Victoria Petrovsky: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Startup of Human Potential. We're your co hosts and I'm 

Victoria. 

Clifton Smith: we're Faces of the Future. 

Faces of the Future is a startup studio with a personal development platform at the intersection of consciousness, connection, innovation, and well being. We're excited to have you join us on our show today.

Victoria Petrovsky: And today we're joined by Ryan Hodge So excited to have you here, Ryan. So Ryan is a coach therapist, expert in movement, improving human inspiration, human body biomechanics, and the overall emotional human experience for over the last 12 years, he's been a student and expert, both in the space. His modalities include soft tissue, hands on manual manipulation, Gua Sha, movement therapy. And as a lifelong athlete doing water polo in college, doing Spartan races, strength and conditioning coaching right out of college [00:01:00] kettlebell competitions, CrossFit obstacle courses, jujitsu, martial arts.

You guys get the idea. This guy loves to move and he knows how to move well. Clifton and Ryan met back in Human Garage where he was the department head for rehabilitation and training. And, back in 2018, he went off on his own to create Kinnection. Welcome, Ryan. Really excited to have you on our show.

Ryan Hodge: Thank you, Victoria Clifton. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for the introduction

Victoria Petrovsky: For our audience members Ryan is the first movement expert we've had on our show so we're really excited to dive into the physical body a lot of times we talk about the quantum the energetics the alignment of mind heart and soul and I'm really excited to talk about the body today, 

Ryan Hodge: I can't wait.

Victoria Petrovsky: Yeah, so I guess I'm curious what brought you to wanna help people optimize their biomechanics?

Ryan Hodge: My journey definitely started from my childhood because I was an overweight kid and I grew up with a less than stellar [00:02:00] physical ability and a plethora of different things. In like junior high, high school started to switch the story in terms of getting myself in shape, where my deep passion escalated was as I saw my athletic career grow, I saw people around me's health decline in particular my father's health decline and when he passed away

in college, it was a big shift of like, Oh, this isn't just about being big, strong, fast, skill specific. It's about. What's your quality of life and like, how, what are you going to do with this stuff? So that's where the shift went to like, I want to help people improve their quality of life, move better, feel better, not just be like the best athlete that they can be.

Victoria Petrovsky: Wow. Yeah. 'cause you could totally, destroy your body for the sake of performance in a sport, in

weightlifting, whatever. prior to college, where it sounds like you had this awakening moment, with your dad passing, were you athletic before? And then you said you struggled with weight growing up, did you practice any [00:03:00] sports or play any?

Ryan Hodge: Yeah. Good question. I remember being told when I was five, I was like one of the fastest kids in the grade. 

then by the time I was like six or seven, I was like easily 20 to 30 pounds overweight for a kid of my size age. And I remember from like six to seven to 11, feeling like I was always picked last, I couldn't run fast.

I couldn't do anything as well as the other kids. I played. Parks and Recreation, Basketball, I played some Roller Hockey, I did a little bit of Karate. I did some of them. I didn't do everything, but I did a lot of generic sports. But I really didn't feel like I excelled at anything. I also swam. I was very aquatics based my whole youth. I always loved the pool. it wasn't until. High school when I first found water polo that it was like, Oh, not only is this something I enjoy doing, but I actually could see myself doing well at this. And my weight was for the first time in my youth in [00:04:00] a, we'll say healthy place.

I think at that time, to be honest, I kind of swung the opposite way and I was a little too skinny. Like I went from being really overweight to being like almost kind of pseudo anorexic , where I was really starving myself and like trying to do too much in early phases of high school. I was not necessarily the most athletic kid. And then when I was in high school, I was really the most undersized. I was always a year young for my grade. I was usually competing with kids that were bigger, older than me,

and trying to keep up. And it really wasn't even until after college that I physically matured.

I was not this height until after college. 

Victoria Petrovsky: You're pretty tall.

Ryan Hodge: after college. I'm 6'2 now.

I was probably maybe 6'0 coming out of college. I remember I was like 5'8, 5'9 coming out of high school. I was not very tall at all. So yeah, I was, I would argue I was athletic high school moving on, but I was not at point for sure.

The biggest, the strongest, the most athletically gifted for 

Clifton Smith: and real [00:05:00] quick for our listeners, was it more lifestyle and diet that, led to the extra weight back in the day? Or was that hot 

Ryan Hodge: You want the You want the quantum answer or 

you want the 

easy 

answer? You know what I 

Clifton Smith: Let's serve up 

Victoria Petrovsky: both 

Ryan Hodge: Yeah.

let's go there. So let's be honest. Yes. I ate a lot of processed food. Let's go a little deeper. My parents were divorced since I was five. I spent a lot of time alone.

As a kid that spends a lot of time alone in a neighborhood that has really no kids your age, when I would go ride my bike around and not find anyone else at the park,

you would go home and eat. So like,

Victoria Petrovsky: It sounds like my childhood, yeah,

Ryan Hodge: It's America, unfortunately. But yeah, it was like six, seven years old till junior high. There was just a lot of time that I spent at home eating, watching TV. I was not very active. video games, love video games still today. it was, yeah, it's that lifestyle, but I think it comes back to like, There's the lifestyle, but there's a lot of people that are fit and healthy that [00:06:00] have that lifestyle too. I was not the happiest kid overall. I was very hot and cold. I think I ate a lot of my problems unknowingly.

I just think I, it was that lifestyle on top of that emotional setting. And then it wasn't until post high school that I just learned to deal with those problems differently. And then also started to deal with those problems with the adult mindset of like how to heal that. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Victoria Petrovsky: A lot of what you shared just now really resonates with me too. Ryan. My parents got divorced when I was between eight and nine and I lived in Brooklyn and then they divorced. I moved to Staten Island. In Brooklyn, I could walk to the park. My friends all lived close by on Staten Island. I'm like, where are my friends

Emotional eating for sure. And moving in the middle of the school year, which is challenging, because like all your routines just got disrupted. So it wreaked havoc on my, emotional well being as well.

Ryan Hodge: I'm sorry to hear that. I totally understand.

Victoria Petrovsky: I mean, it makes you who you are and, um, it accelerates your trajectory to growth.

So I just wanted to [00:07:00] chime in and say you weren't the only 

one who went through that kind of experience.

Clifton Smith: Yeah. So take us to the sort of how you got your feet under you, you've, gone through this heavy eating. Was it a connection with a sport and activity? what kind of brought you to like, Hey, you know what? I think I'm getting ahead of myself here and I know how to course correct.

Ryan Hodge: Interesting. I don't know why this moment popped in my head. So I'll start with this moment, but I just, I remember being maybe in seventh or eighth grade and I just remember at that point in my life, it was not a nice place, but I remember being like, this is, I can't deal with this, this isn't good, I gotta change something, and I don't know, what was I, 11 years old, I'm like, on the internet, and I'm just like, okay, I'm gonna stop drinking soda, and it was like, this decision I made for myself, where I'm like, I'm gonna do this thing, and I saw a change from that thing.

And so I kind of pulled on that thread and that took me into just

the evolution. Now, we'll say as an adult where I feel like I got [00:08:00] my footing under me was for sure, four or five years post graduating my undergrad where I'm starting to get an idea of like, oh, this isn't just about weightlifting or just about cardio this is a multi discipline multi system thing.

So there's the catalyst of my like youth to adult and then the catalyst 

of like my adult to now. So those would be the two

Clifton Smith: Nice. Yeah. What I'm hearing is even as small as it might be, you decided to be a conscious creator of your life and in those areas that you knew how to control.

Ryan Hodge: Yes. 

Victoria Petrovsky: And it's usually good to change one or two behaviors at a time, and then you start to see a big shift. So for you, the cutting out of the soda, that was the thing that launched it, right?

Ryan Hodge: Yep. And it's funny because you just said like small things is, I resonate with that and agree with you when I look back the amount of big chunks that I was biting off at periods of my life and like thinking that that was the right way to go and not that it was wrong by any means, but I just, I can understand now that I think that's a healthier [00:09:00] approach with pretty much all things in general is like bite sized chunks that are more sustainable

and if you can take a little more, take a little more, but yeah. I've just seen time and time again that if you go for the big,

Victoria Petrovsky: 180. right away.

Ryan Hodge: Yes. So if you try to do a big thing,

it usually does not work out. So I think I'm just glad to say that I've 

stayed consistent

Clifton Smith: Nice. Yeah. That bite off more than you can chew or the opposite is, what happened to me in my conscious awakening was. I woke up one day, I was like, Oh, I'm going to be vegan Sattvic. Okay. what does that mean? and, my entire diet is basically the things that I'm now not eating.

So my microbiome wasn't ready. My culinary skills, or I didn't even know what to buy.

Victoria Petrovsky: his culinary skills weren't ready. 

Ryan Hodge: not ready 

Victoria Petrovsky: let me just omit the beef and just leave the rice and the spinach on the plate.

Right. That's my diet. It's funny, I did actually a big 180 too when I went through my Conscious Awakening journey. In the same day that I decided to be [00:10:00] vegan, I also bought like, 20 plants for my apartment and I sustained it for a while,

for a couple of years. it was harsh when I had like a drastic detox period that my body was just like purging things because it was such a shift. But,I knew how to cook. That was one thing I had going 

for me.

Ryan Hodge: you had that tool. 

Victoria Petrovsky: Yeah.

Clifton Smith: She was able to nurture me back to a normal weight, 

Victoria Petrovsky: size. 

Ryan Hodge: it work. And then sometimes it doesn't work out. I think I just, from my experience of coaching and my experience of my own life, I see where the most success in general happens with the slow, steady 

wins the race protocol. I've bitten 

off more than I can 

chew way too many times.

Clifton Smith: yeah. So speaking of these small bites, catch us up from like that soda that you saw the change to some other changes that got you to that post college shift.

Ryan Hodge: Yeah. So the time from the soda to the post college, it'd be like, the soda. And then it [00:11:00] was like, okay, I'm not going to have, , like a little bag of chips with my lunch. Like, I remember asking my dad for specific lunch items and that was a change that I made. And then I remember At 11, 12 years old, learning what a calorie was and learning what calorie counting was.

And it's so funny looking back, I vividly remember there was a year period where I thought that like,, when you go to the cereal box and it says 120 calories on the cereal box,

I would dump a bunch of cereal in the bowl and be like, that's 120 calories. And I did that for like a year before I realized, cause I was like 11, it was like, Oh, there's a one fourth cup is a serving size.

So That happened over the, like all those learning curves happened over the course of a year. The next step that I remember was like I played one season of Pop Warner football, which was the most intense physical stuff that I had done for at least a couple of years, like a handful of years in my life. So then I started losing weight from that. So it's like, Oh, now I got to be more physically active. So I [00:12:00] started, I got a membership at the YMCA, started going to the gym multiple times a week and just doing whatever the people there told me to do. That got me to high school, I mean when I got to high school and I found water polo, it was like, that's what I'm doing for this whole four year period I want to be on varsity.

I want to be starting. I want to go to college. I want to play water polo. Like my whole mindset was just like, Get good at this thing that you are actually good at because you can swim and a lot of people can't swim and you have good hand eye coordination even though you're undersized like you're just you're naturally gifted at this thing so then it was like okay I need a lifting routine for water polo in season out of season okay how much food do I need to eat to be able to like not drag ass at practice okay I got a morning practice I have afternoon oh now I'm do club water polo so now I'm plating water polo year round When I was 16, I had to get a job.

So now it's like balancing work life, athlete life. I'm not even in college yet. So like I had a lot of, adulting and a lot [00:13:00] of, maturing that I did over that whole time before I even graduated college. So hopefully you can see, it was kind of evolved pretty rapidly until I got to the point where I'm out of college.

It's like, I'm not just doing weight lifting and strength conditioning anymore, I'm helping people move better, feel better, I'm basically going to turn into some kind of therapist. What kind of therapist? I didn't know at that time, but it was like, what I have learned up until this point is a tool, and I want to add to my 

toolset

Clifton Smith: Wow, really sounds like the sports program was like that major catalyst and transformation for you 

Victoria Petrovsky: For discipline,

yeah.

Ryan Hodge: I mean I was very disciplined fortunately before, but that I mean, 4. 2 GPA in high school, like I didn't have a discipline problem. I had, if anything, like I would get test anxiety, I would get afraid that I was going to fail. Like it was really myself getting the

most, I was my biggest problem. 

Victoria Petrovsky: High performer. 

Ryan Hodge: Yeah, I felt like I had to be for whatever reason. 

So that's to answer [00:14:00] your question. I hope Clifton, it was like all of that evolved to me year by year till this point in post college where I'm like, I'm not just a strength and conditioning coach. I'm definitely doing 

more than this. 

Clifton Smith: what got you to expand your horizon to, to start to study other areas of life?

Ryan Hodge: Yeah, as I graduated with my undergrad in nutrition, and I'm also now a certified strength and conditioning coach, I'm told you have the things go do the work, right? What you don't learn or what you don't find out is these are people. So there's people skills. And fortunately, I feel like I have good people skills.

So that wasn't an issue, but I saw as a huge issue for other coaches.

And two , I saw very quickly, you can just sit in your corner and do your thing. And some people live with that and they're happy. I can't like that's not who I have to be involved in a thing

and see that this is having like a bigger impact.

So, I was in a [00:15:00] position where at this time in my career, I'm working with the NFL every year does a combine where they're bringing in the new athletes to see kind of like. How good are they? If you guys are familiar with the NFL combine so they can get ranked and then we can figure out which one goes first, second, third, fourth and the draft. So it's a big deal because it basically allows these athletes to get valued at very high tickets or very low tickets depending on how they perform. As I was a coach in this camp with these very high level football players that are about to go into the pros and get paid millions of dollars, I saw in this team that I was working with that you are more valuable and you help more by being more versatile. So I didn't want to just sit there and count reps or just be the guy that was like, this is how you do the lift properly. Basically, it was like, oh, this guy's got a shoulder issue. this coach over here who understands what's going on and makes adjustments and helps him rehab his shoulder [00:16:00] so like he can get better faster and perform and I was just like oh that's better than just what I'm doing right now so I saw this growth potential and it was like I had to make a kind of a not a choice but I had to get an understanding of Do just want to stay a strength conditioning coach, or do I want to become a physical therapist?

Do I want to become a chiropractor? Do I want to become an athletic trainer? Do I want to become an acupuncturist? There's all these higher level things that I can stack on top of strength and conditioning.

So, I got to a point where it was like,I want to venture off. And that led to, hopefully answer your question, Clifton. It was like this choice was made that I don't know where direction I'm going to go, but I have to do more than just the box of strength conditioning. I have to know

how to help people move better, so that's what led to that. 

Clifton Smith: Beautiful. 

Victoria Petrovsky: So what did you explore next after strength and conditioning to add on to that skill set?

Ryan Hodge: So it, I spent four years, [00:17:00] basically, I always kept a job as a strength conditioning coach, personal trainer, something in the world of coaching movement, right. And exercise. So my skills as a strength conditioning coach never. stopped evolving. So you're learning kettlebells, you're learning barbells, you're learning calisthenics, you're learning all the things that you can do in the world of sport and performance.

But on top of that, I'm thinking, what is a low hanging fruit that allows me to figure out where to go? And so I started interning with physical therapy clinics, chiropractor clinics,I went to massage therapy school because it was very cheap and like one of my biggest fears is somebody who kind of paid their own way through college was like, I don't want to go into hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt and basically stop working so I can learn the stuff that I want to be learning while I'm working. I essentially. Learn from all these different people I was interning with that like I can just go learn the stuff and forfeit the doctorate degree, but have all of the skills and the things that you need, which is basically what I volunteered to do. So over the [00:18:00] course of five years, it was take these physical therapy courses. Learn from these chiropractors or these chiropractor certifications. Learn from these massage therapists, learn from these athletic trainers while being a strength and conditioning coach. That leads to seminars and organizations that I start learning through. And now one of the organizations that I use a lot of information from, which is the Postural Restoration Institute, which is what I showed you guys some of the stuff in our last session.

These are all things that you don't learn in school. Traditionally, and so I'm very grateful. And I also think I made the right choice for me in the sense that, like, I am learning all the stuff that I want to learn without having necessarily some of the restrictions financially or, , like, you can't be an acupuncturist in California unless you're an acupuncturist.

So if you're a chiropractor and you dry needle, you can't do that. I just didn't want to have to deal with insurance and all of these other things. So,

that's what led to my secondary skills to strengthen conditioning, which are kind of now my primary skills, to be honest,

Victoria Petrovsky: Yeah, it sounds [00:19:00] a lot like an amalgamation of skills that became your own modality that's, Kind of loosely based on a lot of the influence that you've had from all the other trainings and PRI.

Ryan Hodge: PRI is a huge one. And then there's like just so many other organizations, again, on top of just traditional schooling and traditional coursework.

Victoria Petrovsky: Mm 

Ryan Hodge: And, you know, it's for me just to really hopefully finish with this. I don't ever want it to stop. I always want to keep learning. And for me it's important that these things are always at a certain interval reexamined and is this working?

Is this helping? Is this doing what I need it to do? Is there something better that I can do? Is there something that I can take away that makes me more efficient? So this is a process that I want it to keep evolving.

Victoria Petrovsky: Mm hmm. Nice. So for our audience members who may not be familiar with what PRI is, Postural

Restoration Institute.

okay,what's the movement patterns or what's the intention behind, their [00:20:00] body of work?

Ryan Hodge: Yeah. So first off, like you can go to their website, they have videos but hopefully I can summarize this pretty well

Victoria Petrovsky: Mm hmm.

Ryan Hodge: their science. is based behind a lot of different disciplines. So they bring in, physical therapists and chiropractors and all the body people.

They also have dentists and they also have optometrists and they also have,cranial sacral people. And so all of these disciplines are looking at the science that is the human body and what is anatomy. And when you open up a cadaver, what is going on right here? And based off of all this science, it's very clear that When you look at the inside of the body as well as the outside of the body, humans have asymmetries and we have them by design. 

Victoria Petrovsky: Mm 

Ryan Hodge: So it is not bad for us to have things that are different from right to left.

Victoria Petrovsky: Right. 

Ryan Hodge: It

It can be, but it's not inherently bad.

And when we talk about one of the arguably [00:21:00] most important things that the body does respiration, which is breathing to stay alive because we have our brain our subconscious, the energy, , like all of that cerebral stuff cannot exist without breathing. Breathing goes away, we go away. So they are literally linked, , you cannot have one without the other. You have your quantum self is your breathing self, and your breathing self is your physical self. How you breathe affects how you walk. affects how you sit, how you posture, how you regulate posture, because posture is not a static thing.

And so the institute is all about understanding what is posture, and how do we use respiration and improving respiration to improve walking mechanics, and then it goes into, mental cognitive sleep. It is a holistic multi system approach. but it all comes down to, we are [00:22:00] asymmetrical.

Our breathing is asymmetrical. We need to have tools in our toolkit to help bring balance to this asymmetrical based system.

Victoria Petrovsky: Thank you. That was a great explanation, Ryan. 

Ryan Hodge: Go to their website.

Victoria Petrovsky: Go to this guy's website, 

Ryan Hodge: You can 

do that too. Thank you.

Victoria Petrovsky: kinnection.Com

it below I know we are 

Clifton Smith: going dive into breathing, but 

Victoria Petrovsky: Mm hmm 

Clifton Smith: you know, how do you integrate all these modalities? So that way it's not just compartmentalized. what's sort of your process to integrate?

Ryan Hodge: a freaking good question. I've been forced to because I've literally never stopped working from the time that I was in college. I was training my friends in high school. I was also helping with strength conditioning on the water polo team. When I left college and I was like a legit professional strength and conditioning coach, I have never stopped working in that field, , five, six, even seven days a week, my entire adult life. So when I go to these courses, when I go to these things, I have a choice that [00:23:00] next day, am I going to use something with this client or not? And there would be clients who would be like, Oh no, I definitely have no business doing this. But then there'd be a client that'd be like, this is applicable to them.

So I had to figure out over sessions, over weeks, over months, over years, like how does this work? I have, , and this is also just unique to me, like some physical therapists only have 15 to 20 minutes with their patients. Some chiros adjust their patients in less than 20 minutes. I'm sure we've all seen these people.

That's fine. I have an hour with my people. I want an hour with my people. If we can do it in less time. Great. But I have an hour where I can do a full on training session, but I could also integrate rehab. I can also integrate breath work or respiration improvement, mechanics, like whatever you want to call it.

I can do soft tissue work. I can do whatever we want in my disciplines is available in that hour. So this foundation of strength and conditioning, it's kind of nice because it's like, at the end of the day, we're just going to do training. But if you [00:24:00] can't train, well, let's do some rehab.

Let's do some stretching. Let's do some mobility. Let's do some corrective. Let's do some postural, changes. Let's make you walk better. Let's roll out, so it was years of taking course by course and then integrating session by session where it was like, Oh, these things I'm really never going to use, but they're in the back of the cabinet if I need to pull them out. But there's a bunch of things that like, I'm going to use all the time that really are helpful that a lot of people wouldn't put into their typical, whether you're a PT, a physical therapist, Chiro, some people wouldn't do some of the stuff that I'm doing. And if you're a personal trainer, some of the people wouldn't be doing the stuff that I'm doing.

So it's nice to have that unique blend.

Victoria Petrovsky: Yeah. When we experienced your sessions a couple of years ago, I think back in 21I remember you did some soft tissue work on me. We had a massage table you brought in. And so you did the manipulation in the body

and then talking about how the body's naturally [00:25:00] asymmetrical. You were saying that I wasn't breathing in as deeply on the right side of my lungs in the back. So then you gave me exercises to stand against the wall, kind of doing a wall sit and then like breathe, crunch forward and then expand. And I just started reintegrating those movements again.

Nice. 

Victoria Petrovsky: I'd 

Ryan Hodge: love to see you do it.

Victoria Petrovsky: Yeah. Hopefully I've gotten a little better in the last two years. And

synchronistically,Clifton and I are in a mastermind right now and there was a random, it's a wealth mastermind, but there was a random unit in there about like body mechanics and like mind body soul alignment. And it mentioned PRI and as we're listening to it and I'm like, I think this is familiar.

I think we've explored this.

Ryan Hodge: Yes. 

Victoria Petrovsky: that's what Ryan does. 

Ryan Hodge: yeah, that's a good memory.

Victoria Petrovsky: Yeah, for sure. For a little while I stopped doing yoga because yoga for me anyway, perpetuated the asymmetry because like you can twist more on one side than you can twist on the other. And I know like you had shared, it's good [00:26:00] to rehabilitate the body before you start to take on some sort of strength training or some yoga postures or something.

Ryan Hodge: Or figure out how to integrate them in a way that's, net positive. You

know what I mean? but yeah,I just think it's really cool that you remember that you felt like it was helpful. you said that,it was the back of your right lung is what I said back in the day.

Victoria Petrovsky: Yeah.

Ryan Hodge: interesting. I'm just trying to remember, I remember definitely talking about the back of the

ribcage 

wondering if I,but anyway, these are just semantics in my head because I remember my, I'm thinking about my assessments that day.

Victoria Petrovsky: like, The back of my diaphragm supposed to expand too, what

I'm not like a flat two dimensional being I'm supposed to expand in all directions when I breathe

Ryan Hodge: what 

Victoria Petrovsky: mind 

Ryan Hodge: Yeah. And then we can get even crazier and say, not just expand, but there's like a coiling.

There's like a helix expansion, which is a very, like you want to get quantum. That's a whole different quantum science right there.

Victoria Petrovsky: yeah 

Ryan Hodge: that's pretty cool. 

Victoria Petrovsky: yeah and we're interested in diving [00:27:00] in with you Ryan about how you know body mechanics help regulate your fight or flight or Sympathetic nervous system response, how certain postures put us in a state of like, we feel like we can't breathe.

So that stresses out our mind, stresses out our bodies. And then people are walking around like this. So tense and tight and wound up. And then by the time they see you, maybe they want to like explode

Ryan Hodge: Yeah.

Victoria Petrovsky: they see us. 

Clifton Smith: Yeah, so let's let's go there. Let's dive into, as you say, where 

Ryan Hodge: go 

sort of 

there. 

Clifton Smith: and the quantum connect and 

people going through conscious awakenings or things of that nature. It can be a stress on their nervous system. They can be very ungrounded through that process. They can have shortness of breath.

let's just dive in with that intersection of, the breath and the nervous system and, would love to understand your mastery of, your current understanding, which I know always grows, which is great, and then we can maybe after that dive into some practical tools that, people could take at home. 

Ryan Hodge: Perfect. [00:28:00] So, breath work is such a hard thing to talk about, or breathing is such a hard thing to talk about, because it's got its own It's story attached to it now. So let's get on the same vocabulary and then we can ask the specific question.



Ryan Hodge: So when I'm talking about breath work, I might be talking about something where we're manipulating how long you inhale, pause, how long you exhale, pause. But breath work can also be breathing in a certain position with awareness of things happening.



Ryan Hodge: We're going to call those both things under the umbrella of breathwork. lot of people think breathwork is, holotropic breathing, Wim Hof breathing, Pranayama breathing, I've learned all these breathings, these are great. That's a part of breathwork, but so is the stuff that we might talk about with PRI, which is going to be like positional breathing. So, there's that vernacular. Then we have the biomechanics of breathing. So we have inhales, which we're going to call more [00:29:00] sympathetic in nature and exhales, we're going to call more parasympathetic in nature.

Can you give an example of, positional or postural breathing, 

Ryan Hodge: Perfect. It's what you were talking about where your back's against the wall and you're kind of hunched over.

Okay. I'm going to put people in a position

that I know via assessment, their body mechanics is not used to being in or isn't, doesn't get there.

So when I put you in that position, it's going to feel novel and foreign to you.

And then I also got to make you feel

certain things. So your brain is understanding, what am I processing here?

Victoria Petrovsky: Yeah.

Ryan Hodge: And part of that is how you breathe, because if you're not breathing, you're not living, you're not sensing if you're not breathing,

Victoria Petrovsky: Mm hmm. So it may look like a simple exercise, but it might be challenging to do because it's working your postural muscles in a different way than they're used to being.

Ryan Hodge: It's working your postural muscles. It's also working your brain,

like a lot of people when I work with people in this realm, they're like, I have to think about all of this? I'm like, yes, [00:30:00] you have to think about all and you have to feel all of this. Otherwise, you're not doing the technique.

You're just sitting there doing something. I'm not sure what you're doing. 

Victoria Petrovsky: He doesn't let you slack off

either, guys. 

Clifton Smith: 

Ryan Hodge: I'm on, it's we're not wasting time people. Like I'm dealing with situations where these people have seen everyone, like they want to know what to do.

Victoria Petrovsky: Yeah, Okay. So the first one was the postural thing and then after that you said when you say breath work You also mean the vernacular of

Ryan Hodge: We can manipulate length of time on inhales, pauses, exhales and pauses. 

Victoria Petrovsky: Okay. 

Ryan Hodge: Those are also under the category of breathwork.

Victoria Petrovsky: Gotcha 

Clifton Smith: you sort of talked about it is that there is this modern trend and popularization of breath work. And you can do these kinds of holotropic breathing. You can have ecstatic experiences with your own natural DMT 

Ryan Hodge: Yes.

Clifton Smith: You can bring the energy up into your pineal gland and start to compress that to create that piezoelectric effect to activate

Victoria Petrovsky: and do the heart coherence 

Clifton Smith: [00:31:00] And so what I'd love is to do a step down from sort of those more, esoteric spiritual connected breathing because that's very well covered by, you know, breathwork experts in that category.

But take us to your domain of expertise through breath and breathwork and help us understand how that works for you.

Ryan Hodge: So let's, maybe this will be a good segue. How many of you, I mean, if you're a listener out there, maybe you're that person, but like you do these breathwork things and you're supposed to get an elicit response and you don't get that response.

Victoria Petrovsky: I'll throw my hand up 

Ryan Hodge: light and euphoric, and like, I feel like I'm gonna die. I'm not saying that's for everybody, but I know that exists. And so the point is it's if it was as easy as just the cadence of your breathing, then everyone would do it, and everybody would be high out of their minds all the time, 

just do it every day. So, I've practiced meditation and breath [00:32:00] work for over a decade, but the postural restoration stuff I was first exposed to for the first time in 2013 and it's been a slow IV drip until the last five years where like I really went heavy into the coursework

and this

stuff is taking what we assume should be happening in a typical. person, how they should behave from a respiration perspective, as well as a hormonal, brain chemistry perspective. But then there's altered brains out there, and there's drug interferences, and there's emotional states, and there's postures and positions that affect these things. And so where my work comes into is I'm very blessed to see a very wide population of people like I've worked with kids and I still from time to time work with kids and I work with very high level athletes and I work with moms and dads and I work with CEOs and I work with people that have really, unique health issues from time to time. So you see [00:33:00] this spectrum of human movement and behavior. And so the people that you see that. Are very like, they pull themselves in a lot, they like to squeeze things, they like to look very narrow minded at things, they don't like to see things come at them, especially very fast, or

else they kind of like, go back.

Victoria Petrovsky: Is that people with desk jobs?

Ryan Hodge: So this is an interesting question is, I would just argue that modern society makes that de evolution happen faster. So it could be a desk job, but there's people with desk jobs that are totally 

fine

Victoria Petrovsky: Well, they created that opportunity to have that desk job where they already have the postural inclination of what you're just talking 

Ryan Hodge: exactly right. So that's why you would find in, like, tech jobs and, these jobs that are confined, they're isolated, I'm always thinking about what's the next thing and what am I doing and I'm never, opening up my senses and my experience.

Victoria Petrovsky: thinking,divergently, 

expansively. 

Ryan Hodge: Perfect

Clifton Smith: And Those people who are always trying to [00:34:00] force a manifestation don't surrender to receive from the universe because they're 

Victoria Petrovsky: not 

Ryan Hodge: physically capable. 

Victoria Petrovsky: Mm 

Ryan Hodge: amen. 

Because they're so attached, and I'm going to use that word, they're attached to what's right in front of them that

they cannot let go of that attachment

to, diverge

and allow that expansion to actually happen. Oh

wait, we were talking about breathing. Whoa. So this is all connected, and When I'm working with people, they come to me because they have back pain, they have neck pain, they have shoulder pain, they have an itis,

they have, it could be tendonitis, it could be diverticulitis. But most of the people that I see, they're trying to be active, they're trying to be healthy, they have been active, they have been healthy, they have this thing that they can't figure out and they've seen all the different people.

And so by the time they come to me, I'm showing them something that's different, that's having a positive effect, and then that allows us to kind of pull on the holistic thread,

and then this work goes on top of other [00:35:00] lifestyle works.

But,

to get specific to the breathing and posture stuff, we were just talking about how like, phones, modern lifestyle, Concrete and asphalt and man made surfaces and man made shoes

and all these things that like literally if you take our modern person and you just time warp them

150 years which isn't that long ago on an evolutionary time scale, they would not last a week. They wouldn't know how to hunt. They wouldn't know how to fish. They wouldn't know how to climb. They wouldn't know how to plant. They wouldn't know how to carry things.

Victoria Petrovsky: Modern day people can't even ground, let alone hunt.

Ryan Hodge: Right? So this is a very multi layered situation.

But my job is to assess these people and be like, this is what you can't do. Let's get you better at what you can't do. And then. Because you're better at what you can't do, you can go do the stuff that you enjoy doing more, 

hopefully. 

Clifton Smith: It sounds 

Victoria Petrovsky: like shadow 

work for physical body. Here's block have, [00:36:00] let's work on 

it. 

Do you make like recommendations for shoes and all the, lifestyle tweaks and whatnot? 

Ryan Hodge: yes. So, fun fact, Postural Restoration Institute has their own shoe list, and then you can, as a practitioner, do tests to see what shoe is most appropriate.

Shoes and the shoeless is because of man made stuff. if you can get on a trail, if you can get on dirt,grass, sand, mud,

natural surfaces You don't necessarily need those shoes. You could wear a minimalist shoe or you could go barefoot, but I live in Santa Monica and it takes work to find a natural terrain to go walk or run on.

Like I have to go drive to the beach or drive

Victoria Petrovsky: Topanga. 

Ryan Hodge: right. Or bike in order to get to a big enough space to have a natural surface. So I wear these, old man looking shoes, the vast majority of the time.

Victoria Petrovsky: Gotcha. Yeah. Cause I know some postural experts or

Ryan Hodge: podiatrists, they recommend,[00:37:00] inserts and having arch support, but then some people are in the camp of let's do earth runners and barefoot walking shoes. Does the terrain matter for that type of thing? Those are going to be , we're going to call them two different camps and I think each one has legitimacy in some way, shape or form at a certain place in time. So I'm going to go with a couple of different scenarios so people don't think I'm crazy,, and we can test all this stuff, right?

So I'm going based off of information that I've cleared on my table in my person in front of me. You have a normal foot, normal mechanics. You can probably go run walk in a natural surface and be fine. You have a bad foot You might need a specific shoe or orthotic even on a natural surface,

What 

Victoria Petrovsky: is a bad foot? 

Ryan Hodge: Those are 

Victoria Petrovsky: two different 

Ryan Hodge: scenarios. So like you got drop foot meaning your

foot doesn't dorsiflex properly or you got Metatarsals that are fused or you got something is hardware wrong

Victoria Petrovsky: Something that's hardware compromised with your foot. It doesn't [00:38:00] behave the way a foot should behave in a normal environment.

Ryan Hodge: So you need something to allow you to move normally.

Victoria Petrovsky: What about 

Ryan Hodge: arches 

, , so you can test for why people have high arches, and I would say that there's probably a reason why they have high arches. And so if we're trying to get the arches lower, there's ways to do that. And that might include for some people getting an orthotic. That gives their arch a little bit of contact with something, but then over time you have to drop that and or you could put that person in a natural environment like sand barefoot where you say to them as you walk, I want you to feel the arch of your foot squish the sand and they got to figure out how to do that over time.

So there's a time and a place for all these things. What I don't believe is unless you're that person with a hardware challenged foot, or maybe an Ankle knee hip like something is not working properly because of maybe there was a bad surgery or you were just born that [00:39:00] way think that most people have the goods and the ability to progress to Less shoe wear in a natural environment over time, but most people are going to live in the modern world so you're probably going to need to wear a combination of man made cushiony shoes with a little bit of more minimalist shoes and Go back and forth.

Victoria Petrovsky: Thank you.

Ryan Hodge: You're welcome. 

Clifton Smith: awesome. And so 

if we go back to the breath, can our listeners understand if they've got something that they need to, deal with? So unless you're doing like a yoga move that you've never been able to do, maybe, which is me, I might need to go see you 

Ryan Hodge: Can you touch your toes yet? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, sorry. 

Clifton Smith: You know, every step forward is like, two steps back after a while, but, uh, know that there's simple adjustments for me and, you have been able to do it. So, my belief system, I'll [00:40:00] suspend that, I'll touch my toes one day trauma from fourth grade PE class.

But anyway, So outside of, that and, like, oh, wow, I've got an injury or an issue where I'd like to actually be able to do a yoga flow sequence without five blocks and the strap, know, or like, oh, Hey, I'm doing breath work and I'm not actually able to get to that state that I'm trying to get into.

what sort of 80% of the time that we're breathing, or the 90,9% of the time that we're breathing, what are some, tips or things for our listeners to tune into to say, Hey, you know what, I should probably consider breath work, or some sort of postural breath correction.

Ryan Hodge: Perfect. I think the easiest inception point is the nose. So if you catch yourself not nose breathing, I'm gonna call that a warning light

on the car dashboard.unless you're talking, you're nose breathing. Unless you're doing something very effortful for a sustained period of time, such as jogging or [00:41:00] running and you need to go to from a heart rate zone one, two to a heart rate zone three, four, I mean, you can technically nose breathe in higher heart rate zones when you learn how to train that way, but the average person, I'll be standing or sitting next to somebody and I'll hear

Victoria Petrovsky: Or they just did a 

Ryan Hodge: not 

Victoria Petrovsky: stairs 

Ryan Hodge: that's not, or they're Just sitting. 

Victoria Petrovsky: Just sitting. Oh,

Ryan Hodge: That's not normal. Okay.

But that's what humans do. So you're not nose breathing, like all the time,another big one. I know people that do this to this day. You're talking to them. You're sitting around

Clifton Smith: Or the sigh, huh? 

Ryan Hodge: talking to them. You're sitting around like they take a breath, like they take a breath or a sigh, like just ran, like, you're just like,

Victoria Petrovsky: Or 

Ryan Hodge: a

Victoria Petrovsky: gasp. It's like a

Ryan Hodge: or a gas? It's usually a gap. Yep.

And that's usually because they're breathing shallow.

Victoria Petrovsky: I'm trying to think of other kind of obvious ones.

Ryan Hodge: . You wake up with dry mouth, you wake up and you're not breathing out of your nose.

Your nose is clogged a [00:42:00] lot. A lot of people think that they can't breathe through their nose because their nose is clogged But really their nose is clogged because they don't breathe through their nose.

Victoria Petrovsky: I've heard that before. Actually, recently. So you're the second time I'm hearing that this week.

Ryan Hodge: lots of good books out there that

reinforce this stuff. mouth tapings become very

popular for sleep I mean i've literally I've had people mouth tape when they're just working at their desk.



Ryan Hodge: i've had people try to work out only nose breathing. That's a fun one

That's a really good brain manipulator

Victoria Petrovsky: I notice I hold my breath sometimes if I'm doing an exercise. I don't like 

Ryan Hodge: don't 

feel safe 

Victoria Petrovsky: Yeah, I guess Clifton and I kind of we switch off at the gym We do the same machine so we watch how the other one does and gives feedback to the best of our abilities and expertise and When I'm doing something I don't like I have this like Very serious face on, like a grimace.

Ryan Hodge: Yes. 

Clifton Smith: So let's talk about those breathing patterns. What, is that doing to the nervous system?

Ryan Hodge: Yeah.

You're just [00:43:00] higher fight or flight.

So, okay. You have the parasympathetic and the sympathetic, right? And they are all ways dancing. Right. But they can also

dance like this. 

Victoria Petrovsky: Yeah. 

For, yeah. For our listeners who are listening 

to the 

Ryan Hodge: Sorry. There can be higher, 

Victoria Petrovsky: one is much higher than the other, meaning most people in a modern day lifestyle in a sympathetic state. I don't know anyone who's overly parasympathetic, maybe a 

Ryan Hodge: don't, they're

not in modern. was going to say they're not in the modern world. Okay.

Victoria Petrovsky: no 

Ryan Hodge: They're definitely not. so there's that dance that's always going on. And anytime you have any kind of breathing dysfunction, guaranteed you're more sympathetic.

You have to be. You just have to be. So there's a lot of people, it's so interesting to see the people that I've worked with, and this just happens randomly over time, right?

Where it's you start working with somebody, and then they start saying to you stuff like, the first thing you'll hear is Oh, I've been sleeping so good [00:44:00] recently.

Oh, I just sleep so well. Hell yeah. How does that feel? Oh, it feels so good when I wake up. I feel like it's so that's one thing.

And then it's like, Oh, I just feel like I focus so much better

and then it's Oh, I just feel like my things are just like, you can just feel their energy improve.

Victoria Petrovsky: yeah,

Ryan Hodge: And, I'm blessed to work with people that do the shadow work and they've been doing all the breath work and all the things, but they haven't had. Let's just say the goods internally that the systems enter like the mechanical systems to support the work the way it's intended to be done.

Victoria Petrovsky: yeah,

Ryan Hodge: So it's really cool when you put these modalities into a person's lifestyle, whether it's a training routine, whether they're just doing it before bed, whether they're doing it in their work flow, and they notice how it has these kind of like. it doesn't just make their shoulder feel better, they feel better. Like they feel they perform better. It's

really interesting. So shift of that [00:45:00] parasympathetic sympathetic via positional breathing when done properly over the right frequency and dose can totally start to just that alone, shift some of those parasympathetic sympathetic balances.

Victoria Petrovsky: And for our listeners who may not be as familiar with parasympathetic and sympathetic, so sympathetic is fight or flight, escaping danger, high stress mode, putting out fires, very,convergently focused. Parasympathetic is more like rest and digest. Divergent focus, more expansive, relaxed, easeful.

You see more of the possibilities of life. There's more creativity, more focus, more flow, maybe an alpha brainwave state that goes with that

Ryan Hodge: Totally. And I love that you broke that down. Let's also just be like, is either one good or bad? No they're both exactly what they are. And so you as a human can, we have the gift to, we can manipulate this stuff. So. We want to meditate. We don't want to be in fight or [00:46:00] flight. We don't want to be convergent.

We don't want to be super like, what am I thinking about? if you are on the computer, always in a bad position, not in a good posture,

not breathing well, do a slouch down. just got, done with a stressful work meeting, just got done with an hour in traffic, just had a shitty meal, da, how the heck are you going to even... No wonder you gave up your meditation practice. So it's okay, what's a thing that we can do? Well, we can change lifestyle and we can change that, but you can also just manipulate the position that you're in, the way you sense that position, how you breathe in that position. You will feel a shift in your. Energy, your being, you'll sleep better. You'll work better and then it like it rolls and it rolls

Victoria Petrovsky: So a lot of our clients,they come to us and they say things like. I feel like I'm always on I can't shut off. They have a lot of resistance to meditating at first and the whole Even like first month that we work with them It's all about [00:47:00] carving out space creating space for them to do those things creating space for meditation in your schedule creating space for you To do something that brings you joy

What would be like something that could help somebody who has resistance to carving out space to meditating, like an easy correction that they could maybe do right away integrate it in their day to day routine. 

Ryan Hodge: Hopefully this answers the question I know one of the one of my low hanging fruits for all my clients is I want to build a daily kind of movement practice it can be five minutes to start. It can be 10 minutes to start. I think most people average over time about 15 to 20 minutes when you give them like It's not too much.

It's not too little. 15 to 20 minutes a day seems like a sweet spot for somebody to have this time that they have allotted and that time can be spent doing breath work. It could be spent stretching. It could be spent foam rolling. It could be spent Doing a plethora of different things that I would give based off of my sense, [00:48:00] my assessments and just understanding of the person, where they work, how they work, all that stuff. What you put in that time can vary, but if you allot that five to, let's say, start with five minutes, maybe open it up to 10, 20 over time, that's a really good low hanging fruit, and then you can fill that time with the right stuff, given enough time of your life, 

Victoria Petrovsky: So different types of movement, you're saying like it could be stretching, it could be foam rolling, it could be walking, et cetera.

Ryan Hodge: Mhm. Mhm. Bingo. Like so if you're day one in front of me, I'm gonna do all these assessments on you and I'm gonna give you a couple of positional breathing techniques based off of these assessments. And then I might also give you a couple of mobility techniques and I might give you like a stretch or something to do.

And that's going to take you about 10 to 20 minutes to do it, depending on if you do it like a little here, a little there or if you do it all together.

And then my goal is that Whether or not you see me forever or not, you're going to keep that amount of time and just change what you put in there.

And if you see me forever, I'm going to [00:49:00] be changing what's going in there

because your body's going to be evolving. Your goals are going to be evolving. So there might be a period of your time where it's like a 10 minute walk and then you do 10 minutes of breath work. It might be a period of time where it's like, I got to stretch for 12 minutes because I got to be in this one position for 2 minutes because Ryan told me that if I'm not in this position for more than 2

minutes that nothing's going to happen. And so it's like I know that there's got to be a base amount of time that you're going to do with this stretch. So maybe that's put in there or whatever, but it's like you have this thing that you do. for me, because I've been doing this for so long, I usually have one to two hours a day that I allot to training.

It could be martial arts. It could be breath work. It could be strength and conditioning. It could be whatever, but one to two hours is what I've overtime allotted to training of any kind. sometimes it's 30 minutes in the sauna. cold tub, breath work, foam roll, stretch. That's an hour. that could be a workout for some people or a training day or a recovery day.

But that could just [00:50:00] be built upon your 20 minutes is my point. Like you should have that minimum effective dose 

every day that you can build upon.

Victoria Petrovsky: Got

Clifton Smith: beautiful. and so as you build and grow, how do you monitor it over time? I know you have an Oura ring, do you use wearables to help? Like, is that something that can help people understand where they're at? How do you utilize it?

Victoria Petrovsky: Yeah. Cause I remember, , when you came and worked with us,you said anything you do outside of our sessions together is way more important than having the sessions because it's like building those programs right in your head, the habits, the new. Movement, things like that.

So just to piggyback on Clifton's question and add more context to it.

Clifton Smith: time with you, right. is, an intense period but then you have. Way more time outside of working with you directly. how do you monitor your progress? One of the ways to do that is, a wearable, the Oura ring. How do you incorporate that into your data, your training for your lifelong growth?

Ryan Hodge: Yes. Okay. Wearables is an answer, and we'll talk about [00:51:00] wearables in a second, but this is, a really important concept that a lot of people wouldn't potentially recognize. A lot of what I do is similar to, let's just say, a car mechanic, where I want to see someone on an interval. Checking the brake lights checking the fluid and be checking things under the hood and say, well, last time I saw you, your shoulder rotation was here, but right now it's less than that. So that's

not normal . the human body has so many things that you can objectively test that Are multi related it's not just a function of your shoulder.

It's a function of your respiration. It's a function of your cognitive ability. It's a function of your ability to feel your body shift from side to side. So it's like I have these things that are important to that person in front of me based off of their injury history or their specific goals that I think every 3 6 12 months should be rechecked.

Victoria Petrovsky: Mm hmm.

Ryan Hodge: No different than you would go to your dentist and have your teeth checked, you'd go to your doctor and have your EKG and your blood pressure. There's mechanical [00:52:00] tests that I think should be on

spin. 

Victoria Petrovsky: hmm. 

Ryan Hodge: Wearables are good because they just give you other pieces of information to go on top of that. I think the Whoop, the Oura, the Apple Watch, I think using that for primarily two things is the best.

HRV. Respiratory rate or resting heart rate, ideally over your sleep period, because when you sleep, it's the least amount of variables. Because when you're up and about, it's like, how hot is it? What did you eat that day? How well did you sleep that night? Are you stressed that day? How much are you working that day?

Did you work out the day before you're working out? So there's so many variables where it's like, Over your sleep cycle, what your heart rate variability goes, what your resting heart rate is, or what your respiratory rate is, can all be very insightful for like your overall autonomic nervous system balance, as well as how Let's just say recovered.

You are not just from a physical perspective, but from a nervous system perspective. And there's one other metric you can [00:53:00] use if you don't want to get the ring or the, this, and this one's a fun one. can go online and buy a grip measuring device.

And first thing in the morning, you grip that sucker in either hand, as hard as you can.

And there's going to be a day where there's a. Pretty significant drop off. So let's just say 100 pounds, 100 pounds, one day it's 90 or less. Oh, that's weird. This is not a go gadget go day. This is a like I need to rest and recover day. You know what I mean? So there are things that, how do I put this?

There are warning signs that we don't get taught in school that are out there. You just need to know where to look for the warning signs. And then on 

those days that the warning signs are on, you should take care of yourself 

Clifton Smith: Wow. So like the handgrip is 

Victoria Petrovsky: like a 

Mm hmm. 

Mm hmm 

Clifton Smith: street smart whoop. Like, Oh, it's a recovery day. I love that.

Ryan Hodge: Yes. 

Victoria Petrovsky: That's funny. So then if it's an off day with the Oura Ring, it would be high HRV or low HRV? What kind of stats would you look for there?

Ryan Hodge: Great question. Okay. And [00:54:00] there's courses on this. If you guys just want to go take courses on HRV, but I'll give you the cliff notes.

You want as a person in the more parasympathetic state to increase your HRV. Get that number up.

It doesn't matter what your number is. Like I'll have somebody get an Oura or a whoop and they'll be like, Oh my God, my HRV is at 10.

I'm going to die. And I'm like, you're fine. It's just you might be 10, 10, 10, 10. Like you just might be a tenor. Doesn't make you a good or a bad person. That's just kind of what your number is. Now you give me five years, you should go from 10 to 15. You should go from 10 to 20, or if you're an elite athlete. We're going to manipulate your HRV because when you're in a dense training cycle, it's going to go down.

But we don't want it to tank for too long because we want your body to adapt and improve and repair. So then we need to see it uptick.

And then at a certain point, it's like going to stagger out.

So we need to train and downtick. Depending on the population, like if you just want to be healthy longevity, you just over time get your HRV up, over time get [00:55:00] your resting heart rate down, over time get your respiratory rate down.

If you can breathe more efficiently, you shouldn't breathe as often.

So respiration rate should go down, HRV should go up. 

Victoria Petrovsky: Awesome. Thank you.

That's very 

Clifton Smith: and so, we've spent an awesome hour plus together, just establishing and sharing just your mastery and where you're at of the physical body, I'd love to hear, towards the end of our podcast, Where you're headed, you're a sponge for knowledge, you're integrating in real time with your clients.

what are you doing with all that? what's next for you?

Ryan Hodge: Thank you. So I know at this point in my life, I could honestly say that I have no intention of not working with people like I'm going to work with people for a long, long time. That's my bread and butter. Whether it's in person or virtual. So that's a thing. Where am I headed? I'm always learning, I'll be quite honest, the PRI stuff, the postural restoration stuff, like most people that I know that are very [00:56:00] smart, there's so much to digest there. You can spend a lot of time just going into that rabbit hole. So I will always continue to go into that rabbit hole, but then it's also what other things can I learn as technology evolves? We have kinesio taping courses that I've taken. We have different instruments that you can learn to do soft tissue work. I like to keep my hand to the pulse of anything that's going on in the physical realm. If there's new training equipment or some kind of new training modality, do I understand it?

But then if I were to kind of step outside that realm, Outside of that time, I just think of that as like self development, like I love what you guys do. Whatever my business is, I want to continue to grow and evolve that business in a healthy, fun way that works for me. My first,virtual course, the system on training clubs available. So I want to start getting into virtual education, virtual,coaching realm. I think I'm going to be dabbling my foot in quite a few things for the next couple of years. 

Victoria Petrovsky: what is a training club?

Ryan Hodge: So I love this instrument is called an Indian club.

[00:57:00] I think training club makes more sense because I don't know, Indian club is like native American Indian.

what are we talking about here?

Victoria Petrovsky: it exclusive club?

Ryan Hodge: Yeah, it could be an exclusive club that we create, but I, there's a thing called a Indian club or a training club that I am creating a course on.

and so with a physical instrument, you hold them with your hands, you swing them around or in my course, you would learn.

That you can use them to improve the mobility, the flexibility of your shoulders, your shoulder blades, your rib cage.

With this course, you're going to have a way of working with me virtually. So that way you don't have to wait two weeks, two months, two years to see me in person or get some information from me in person.

Victoria Petrovsky: Wow What 

Clifton Smith: is it about shoulder mobility that's so important in today's day and age? Is that one of the symptoms of the like hunched over, poor breathing, Overtaxed nervous system. what is it about that? you could go any which way with all of your knowledge and, this is your course.

There's gotta be some magic juju in it [00:58:00] that 

Ryan Hodge: I love that. There's magic juju in hopefully everything that I'm teaching, but I picked the training clubs for a couple of reasons. So number one, let's start with stuff that's near and dear to my heart. You know, I was a water polo player. I've had a tremendous amount of shoulder injuries and problems in my athletic career.

I'm very happy that I can do a lot of things with my shoulders that doctors told me I shouldn't be able to do. And so the Indian training clubs,. I've used them since I graduated. I was first exposed them right after I graduated college and then really got into them about 2013 and they're this one tool that like, I've always had them with me everywhere in the world I go, I'm usually just using them at some point and people always come up to me and are like, what are those?

What do you do with those? How heavy are those? 

Victoria Petrovsky: What is it made out of? I'm 

Ryan Hodge: what, Yeah,

like it's plastic. I mean, they can be made out of wood. Traditionally, they can be made at a number of different objects. But the idea is that [00:59:00] they are just something that I've always used.

They've helped me with my own shoulder, upper extremity health. But then as my knowledge is increased, and especially when I look at things through the different lenses of stuff that I've learned, in particular the PRI lens, humans evolved, we walk on two feet. We don't walk on four. So these upper extremities are designed to be free. These upper extremities are designed to do things and be like your brain wants to know without looking like I know my hands are moving without looking at my hands. It's just like patterning of the human experience. So when we think about These people who never get this and I can put this really light.

It's not heavy. It's not supposed to be heavy. It's light. And you're supposed to feel like fun swinging it. It's supposed to be enjoyable. And that light swinging motion is kind of distracting and opening up the shoulder joint space. And if I have you move and swing and breathe in [01:00:00] certain ways, I know air is going to certain parts of your body that you're probably not breathing too regularly.

And you're going to get circulation and you're going to get endorphins and you're going to feel good. And maybe you're going to laugh and have a good time. And then when you're done, you're gonna be like, Oh my God, my shoulder feels better. I'm going to go smack this beach volleyball like no one's business. And so. I think that there is just so many, there's such a verse, like everyone knows kettlebells now. I don't think there's a Indian club training guy out there that people know of. And I'm like, I love this tool. So I'm going to, I think I'm just going to bring this tool to the market and hit it.

Not just from like. This is my shoulder health swinging protocol. It's like,, no, this is a really versatile tool that you can do a bunch of things with, and you're going to be able to use these tests that I show you as an objective measurement that before and after these movements, you do your shoulder moves better.

Victoria Petrovsky: Wow, that's amazing. I

sense a fad coming about the next hot thing in movement like, Zumba or Taibo or some kind of movement style. I know [01:01:00] those are a little throwback. I did both back in the day.

Ryan Hodge: Hell yeah. Do it. Indian Club Training Clubs. We're coming in hot in 2024.

Victoria Petrovsky: right.

That's awesome. 

Ryan Hodge: Thank you. 

Clifton Smith: we're so excited to see how it all comes together because we know it's an amalgamation and combination of all your training and you found this as your go to market strategy and your product. And so,, what are some ways that our listeners can get ahold of you or just participate in this movement?

Ryan Hodge: Totally. . Easiest way to get ahold of me, go on Instagram. D as in Donald, R as in Ryan, H as in Hodge, dot Kinection with a K. You can just message me on Instagram. I don't go on Instagram and post, but I message people a lot because just a lot of people are on there. You can also go to my LinkedIn if you want to message me. I also have my website, KinectionLA. com. You can email me through there, but I'm just the most accessible through Instagram by the majority of. My clientele.

Victoria Petrovsky: and it's connection. K I N E C T I O N.

Ryan Hodge: Yes, because of kinesis, you

[01:02:00] know, movement, KINECTION, and then LA for Los Angeles.

Victoria Petrovsky: Awesome. Well, it was a pleasure having you on our show today. Ryan love the conversation. It was a lot of fun.

Ryan Hodge: Thank you.

Victoria Petrovsky: I really want to have more conversations that are practical, tangible things people can do right away and ways that they can put their wellness and lifestyle back in their own hands, be in control of their own health.

And I think you're such an empowering force in that. Community. And I'm really excited for what's to come for you with the Indian clubs So thank you so much for joining

Clifton Smith: we always have one final question 

Victoria Petrovsky: yeah. What does human potential mean to you, Ryan?

Ryan Hodge: To me, human potential means that,if I'm looking at this N equals one experiment of this individual, that could be myself. I'm gonna take this thing that I'm working with and I'm just gonna ride it to its upper limits. Not a unhealthy upper limit, per se, because that's I think, an [01:03:00] opinion. Maybe some not opinion in some of those things. But yes, I wanna ride as much of my system to its capacities physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationshipally, to experience what can be done

Victoria Petrovsky: With your vehicle. 

Ryan Hodge: with this system vehicle.

Victoria Petrovsky: system. Yes. Beautiful. I love it.

Ryan Hodge: Thank you.

Victoria Petrovsky: Well,

thank you all for joining us today. Thanks for tuning in and really look forward to talking with you all next time.

Ryan Hodge: Thanks for having me guys. I really appreciate it.