Danny Jones Podcast
#366 - Ancient "Spinal Engine" Theory: Secret to God-Like Longevity & Strength | Nsima Inyang
23 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: How did Nsima Inyang get into unconventional weightlifting?
you are like a wizard when it comes to this, the most unconventional type of weight lifting and muscle movement and even jujitsu that I've ever run into. And not only that, but you are like one of the most physically impressive human beings I've ever hung out with. How the did you, did this happen? First of all, introduce yourself. Give yourself a proper introduction.
Nseema, how do you pronounce your last name?
Is it Nyang? You know what? Honestly, people, if you want to say Nyang, say Nyang. Technically, it's pronounced E-yong, but there's... E-yong. Close. Yeah, there's aspects of that shit that's like Nigerian inflection, right? So it's going to be hard to get it right, but you were close.
Chapter 2: What are the benefits of using a weight sled in training?
Nyang, E-yong, doesn't really matter.
Okay. You do it. You do it well. I had the pleasure of meeting you a couple, what was that, like two months ago maybe when I went up to Sacramento and went on the podcast with you and Mark. We had a great time. You taught me all the sandbag stuff. And we did a cool podcast. And all day yesterday, you spent teaching me all of this crazy, wicked-looking workout stuff. We used the...
What are those berserker bars?
The berserker bars.
Chapter 3: How does testosterone affect fitness and health?
We were using the ropes, doing all kinds of rope twisting and throwing and the juggling, this trampolining. And we just did some jujitsu this morning. So how did you get into all this stuff, dude?
I'm really thankful to my buddy, Mark Bell. Mark Bell. I got to give props to that guy because he brought me on to his... I actually discovered the super training gym back in... 2013 for the first time, that's 12 years ago. I'm 21 years old and I go into his old gym to go to a seminar that he was holding with two guys, Mike and Omar Yusuf. I asked a question in there.
And then a year later, I go to the LA Fit Expo and Mark sees me randomly in the gym. Mark, by the way, he's big on YouTube. He's one of the first OG fitness influencers. He got millions of people into powerlifting. And I met him once, okay? He sees me across the room. I met him once.
Chapter 4: What is the significance of rope flow in fitness?
He's like, you're that guy from Sacramento. You're that big Jack Black dude. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, you should come train at my gym. I'm like, really? He's like, yeah, come train at my gym when you're back in Sacramento. So I start training at his gym. I've already been doing jujitsu a little bit at this time. Then a few years later, he invites me on.
I'm like maybe 23 or 24, nine years ago to co-host his podcast, The Power Project. Mind you, Mark is... been podcasting for like five or six years before that, right? He had a prior podcast that was like one of the biggest podcasts in fitness. He was on Rogan, what, like 14 years ago? Yeah, with his brother, Chris Bell. Yeah, you had a Chris Bell on. Yeah, you know Chris. So he invites me on.
At that point in time, I've already I've already gone and done pro-natural bodybuilding. So I've done a bunch of pro-natural bodybuilding shows. I placed top five in the world as a natural bodybuilder. I competed in powerlifting, right? So I deadlifted 755. I've squatted 625 in the meet. I had a pretty solid powerlifting total. And I really thought, I'm like, I know my shit. You know what I mean?
I know how to get people lean because I was coaching people for bodybuilding shows. I've been a personal trainer for like maybe six or seven years prior to working with Mark. So I was like, I know my stuff, right? Even when he brought me on the podcast, I was still nervous because I'm like, okay, well, now I'm going to be in front of these people talking.
And having so many different professionals come onto the show with very different viewpoints, you notice that everybody has a big piece to this overall puzzle. Nutrition has its tribes. Training and fitness has its tribes. But the thing is, is everyone that comes in has good things to share.
And over time, it forced me to kind of just put myself in the student perspective, get out of the mind of like, Nseema, you know your shit. And instead of being like that, it's like, Nseema, let's learn. Let's learn from this person, ask them questions to not just try to prove the things that I thought were correct, but more so ask them questions to try to,
to try to get better at what I already think I know and to try to improve what I know. And through constantly doing that and being in that student position, that's why I do the things that I do now, because I've realized that there's a lot of good aspects and good ways to eat, right? Some people are pure carnivore, some people are plant-based, there's all these tribes. And you tend to see that
nutrition can be somewhat individual and it can land somewhere in the middle. And I've found that when it comes to your personal fitness or building your own movement practice, it's a similar deal where there again, our tribes, there's the, there's the traditional training tribe. That's all about barbells and dumbbells.
And they typically look at the people that do the functional fitness with the kettlebells and the ropes and the sandbags. Yeah. They're like, what does that And then the functional people are like, we're functional training warriors. And those people are stiff, traditional lifters.
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Chapter 5: How can tongue posture enhance neck strength?
Now, I want you to do it with pressing your tongue against the roof of your mouth. And tell me if you feel anything. If you don't, tell me you don't feel anything. Feel stronger. Okay. Definitely, that's weird. Now, the reason why I feel stronger is because there's this idea of there's tensegrity in the human body.
Chapter 6: What tools are recommended for effective neck training?
Tensegrity is like when certain aspects move, other areas follow along with them. And tension, when you press your tongue to the roof of your mouth, your jaw, the muscles around here, even aspects of muscles around your neck create enough tension so that when you're moving, it keeps you safer in those positions, right?
So that's why when you do neck work, you wanna press your tongue against the roof of your mouth and don't do it super hard, but enough so you feel some tension, then do the work and you'll notice that you'll be able to do it with less inhibition because now everything is connected to the force you're creating with your face against whatever load you're working.
So that will keep your neck work much safer than just moving your head around and being super loose with it. Something else that I think is quite interesting is there are tools. I think the best tool is the iron neck head harness or any head harness. The iron neck itself is a really great tool, but it's quite expensive. It's very expensive.
But head harnesses, especially the ones that have multiple loops, excuse me, this white.
Yeah, they got the rings.
Got the rings. Allow you to work your neck from different angles. You don't even need necessarily a cable machine because you could use load. All you need is a light band and a head harness. And there's a attachment that allows you to put it in a doorframe. And I'll travel around with me. I went to this Origin immersion camp with this company, Origin, and Jocko Willink was there and stuff.
And in the mornings, I would be doing my neck work with my harness before jujitsu. And I always do neck work before jujitsu. Yeah, that's me doing it on a cable machine. But the thing about neck work, and that's something you can do, retractions to kind of help with your traps.
I do the one where you just go like this, you tuck your chin in, or you turn around the other way and you focus on pushing it out.
I think that works the front, right? Yes, yes, yes. And the thing to just be mindful of, the thing to be so mindful of is not going crazy with it. When you start neck training, You can injure yourself. You should be light with it when you start. Now, the thing is, is you can do it frequently. Like I microdose a little bit of network, maybe four or five days a week, right?
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Chapter 7: How does microdosing fitness impact overall health?
But the thing is, is people, when they start doing this type of stuff, they're like, I gotta add load, progressive overload. I gotta do more weight. I gotta do more reps. You can, but your neck is a sensitive area, right? If you tweak something in your neck, that does not feel good turning, et cetera, right?
So if you venture into neck training, which I think everybody should do and everybody can do literally with a hand, even if you don't even have a head harness, you could grab a light band, put it around your head, put it in a doorframe, and then you can do different movements against the weight of a band, pressing your tongue to the roof of your mouth, making sure you're not holding your breath, right?
So that you can- That's hard to- It's a hard, we'll talk to, but you got to make sure not to hold your breath. It's going to allow you to move freely. It's going to, that's, that's, that's, that's, again, I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, that is the basis of all of this. Stop holding your breath when you create some of these movements.
Over time, you're going to be able to build a much more resilient structure. Like I noticed, and this is something that Andrew Hooperman mentioned. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I feel that. It's like,
training your neck does do something to you psychologically because when you don't train your neck you don't even realize how sensitive you are to like neck movements when you don't train your neck but after like a few weeks of training your neck you're gonna notice that you're just like
Like you're like, you feel more, I'm not an aggressive person by nature, but it makes me feel like if I wanted to, I could be more aggressive. Like even in jujitsu, it makes me more aggressive because my body has more trust in this area that is the area that people will be attacking. But now it feels strong because it is strong.
And I have less feeling of risk and apprehension when doing movements in the martial art. So of course it's great for grapplers and it's great for people to strengthen in the sport, but it's also great for people outside of jujitsu.
And it's one of those things where if you're at your desk at work or you have a little band or something, you could literally have a band that you put around your head and you just go like this, tongue to the roof of the mouth, breathe, rotate. breathe, rotate, microdose it, put the band away, go about work, right? You can get that input every day.
And over time, this part of your body will be better connected to the rest of your body, along with your cervical spine. You gotta remember, our spine is over here.
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Chapter 8: Why is diaphragmatic breathing crucial for physical performance?
You know what I mean? And strengthening that is a big net positive for people. It's like, we have these underserved areas, our neck, You got a lot of people in the science space starting to talk about the benefits of grip strength and our feet, right? And there are ways to strengthen these areas that don't require you to have to go to a gym and focus on it within your workout.
Like I'm throwing a lot of stuff at people and it can be one of those things where it's like, okay, this guy wants me to start training my hands and he wants me to start training my neck and he wants me to juggle and he wants me to do rope flow and he wants, it's like, you can microdose this stuff. Meaning, when I say that, the term microdose came from Corey Schlesinger.
He's the one who used that name and we've just been using it ever since. He's, I think, the director of performance for the NBA right now, but he's worked with different NBA teams, et cetera.
he does with nba athletes is he'll have them do multiple small movement sessions throughout their day that's outside of like maybe their big strength conditioning session keeps the tissues warm keeps them making progress doesn't beat them up too much allows them to just touch these things and move on pavel tatsu you'll call it greasing the groove where you like
Maybe you do three minutes or five minutes of a kettlebell movement or certain things throughout your day. So you get multiple repetitions of the skill, right? And you're able to, instead of it being one heroic session that like you feel really, really beat up, you can get multiple inputs that can be sprinkled throughout your day. So we gotta think.
There are many people that work from home nowadays, especially after 2020. Many people work in offices. There's some people obviously work in trucks. With your specific lifestyle, how can we microdose different aspects of our fitness? Right. If we have if we're interested in it. So one thing is like, can you keep a kettlebell by your desk or maybe can you keep a band by your desk? Right.
So maybe that band, you come to your computer to start working. You look at the band. You've been working for 15 minutes. You take the band. you come here, you do some of this work, you come here, you do some of this work, you come here, you do some of this work, you put the band down, you've done some neck work today and you're not killing yourself. Cool, all right.
You don't have to break a sweat. That's break a sweat. Let's say you're also interested in now making changes to your feet. My feet are so different now than they were five years ago, but it's because I've microdosed footwork.
So I have certain things that are underneath the podcast table that were for a period of time out of towel that was there, where underneath while we were podcasting with guests, I'd be doing towel curls with my feet. meaning like I would have my feet on this towel and I would curl my feet. I have a video about increasing your foot strength on my YouTube channel.
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