couple of times a week, you’re going to get the muscle, the fat burning and just a really good intense workout. And then man flow can be alternated between that because those workouts are also going to work your muscles, but they have a restorative aspect too, because they’re in your body weight, very joint firmly.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: So I think that would be a completely ideal plan. Yeah, huge fan of that.

Dean Pohlman: And I just want to call out Daryl McLucas. I emailed he he emailed me back earlier this week and said I’m already subscribed to the Fit Father project. And, and Daryl is on phase two. He’s lost £17 in five weeks. He’s still got 32 more pounds to go. But he’s been combining Fit Father Project and mental yoga and having a lot of success with that.

Dean Pohlman: I also received a lot of other emails from Mantle Yoga members who are also using fit father projects. So this is a this is a proven system. We’ve we’ve got a lot of guys who are going through both of these and having a lot of success. So check out the links that we have in these in these broadcast in the Post and you’ll be able to sign up for either fit for the project there fee 30 x program or the Mantle Yoga Strength Foundation Challenge.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: I’m just having fun, so hopefully we don’t get a couple more minutes on here because I want to popcorn hit a few more questions. I know we’re going a little longer than we thought, but there’s a couple of things people are talking about the U.S. to the U.S. to college and I recommended any brand on Amazon is fine in my opinion.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: What’s interesting is you’re seeing a lot of college and supplements out there right now. There’s lots of different types. There are like there and I know of and there’s more than this. There’s like five types of college and one, two, three, four or five type one and three come from cow sauces, bovine to comes from chicken or fish and for the knee osteoarthritis too is the kind that you want the best, although one in three have benefits for other areas.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: And then when people have a clicking knees and Dean can probably speak to this, it’s not always just the joints. Sometimes the muscles are actually like tight. They’re not firing properly, the knee is not tracking in the right way. So there’s many reasons why a knee can click. And in fact, sometimes if you just like are able to release some trigger or tender points or get your glutes to be a little more active, that knee will actually kind of fix itself.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: So I think anytime you have a knee issue, it’s not don’t just think of it as a joint knee issue. Look upstream and there’s oftentimes muscle weakness or muscle imbalance. Do you want to speak to that a little bit?

Dean Pohlman: Oh, I do. I really do. So actually, my I had I had surgery when I was 16 on my knee. And because I just didn’t know anything about, you know, fitness at the time. And as I got older and I started doing yoga and I started getting more interested in fitness, I realized that my knee wasn’t the issue.

Dean Pohlman: In actuality, the issue was like like Anthony mentioned, it’s it’s what connects to the knee. It’s my hips. My hips were tight. I had weakness in my hips. The muscles weren’t firing. I had a lack of mobility in my ankles. I had weak feet. So something that the strength of nation challenge actually does incredibly well is it is a core strengthening challenge.

Dean Pohlman: You were you guys are going to work on and by core I’m talking about from your hips up to your ribs. So this program is going to work on all of the muscles in your hips, all of those muscles that you might not be aware of, the muscles that are really hard to activate spend a lot of time sitting.

Dean Pohlman: So this program is going to be fantastic for strengthening your knees. And also, someone else mentioned back pain this program but that oh gosh so back pain is actually so I developed a program for back pain with physical therapist here in Texas with Texas physical therapy specialists. And it comes down to hip strength, hip mobility, spinal mobility and core strength.

Dean Pohlman: So that’s what makes up. That’s what that’s what will that’s what will make your back feel good or feel bad. So just stretching your back more isn’t going to help. You have to strengthen the hips you have to strengthen your core. You have to get up from your chair and move more often. And yeah, the more that you can do these exercises, the better your back is going to feel.

Dean Pohlman: And Strength Foundation’s Challenge is a fantastic program for addressing all the root causes of back pain, for sure.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: And I think like there’s so many big muscles like your hip flexors that pull on that low back, and most people that typically have back pain often are sitting a lot or they have those tight. So as and then I’ll just put a big plus out there for like any kind of spinal decompression you can do can really help a time.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: So I have an inversion table like outside just right past this camera on the other side outside there’s an inversion table where I get on there in pain and I feel like that off my back at times behind me I have a door that when I’m not recording, I typically have a pull up bar that I hang from.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: So if you can get some more spinal decompression from either your hips or your your upper, that can that can help a lot. But overall, yeah, I mean, the back stuff is essential. The quality of your life is ultimately going to be dictated by the quality of your spine back to back pain. Especially imagine being 70 or 80 with terrible back pain.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: You lose your mobility and when you stop moving, your blood stops flowing to the same extent, which is your vital force. And you see people just go downhill really fast. So got to continue to work on the back and both FFP and yoga programs like are do a great job with the core.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. So and speaking to that, a lot of people, if you have back pain, there’s a tendency to say, oh, I’ll wait until the pain goes away to start working on it. And that’s not how your body works. Your your pain won’t go away until you start to address the underlying causes of it. So especially if you have back pain, the answer is to start exercising, but to do the appropriate exercises.

Dean Pohlman: And if you are in the strength and if you sign up for this special that we have with the strength on Days Challenge, we actually have a program called Bulletproof Your Back, which you get access to when you sign up, which is just 10 minutes per day. It’s a really short, short workouts, but if you can do that for two or three weeks, your back pain will clear up significantly.

Dean Pohlman: We’ve actually had people with, you know, who have had years or even decades of chronic back pain. They do this program for like two weeks. They’re like, Oh, wow, you mean I don’t have to live with back pain? So just to say, if you are in pain, the answer is to exercise. It’s not to sit down and wait for that pain to go away.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Mm hmm. A couple of other questions. Just because people are still I love the energy in the chat. Thank you all for listening. So good carbs for his bad carbs in the diet. I want to quickly hit on that. So one of the unique philosophies on the Fit Father Project meal plan that makes it different than a lot of the mainstream stuff which everyone’s super villainizing carbs.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: It’s like never eat a car again. My thought process is, look, there are the right kinds of carbs that can be in your diet and still be health promoting. And it makes it a lot more enjoyable when you can sit down with your family and have a sweet potato or some rice or some quinoa or even a pasta dish once in a while.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: So we teach you how to incorporate those in the right portions at the right times. Now, there are certain carbohydrates that inflammatory for most people and certainly specifically for you. There are kinds that are inflammatory. We help you identify those and get those out of your life. And we also have a lower carb meals early in the day.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: So things like eggs and fruit and avocados and shakes and maybe some power overnight. Oatmeal, if you’re following a plant based thing like these, are fine things to have in there, as well as even some breads sprouted organic breads. So we incorporate carbs into our plan. You do not have to be on a super low carb ketogenic diet to lose weight.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Does it help people lose hundreds of thousands of pounds and many of them are eating bread on a near-daily basis, just higher quality stuff so carbs can be in the plan. I stand behind that 1,000,000%.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. And you know, we tend to I think when it comes to diet questions, we tend to ask people like, is this good for me? Is this going to, you know, is this going to mess with things? And one thing that I like to do when I’m assessing whether or not a food is good for me is I eat it and then I see how I feel afterwards, you know?

Dean Pohlman: So like there are there are certain types of bread that I can have and it doesn’t affect me at all. Like I don’t notice that I crash later on where sometimes if I have like, you know, if I have like a burger that has kind of like, you know, a standard, you know, bleached bun, then, you know, later on I’m like, I feel like crap.

Dean Pohlman: But if I have like Dave’s killer bread, for example, if I have Dave’s killer bread with a burger, I don’t feel tired at all. I feel fine. So I think it’s important to assess, you know, just just eat something and see how you feel afterwards. And if you don’t feel tired and craving more sugar than, hey, I think that’s a good thing for you to eat.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: So watch your mucus production to another thing. Another sign is like your body when in encounter something that your immune system says is not good for you. Specifically, it will produce mucus. You’ll feel like you’re clearing your throat. You might find that you get more nasal drainage or some pressure in your head. That’s a telltale sign that that food is not awesome for your particular body.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: So, yeah, there’s question about taking a painful cue. Well, that’s a muscle called a quadratic some forum. It’s like on the part of your spine, like right back. You can barely see here. Right back here. I had an injury to my cue ball. So I understand it’s a very tough muscle often to work as it’s so deep in the back and it’s so powerful.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: I mean, I think to putting some pressure on it can help if you can get like a barbell or a foam roll or something and wedge it back in there and then do some mobility exercises. But like a few hours, often chronically tight because your nervous system is saying keep it tight to protect an injury or to protect your spine.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: So I think like Dean will probably speak to this holistically. The best way to probably release it is not just like the pressure or the massage, although beneficial to myofascial stuff, but to strengthen the whole trunk like like in motion. And then the kuo will eventually release anything to speak on that thing.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, I mean, it’s all interconnected. So if you can think about what are all the muscles around the kuo, you know, you’ve got a moderate.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Islam forum, which is people are asking.

Dean Pohlman: That’s what it stands for it. Yeah. So there’s a lot of muscles around the. Q You’ve got your hips, you’ve got your back. If you can work on releasing the muscle tension, those areas, it’s going to help with getting that muscle to relax. And that’s actually a really good strategy in general. Do you have a really tight muscle?

Dean Pohlman: It might help to address the surrounding muscles first before going straight for that super tight muscle, because when a muscle is tight, it doesn’t want to release. If you just try stretching a really tight muscle, it’s probably not going to release is probably just going to hurt. So, you know, like Dr. Anthony said, getting some pressure on getting a massage is a really good idea to help break it up.

Dean Pohlman: You can also learn how to do some of those techniques yourself with your with you with the like all crossbar, with a foam roller. But yeah, in general, focus on the surrounding focus on slowing down your breathing and like letting your exhale release your body as you’re doing it. And that’s what’s going to significantly help. Hey, I saw a question here.

Dean Pohlman: Is there a possibility of a joint man for yoga, fit, father project or treat in the future? Hmm. That’d be fun. I like your. I like Arizona. Let’s do it.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: It would be fun. And I mean you. I know it’s probably already filled, but Dean does have an upcoming retreat, so Mantle Yoga does do retreats, Father also does retreats. And so, yeah, I mean, that’s that would maybe we do on the future together.

Dean Pohlman: And actually Dr. Anthony is coming to speak at the fifth at the at the for yoga be the better you retreat in what two weeks now. Two weeks.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Yeah.

Dean Pohlman: So yeah he’s coming to that. We’ll be doing another one. We’re actually talking about this right now internally, but we’re looking at February of 2024 for our next one. So you can go to manvel yoga dot com slash BTB you you want to sign up for our interest list on that and our Dr. Anthony do you have a do you have one coming up?

Dean Pohlman: Do you have an interest list or do you have an idea for your next one? Well, we.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Do. We’re running one next next fall in 2024 in Sedona, Arizona. But, you know, maybe we will get something on the books and a couple of things. I’m seeing some likes. I just want to make sure that people have the proper links. As we wrap this up, we have Dean has a strange foundation challenge. If you want to get the Fit Father project it’s said follow the project dot com forward slash M-F.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Why? There’s been a couple of links in the chat that are not working for people, whereas this M-F why man. So it’s just fit for the project. Come forward slash FBI is great. So you can check that link out. We’ll throw in one more and one more time in the chat and I appreciate everyone taking the time on this beautiful day to come here and hang out with us and for everyone in our communities.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: We love you and we’re so happy to be on this journey with you. And I can speak for myself and for Dean. We’re going nowhere, man. We got we got a long road of work to do with men and helping be champions for men’s health and all of you that are a part of this. It’s like, super meaningful to us.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Like, love this community. Love you guys. Thank you all so much.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, thanks, guys, for being here. This is awesome. If you’re watching this later on, the links will still work. So use those links. If you’re not watching this live and and be sure to follow both of us. We are we try to put out a lot of content. Dr. Anthony has a great podcast, by the way, so check that out.

Dean Pohlman: I’ve got the B, the B, what is my podcast called The Better Man?

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: It is better man. Better and better man.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, yeah. The better man be the better you is that is that is the is the retreat. So anyways, guys keep following us and hopefully when the time is right for you, you know, join our programs. We do have that special going on right now. So this is a great time, but we’ll be here for you when you’re ready.

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi: Thank you. All cool. Hi, guys.

Dean Pohlman: Thanks for joining us. If you like that episode, check out this other one right here. I think you’re really going to enjoy it. If you haven’t subscribed, click the subscribe button over here and you can listen to the full episodes on any major podcasting platform. Full details below in the description.