Joe Rogan on Yoga and Rickson Gracie

Does the exercise work better or the same as work, like for managing depression? The workout is maintenance. It doesn't achieve much, but I achieve the workout. But you feel like the endorphin release, does that help you? Yes. Yeah, it does. And I, as the Buddhists say, I made merit. I went in there and did my time on the treadmill. I don't want to be there. You know, like the last 15 minutes, I'd rather be somewhere else. Like, you know, it's cool. You'll be fine. Sit down. Do your work. That's why before the podcast, I was suggesting hot yogurt to you. And you seem to be very stiff lately. You've got some injuries and some things bothering me. It's all coming back. Yeah. Dude, I'm telling you, that'll fix a lot of that shit. It'll really change. Yeah, I know you have a great workout diversity. And you and I were talking before, we were at your place and you said some mornings you feel like training this way and you'll go to that gym or you'll train like with judo or whatever. And then the next day it's going to be kettlebells. You really like to mix it up. I think it's good for a body to always be guessing what's coming next. Yeah, I think that's important. I also, there's some things that I really have to do. I think I need at least one day of hard cardio a week. And I think I need at least one day of hard lifting weights a week. But I also think I need at least one day of yoga a week at least. Yoga is, to me, it's one of the most important things that I do because for that 90 minutes I can't go anywhere. I don't touch my, my phone's not in the room with me. It's just me and a jug of water and the yoga mat and the class and a bunch of old ladies that are kicking my ass. These old ladies are fucking tough, man. This is old lady. She goes to this workout class. I see her there all the time. She's got to be close to 70. She doesn't even bring water. She just toughs it out. She's there for 90 minutes sweating and grunting through the postures. And those, you're doing an hour and a half class, those last 20 minutes in 104 degrees. It's so hard to get through. But when you get through, you just feel like, you feel better. I just, I almost like can't, while I'm in it, I can't wait to do it again. Like while I'm struggling and I was like, God, I need to do more than this. I need to do this more often rather. I can't wait to do this again. I always feel that. And it just lengthens everything. All the back things and the leg things, the hamstring things, just stretches everything out and lengthens it and all the tension. It just straightens it out and loosens it up. I just feel like for a guy like you or I who does a lot of, especially like you still got a heavy lifting, you were saying, a lot of deadlifts and squats, this is the antidote for all that stuff. It's decompression and for your body maintenance, it's just phenomenal. Probably lets loose the lactic acid out of your muscle tissue. Yeah. Here's what I've observed. I live in Los Angeles, so there's a lot of yoga people, but I know them because they have a mat. But you can also see how they walk, how they sit. They're so in their body and there is a grace to, I'm not trying to put anyone in the pejorative, but a yoga person where there's not only are they limber, they're just really okay. Their body articulation, you're like, okay, I don't have that. I'm a herky, jerky, uncoordinated person, but there's a hum coming from that person's overall body. It's a beautiful machine, the way they articulate themselves and the way they sit. It's a very unusual balance, the balance of like the horse-tricling. But you can tell someone who does it, they have that. And it's not subtle. I recognize it in people. You would love it, man. You know what you would love it? Because it fucking sucks. And while you're doing it, man, you have the internal dialogues crazy. You want to bolt. You want to bolt, but you also start going over your life and your mind and dealing with all your bullshit and your to-do list and all the things you're doing wrong or slacking. There's something about really struggling in these static positions for like a minute where you're trying to like hold your leg up there and your sweat is literally pouring off your arms and your head. There's something about that, man, that it's just really cleansing. It just really empties you. I just think it's a thing that you're missing that you would really love if you tried. I bet if you did it and then you came back and we did a podcast a year later, it'd be like, fuck yoga. I fucking love it. It's changed my life. It's changed my life. Yeah, I know. A lot of fighters, a lot of people who are hectic for a living, they're yoga people. And like in the 70s, you say yoga, someone's going to punch you. Like yoga, wham. Well, you know why I found out about it? Do you know what Hicks and Gracie is? Well, are we talking about the Gracie, the family? Well, the family, Hoys Gracie is the most famous because he's probably the most important figure ever in the history of martial arts because he won the first Ultimate Fighting Championship and showed that a small man can actually beat larger men with technique and skill. Well, his brother is Hickson and his brother is like universally regarded as one of the greatest jujitsu guys, if not the greatest of all time. And he was different than everybody else in that he did yoga. Like his thing was, like I'd never heard of a martial artist that got into yoga, but Hickson would do these breathing exercises and he'd do these balance beam exercises and he was always doing yoga and stretching. And that was a giant part of his workout. And he was above and beyond everyone else in his time period, like in the 90s, everyone was scared of Hickson. He was the man. I mean, but it wasn't like there was any debate. It's very rare that you get something that is so antagonistic and so tightly contested as two men using martial arts techniques trying to strangle each other. And one guy stands above all by such a large margin. And that was Hickson. And I really do believe that part of it was his mind. Part of it was his physicality. But a lot of that physicality was enhanced by his dedication to yoga. Yeah, he's a legit yogi. Like he does that fire breathing shit where he sucks his stomach in in that weird way and has it move up and down. Wow. You ever see someone do that? Yeah. He does that like a real yogi. It's a real trip. And I think because of his physical ability, he could see it there. He's got this video here. You could see him do this fire breathing shit. Like watch what he does with his stomach. It's kind of fucking crazy. He sucks his stomach way, way, way up deep into his rib cage. He does this breath of fire thing. And then as it gets going, he starts pumping his like here. You see if you pull it up there, Jamie, the part where he starts to do it. Look at this. Wow. Yeah. Like what the fuck, man? Isn't that insane? Yeah. It's crazy. And this is one of the things he has abdominal muscle control. Yeah. Who gets that? That's a muscle group. You never try and articulate, make it do anything. Yeah. Well, he, you know, he'd practice yoga for a long, long, long time. And because of that, he had this phenomenal core strength and phenomenal balance. And he just had a giant advantage over everyone else. And I think a lot of that advantage was his, his ability to move his body was different, but it also just for a guy like you that's been just lifting weights for so long, it's the perfect antidote for your body. It's like your body will react to like, Oh yeah, stretch this out. Thank you. Thank you. I've been asking for this. Yeah. You know, lengthen this, hold that pose. This is instead of just lifted something, you know, which is like what men like to do. Instead of that, you're holding your arms out there like that. You're like, fuck, I don't even have any weight in these things. And I want to drop them. Yeah. I've done a, you know, every once in a while I've worked out with someone else and they go, okay, we're going to do this and this. And then you work out with, and then you let them, you let yourself be trained. Yeah. And I've done a few workouts like, okay, I'm going to kill you. I'm like, okay, what does that mean? Because by the end of this, you won't be able to take your shirt off to change. And I've done, you know, where you're benching this much, then this much, then this much, you're going to do like 150 reps. And by the time you can't lift the bar and you can't lift your arms, you're literally trembling from exhaustion. And I've told that to people. They go, that's yoga. You will tremble from exhaustion and you'll be so happy when you leave because of how good you feel and you can't wait to go back. And you won't blow your joints out the way you will with weightlifting. I already have. Yeah. There's no way around it. I've paid.