Client Results (Larry, 56 y/o):
Before photos: February 2024
After photos: May 2025
Iâve dealt with chronic low back pain since the early 1990s. In 2012, I herniated my L3-L4 and L4-L5 discs with 5mm herniations on the right side. For years, I struggled with constant pain, stiffness, and nerve symptoms that significantly limited my quality of life.
Before starting Functional Patterns in February 2024, I had what felt like a constant knot in my right glute for nearly two years, along with nerve pain running down my right leg. Eventually, the pain also began affecting my left leg. Car rides longer than 45 minutes became extremely difficult, I couldnât lift anything remotely heavy, and running or participating in sports was out of the question. The pain was always present â typically around a 3â4 daily, but flare-ups could reach a 6â7 or higher. At one point, I couldnât even complete the drive from Austin to Houston due to the pain.
After about two months of FP, most of the nerve pain was gone. Since then, the focus has been on retraining my body and muscles to function properly again. For the most part, I can now push myself relatively hard without fear of major flare-ups, and Iâm able to handle demanding tasks around the house again.
The improvements have been significant:
⢠Posterior right hip and glute stiffness/nerve pain: from a 4â5 down to a 1â2
⢠Low back pain: from a 5â6 down to a 1â2
⢠Nerve pain: previously a 7â8 at its worst, now mostly gone or only a mild awareness
⢠Upper thoracic spine mobility: dramatically improved
⢠Knee pain: now hardly noticeable
⢠Neck stiffness: significantly improved
At 56 years old, I can confidently say my body feels worlds better than it did before starting FP.
Most people will agree that overall health is up there with being arguably the most important thing to take care of. But often times people fail to account for all the variables and pillars to health. Looking after your health doesnât mean youâre addressing symptoms. If you arenât reverse engineering the problems you have to find out the root cause in the system youâre employing, youâre half assing your attempt at solving the problems in the first place. Which is inherently lazy.
Sounds so cliche, but thereâs no such thing as a quick fix, or a get rich quick tactic. What makes you think your health is an exception? You gotta put in the work and learn to discern what the actual best way of doing things is. When it comes to improving your physiological health on a general basis, nothing has hit the nail on the head quite like @functionalpatterns
In life you have obstacles⌠problems set in front of you and you have to learn to coordinate and move accordingly to get past said obstacles. You can take the blue pill route and mask the issue temporarily. This will allow you to move forward with the illusion your problem has been solved. This would be the equivalent to taking medication or surgical intervention to resolve the symptom(s) of a problem that has been inhibiting you. You can also take the red pill route, which leads to far more accountability and may seem less pleasant initially. But ultimately allowing one to understand what really caused the problem in the first place. Thus, providing a foundation to addressing the deficiencies within the system put in place.
Thatâs what FP does. It teaches humans to work in integration, not isolation. Thatâs the key to athleticism, longevity and ultimately, strength in every facet of human movement.
If you want to learn more about how you can overcome and prevent injury, improve mobility, minimize anxiety and instability, and quite literally be more resilient, Contact myself or a FP practitioner near you.
-Continued in commentsâŚ
Iâm the type of person whoâs always looking for better ways to do things. More specifically, ways to move and work more intelligently.
Not that working hard doesnât have its place⌠but where and how you put in the effort is far more important. This is how humans thrived and progressed to put us at the very top of the food chain. We learned to be efficient.
Once I understood the basis of our evolution and how traditional exercise practices just never accounted for the variables that facilitated our physiological blueprint, it only made sense to me that we must follow a regimen that is congruent with our evolutionary demands.
For years I, like many others, relied on strength training for strength, yoga or stretching for flexibility. Arbitrary lifts to create tension, and stretches to release it. Until I discovered FP almost 5 years ago. Since then I never looked back.
Why wouldnât your training stretch, strengthen and regenerate your joints all at once? This is the question I asked myself when I first began studying exercise science.
If you are strength training to move better on a general basis and keep your joints healthy, then your movement and training regimen should facilitate stretches and improve your structural alignment all in one. If your training doesnât do this, itâs limited.
FP takes compound movements to the next level to make you better at being a human. Thats how you maximize your bodyâs efficiency and its relationship with the forces we encounter daily in our environment.
So what movements are the priority? Standing, walking, running and throwing. Its that simple. Application of how to improve in these becomes a bit more complicated. But if you can literally get better at doing what you regularly do as a human and address the nuances in those movements, thatâs how you get stronger while eliminating useless levels of pain.
As a result, every derivative of human movement becomes easier to improve. What you canât do is skip the first step⌠the principal of moving to be a better human. This is how you ultimately achieve long term results without the plateaus.
#regenerativetraining #fp #functionalpatterns #fptexas #worksmarter
Gym memberships, classes, and even insurance can quietly become a cycle of managing problems instead of solving them. People donât struggle with costâthey struggle with the level of accountability real change actually requires. @functionalpatterns isnât designed to keep you dependent, itâs designed to teach you how to understand and fix your own body.
Iâve had countless conversations with people who admit this work has helped them more than anything else theyâve tried, after spending thousands chasing other solutions. But the frustration always comes back to the same thing: the level of effort, patience, and intention it takes to actually solve the problem.
And the truth is, it does take time. A year. Two. Maybe more. Thatâs not failure⌠thatâs the process of undoing years (often decades) of patterns that created the issue in the first place.
Youâre not just training for today - youâre shaping what your body feels like 10, 15, 20 years from now. That outcome is dictated by the habits you build and the standards you hold yourself to now. You can keep chasing whatâs familiar⌠or commit to what actually works.
The difference is accountability.
Longevity isnât built on trends⌠itâs built on respecting the complexity of the human system.
The body doesnât operate in isolation. Everything is connected. Most people specify nervous system training, musculoskeletal system training and chemical system training.
Most approaches simplify variables because itâs easier to teach, easier to market, and easier to scale. But simplifying the system doesnât make the system simpler⌠it just leaves blind spots.
Donât get me wrong, I know how isolated training has its place. But itâs such a small piece of the pie. When that becomes the foundation of your program, especially in bodies that are already imbalanced, you reinforce dysfunction instead of resolving it. Adding load to outdated movement strategies doesnât automatically lead to improved performance⌠it often just accelerates wear and tear.
A lot of what we see in the industry is recycled information packaged slightly differently. Small tweaks layered onto the same framework that has left many people plateaued, in pain, or constantly chasing the next fix. From the outside, it often looks like weâre renovating the paint while ignoring structural damage.
I didnât get into this field just to make people sweat⌠I got into it to become a better problem solver. That means accounting for more variables. Gait mechanics, rotational capacity, respiration, structural balance, force transfer, and how they interact over time.
Anyone can give you a hard workout.
Fewer people can help your body function better 10, 20, 30 years from now.
The goal isnât just to get stronger.
The goal is to become more efficient, more adaptable, and more resilient with time.
Because the real flex isnât what your body can tolerate todayâŚ
itâs what it can still do decades from now.
Most people think training is about workouts.
Here, itâs about people.
Silvio trains both Chris and his wife. At the start of the session, Chris asks what she worked on so he can support her at home, and Silvio gives him a few things to look out for.
We listen first. We assess how someone moves, how they live, and what their structure requires.
Then we build from there.
Thatâs how we do it.
#functionalpatterns #fptexas #care #austin
Nearly 18 years on the mat.
Iâve never measured progress by belts or titles, only by how deeply I can understand and refine the craft.
Jiu-jitsu was the first discipline that showed me what controlled chaos really looks like. Movement under resistance. Problem solving under pressure. Efficiency over effort. Over time, it became more than a sport to me. It became a way to understand what I want my body to be capable of now and decades from now. It also played a huge role in shaping my respect and admiration for biomechanics as a whole.
In many ways, itâs the opposite of what I do professionally.
In jiu-jitsu, youâre taught to make another human as unathletic as possible. You remove leverage, limit options, and guide movement toward a controlled outcome. In my work, I do the inverse. I teach people how to reclaim leverage, how to place themselves in the most mechanically favorable positions, and how to become harder to break down.
Both worlds are governed by the same principles. Structure precedes power. Position dictates outcome. Efficiency beats force.
What makes this promotion especially meaningful is who it came from. I started this sport alongside my brother, @giancarlobodoni . For a good bit, we were each others primary training partners. Iâve watched him master this art up close and from afar. Itâs a path Iâve always deeply respected. To receive recognition and guidance from someone who understands the process at that level carries a different weight.
Itâs also been almost three years since moving to Austin and training under the watchful eyes of @danaherjohn , @garrytonon , and @gordonlovesjiujitsu . Being surrounded by that level of precision, discipline, and accountability has reshaped how I see the art. They, as well as all my great training partners @kingsway_hq are a huge reason I feel even somewhat deserving of this promotion.
The rank changes, the standard doesnât. The work continues.
Just wrapped up a sharp first session in Tokyo đŻđľ with @giancarlobodoni and coach @danaherjohn . Giancarlo's @onechampionship debut against Rafael Lovato Jr. is going to be HUGE. Catch it live on Nov 15th at 10pm CST!
Another HBS in the books. Thanks to @_pablo_martin__ and @johnmarshallnielson for putting together another great course. Itâs been over 4 years since my last HBS course back in Hawaii so itâs been great to jump back into a room of doers on a similar mission to solve even the most difficult physical problems society faces today.
According to the Arthritis Foundation and Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, joint replacements continue to surge, hip and knee surgeries are projected to rise by over 150â200% in the next 20 years, while spine procedures are expected to grow around 30â40%.
This explosion in degenerative conditions underscores the urgent need for biomechanically intelligent training systems. Functional Patterns methodology and its multivectoral resistance work address the root: restoring tension, decompression, and fascial integration to sustain the bodyâs structure long before surgery ever comes into question.
This fundamental understanding combined with the technology being developed is why Iâm extremely grateful to be exposed to such a wealth of knowledge, both for personal reasons and as a trainer. Itâs an easy reminder why Iâve chosen to be a part of, and a contributor towards pushing this message to the people I care about and sharing it with those who understand the value in not just masking issues they experience in their bodies.
Looking forward to whatâs to come. Itâs long overdue that we stop recycling ancient methods to solve the same problems that society faces and change our first principles to push the envelope of human health and optimization.
#functionalpatterns #makehumansfunctionalagain
