Podcast Transcription: How to Build Strength, Improve Your Health, and Prevent Injuries (Without Spending Hours in The Gym) with Brad Thorpe

Ted Ryce: Brad Thorpe, glad to have you back on for almost annual podcast interview. So what's been going on, my friend?  

Brad Thorpe: Man, there's been a ton of stuff since the last time I talked to you, which I think was like, I think it was like June of 2023. So it's, uh, yeah, life is good, man. Isophit's taken off. My daughter's doing incredible. My wife still loves me. So life is good.  

Ted Ryce: Amazing. And, let's talk about isometric. So isometric exercise, your wheelhouse, your, uh, love your, um, you know, what you evangelize and some people are gonna, they'll have heard your other interviews. Like for example,  episode 449 was The Secret to Longevity and 559 was The Power of Isometric Training. And you were actually number 10 on How to Get Stronger, Prevent Injuries.... Wow! Your episode number 10. So this is your fourth or fifth interview. So for those folks who don't know, can you talk about isometric exercise just briefly? Why is it, why should someone listening right now care? And maybe even before that, because some people aren't going to even know what that is. They may think they know, but they might have the wrong idea. So, what is isometric exercise and why should someone listening right now care?  

Brad Thorpe: Well, when you think about it, um, the majority of the human population over the last, call it 40 years, has been told that they need to exercise, and they've been told that they need to move, and even though there are benefits to movement, the majority of people that participate in dynamic based exercise get injured, and that starts them down this path of needing to see a manual therapist, potentially even needing surgery. 

Um, and potentially even stopping exercise, which they know is good because they can no longer participate because it's bad. So what isometric exercise is, it's a way to contract muscle tissue without creating a large amount of movement. So it's kind of like when you pull into an immovable object, such as a wall or a door frame, or if you statically hold a weight in space. 

Right, like the goal is not to move the weight, the goal is to hold the weight and kind of resist it from falling to the ground. So those are some things that you can think about and why it's important. And this is where the entire exercise industry, to be honest, has gotten it wrong. We told people to start moving when they're ill prepared to move. 

So with isometric exercise, it's a way for the exerciser to prepare for movement, so as a way that you can get the muscle structure stronger, so that way when you go to start moving, whether it's you're doing an aerobic class, if you're lifting weights, if you're doing jogging or running as an activity, you can prepare the body to deal with, deal with those forces that are going to be Um, impacting your, your joint structure, your muscles, your ligaments, your tendons, and all these other things inside the human body that they don't know about. 

So, it's a way to prepare for exercise. It's a way to prepare for your daily activity. So, whether you're not going to the gym, let's say you just want to pick up your grandchildren. Or you want to go play golf or something to like where it's a little bit more active lifestyle. This is just going to reduce the risk of injury and allow you to perform those activities longer and safer, thus making them more enjoyable, to be honest. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah. I love having you on because we get to, cause I really feel like I've said this story before, but I'll say it again. It took me a long time to understand what you were talking about and the group that we originally connected in the resistance training. Oh gosh, where are they called again?  

Brad Thorpe: The resistance training specialist program. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Tom Purvis, who's like one of the, you know, best people, you know, the best fitness people that people should know about him, but they don't because he doesn't market himself and he's, and he's an ordinery guy who actually tried to get him on the show. He's prickly.  

Brad Thorpe: He's prickly, but he is, he's, uh, man, I, I owe, I don't owe, I guess he inspired me to be better and he gave me information that allowed me to differentiate myself through any, really any human on the planet. 

And yeah, so I owe a debt of gratitude to this man that I will always and forever be grateful for his dedication. Um, you know, and when you're trying to be different, sometimes you, you gotta curve a new path and you gotta be, you gotta stand out and, you know, that doesn't mean be liked. Yeah, because a lot of times when you're trying to create a different message, people don't like you because you offend their bias, and I'm guilty of this every day, um, you know, with telling people that here's a, here's a safer, more more effective and more efficient way to exercise. 

You would think that people would gravitate to that, but yet, like in my world, I just offended virtually every single personal trainer, every single physical therapist, every chiropractor, every gym owner, and every fitness equipment manufacturer, because what I said is, what I'm doing is better than what you're doing. 

And it is. And it categorically is, and I have no problem standing on my shield. And I would put what I do against what they do, because I studied under the world's experts in this subject area. And I came to the conclusion after reading really kind of 15 years of studies, because I haven't stopped since we first really started talking, usually comes back where you conclude that isometric based exercise is a safer modality, so we'll check that. 

It's usually the first thing they start post surgical, so I don't have to argue really with anyone there. If I'm looking at creating strength, like muscle strength, be it isometric muscle strength, it outperforms dynamic lifting by 200%, so it's not even close. If I'm looking at it to, for lowering blood pressure in a hypertensive population, um, Aerobic based training realistically should be considered malpractice if you're still recommending that, um, because in the studies, isometric exercise is 98. 3 percent effective, aerobic training is 40. 5.  

So if I'm recommending a like a pharmaceutical agent, a pill for you to sort of combat a disease, and I give you a pill that's 40 percent effective over a pill that's 98 percent effective, I'm losing my medical license. I'm probably going to get sued. So you look at some of this stuff and it's like, I don't have to make this up. I can send you the data. I can send you the study. peer reviewed studies, um, by the world's leading experts.  

So it's kind of really cool that I can sit here and just have an honest conversation that I know is going to offend you because you haven't taken the time to do your due diligence, you haven't looked, you haven't explored, you stopped learning potentially 15, 20, 30, 40 years ago. Um, like I was just at the NSCA conference a couple weeks ago. And so this is an organization.  

Ted Ryce: Were you presenting or attending?  

Brad Thorpe: Um, I was, I was a, uh, what do you call those things? A booth guy. Like, uh, uh, pitching my wares. Uh, a vendor, that's the word I'm looking for. So, we had one lady, she came up and she's like, oh no, isometrics is really bad for blood pressure. I don't even want to learn about this.  

And it's like, well, how, um, she was a little bit older and it's kind of like, I just sort of, I was just dumbfounded. I was like, oh, okay, I guess, A, the closed mindedness was shocking. And that was just this one lady. The majority of people in attendance were absolutely fantastic. And it's an organization that I will look to grow within just because of the audience.  

But this one lady, she was just dead set in stone going, this is just, it's contraindicated, um, and it's bad for people with blood pressure. It's like, I resolved my blood pressure after 14 years of struggling because I didn't do it. I resolved it in two weeks. Um, and the number, the number of people that we see improve their blood pressure with doing isometrics, whether it's Isophit. Or, um, you know, isometrics in general, it's staggering. Like we had a person in Portugal, um, you know, and I know it's a community that you like. 

Um, so we've got a growing body of individuals over in Portugal using isof it, and we had one lady drop her systolic by 25 points and her diastolic by 19 points in two weeks. Huge. So she's, that's a massive, it potentially reduces her risk of  

Ted Ryce: Better than any supplement I can think of. 

Brad Thorpe: Supplement and or a pharmaceutical agent. Um, so subsequently she was medicated and she's now reduced her medication and she's looking to get off her medication. Now I'm not saying don't, like you need to talk to your doctor, you need to do it strategically. Because you just shouldn't go cold turkey and stop, um, but yes, we've, we've directly impacted this woman's, um, basically hypertension in two weeks. 

Um, and I'm comfortable to say that if you do isometrics consistently six days a week, within a month, you'll dramatically reduce your hypertension or your systolic and diastolic values.  

Ted Ryce: Yeah. With this six day week though, that's more exercise than most people are doing already. What, what specifically are you doing for a six days a week? Like, is it the 30, 30 and 30 protocol?  

Brad Thorpe: Yeah, that's what I recommend. But if you don't have that much time, um, the most of the blood pressure research is done on a 24 minute work cycle per week, right? So, what they do is they do eight minutes. Three times a week, eight minutes of, um, basically, um, grip strength. 

So grab, grab a tennis ball. That's one thing you can do as wall sits, right. Or, you know, one thing they often study is like a leg extension. So if you don't even have a machine, just go to your gym and do it. Leg extension and hold the weight in space. And what it is, is usually four times two minute repetitions, so two minutes tends to be really long for a lot of people, especially when you're holding a muscle contraction. 

So what I recommend is, like, I would prefer you to do, instead of eight minutes that way, I would prefer you to do eight exercises. So, 45 second contraction lengths and take 15 second rest and just do 8 different movement patterns where you're holding for 45 seconds. And what you'll see, if you do that daily, you'll see extraordinary results. 

Not only will you get stronger, your mobility will improve, you'll burn a, uh, you'll help sort of with some, reduce some fat mass, so you'll burn calories, as well as improve your cardiovascular system, which are all vital for longevity and better, well, better everything with life. So, you know, from a very, very simple perspective, just learn to contract muscle isometrically. 

Don't hold your breath while doing it. So, it's important to remember to breathe while doing anything, especially isometrics, because that just allows blood flow to your brain. Because if you just, it can, um, exert force and you hold your, like, don't breathe. Oh, blood pressure goes up and it increases your likelihood of having a stroke. 

Ted Ryce: But so does holding your breath and doing any exercise.  

Brad Thorpe: Right. So, you know, they, so if you're  

Ted Ryce: bench pressing or deadlift or it it, or anything, just breathe anything.  

Brad Thorpe: And when you look at it, it, it's just the, the amount of data associated with isometrics from a health perspective, it's incredible. I mean, they, they do so much stuff with grip strength. They just omit the word isometric. Grip strength... 

Ted Ryce:  Right. Cause, but that's how they're matched. That's a really important point, Brad. I just want to say something because I just want to interject briefly, because all the studies done on grip strength and longevity to your point, they're, they're using a dynamometer. So what it's called dynamometer. So it's an isometric test of grip strength. It's not, uh, captains of crush gripper. If you know what that is, if you're hard, you know. 

Brad Thorpe: And this is where it just gets awful, where the omission of one word makes my life extraordinarily challenging and I need to try to convince people that isometrics is important, even though the same person will hang their hat off that study saying, oh no, grip strength is important. I'm like, yes, exactly. We are talking the same thing. I just added the measurement that they were talking about, be it isometric grip strength, which is so ridiculously frustrating. 

Ted Ryce: Let's get into this. Cause I think this is really important. First, I want one thing I want to say too, is you're not the only one talking about isometrics. 

You do it in a very, in a way that is really cool and a bit more extreme, which I appreciate, you know, not surprised that you ruffle some feathers. But the point that I'm bringing up is that while you're, let's say an evangelist Isometrics in general and what you do with Isophit, which is your company. 

I remember talking to a top physical therapist, Chad Waterbury, who, I mean, the guy's amazing. They, he was telling me how they use isometrics in all different facets of rehabilitation. Uh, there's Cal Dietz. Do you know Cal by the way? I know I've asked you that before, but I can't remember the answer.  

Brad Thorpe: I drank with him in Germany last year, so, which is pretty wild. So, super smart guy, uh, thoroughly enjoyed our conversation, because obviously he came out with his book, Triphasic. Right. Um, and, right, so, I mean, that usually comes up in conversations. Anytime I'm talking to S& C coaches, they are always like, Oh, Hal Dietz, Triphasic? I'm like, yeah, smart guy. You know, we have some differencing of opinions in subject areas, but you know, the guy is a legend and he's fun to drink beer with. He's got some great, great stories. I'll tell you that.  

Ted Ryce: Cool. So, so here's a top strength coach as well. And, and Brad, you know, you're, you're quite humble. You're not, um, you know, I don't even know if you're allowed to mention some of the people that you've worked with or some of the organizations that you've worked with, but it's top tier, top tier teams, can you mention anyone? 

Brad Thorpe: Well, um, I'll mention this just because it was, uh, released the other day, so Team France, um, basketball, men's, um, so it was literally, uh, waking up, uh, two Fridays ago, and so they, they have five Isophit strength kits, um, on site in France, and I wake up and there's, um, an image of Victor Wembeyama using Isophit, and I'm like, you gotta be kidding me, here is the, the, uh, Next global iconic superstar, and I know that he uses ISOPHIT, so, but to see an image of him using, and it was such a beautiful photograph. 

And so he's standing over the bar doing a split lunge, and the bar, he's 7'5 or 7'4 however tall they got him listed, right? So, and it's just, he makes the machine. Look appropriate for his size, which is great because now I don't have to have the conversation with people. They're like, oh the machines too small. 

You're only six feet tall. He's seven five. He uses it so it's kind of that so that to me was just amazing. So we have that Zoe Saldana Uh, she was in an article, you know, um, basically a couple, it was last year with Shape Magazine, and there's a gentleman out of Hollywood by the name of Jason Walsh. So, Jason's, um, a good client, good customer, good friend. 

And so he's, um, brought Isophit into his business. So he, he's like an A list celebrity, um, trainer to the stars type stuff. thing. So he uses it with a ton of his clients, but Zoe Saldana, she sort of loaned her name to the art, like the Shape magazine article that, uh, was we were in. So that was great. Um, and then we're with 20 percent of the NBA. We're with the FBI, we're with the U S army. So it's, we got some extraordinary clients and we're just, I'm fortunate in the sense that we're able to help a lot of people, both from a health and performance perspective. As well as, you know, businesses make a ton of money, like we have one of our clients, um, in Ridgefield, Connecticut, uh, their Results Fitness, um, or, why am I drawing a blank on their name? 

Results Fitness Ridgefield, and so JP and his team, they, in 800 square feet, they built their ISOPHIT business to over 800, 000 a year. In 800 square feet of space, right? And it's just, you look at that and just go, that's, that's not insignificant money. And especially when you're looking at it and going, okay, well, that's doing personal training basically in an isometric format. 

So, they've been able to get the community buy in. They've been seeing such extraordinary results with their clients that their clients refer them new business. And they were able to continue circulating and servicing business. And one of their athletes, um, at the last Olympics won, I believe it was a bronze medal in swimming. 

So you look at that. And so we have Olympic athletes using Isophit where, you know, to, you know, moms and dads and dentists and lawyers and CEOs and kids. So. Because it's effective for everybody. So, which it was just, we're so fortunate.  

Ted Ryce: Yeah, man, you're crushing it. I love to see it, especially because like you said, it's been, we've known each other for 15 years, is that how long it's been?I think more like 10 or 12, right?  

Brad Thorpe: No, man, we've, we've, we go way back. So, it's, well, 15 years goes back to 2008. Yeah. So it's gotta be, it's gotta be before that.  

Ted Ryce: So it's wild time fly. My brain is a little bit messed up from all the, uh, traveling and, you know, the COVID as well, but I, I just love seeing you blow up. 

I love seeing that this style of exercise. One thing I want to say is I think it's really important. Um, like if you look on Tik TOK, if you go on Instagram, you go on Tik TOK. I mean, what we're, we're living in, let me even rewind. We're living in a world that let's say attention is how you make money. 

That's how I make money. It's how I get clients, which clients pay me money. We're all. And when I say, oh, I don't mean fitness people. I mean, everyone, almost everyone. Some people have a word of mouth referral business, but if you see anyone on using social media for their business intentionally. 

They're not just, they're messing around and watching other people. If you see people with a business on social media or on multiple platforms on social media, they're trying to get attention because attention, generally speaking, not always, because I know some people who have a hundred K followers plus, and they don't do that well financially I do better than them financially. And Right. Uh, I'm not killing it. I'm, I'm doing all right for myself, you know, but these guys, they, they struggle.  

But the point is generally speaking, people put out outrageous stuff that games the algorithm. What gets people, what gets people's attention. I was thinking about this the other day, there's a type of row that I'm sure, you know, and probably hate based, I would imagine, but the renegade row. 

You know what that is, right? So, so I was thinking about this the other day, and I'm going to do a reel on this or video because someone might be doing, let's say, a single arm row, right? And your trainers like, listen, let's spice this up. Let's do this renegade row. So for all those people listening for you listening right now, you probably know what a single arm row is. 

A single arm row is with a dumbbell. You're on the bench. You got a dumbbell hanging off the side. You're, you're pulling it up. Like you're starting a lawnmower. A renegade row is when you're in a pushup position with much smaller dumbbells and you do this pushup position and do a row from that pushup position, which it's not really, you're not going to be able to stimulate your back muscles enough to create hypertrophy. 

And let's say you had a trainer. And the trainer was like, hey, listen, we're going to do this advanced variation of a row and we're going to do this renegade row. You're going to have to go down and wait. You're going to lose strength. You're going to lose muscle mass. If you aren't doing any other type of, uh, you know, exercise for your back. 

But it's going to look cooler and it's going to feel harder. You're going to be more out of breath. You're going to feel your abs. You're like, man, that was, that's working every muscle in my body. But the reality is you're, you're not doing yourself a favor by doing that. Nope. So, but that's, what's going to do best on social media is my point. 

Brad Thorpe: Like isometrics, I'll be really honest is really boring to look at. It's boring to look at. It's boring to look at it. There is virtually no skill involved, right? Where the renegade row high skill, high risk of injury, low reward. Isometrics, optically, boring as shit. Like, I'm looking at a photograph. And it's like, a photograph is pretty cool. 

You know, everyone goes to look at the Mona Lisa. So, obviously you can generate a ton of money looking at static images. And you can gain notoriety looking at static and creating images that don't move. With isometrics, when you're starting to look at it, you have to sort of look at it and go, okay, what is the value I'm going to get from my time commitment while doing this exercise? 

Um, isometrics, as we discussed earlier, it's going to make you way stronger. It's going to make you way more stable. There's virtually no chance of injury. So, if you're an athlete where durability matters being available on game day matters, not being injured from the dumb exercise you opted to do at the gym in your training cycle is something that's really important to look at. 

Um, and that's one of the things, um, where ISOPHIT really kind of brings. Isometrics, A, it makes it cool, it gives you something to do with it, um, and it transfers over to your sport, where learning a new skill, be it a run or dig row, probably won't actually transfer over to your sport, because it's skill development for the hope of creating skill development, as opposed to, I'm going to build the system, and I'm going to make a better system, I'm going to make the system stronger and more resilient. 

Thanks. Thanks. And then that's going to transfer over, right, because when you're looking at the isometric component of all movement, it doesn't matter how fast you're moving, when you go to transition from one direction to another direction, which is pretty much every play in a sporting environment, you have to zero out the velocity going one way, create this high level of isometric tension to stop you from continuing in that direction, and then you move and re accelerate in a new direction from that isometric, regardless of the time interval. So it might be 02 seconds, but it still existed.  

You don't get to get rid of it because you expanded or collapsed the time interval. So that's where we have totally misunderstood how humans move. And that's why people that participate in exercise, doing things like renegade rows, Get injured a lot more frequently than people that say, Hey, I want to do an isometric. 

And if the goal is health, injuries shouldn't even be part of the conversation. People should never be injured exercising for health. It's absolutely ridiculous that it occurs. And you go, Oh, but I want to do it for fun. Well, that's no longer health. Like, you know, I'll, I'll pick on you for a second. How many times have you been injured doing Brazilian jujitsu, which is fun and potentially will save your life, but it's not, it's not,  

Ted Ryce: It's not going to save my life, man. If someone pulls a gun on me. I'm going to be handing my, uh, yeah. Yeah. So you're like, you bring up a good conversation and I agree with you. Some people are going to get butthurt listening to what you just said. Not me, because I don't do Brazilian jiu jitsu for my health per se, not for my physical. 

Let's say it's more nuanced because of my working, my cardiovascular system. Am I actually doing isometric exercise during Brazilian jiu jitsu? In fact, there's a ton of isometrics and jiu jitsu.  

Brad Thorpe: Isometrics in Brazilian jiu jitsu? 

Ted Ryce: Yeah, but it's, It's really more of like a, uh, something that I need to train around. 

And to your point earlier, I need to get my body in shape to do it, to avoid or minimize the risk of injury. But the injuries are quite high in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, particularly to fingers, knees, and necks. If I remember correctly, I was looking at some data recently, but yeah, you have to be clear about what you're doing.Why? And also the, the risk to benefit ratio for sure.  

Brad Thorpe: Yeah. Who's the, who's the legendary guru? Um, he's a North American guy. Works with all the MMA guys. John, John Danahan, John,  

Ted Ryce: John Danaher. Yeah. He's the Kiwi, the New Zealand guy.  

Brad Thorpe: Yeah, that guy. So he came out, he must've made a comment about when you get a little bit older because you're not as strong. 

As a jujitsu practitioner, um, so you got to get a little bit more skillful and usually as you get older, you get more skillful, but your strength to skill changes, right? So you get more skillful and your strength usually goes off. And I guess he sort of, um, was quoted as saying, well, when you get older, you should actually start focusing n building isometric strength to be able to beat up on these little kids because realistically, if I'm going to be put into some sort of, you know, armbar submission type movement. 

It's. If I lack the isometric strength to resist it, I can't prevent it from happening. So, and also, if I'm trying to force a younger guy who may be stronger, if I have a greater level of isometric strength endurance, I'll probably submit him because he's going to fatigue out quicker. So this is a way that we prevent fatigue not Jiu Jitsu, but also in European soccer, football, if you will, right? 

The majority of people get injured when they get tired. Right. When they don't have the ability to maintain that higher level of strength. And this is once again where that isometric component comes in. It's great that you want to work on your fast twitch fibers. But they usually last about 10 to 15 seconds and they're gone. 

And now it's an aerobic based or a type 1 muscle fiber type scenario. So most sport. is aerobic based type one fiber based with the occasional let's go really fast and it'd be explosive but if you take something that's super explosive like basketball the average game speed for basketball is something like three miles an hour okay that's like walking on a treadmill fast. 

Like, you're not even, like, right? It's like, oh, well, that's not fast at all. It's like, no, not really. So they have the ability to stop and change direction really fast. So some of these athletes possess great abilities isometrically. To change direction, to put on the brakes, to create distance between their opponents. 

So, if I'm running down the court and you're backpedaling and I'm running forward, and I choose to stop, you're going to have a couple steps, you know, to, to slow down. Because A, I have the advantage because I had the ball and you were backpedaling. But to create that distance, well now I have the ability to shoot, pass, do whatever it is that I need in that sporting environment. 

So, it's kind of cool when you start to say, well how does isometrics fit into basketball? Or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Well, it literally is the foundation of all sport. It's just understanding that to be able to now manipulate torque, be able to manipulate movement and sort of, um, the world of velocity, well, as soon as you start moving, like, cause you brought up sort of, um, you know, lifting heavy weights earlier. So if I'm doing a one RM, we need to start thinking that that is slow velocity training.  

Ted Ryce: One rep max, right?  

Brad Thorpe: One rep, one rep, three rep maxes.  

Ted Ryce: Just for the uninitiated.  

Brad Thorpe: Yeah. So, it's really, it's slow velocity training. It's not, it's not truly strength training because if you wanted to maximize your strength and your force output. 

So doing an isometric at peak effort will always exceed what you can generate from a force perspective while you're moving. You know, so it's just be mindful of that. I know too technical.  

Ted Ryce: No, no, no. Yeah, I think it's great. I think it's great. And, um, I'm happy to have this conversation. I want to get into probably one of the more challenging things, even for me. 

Which is like, how do I put this into my routine? So, let's be realistic. Someone you, you gave the great example. Just do, you know, you, you talked about the, the 30 and 30, do it six days a week. You have these classes at various ISO fit studios around the world. You've got all these high level teams and elite organizations like the FBI doing in the military, us military doing them. 

But let's say someone listening right now, they're intrigued. There's some butt hurt people listening right now, and they're just listening to continue to raise their stress levels because they're addicted to the, uh, we're not talking about those folks, but there's some people who are intrigued right now. 

And what they're wondering right now, cause I'm wondering this is like, and this is a question I've asked you many times, but I do dynamic exercise, not ready to give it up, especially with a Brazilian jujitsu. How would I incorporate, let's go through some examples of like, okay, I'm going to work out, let's say three times a week, full body exercise, how would I incorporate isometrics for strength? 

In a workout that combines both the type of overcoming isometrics that you're a fan of or yielding if you want to add those into and also dynamic exercises. So let's talk, talk about strength. Like what would you do?  

Brad Thorpe: Well, if your goal is strength, recognize the dynamic side is going to be suboptimal, right? So just recognize that from the beginning. You can't produce the same level of force output, so it's going to be suboptimal relative to that. As you change throughout a range of movement, the load is going to change as well. So the weight that you were lifting probably wasn't actually the resistance that you were lifting. 

So they're, they're different scenarios. So we'll put that in the physics category for a different conversation. It does exist.  

What I would recommend in order to optimize your dynamic environment, you would look at it from, Two different ways. I would have a section where you're dedicated solely to isometrics. The reason for that is because when a muscle contracts, it's going to take that force generated in the muscle. It's going to use that tendon structure and the bone structure to move the skeletal structure, right? So if you have weak tendon, right, and dynamic exercise is really awful, for improving tendon stiffness, right? 

It's because as soon as you move, you're no longer working the same thing you were working. It's inefficient. So if you want to improve tendon stiffness to create better movement patterns, to generate more force, to be more resilient to forces coming to your body, you need to improve your tendon stiffness. 

So that's why the the 30 and 30 protocol is so vital to people in general. Um, now compress that same protocol because you don't want to dedicate 30 minutes to it because you want to do the other stuff. So the 30 and 30 protocol is 10 exercises for your upper body, 10 for your core, 10 for your lower body. 

Reduce the time interval, do 15 seconds and 5 second contractions. So now, it's a 10 minute protocol. Use it as your warm up to your dynamic activity. Now, what, the reason I say it that way is because  

Ted Ryce: Let me be clear, you're saying 15 sec What did you say you said? How many seconds on and how much rest?  

Brad Thorpe: So, basically it's three to one. So 15 second contraction. Okay. Five second rest. So now what you've done is you've taken that same 30, 30 exercise protocol and you compressed it down into 10 minutes. The reason, right, because you need to have a whole body approach because there's muscles that expand and go from like, you know, take your lat as example. 

Right, so it goes from your humerus, which is your arm bone, down to your pelvis. So you have basically via your thoracolumbar fascia, it's also attached to, you know, multiple ribs. It's attached from T12 down to L5, which is your bottom of your thoracic vertebrae, down to Basically, you're, you're, you're sacrum. 

So it's attached to all that stuff, so it spans these distances that if we don't have a whole body approach, we're going to miss out on the opportunity to optimize performance. Now, so you have to look at it that way. So, there's, you know, people out there going, Oh, just mimic the same exercise. It doesn't work as well. 

Like if you want to go do a squat, if you were just to do an isometric squat, yeah, you'll notice an upgrade. You'll notice that your squats get better, but if you have a whole body approach, you'll notice that your squats get infinitely better. So, it depends on what, what level of want and improvement do you require? 

If you're an athlete, you want a lot more, like you want a lot better gain. Um, so just simply like, let's say I did a bicep curl. Then I said I want to do a bicep curl isometric. Well, that's good, but if you want it to be great, well, maybe I'd do a bicep curl isometric, a neutral elbow flexion isometric, and a pronated isometric elbow flexion exercise. 

So that way, when I actually go to do a bicep curl, all the muscles that would be participating are going to work at an optimal level. Versus just, quote unquote, your bicep, which is one of the three primary elbow flexors. So, just having a more conditioned approach to say, what are all the guys playing the game? 

Um, if I get the entire team on board, I'm just going to optimize my movement structure and patterns, um, and I'm going to reduce risk of injury. So, which, which is, you know, twofold improvement. So, for that 10 minutes, if you said, I'm just going to focus on lower body and I'm not going to worry about my upper body. 

Let's say you're a sprinter, right? Because sprinting is a lower body exercise. Well, with the exception of your trunk rotation, with the exception of your elbows, you know, going back in space, you know, so it's, it's kind of like, well, if I improve all of that, the entire system works better. So, so I would push back and just say, broaden the scope of what you do. One set times 10 different exercises is better than one exercise done 10 times.  

Ted Ryce: So just to be clear, when you're going through this cycle of Let's say we're, you know, 10, these 30 exercises, do you alternate between upper body, lower body and core, or you just do all the upper body, then all the core, then all the lower body? Does it matter for you?  

Brad Thorpe: Correct. It's the latter. Um, so sticking from a regional perspective, right? Because it's a slight, there's a slight differentiation, even though it's working similar muscles. Um, in slightly different orientations and different lengths. So, what we have found over the number of years we've been doing this is that works out better than doing, like, let's say you did a protocol, um, we created a whole thing called, um, what was it even called? 

Um, basically a different, um, different daily workout. So, you're looking at three repetitions, ten different exercises. The result was significantly, um, worse. Then doing one exercise. You know, times 30 and repeated that over the course of a day. Um, because when you're looking at exercise rep, like repeatability matters, when you're looking at adaptation, a lot of people, a lot of people, what they do is they go to the gym and they wanna, because they, they go, well, I'm bored doing the same thing. 

Okay, I don't care about your excitement, I care about your results. Um, if you do the same thing repeatedly for a month, same program every day, you'll, you drive adaptation, which allows you to improve, and it allows you to change, as opposed to, oh, I'm bored of doing this, I want to have seven different programs on the week. 

Well, you stimulated something maybe once and not again for another week. So, the, in reality, even though you're exercising all the time, and this is part of the problem with the fitness industry right now, we exercise frequently, well, actually many people don't even exercise frequently, but by changing your program repeatedly, it takes a ton of time to create change. 

You know, so you have to think of your traditional bodybuilding protocols, could they improve the results if they focused on same body parts? Repeatedly at high intensities, right? Now if you think about Arthur Jones and the high intensity community, well, they will say that, oh, just do one repetition and crush it at a hundred percent effort. 

And you've had historic bodybuilders, Doreen Yates being one of them, that goes, yeah, that's how I exercise, right? So, the right amount of performance aid, the right amount of nutrition, and the right amount of muscular stimulus is enough to get bigger. So, because muscles, they care about stimulus, and, you know, I know you know Brad Schoenfeld, and, you know, so he's, he's, um, him and, um, oh, I'm forgetting his name, Philip, he's at McMaster University. 

Stuart Phillips, Stuart Phillips. So, they do a lot of stuff in the, uh, you know, that kind of space, where it's like, what we care about is stimulus. We don't care if it's muscle. Low repetition, high weight. High repetition, low weight. What we care about is taking the muscle to fatigue. 

And when we take the muscle fatigue, you're going to have adaptive processes. Right. Cool. Totally in, totally in agreement with that. I can do that with an isometric in less time. I can create higher levels of force to fatigue the tissue to build the structures, you know, and it's like, okay, cool. So, we can compress that time interval that these athletes or these general fitness people are looking to exercise in, right? 

So, your minimal effective dosage, if you will. So, I like maximal effective dosage, but. You know, so that's why we like that.  

Ted Ryce: I just want to jump in and say, if you're listening right now, if you can find an Isophit studio near you, go and try it. Don't listen to this and try to do it on your own. Of course you can try, but what I would challenge you to do is to go to an Isophit studio and experience it. 

Because even if you don't want to stick with it, even if you find it boring, Or you love it. It's something that it's going to help you think about exercise differently and to bring experience to what Brad is talking about.  

And man, it's just, you know, when I talked to you, Brad, I also realized like, wow, there's a lot of room to grow in the industry, especially when it comes to when room to grow in the industry, specifically about the exercise, the approach to exercise and with longevity in particular to your point. I mean, I don't know if like, okay, well. Everyone's getting injured because it simply because of dynamic exercise. 

But we can definitely say that, you know, the way it pans out for most people, right, it's caught, uh, most people are going to get injured. And so...  

Brad Thorpe: Well, think about, think about that statement for a second. Think of all the personal trainers, you know, which are the frontline exercise dispensers,  

Ted Ryce: right?  

Brad Thorpe: They're all injured. They're all injured. Why are they injured? Because of what they did. Sure, sorry, they're just they're the smart people right at what point and you can say well then I went and studied further and I didn't get injured. Yeah. Okay, then. Why'd you get the surgery? Oh because of what you did earlier So, you know It's got a lifespan that you have to start to really kind of look at and overcome like personally I spent my 20s and 30s in a level of discomfort be it pain because of the way I was exercising and it wasn't until I kind of sort of sat down and thought to myself, I was like, okay, I'm smart enough to understand what is this thing that keeps injuring me? 

Why do I have this issue? Well, it was because of the force and the stimulus that I was putting on it. It wasn't like I was uneducated. You know, you can't out, um, You can't really outsmart physics, let's say, especially when you're trying to create an adaptive change. So you have to be okay with the fact that it's like, how do I make it safer? 

That's what we did. So we made it just safer. And it subsequently is more effective and more efficient. So, so if you don't have time, a lot of people say, I gotta go to the gym for an hour or it's not worth my time. Okay, well, how much exercise did you do in that hour? Realistically, the answer is not very much. 

For most people, not a lot. And walking on a treadmill as much as you want to say it's better than doing nothing. Arguably I'd say, well, sit there and just contract muscle in your chair. And that's better than the treadmill.  

Ted Ryce: I agree with you on that. I think, I think that's a place like, and I I'm with you. The focus is on steps and I think it's easy. I think one of the issues with isometrics is just that. It requires skill and thought versus go get some steps. Do you know how to walk? You may argue that some people don't, Brad, based on their gait, but  

Brad Thorpe: It's a goal everyone should have, it's a skill everyone should have. 

Ted Ryce: So, well, you're right. And that's the, that's kind of the thing, right? So, but, but isometrics, if you're listening right now, you're, you're having a converse, you're listening to a conversation from the future. Is what I think. Uh,  

Brad Thorpe: basically,  

Ted Ryce: yeah.  

Brad Thorpe: You know, it's kinda like when Bill and Ted come back from the, uh, the future, um, you know, and try to save, uh, you know, uh, fix their younger self uhhuh. 

That's kind of what I'm trying to help. So it literally is, I'm Bill and Ted coming back from the future saying, Hey, don't exercise this way. Because what will happen in the future is you'll end up with osteoarthritis. You'll end up with osteoporosis. It actually increases fall risk. Um, you know, the number one leading cause of hospitalization in seniors is falling because they went have joint contact surfaces walking.  

Okay, so most people, let's say they fractured their hip 28 percent of the people that fracture their hip. Never leave the hospital because they die, right? So crazy all because they went for all because they were told to go for a walk get more steps Agree with you on that, right? 

So, when you're looking at how do you increase bone density? Well, what you have to recognize is the tendon structure forms the periosteum, which is the outer surface of the bone. So, if I have a weak tendon if I lack isometric strength, it reduces the amount of force on that tendon consistently and chronically, right, so change isometric for a second to tone. 

If I lack muscle tone, right, isometric force generation, which is muscle tone, I'm going to have a reduction of force on my tendon structure, which is now going to reduce the amount of force on the bone consistently. And the only area where you don't have this thing called this periosteum is actually at the end of the bones where you have joint contact surfaces. 

Otherwise, you have the periosteum forming the outer surface, and at the end of the joints, you have this thing called hyaline cartilage. So, if I lose the strength of my tendon structure, I'm going to have bone weakness. Now, when we get a little bit older, say over the age of 30, we actually start to lose height. 

Like, we’re no longer growing; we’re starting to shrink as a species. We're no longer growing. We're now basically fighting degeneration. Right? So, you can look at anybody in their 60s, 70s, or 80s—they're not as tall as they were in their 30s. They’re just not. So, what happens is the length of the structure changes. 

That means you naturally get looser. Historically, we’ve said, “Oh, you need to get looser as you get older.” No, you’re naturally getting looser. The problem is—and this is where Stuart's research and Brad Schoenfeld's research come in—they say, “Get stronger, get your muscles working better, create tension, and you'll function better.” The answer is yes, you will. 

I’m just saying, let’s supersize that performance enhancement by doing this, because it, comparatively speaking, surpasses the other methods. So, for most of the healthcare benefits that you care about for longevity, there was a recent study that looked at dynamic muscle strength and isometric strength in relation to longevity. 

Dynamic muscle strength improved longevity by 14%. That’s pretty amazing. What they found with improved isometric strength was a 31% increase in longevity. So, people who have higher levels of isometric strength outperform those with greater levels of dynamic strength by 221%.  

Ted Ryce: Yeah. 

Brad Thorpe: Right. So, it’s not insignificant. 

Ted Ryce: For sure, for sure. And it’s easy to see why that would be the case, especially if you’ve done some of the training. So, because we’re coming up on 50 minutes here, I want to refer people to some of your resources. One thing you can do if you’re curious about this and want to go deeper, is check out Brad’s Isophit channel on YouTube. 

So, that’s Brad Thorpe, T-H-O-R-P-E, and Isophit is spelled I-S-O-P-H-I-T, and his channel will come up. There’s a ton of stuff, including a podcast that you do. Where else would you have people go? 

Brad Thorpe: Well, our website really, Isophit.com. That’ll give you access to the YouTube channel, older podcasts we’ve done, and it goes over some of the scientific literature that will benefit your sport performance or health. It’s all cited, so I don’t have to make this stuff up. There’s some unbelievable research scientists out there doing all this work on isometrics, and I just sort of say, “Oh, thanks for the new information, this is great.” It’s usually always positive. There was one study a couple of years ago that said isometrics can’t always be that good. They did a five-minute flexed arm hang, and they found it increased inflammation within the joint. 

 Yeah, don’t do five minutes. 

Ted Ryce: Right, don’t do five minutes. 

Brad Thorpe: Like, don’t be stupid. Obviously, you can make anything bad, but the key is to make everything good. How do you make running better and less injurious when 70-90% of people who run injure themselves? That’s not health. It might be fun—you might avoid your husband or wife, avoid your kids, and have a community of like-minded individuals doing a great thing, but you’re all injured. Why? So, once again, I’m not saying don’t run, but do some isometrics before you go for a run. What you’ll find is it reduces the impact of the trauma associated with external force coming into your structure in high repetitions, i.e. running. You’ll reduce the risk of injury with running. How do we know? We’ve seen it many times with Isophit users, who therefore reduce the amount of injury associated with running. It doesn’t eliminate it, because you’ve still chosen a high-risk activity. 

Also, to your point, you can find me on Instagram. There’s a ton of stuff on Instagram that we put out. You’ll get to see who some of our clients are. If they’re on our page, somehow we are directly or indirectly working with them. We work with some of the best strength coaches on the planet. They’re all awesome, and like me, they have an opinion. So, I offend a lot of people by speaking what I believe to be the truth based on the ungodly amount of research I’ve read and from being a subject area expert for a long period of time. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah, and Brad, I appreciate you. I always come away with, well, I’ll be honest, I gravitate away from isometric training naturally, as most of us do, because it’s just not habitual in our training. I incorporate more isometrics than most, of course, from being in the Resistance Training Specialist program and from talking to you for so many years. 

But yeah, every time I talk to you, I’m like, “Damn, I keep forgetting about how to put this stuff in and to start to prioritize it, especially when I’m feeling beat up.” I think that might be a good way to get people on the isometric bandwagon. Let’s say you’re a bit beat up, like I was feeling from jiu-jitsu the other day. Instead of going to the gym and doing my Zone Two, or some intervals, or a bit of lifting, I did the 30 in 30. Where can people find the 30 in 30? Is that something they can buy on your website? 

Brad Thorpe: It’s actually on YouTube for free.  

Ted Ryce: You can go do it on YouTube for free. There you go. 

Brad Thorpe: Yeah, and people get mad at me—my investors say I should be charging for that—but I want to help you. We have 15 hours of free education, over 200 videos on isometric exercises you can do. We have our 30 in 30 protocol up there that you can just download or watch.  

The issue is, it’s done with the Isophit. If you don’t own the Isophit, I encourage you to buy it, because it makes the experience better. If you don’t have it, try to recreate the exercises. Historically, where it came from, I needed a fancy wall in the middle of a room. So, I can use a wall, a door frame, a towel, a yoga strap, a chin-up bar, or a Smith machine bar. I can do isometrics virtually anywhere. By going to our YouTube channel, it’ll stimulate some thought as to how you can recreate this. You can obviously work your glutes. 

I’m comfortable saying that Isophit is the best exercise product ever created because of the experience and the variety of exercises we can create with it. So for your audience, go to our YouTube channel—it’s the best resource for isometrics. Just learn, implement it, and make your own decision when you start to see the changes.  

Many people go to the gym hoping for change, but they do the same things that haven’t led to any change. What I’m pretty much guaranteeing is if you start doing isometrics, you’ll notice a massive change within the first month. Not six months, not a year. We had one lady, Maria, down in Mexico who lost three dress sizes in 22 days doing isometrics. No diet modification, no cardio, no weightlifting. She did 11 hours of committed exercise time, 25% of which was rest, and the rest was isometric contractions. She lost three dress sizes. 

 Ted Ryce: Wow, that’s mind-blowing. 

Brad Thorpe: Right. Then there’s the other side of it: we see guys who care about their one-rep maxes. By increasing their isometric strength, they blow through their PRs within weeks, sometimes even with a single use. I worked with Lee Boyce a couple of years ago, and I’m pretty sure you know Lee. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah, I’ve had him on the show before. 

Brad Thorpe: There you go. Lee is a friend and an advocate of Isophit, and he uses one consistently in his training. He came in a couple of years ago to learn more about it, and he asked how this would help his bench press, squat, and deadlift numbers. Back then, those numbers mattered to him. Afterward, he blew by them. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah. 

Brad Thorpe: Within the month we trained together, he lost 16 pounds and set personal records. 

Ted Ryce: That’s awesome. 

Brad Thorpe: You typically don’t set records when you’re losing weight. So, when you look at strength-to-mass ratios, we made him significantly stronger, which was really cool. That’s a testament to Lee’s dedication and willingness to learn something new. That’s the biggest obstacle we face—this ungodly bias toward certain exercise methods. 

 Brad Thorpe: You typically don’t set records when you’re losing weight. So, when you look at strength-to-mass ratios, we made him significantly stronger, which was really cool. That’s a testament to Lee’s dedication and willingness to learn something new. That’s the biggest obstacle we face—this ungodly bias toward certain exercise methods. 

Ted Ryce: It’s not even that Brad, it's not that people have a hard time changing. It doesn't matter what you ask them to change. I feel what I think it does actually matter. But if there's an emotional attachment to something, whether it's food, like low people on with their ketogenic diets, you try to get them to eat carbs or whether you know what we're talking about, people been indoctrinated. 

And with a dynamic exercise and they have an emotional attachment to it. It's really tough to change. And that's people think I'm into hardcore physiology, which I am most of what coaching is typically, at least that's what I feel like it is. It's the, the psychology.  

Brad Thorpe: It's this. Oh, well, and that's what it is. Now, here's an interesting thing because we didn't bring this up. So if you're still guys, if you're still listening to this subject area, this far down the. Trap. Yoga.  

Ted Ryce: Uh huh.  

Brad Thorpe: Yoga is mostly isometric. Right. Right? Like, hold that posture, hold that position. So, if you're struggling with going, Oh, Brad doesn't like this, this, this. 

I didn't say I didn't like anything. Do everything. Prepare for what it is. So, if you want to do yoga, that's a great way. Specific postures and holds within yoga are a Isometric based. The majority of it, as we discussed, most Jiu Jitsu is isometric based. Most martial arts, a lot of their training is isometrics. 

Ballet, stand on one foot and manipulate your body while your foot's on the ground. That's usually an isometric, right? The benefit is the fact that you could maintain your foot on the ground. Uh, so there's all this stuff that we just have to explore things differently. A deadlift, the majority of joints are being held together isometrically. 

You got a couple moving joints. Squat, same comment. Bench press, same comment. We just have to look at how we're looking at things and change it slightly. The thing that holds the form is an isometric. Doesn't matter the time interval. So, Kurt Browning, who's a, uh, the first guy who ever did a quad in figure skating. 

So, that's four revolutions. So, each revolution was 2 seconds. Right, so not an insignificant amount of time, and I didn't work with Kurt when he did his quad, I worked with Kurt when we restored his career and allowed him to participate and still do backflips at 57 years old on the ice. But when you're looking at holding a rotation, the rotation when you're holding it, is an isometric. 

Doesn't matter that it was four revolutions in 0. 8 seconds. And if he doesn't maintain that isometric, he doesn't perform the jump. Same with most divers, and you're looking at centripetal force creation. If you want to improve your ability to rotate, get isometrically strong, and that'll help with your rotation. 

So, all, like, it literally is everything to every sport. Because it's, uh, the foundation of all movement. So comfortable to say that because it's true.  

Ted Ryce: Yeah, man. Love you for it. And certainly if you're not including isometrics in your program, you're missing out and you're leaving gains on the table. You're leaving health benefits on the table and also, um, yeah, something that may drop your blood pressure. 

If done the right way. So always a pleasure, man. I can't wait to, I'm all fired up to, uh, try some of these 30 and 30 as I'm thinking about, you know, my own training. If you're listening right now, and again, you want to go a little bit deeper, you want to try the 30 and 30 go to Isophit. com that's I S O P H I T.com. All the stuff is there. The podcast, the 30 and 30, everything that Brad talked about. If you want to buy an ISO fit and really get into it, there's even a place where you can book a call. So definitely look into this. It's, it's something that can literally change the way you take care of your body and even your life. 

Brad Thorpe: I appreciate you, buddy.  

Ted Ryce: Yeah, man. Always a pleasure, Brad. We'll talk next time. See you soon.