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Summary
On episode 270 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Derek Beres, who has taught yoga, fitness, and studio cycling at Equinox since 2004, created the Flow Play movement and music format in 2014, and writes as a columnist for Big Think and 24Life. His book is Whole Motion: Training Your Brain and Body for Optimal Health.
Derek argues that exploring a wide range of movement, rather than sticking to one pattern or none at all, is the healthiest option available to us, and that training the brain matters as much as training the body.
The conversation covers how form and muscle memory reinforce each other for better or worse, his three part regeneration program, Tabata intervals, and the concept of mismatch disease, where modern environments no longer match the bodies we evolved with.
Links
- https://www.derekberes.com
Key Takeaways
- Variety of movement is the healthiest option available. Derek says getting stuck in a single movement pattern, or in a sedentary one, is where most health problems start. Trying different disciplines keeps the body and brain adaptable.
- Form and muscle memory reinforce each other, for better or worse. Repeating a movement teaches your body to remember it, so bad form practiced consistently becomes just as ingrained as good form, which is why coaching and attention matter early on.
- Training your brain matters as much as training your body. Whole Motion pairs physical training with attention and focus work, since Derek considers unhealthy attentional patterns, like not paying attention to your environment, as dangerous as unhealthy movement patterns.
- His regeneration program has three parts: Feldenkrais, strength training, and yoga or meditation. Feldenkrais uses small, deliberate movements to restore pain free basics like getting up off the floor. Meditation, which Derek calls one of the hardest exercises there is, builds the focus and emotional regulation that carries into every other workout.
- Tabata intervals are an efficient bodyweight tool, but form has to come first. The classic protocol of 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest for 4 minutes spikes the metabolism quickly, but Derek always walks a class through a slow round first so form doesn't break down under the pace.
- Modern life is full of “mismatch disease.” Derek borrows the term from paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman to describe how our built environment, from sitting at a 90 degree angle to eating heavily processed sugar, doesn't match what our bodies evolved to handle.
- Social connection at the gym is a genuine longevity factor. Derek points to Blue Zones research showing strong social ties among the longest lived populations, and says some of the best relationships in his own life come from training alongside other people.
- Distraction undermines the mind-body connection a workout depends on. Derek regularly sees people texting between sets and says their attention split means they're not getting close to an optimal workout, since your form suffers whenever your mind is somewhere else.
“This book is about motion, disruption, and regeneration, predicated on an understanding that exercise is as important for your brain as it is for your body.”
Derek Beres
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