Ido Portal, the movement teacher who once trained Conor McGregor, has resurfaced with provocative claims that challenge everything we think we know about fitness. In a conversation, Portal argues that conventional strength training misses the point entirely, and that our modern approach to the body is fundamentally broken.
Portal’s central thesis is simple but unsettling: we don’t actually have a connection to our bodies.
“Listen to your body. I don’t believe that,” he states bluntly. “You’re not on the right channel at all. What you hear is a lot of corrupted data.”
According to Portal, most people practice movement for years without ever truly feeling their bodies, operating more like robots than conscious beings.
The movement coach reserves particular criticism for traditional exercise paradigms. He describes the typical gym approach as “very crude, very disrespectful for the human body.”
Portal suggests that chasing muscle mass and strength through conventional methods creates a distorted development that ultimately limits rather than enhances human capability. He points to bodybuilders as an example, noting how they often train themselves into immobility despite their impressive physiques.
Portal’s alternative centers on what he calls “practice,” a holistic approach that integrates physical movement with emotional and intellectual development. He believes attention is our most potent tool, and that simply paying undivided attention to a body part for one minute can create profound transformation.
“Attention replaces the tension,” he explains. “If people would place their attention in their shoulder for one minute, undivided attention, they will transform to such a level.”
This philosophy extends to his critique of how we relate to physical discomfort. Portal argues that sensing and tension cannot coexist, meaning the path to releasing chronic pain isn’t through stretching or strengthening, but through deep, sustained attention. He describes healing a headache in under a minute simply by focusing awareness on his eyeballs, demonstrating what he considers the real power of embodied practice.
The controversial teacher also challenges the fitness industry’s obsession with longevity and optimization. He remains skeptical of the current emphasis on muscle mass for health, pointing out that people in Blue Zones don’t resemble California gym enthusiasts yet live remarkably long lives. For Portal, the fixation on metrics and outcomes represents another form of disconnection from authentic bodily experience.
Portal’s approach has attracted everyone from elite athletes to Alzheimer’s patients, physicists to military units.
“What is the limiting factor? Often the person,” he observes. “Not some kind of a technical layer, but usually it’s distorted because it sits on a distorted self.”
