The 10-second floor test I gave Pedro that'll save your knees

Hi there,

Last week I told you something most people may never realize: the pain you experience in your knee, your hip, your lower back often isn't coming from where you feel it. It travels up from the floor (taking the heat for a crime your foot committed).

So this week, as promised, I'm going to walk (no pun intended) through how I often start with my clients, including Pedro Pascal. I'll break down a ten-second test you can try right now to see whether your own feet are doing their job properly. As well as 1 or 2 tips to get you moving better immediately. Of course, reading about these things is useful. But to get the benefits of the tips, you need to do them. So before we dive in, my challenge to you is – will you read this email and then move on with your day? Or take the exercise and do them before your RISE311 shake tomorrow?

Before I put Pedro under a single squat or into a deadlift for The Mandalorian, we made sure he was transferring force from the floor correctly.

There's no point piling weight on a lunge or a squat if the movement pattern underneath it is broken. An important rule I live by: clean up the pattern first, then load it. And before we clean up the pattern, we need to see and diagnose it without weight.

First, what we're checking for is stability. Not the standing still kind, but the kind that holds you steady when you actually move. The proper word for it is torque, and it's simpler than it sounds.

Torque is the grip you create by trying to twist your foot into the floor, instead of just standing on top of it.

That grip travels up the leg and locks the knee and hip in place. With the proper torque, your joint feels safe and supported. Without it, the whole kinetic chain goes loose and a little wobbly.

That's where the aches sneak in. It's the difference between moving well into your seventies and wearing your joints down, one movement at a time.

So, stand up (yes, right now).

Set your feet almost straight, pointing roughly forward. Try to screw them into the floor: twist them outward against the ground without actually letting them move.

Feel that? That's stability flooding up the leg.

Now turn your feet out, to about 45 degrees, and try exactly the same thing. Notice how much harder you have to work, and how little you get back?

The first way (with your feet pointing forward) should feel far steadier. That's the part most people (and sadly coaches) get backwards. Plenty of them (people or coaches) will tell you to point your toes out to give yourself a "stable base" for squatting. Why? Because it is a quick and easy "trick" to get yourself into a lower squat immediately. Your knees just pay the invoice later. The reality of "toes out" is it does the opposite. It pulls the floor out from under you.

[Sidenote: one exception that actually matters. Some people are simply built to stand with their feet turned out. If your hips are what's called retroverted (the top of your thigh bone sits rotated in its socket, so the leg naturally wants to point outward), forcing your feet dead-straight will only jam the joint.

Quick way to check: lie face down on the floor, bend one knee to 90° so your shin points at the ceiling, then let your foot lazily fall outward across your body, and then inward away from it. Compare the two. If your foot swings much further one way (the outward fall, letting the hip rotate in), your hip probably wants a touch more turnout than the next person's. If the two feel roughly even, you're built to point closer to straight. Do it relaxed. You're feeling for what your hip gives you, not forcing range.

This is a rough indicator, not a diagnosis (a specialist can measure it properly). But it's enough to know which side of the line you're on. So the rule isn't "everyone points dead ahead." It's "find the least turnout your own body comfortably allows, and build from there."]

The goal with creating this torque (screwing into the floor) is to create an arch in your foot. You've got one, and it's meant to do a job. So, with your foot facing forward, screw it into the floor again and watch the arch lift on its own. Then turn the foot out to 45 degrees (as before) and try again: you'll fight for it…but most likely nothing happens.

When the arch in your foot can't lift like that – we call it arch collapse. And the wobble spreads up the whole chain: foot, knee, hip, back.

If you just tried this and your arch refused to budge, good. You've found something worth working on. You've also found something that most people will never even check.

The good news is the first fix is simple.

A stiff foot can't build a good arch, so we have to free up the foot first. Grab a ball, a lacrosse ball, a golf ball, whatever's rolling around the drawer, and roll it slowly under your foot. Hunt for the spots that feel tender or sore through the arch, and work them for a minute or two. You're waking the foot up and getting it mobile enough to do its job.

Once the foot is awake, an exercise called the monster walk helps to teach the rest of the chain.

If you've never heard of the monster walk, here's what you do: loop a band just above your knees, sink into a quarter squat with your hips pushed back (not your knees pushed forward), and step sideways. Push your knees out against the band the whole time. That outward push is the torque again, and it's what keeps you steady as you move. Take a few steps with your feet neutral (forward as you felt before) and feel how planted you are. Then turn your feet out (to around 45 degrees) and walk again. Feel that steadiness disappear? I recognize it looks deeply stupid (so perhaps don't do it in the office). It's also one of the most useful things you'll do all week.

One last point here. These exercises above are discrete checks, not a full program. They'll tell you whether the chain is working and give you a good sense of what good movement feels like. But they won't fix your exact pattern, because that involves assessing unique movements and usually a specialist who can see what you can't.

This is the shift I gave Pedro. He stopped asking "what's wrong with me?" and started asking "what else am I capable of?" It all started on the floor.

Of course, once you're moving and recovering better, your work deserves fuel that earns its place. Fuel that's enough to clear the leucine threshold and switch on muscle repair (or the mTOR pathway, to the geeks among us). And as you know, every serving of RISE311 gets you there. Assuming you've done your work here, grab a shake for a job well done. And next week, another celebrity's transformation — and a few more tips you can use right away. Until then.

Stay healthy,

Jason
RISE311

P.S. The new Masters of the Universe film landed this week, and Alison Brie gave an interview covering all sorts of information on her training. Can you guess what she keeps in her gym bag? Let's just say we're proud. Read it on Women's Health (which comes out this weekend).

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