The NeuFit Undercurrent Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Most of us were told that running is the purest path to leanness, heart health, and a long life. Mark Sisson spent a career as an elite endurance athlete, becoming a sub-2:18 marathoner and top finisher at Ironman, before his own body forced him to question all of it. In this conversation, he makes the case that – for many people – "chronic cardio" quietly breaks the body down more than building it up, and that the movement your body is actually engineered for is one that we have stopped respecting: walking.

In this episode, we get into:

• The broken promises of running for exercise, including injury rates, the fat loss myth, hormonal dysfunctions, and more
• Real aerobic training and why the fastest marathoner on earth trains 80% of the time at an easy, conversational pace
• Why persistence hunting was never a steady-state jog, but more of an alternating walking-climbing-sprinting endeavor
• How modern shoes "brace and encase" our feet, dulling our connection to the ground and setting up injuries
• What a fitness routine looks like when it aligns with evolutionary biology

Mark is 73 and, by his own account, fitter than he's ever been. This makes him one of the rare voices on aging who is living the message in real time. If you want to understand a sustainable framework for fitness and longevity, this episode will clarify how you think about it.

As a physical therapist and creator of the Functional Movement Screen (FMS), Gray Cook has spent more than 30 years changing how we think about human movement. In this episode, recorded at the Functional Movement Systems headquarters in Chatham, Virginia, Garrett sits down with Gray for a wide-ranging conversation on what "functional" actually means, why most of us are chasing symptoms instead of causes, and how to build a body that moves well for life. If you've ever wondered why your training isn't translating into real-life movements or why pain keeps coming back, this episode is for you. 

We cover:

• Why Gray defines "functional" as simply meaning "good enough" in the most important areas that influence musculoskeletal health.
• How movement screening is a status check for the musculoskeletal system, just like we take blood pressure for the cardiovascular system and use an eye chart for the visual system.
• The value of "regressing to progress" by working through the developmental phases: roll → crawl → kneel → squat → stand → walk → run
• The difference between calibration and conditioning (and why most warm-ups are wasted)
• Reclaiming physical culture for everyone from kids in school to adults who have "given up" on regular movement practices
• A real-life example in Gray's assessment of Garrett's movement during their time together
  

If you check a wearable every day to see your readiness and recovery, what are you doing to check your movement system? In this episode, you will learn a clear framework for running that same type of diagnostic on your musculoskeletal health. And underneath all of this is a deceptively simple principle. As Gray puts it, the sustainable path to health, fitness, and vitality is to "first move well, then move often." 

Healing is rarely about fixing a single tissue or structure. In this episode, Lisa Chase, PT, shares the frameworks from her new book, Be Responsible, Because the System Isn't, and describes why true recovery depends on the health of the entire system – from the nervous system and sleep to lifestyle, resilience, and capacity. When the whole system is robust, healing becomes possible. When it's not, symptoms simply move around.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Why pain and injury are often downstream expressions of system overload
• How nervous system regulation shapes recovery, inflammation, and resilience
• The Pyramid of Healing and moving beyond symptom management
• What it means to rebuild health instead of chasing relief
• How tools like movement, lifestyle changes, and technology fit into a whole-system model

This episode is an invitation to rethink healing. It's not something that's done to you, nor is it something done in isolation. Rather, healing is something that emerges when the whole system is supported.

I'm joined today by my colleague at NeuFit, Clay Edgin. Clay has competed in over 80 strength competitions in 6 countries and coached powerlifting clients for nearly a decade. He discovered NeuFit as a client in preparation for the World Armlifting Championships, the world's premier grip strength competition, held annually in Russia. Listen in as Clay describes his experience using NeuFit for rehabilitation and what it's done for his own training, and why he believes it will enable him to compete in strength sports for many years to come.  

In this episode, we are visiting with Steve Capobianco, DC, the co-founder of RockTape. He shares his story of starting RockTape and the incredible education platform that they've built (certifying over 100,000 practitioners worldwide!). He also describes numerous concepts from pain science and the neuro-centric treatment methods that they teach in their curriculum. For our regular listeners, you will recognize a ton of overlap between their approach and ours and see that RockTape offers really valuable tools that complement our work at NeuFit.  

Today, I'm joined by my good friend Joe Distefano. In this episode, Joe talks about his experience recovering form a traumatic brain injury and how specific neurological treatments plus a shift in his mindset ended up making the biggest difference when his progress had stalled.

One of the themes you'll hear in this podcast is how Joe's brain injury served as an "indicator" for him. Because it was sensitive to changes in his environment, his condition showed him exactly when his lifestyle was helping or harming him. He was able to use these learning experiences to craft the interventions and tools he now shares with his business, Runga Life.

I'm joined today by NeuFit's new Director of Research Dr. Ramona von Leden, PhD. Dr. von Leden is spearheading several projects with us here at NeuFit that we're very excited to share with you.

Inspired by her own mother's spinal cord injury, Ramona dove head first into the topic of neuroscience to better understand how to help her mother recover. 

Enjoy!

I'm joined today by Dawn Nasta, a hypertrophy and rehabilitation specialist in the Phoenix area. Dawn's understanding of the nervous system has enabled her to not only get her clients out of pain faster than traditional therapies, but also enabled her to produce champion athletes in the extremely competitive arena of physique sports. She shares insights into how she's been able to help these athletes, including the incredible story of how she helped Ms. Fitness Olympia Whitney Jones avoid surgery and defend her title.    Listen in as Dawn describes how mastering the nervous system can unlock potential for everybody from novices to professional athletes.

I'm joined today by Brad Rowe, a professional bodybuilder and trainer to numerous professional athletes and celebrities. In this episode, Brad describes his experiences using the Neubie to help himself recover from various injuries (far ahead of schedule!) and optimize his own training. He then shares how he's used it to help some other incredible athletes. He talks about his work with Mike Tyson, who Brad trained daily for several months in preparation for Mike's comeback fight at age 54, as well as how he used the Neubie to help Dexter Jackson compete on the main Mr. Olympia stage at age 50. Plus, now that he's just retired from professional bodybuilding, Brad gives us a little glimpse into his next project.