#748: Pavel Tsatsouline and Christopher Sommer

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0:04:30 At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.
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0:04:45 Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of the
0:04:58 Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to sit down with world-class performers from every field
0:05:03 imaginable to tease out the habits, routines, favorite books, and so on that you can apply
0:05:08 and test in your own lives. This episode is a two-for-one, and that’s because the podcast
0:05:14 recently hit its 10th year anniversary, which is insane to think about, and past one billion
0:05:19 downloads. To celebrate, I’ve curated some of the best of the best, some of my favorites
0:05:25 from more than 700 episodes over the last decade. I could not be more excited to give you these
0:05:31 super combo episodes, and internally we’ve been calling these the super combo episodes,
0:05:36 because my goal is to encourage you to, yes, enjoy the household names, the super famous folks,
0:05:41 but to also introduce you to lesser-known people I consider stars. These are people who have
0:05:47 transformed my life, and I feel like they can do the same for many of you. Perhaps they got
0:05:52 lost in a busy news cycle, perhaps you missed an episode, just trust me on this one, we went
0:05:57 to great pains to put these pairings together. And for the bios of all guests, you can find
0:06:04 that and more at tim.blog/combo. And now, without further ado, please enjoy, and thank you for listening.
0:06:12 First up, Pavel Tsatsulin, world-renowned strength coach, founder and CEO of Strong First,
0:06:22 and the trainer who brought the Russian kettlebell to the west, kick-starting the kettlebell revolution.
0:06:27 You can learn more about Pavel’s school of strength at strongfirst.com.
0:06:33 I used to be a PT training instructor, physical training instructor for Spetsnaz,
0:06:40 the service special forces, and my education was in sports science. And I did, over the years,
0:06:46 train a number of high-end units in the west. I’ve been a subject matter to U.S. Marine Corps,
0:06:53 to the U.S. Secret Service, to U.S. Navy Seals, and others. My methods are used officially by some
0:07:00 very high-end military and counterterrorist units in two countries that are main allies of the United
0:07:07 States. So what I do is I take methods that perform very well in very rugged environments,
0:07:14 and I take these methods and I apply it to other environments. So if somebody decides,
0:07:19 I just want to change my life, I want to get stronger, I want to have a better game of tennis,
0:07:24 I want to succeed in a given sport, I take these same methods that have been tested
0:07:29 by operators at war, and I bring these people the same methods. If you look at a typical person,
0:07:37 and how do you get out stronger? Let’s say that you have a four-cylinder engine,
0:07:41 what the person would do is they would make that six-cylinder engine. But before you’re firing
0:07:46 in two, now you’re firing in three. But if instead what you do is you learn to fire in all four.
0:07:51 So there are ways of training a nervous system to engage your capacity so much more fully. And if
0:07:58 you look at high-level performers at light body weight in some fields, let’s say a very high-level
0:08:04 martial artist, somebody very skinny, breaking a stack of boards, or a very skinny guy like Lamar
0:08:10 Gantt that have taken five times his body weight. So this is so much about the concentration of
0:08:15 mental force. And for your listeners, I could give a very simple example how you can do that
0:08:21 in your gym. Let’s say that you perform, try it through the simplest exercise possible, try it
0:08:25 through the dumbbell curl or barbell curl, because I know your sissy’s out there, you’ll do that.
0:08:30 And so let’s say that you’re going through your curls, and things are suddenly starting to get
0:08:38 tougher. So when they suddenly start to get tougher, I want you to just crush the dumbbell
0:08:45 or the barbell or the kettlebell, whatever it is that you’re curling, just white metal pressure.
0:08:50 And what you will see is you’re going to definitely going to be able to get several more repetitions
0:08:54 out. I’m going to give you two more techniques in addition. Once you have practiced that,
0:09:01 then on the next set, in addition to crushing the bar and the way up, also contract your glutes
0:09:09 as tight as possible. Like somebody’s going to kick you in the butt very, very tight. So you’re
0:09:13 just like crutch a walnut. And at the same time, tighten your abs as if somebody’s going to kick
0:09:19 you, which, you know, somebody might. So if you do that, if you do these three things,
0:09:24 if you contract your glutes, contract your abs, contract your grip, everything that you do,
0:09:30 absolutely everything is going to be greatly amplified. And this is just a small example
0:09:36 of the skills of strengths that I do teach. They called me the kettlebell guy. They called
0:09:43 me the father of the kettlebell, which I appreciate very much. I did introduce together my business
0:09:48 partner. I did introduce the kettlebell to the West. And right now the kettlebell has become
0:09:54 mainstream. But what I’m really all about is above the principles, the underlining principles of
0:10:00 strength training, the underlining principles of power generation. And it doesn’t really matter
0:10:04 what modality you use, whether you use the kettlebell, the barbell, your body weight,
0:10:09 whether you’re arm wrestling, fighting, lifting the rocks, it really doesn’t matter.
0:10:12 So I am not about the kettlebell. I am about the principles that make you strong. What I have done
0:10:19 is I have reverse engineered the way the strongest people move naturally. And I have brought it to
0:10:26 the people. I’ve shown to people how to move in this matter and how to shave off years and if
0:10:31 not decades of training to progress to a much higher level. You once mentioned to me in a casual
0:10:38 conversation, I called you for some type of training advisor. It might have been via email.
0:10:42 And correct me if I’m wrong, but you said, when in doubt, train your grip and your core?
0:10:46 Is that correct? Could you elaborate on that? Because I think it’s not advice that many people
0:10:51 have received. There is such a thing as called irradiation. So the phenomenon of irradiation,
0:10:56 what it really means is if you contract a muscle, the tension from that muscle is going to spill over
0:11:02 to the neighborhood muscles. So for your listeners, I’d like to try this. Make a fist, probably in a
0:11:08 field tension in your forearm. Now make a tight fist. You’re going to feel tension in your biceps,
0:11:13 triceps. Now make a white knuckle fist. You’re going to find that tension is going to spread
0:11:17 into your shoulder. You latch it back and so on. Okay, folks, you may relax though.
0:11:20 The same thing happens. So certain areas of the body have this great overflow of tension. So the
0:11:27 gripping muscles are amongst them. Why? In part because they have such a great representation
0:11:34 in your nervous system, in your brain. And as for the abs and as for the glutes, that has a lot to do
0:11:40 with creating your intrabdominal pressure. So what does this mean exactly? Visualize your muscles
0:11:46 as speakers and visualize your brain as the gadget that plays the music, whatever it is these days.
0:11:54 iPad, iPhone, whatever, and record player doesn’t matter. And the amount of your pressure in your
0:12:00 abdomen, the intrabdominal pressure, that’s the amplifier. That’s the volume control. So by increasing
0:12:07 the pressure in your abdomen, it’s like you’re training up the volume and vice versa. So when
0:12:13 you’re trying to stretch with increasing your flexibility, if you see somebody they’re trying
0:12:18 to do a split and losing, the person is creating high intrabdominal pressure and that just increases
0:12:26 the tension of the muscle. Instead, what you need to do, you need to completely release
0:12:32 and let go and bring it down. So for strengths, we’ll do the opposite. We have special techniques
0:12:37 where you increase that pressure and maximize your power. Those are just a couple of the different
0:12:42 ways we can increase your strengths. And that’s what you’ve seen in my certification. FYI,
0:12:47 I am no longer with that organization. So my company today is called Strong First.
0:12:52 And SFD certification, that’s that same curriculum that you have learned back then.
0:12:57 Just to touch on two points, and then we’re going to jump into more training and ask about
0:13:02 how you would rank certain aspects of what people would traditionally consider perhaps fitness.
0:13:07 What would you recommend as good methods for developing the grip and core or abdomen for
0:13:13 those people listening, if they wanted to take a simple protocol and perhaps experiment for the
0:13:18 next few weeks? Is there any basic approach that you might suggest for those two things?
0:13:23 It can be done in conjunction with full body training regimen that uses, let’s say kettlebells,
0:13:30 climbing ropes and so on. But if it is not, then what I recommend that you do is you get some
0:13:36 grippers. So the company is called ironmind, ironmind.com. And they carry hand grippers.
0:13:43 One thing you need to understand is these are not those little sissy plastic grippers you get at a
0:13:47 store. These are heavy duty grippers. They go up to 365 pounds. There’s a couple of people in
0:13:53 the world have done that. They also do have resources on how to do that. But even without
0:13:59 reading how, I can tell you how to train. So get yourself a couple of grippers, use their charge,
0:14:05 their recommendations that ironmind offers. Start training them in the manner that are referred to
0:14:11 as grips to groove. Grips to groove is a highly simplified training methodology that’s been derived
0:14:17 from Soviet weightlifting methodology. So in a nutshell, this is what you do throughout the day,
0:14:23 every day, whenever you feel fully recovered, so you have to have at least 15 minutes of rest between
0:14:29 sets, you know, maybe 30, maybe even more, is you’re going to do a set and you’re only going to do
0:14:35 about half the repetitions that you’re capable of. So for example, you picked up a particular gripper,
0:14:41 you start squeezing it, you probably could do it 10 times, but you only do five and you put it down.
0:14:47 Let’s say you later on pick up a gripper that’s a little heavier, maybe you could do three reps
0:14:53 of it, but you do all one. And in this particular manner, you accumulate reps and you keep going
0:15:00 and going and going. And everybody tells you that’s impossible to get strong in this particular manner.
0:15:06 Yet science and experience shows that this makes you strong. This makes you strong fast, this makes
0:15:13 you strong in a safe manner. You can apply this particular methodology, again, I call it grips to
0:15:18 groove, to any strength exercise or any strength endurance exercise. Just to give you an example
0:15:24 of its effectiveness, my father a lot, former Marine at the age of 64, started following this
0:15:30 routine. He was able to do about 10 blocks at that point. In several months, he was up to 20
0:15:35 when he tested and he could not do that many as a young jarhead. So you got a box out there,
0:15:41 you can definitely get this done. So this is how you guys are going to train your grip with these
0:15:45 grippers. Carry with you throughout the day, you’re not going to get sweaty, just whatever you
0:15:50 feel like it, just take it out and squeeze. As for training your abdomen, there are many
0:15:55 different methods of training the abdomen, but you have to abide by the following rules.
0:16:01 You have to keep the repetitions to five and under, no more than five reps,
0:16:06 anything more than five reps is bodybuilding. And you need to make a focus and tension and
0:16:12 make a focus and contraction as opposed to on reps and fatigue. Just to give you an example of the
0:16:18 plank. You know, the plank is a kind of a fashionable exercise in the core training circles.
0:16:23 And by the way, we don’t use the word core. Let’s throw in first. Why don’t we use the word core?
0:16:27 Because people who use the word core, they do things we don’t like. We don’t like at all.
0:16:31 We just say midsection. So the plank, so traditionally they would put you in the plank
0:16:38 and you’re supposed to stay in the spine for a couple minutes. And what’s happening is you see
0:16:44 this poor person who cannot have an assumed the proper posture to start with. And then as fatigue
0:16:49 sets in other muscles, wrong muscles start kicking in, the back starts arching, the butt
0:16:54 starts shooting up. And what you’re doing is what great cook calls putting fitness on top of
0:16:59 dysfunction. And what we do instead is if we do a plank, we’ll call the hardstyle plank,
0:17:05 we’ll do a plank for no longer than 10 seconds. And when you do the plank, you try to contract
0:17:11 everything, absolutely everything. When I showed that everything, the shins, your forearms, your
0:17:18 neck, everything, everything but your neck and face, everything below your neck, you’re going to
0:17:22 contract. It’s not for folks with high blood pressure, heart condition. And that’s true for
0:17:27 pretty much any type of training. But for everybody else is an extremely powerful tool. So you get
0:17:32 down in a plank, you make fists, okay, you contract your abs, you contract your glutes,
0:17:37 you contract your entire body, you pretend that somebody’s walking in a walk by and kick you in
0:17:42 the ribs, which again, somebody might listen to my course. And Andy Bolton and other top power
0:17:48 lifters too, I’ve taught this technique, they swear by this because this is the abdominal training
0:17:52 for strength. This is not just some nonsense that you do cranking out the reps. So to sum up
0:17:58 your abdominal training, find whatever abdominal exercises that you like, it can be the plank,
0:18:04 it can be some kind of a setup, it can be something from your book, the for our body,
0:18:11 it can be something from my book, The Hard Style Labs, it can be something else.
0:18:14 That’s not important. As long as it’s a good exercise that’s been recognized that it does work.
0:18:19 And three times a week, do three to five sets of three to five reps. Okay, folks, just remember
0:18:27 this three to five sets of three to five reps, focus and contraction, don’t focus on fatigue,
0:18:33 don’t focus on the reps. And I promise if you do these two things for several months,
0:18:39 you work your grip on this matter, you work your abs in this matter, everything that you do today
0:18:45 is going to be stronger. I don’t care what it is, it’s a bigger deadlift, it’s a tennis serve,
0:18:50 it makes a difference, you’re going to be stronger. And in the case of the midsection,
0:18:56 and we’re working with the plank, if people decided they’re going to keep it simple just
0:19:01 so they can remember it and do three sets of three reps three times a week. Let’s just say Monday.
0:19:06 Well, the plank, let’s do just three sets of 10 seconds. Got it. Three sets of 10 seconds three
0:19:12 times a week. Yes. And try to contract everything below your neck. You ought to be strong. You need
0:19:17 to keep your reps at five and under. At five reps, you’re under is what you’re really working on.
0:19:23 I’ll get out of my depth and into yours pretty quickly. But the sort of neural pathways and the
0:19:27 recruitment of motor neurons and sort of firing capabilities and so on, or pretty much you’re
0:19:33 going to have a high level of neural adaptations. You’re also going to build some muscle as well.
0:19:38 So you’re going to build the high threshold motor units as well, but it’s not a bodybuilding protocol.
0:19:43 You’ll build some muscle, but it’s not really the end goal itself. You were trying to also,
0:19:48 you’re trying to avoid the fatigue. You’re trying to avoid the burn. Because whenever you start
0:19:53 experiencing the burn, that’s from something called the hydrogen ions that leads to a lot
0:19:59 of problems for you. So one of the problems is it interferes with the command that your brain
0:20:05 is sent to the muscle to contract. And another problem that it creates these hydrogen ions
0:20:10 literally are destructive. So if you leave them around the muscle for too long, they really start
0:20:14 destroying your muscle. So just keep those reps under five, three to five. Don’t worry about
0:20:20 getting blocky. You’re not going to get blocky. It’s not going to happen. And approach your
0:20:24 training as a practice. So this is another very important point too. I think this is a super
0:20:30 important point. No, I’m glad you’re bringing this up. I hate the word workouts. The word workout
0:20:35 does not exist in the Russian language. We talk about a training session or we talk about a lesson.
0:20:41 We never talk about a workout. Just think of what does the word working out? What do you envision?
0:20:47 Sweating and grunting and let’s see how much I can punish myself and drain myself. So the goal
0:20:54 is not to get stronger. The goal is just to get worn out. And there are simpler ways of doing that
0:20:59 right up the mountain. Okay. So no, the idea here is practice. Strength is a skill. And as such,
0:21:05 it must be practiced. And if you approach it in this matter, not only you’re going to get stronger
0:21:09 so much faster, but you’re going to truly enjoy your training process. Training should be something
0:21:14 that should be enjoyed. So when people think of fitness, particularly non athletes, I think that
0:21:20 there tends to be a very scattershot approach. And there’s a paradox of choice challenge that they
0:21:24 have where they’re fed a lot of recommendations from many different people. And they have strength,
0:21:31 not necessarily muscle gain, but just getting stronger. They have hypertrophy. So increasing
0:21:36 their muscular size for lack of a better description, endurance, flexibility, how would you
0:21:41 rank these in order of priority and why? Tim, as long as the person has the required mobility
0:21:49 and symmetry, the priority is always in health. The priority is always strength. Strength has to
0:21:55 be first. So the first step that you do is you assess your mobility, you find a specialist who
0:22:01 can do that. FMS would be a recommendation of mine. Very Coops FMS. Functional movement screen.
0:22:06 Functional movement screen is going to find out how mobile you are and also how symmetrical you are.
0:22:11 So as long as that is dialed in, that is in place, you have to get strong. And strength is the mother
0:22:17 quality of all physical qualities. And that’s not a statement by me, that’s a statement by
0:22:22 Papisa Matui, the father of fertilization, one of the greatest sports scientists ever.
0:22:27 And greater strength increases your performance in absolutely everything. So you can see, of
0:22:35 course, okay, of course, yeah, being stronger is going to help you in, let’s say, punching somebody
0:22:40 harder or lifting something. But how is that going to help me? You find, let’s say, a triathlete.
0:22:44 How is that going to help me find my marathon route? It is going to help you in several different
0:22:49 ways. One is the perceived level of exertion is going to come down. Several years ago in our
0:22:56 regionals did a very interesting study where they put elite endurance athletes, some were bicyclists,
0:23:02 some were runners, on a pure strength regimen. That’s four sets of four reps of heavy squats.
0:23:10 It’s about as pure strength as it gets. And in the end of this study, not surprisingly,
0:23:16 all these guys were stronger, they could jump higher and so on, but they were not impressed
0:23:21 with that. That didn’t matter to them. What did impress them is they ran faster. Their race times
0:23:28 went down because strength just enables everything else. If you’re trying to, let’s say, lose weight,
0:23:36 being stronger is going to help you do that because you’re going to have a bigger furnace,
0:23:40 you’re going to train yourself much harder on the exercises that are fat loss exercises.
0:23:45 So it really doesn’t matter what it is that you’re trying to achieve. Strength is the number one
0:23:51 attributes you need to address. And that’s why my company is called Strong First.
0:23:55 One of the things that I love about you, Pablo, is that you say what you mean and mean what you
0:24:00 say. There’s a degree of clarity that I envy. I might include it for people, but when we did
0:24:06 our soundcheck, I asked you to give me an answer so we could test the audio, what you had for
0:24:10 breakfast, and what was your answer? Coffee. And that was it. That was the soundcheck.
0:24:16 I love the simplicity. Now, speaking of simplicity and also undoing the confusion that a lot of
0:24:21 people suffer from, what are the most counterproductive myths or misconceptions about strength training
0:24:29 that come to mind? Well, the number one, Tim, I guess, is the idea that you have to
0:24:34 go to failure every time you train. I can tell you one thing that the Soviet weight lifters,
0:24:40 I have done a very thorough analysis of the Soviet weight lifting methodology through the 60s,
0:24:45 through the 80s, the glory days. And I found that they typically did one-third to two-third
0:24:55 of maximal repetitions per set. So what does it mean? If let’s say that you’re using a weight
0:25:00 that’s your 10 rep max, 10 is all you could do if you break yourself very hard. They would do
0:25:05 three to six consistently. Now, you’d probably ask yourself, okay, I’m not a weight lifter,
0:25:12 and what does this Soviet stuff from the 80s have to do with today? Well, two things. First of all,
0:25:18 even though a person who is not a lifting athlete is not going to train exactly as a
0:25:23 weight lifter or power lifter, nevertheless, the methodology has to be derived from the sports,
0:25:29 because these are specialist strength sports. So if they just have to be adapted to your needs.
0:25:34 Second of all, this particular Soviet methodology is still superior to this day. This is very
0:25:41 interesting, but you keep hearing about all these new world records set in the sport of
0:25:45 weight lifting. Well, if you compare the world records of today to the world records of the 80s,
0:25:52 you will see that in most cases, the records today are inferior to records in the 80s.
0:25:58 How can that be? They accuse people of doing drugs, and they changed weight classes twice
0:26:05 since the 80s. Of course, it’s so wonderful. I’m so happy that today nobody does drugs anymore.
0:26:10 It’s just true. So if you look at the lifts performed by Soviet lifter Yuriy Kvarnyan
0:26:18 in 1980 at the Moscow Olympics, these lifts have never been exceeded. These lifts have never been
0:26:26 approached. So this particular methodology does work extremely well. It’s still the best methodology
0:26:32 period. Later on, the Soviet power lifting team adapted this methodology for power lifting
0:26:38 with tremendous success. They dominate. The same particular methodology has been adopted to
0:26:45 body weight training, kettlebell presses, and so on and so forth. So it’s the same thing that can
0:26:49 apply for everybody because this is principle-based training. So the major misconception is that you
0:26:57 have to go to failure. If you just overcome that, and if you make it a habit to do one-third to
0:27:04 two-third of the repetitions that are possible and do more sets instead, you’re going to make
0:27:09 much greater progress. You’re going to do much safer. And folks, you’re going to enjoy the training.
0:27:14 How does the approach shift if your focus is maximal hypertrophy?
0:27:21 If you’re after maximal hypertrophy, it’s Mali. So they figured out in the Soviet Union that
0:27:27 there’s a direct correlation between volume and hypertrophy. So you just pretty much have
0:27:33 to do more sets. You’re going to have to do more sets in like 60 to 70% of your max range.
0:27:39 And a whole bunch of sets of five and six, just many of them. And your rest periods might be
0:27:44 compressed a little more. But that’s it. If you do that, do this a couple times a week,
0:27:49 many sets of five or six. Don’t even worry about how many. Just keep going. Don’t kill yourself,
0:27:55 enjoy yourself. Eat more, you’re going to get bigger. It’s unavoidable. It’s just as simple as that.
0:28:01 Would you consider the, and please disagree if this is not the case, but if you had to pick
0:28:06 one movement for strength, longevity, would the deadlift be that movement or is it not possible
0:28:13 to choose one movement? How would you try to answer that question?
0:28:16 If you were to choose one movement, Tim, yes, I would choose the deadlift or I would choose
0:28:20 the kettlebell swing. Obviously, the kettlebell swing is not something you can compete in and
0:28:24 something you’re not. It’s not going to give you the same satisfaction of lifting heavy weight.
0:28:29 But those are the two main full body exercises, the full body expressions of power that will go
0:28:38 such a long way for you for longevity, strength, just the quality of life.
0:28:43 What are the biggest mistakes that people make with the deadlift? Whether that’s technically or
0:28:49 in programming, what are the biggest mistakes? Well, Tim, I think the very big mistake is because
0:28:54 they think, okay, I have picked up things from the floor. This looks so simple. It’s not an
0:28:58 Olympic lift. Therefore, it’s very simple. So I’ll just start piling on place and start training.
0:29:03 The deadlift is a very technical lift. Even if you’re just a recreational lifter, you owe it to
0:29:09 yourself to learn to deadlift correctly. That’s as simple as that. So I say that’s the primary
0:29:14 mistake and that mistake goes for every exercise that people do out there.
0:29:19 Now I would highly recommend people check out your book with Mr. Bolton.
0:29:23 Deadlift Dynamite.
0:29:24 Yeah, really very, very dense. Shifting gears just a little bit, dense in the best way possible.
0:29:30 No fluff. I’d love to shift gears and just ask you a few questions about your philosophies and
0:29:35 your thinking, not so much the highly specific training questions. But when you think of,
0:29:40 for instance, the word successful, who’s the first person who comes to mind for you?
0:29:44 Tim, I am fortunate enough to know many successful people. And I think that what separates him from
0:29:52 the rest is the CEO of Strong First, Eric Frilhardt, he put it very well. He says, “Balance with
0:30:00 priorities.” Balance with priorities. So Eric, yourself, and many others are fortunate to know
0:30:07 they exemplify success for me.
0:30:08 What are the habits that you’ve observed that allow people to have balance with priorities?
0:30:14 What are the things they do that other people don’t do?
0:30:17 Or maybe the things they don’t do that other people do?
0:30:20 Well, I think one is calm. These people are calm because people who are hyper,
0:30:26 they get so trapped in their reactive mode. They get too trapped in the everyday minutiae
0:30:33 of their work and their existence. So they just do not pause and they do not think.
0:30:38 Again, Eric has a great quote from a Vietnam Air Seal, which says, “Calm is contagious.”
0:30:44 The person is calm that he or she has the time to meditate, reflect, set the priorities,
0:30:54 and set the balance.
0:30:56 That’s certainly the holds true from what I’ve seen. And the opposite, of course, is true.
0:31:02 Hysteria is great.
0:31:04 He’s just chasing the tip. Absolutely. Chicken little.
0:31:08 This guy’s falling. Yes, everything is urgent.
0:31:10 Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors, and we’ll be right back to the show.
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0:32:27 And now, Christopher Summer, a former U.S. national team gymnastics coach and the founder
0:32:38 of the Gymnastic Bodies training system, known for building devotees into some of the strongest,
0:32:44 most powerful athletes in the world. You can find Christopher on Instagram @ChristopherS-O-M-M-E-R-1.
0:32:54 Coach, welcome to the show. Thanks, Tim.
0:33:00 I am excited to finally have you on the show. We’ve had so many conversations in the last
0:33:06 month or two, and I’ve been so impressed with the subtlety and nuance of the training that you do.
0:33:13 So, I’ve been very eager to have you on the show to explore all things gymnastics and gymnastics
0:33:19 strength training related. So, thanks for making the time.
0:33:22 You’re welcome, Carter.
0:33:23 And I thought we could start with just some definitions. So, what would you or how would
0:33:29 you define gymnastics strength training, GST?
0:33:32 In a nutshell, gymnastics strength training I define as high-level body weight strength training.
0:33:38 So, none of the training that we do for world-class performance or the acrobatics or technical
0:33:44 gymnastics just purely the strength joint prep and mobility components.
0:33:50 And one example of what not to do, perhaps, or how gymnastics strength training might differ from
0:33:57 the aesthetics that some people I’m not going to say compromise with, but shoes. We were talking
0:34:02 about doing a pike handstand press or holding that position. And the example, feel free to
0:34:09 correct my recollection, but was of how a lot of folks kick their hips way out to counterbalance
0:34:14 instead of doing what? What would the gymnastics strength training version of that look like?
0:34:19 Good example. So, what we see, and this is kind of getting into some handstands, some skill training,
0:34:25 but handstand done correctly is a reflection of physical preparation that athlete either has
0:34:32 or does not have. So, if they lack strength, if they lack mobility, then of course their
0:34:38 technical handstand is going to lack refinement. So, in terms of that pike handstand, if they lack
0:34:45 middle trap, if they lack lower trap string, then they’re going to try to counterbalance by
0:34:49 really arching the chest out, sticking the butt way back behind them. Oh, goodness. Not even sure
0:34:56 how to describe it like a pike in an arch at the same time. Sorry to interrupt, Coach. Just for
0:35:00 people who I realize I should have probably defined some terms myself. So, pike for people who
0:35:05 are not familiar with this, the easiest way to visualize it, if you don’t have any background
0:35:09 with that, is imagine you’re sitting on the floor. It’s kind of like PE class, legs straight
0:35:14 and together bending at the waist towards your toes. Is that forward? Bedding forward
0:35:19 towards your toes. And so, if you were to imagine you’re sitting down with your legs out in front
0:35:24 of you, hypothetically at a 90-degree angle, and you put your arms up over your head, let’s just
0:35:28 flip you upside down to your enhanced handstand position, that’s effectively what we’re talking
0:35:32 about. Exactly what we’re talking about. To hold that, because center of mass is way out in front
0:35:37 of the body then, in order to hold that, the traps are what’s responsible to keeping the back and
0:35:42 the shoulders straight. So, if you’re not strong enough, can, is it, some people will say, “Well,
0:35:47 it’s just skill training.” Well, everything builds upon everything else. So, got Olympics coming up,
0:35:53 people are going to be pumped, they’re going to see our Olympic team, they’re going to see the other
0:35:57 monsters around the world competing on rings, and they’re, “I want to do that.” And then they’re
0:36:02 going to jump right up. We’ve got friends who are former SEAL Team 6, and the first thing they did
0:36:07 is jump up, and of course they failed utterly, and then they come see us, because it’s like
0:36:12 anything, you know, you don’t jump right into calculus, you learn to count, and we learned a
0:36:16 dish, and we learned subtraction, yada, yada, yada, with enough time, enough layers, enough
0:36:20 progression, then we get to advanced math. So, advanced ring strength, same deal.
0:36:25 I remember we were talking not too long ago about the importance of pacing when you’re dealing with
0:36:32 connective tissue, tendons and ligaments, which is something I’m not particularly well known for,
0:36:37 in terms of patience and pacing. I’ve noticed that. But many of the guys who say do outdoor bar
0:36:44 workouts, some of which are very impressive physical specimens, will jump up on the rings,
0:36:49 and they’ll be doing, I’m not sure what they would even call them, they’re kind of like what would
0:36:53 be looked at as like a typewriter on the pull-up bar, when you move back and forth from one arm to
0:36:58 the other. Side-to-side pull-up. Side-to-side pull-up, and they’re like, “I was feeling fine,
0:37:03 coach.” And then suddenly my, you know, I tore my bicep, I tore my pack, and it was fine until
0:37:07 it wasn’t. What are some, if you look at the muscles or types of strength that most non-gymnasts
0:37:16 will not have, even if they consider themselves reasonably athletic, what would be on that list?
0:37:21 And we already mentioned one, which is, say, mid and lower traps. And of course, I would like to
0:37:26 think I came to the table with kind of hat in hand, because I recognize how hard a lot of this is.
0:37:31 But the more I practice it, the more I’m astounded at how unprepared my body is for these movements.
0:37:38 I mean, as someone who has done a lot of pulling from the floor, for instance, who has a decent
0:37:43 deadlift, I would like to think, I was just astonished at how weak my mid-back was. It was
0:37:49 just, it blew my mind. It was completely flabbergassing. What other muscles or movements do you find
0:37:54 normals just cannot perform, even if they view themselves as athletic?
0:37:57 For the lifters, the one that always jumps out at us is their lack of shoulder extension.
0:38:03 So if I pick my, if I’m standing upright and I lift my hands forward, that’s flexion. And I can go
0:38:09 all the way up to my arms or overhead. If I’m picking my hands up behind me, that would be shoulder
0:38:15 extension. Right. So just to paint another picture for folks, like if you stand up and then interlace
0:38:20 your fingers behind your tailbone with your arms straight and then try to lift them up towards
0:38:26 the ceiling and keeping your back straight. So the shoulder extension. And what we find is, you
0:38:31 know, and a lot of what we’ll get sometimes from people as well, I don’t want to be in the circus.
0:38:35 I don’t want to be an acrobat. I’m at intercedence skill training. I want strength. And what they
0:38:41 don’t understand is if you want to achieve world-class levels of performance, technically,
0:38:46 that comes first from having a solid foundation of physical preparation, which means correct range
0:38:52 of motion, good mobility, good connective tissue. So shoulder extension becomes so, for example,
0:38:58 a lot of people fail. They can’t do muscle-ups because they can’t do shoulder extension. They
0:39:03 think in their head that a muscle-up is a chin up, a little bit of transition that they don’t
0:39:08 understand. And then a dip. What really happens as we do a pull-up, we get our hands to our chin,
0:39:13 and then the elbows pull back behind the torso behind them. And there’s their shoulder extension.
0:39:19 If they can’t do shoulder extension, now they’re stuck. And they failed to spend all this time
0:39:24 working technique and doing rap and doing rap. And what they’re doing is they’re treating the
0:39:28 symptom not actually the problem. So just as some background for folks, the way that we connected
0:39:34 was I at 38 finally decided, enough is enough, I’ve been fantasizing about trying to learn
0:39:41 gymnastics in a structured way for 20 plus years, much like my postponing of getting a dog for 20
0:39:47 years. It’s just like, why did it take me so long to do this? And I was in Venice. I’m going to give
0:39:52 these folks a shout-out. There’s a CrossFit gym there named Paradiso CrossFit and love the folks
0:39:57 who run the gym and I would go to their training because they’d let me use chalk and do all the
0:40:00 things that a lot of gyms will not allow me to do. And I met a gent who was doing a body weight
0:40:07 workout. He’s the only person doing a body weight only workout. And he suggested that I follow
0:40:11 gymnastic bodies on Instagram. So I started following your company on Instagram and saw older,
0:40:19 let’s just call it middle-aged men, sort of my demo as it stands right now, who had started from
0:40:25 scratch doing impressive things. And I had used age as my crutch and excuse for not pulling the
0:40:32 trigger in the last few years. So I reached out to Rob Wolf, who was kind enough to introduce us.
0:40:38 And then we’ve collaborated in this experiment that we’re currently doing, which is roughly 90 days
0:40:45 with a handful of goals that we’ll get to. But I want people to understand how we connected.
0:40:50 So I’m in the middle of training right now. I have to say, I feel better than I’ve felt,
0:40:55 with the exception of a little bit of elbow nonsense that is not from this specifically,
0:41:00 it’s a recurring thing, feel better than I have in years.
0:41:03 Well, that’s good to hear just from this little bit already.
0:41:06 We just from the little bit that we’ve done. And the follow-up question to that is,
0:41:10 when people are training for handstands at home, so self-taught, what are the biggest
0:41:17 mistakes that they make? Well, they won’t like the answer. This is a little bit of national team
0:41:22 coach attitude coming out. People tend to want what they want when they want. And that’s fine.
0:41:28 If I’m looking for mediocre to average results, if I’m looking to really do the best effort,
0:41:34 I’ve got to back shit up and I’ve got to take care of my business. And for most of the adults,
0:41:40 it’s going to be, they have severe compromises in their mobility. Their shoulders don’t work well,
0:41:46 their hips don’t work, their knees don’t work, their elbows are shot, their forearms are tight
0:41:51 from all the desk patrol, their calves are like piano wire from sitting all the time.
0:41:57 We won’t even talk about hip flexor, their scaps don’t move, their scapula have no motion,
0:42:02 they can’t protract, they can’t retract, their spine is locked in just a flat
0:42:08 or kyphoid. So they’re hunched over, their lower back is continually arched. And they’re just going
0:42:14 to frozen in this position. And then they want to try to move their body. Now, the common one that
0:42:20 we get from people as well, these are extreme ranges of motion. These are artificial ranges of
0:42:25 motion. And actually, these are your natural range of motion. Problem is they quit using it.
0:42:31 And so just after a feed, we’re not doing anything special. We’re just, we have to
0:42:36 recreate that natural range of motion first. We’ve been doing, gosh, I don’t know now,
0:42:41 maybe since 2006, working with the adults. And the thing that just we keep having my
0:42:46 nose rugged in it over and over and over again, every time I think I have it down,
0:42:51 I find I need to take it further is just the complete other lack of joint prep and mobility
0:42:55 they come to the table with. Even your own case is an excellent example. We haven’t done anything
0:43:00 advanced yet. We’re doing all basic or doing fundamental stuff. And you’re already feeling
0:43:06 better than in years. Well, I think it’s a lot of it has to do with two things if I’m trying to
0:43:13 self diagnose the first is identifying it, musculature and motor patterns that I simply
0:43:19 had not developed properly previously. Even if I had a passing familiarity, like,
0:43:24 well, let me frame this in the form of a question. So can you define what the hollow
0:43:28 position is why it’s important and how how do most normals do when they do a say hollow body
0:43:34 rock? Maybe you can explain that to most people. And when they think of abs, they think lower
0:43:38 ab they think upper abs. They’re not going to think about obliques at all. And they’re not
0:43:43 going to think transverse abdominis at all. So lower abs are easy upper ab easy obliques.
0:43:49 Okay, they understand the sideways. They don’t understand how obliques wrap around
0:43:53 into the lats into the lower back. Okay, that’s fine. But transverse abdominis, they’re like
0:43:58 excuse me, was that English? They don’t have a clue. And that’s what supports the body when
0:44:03 it’s in a straight body position. So for example, ab rollers were we don’t use them in our program,
0:44:10 but just as an example, ab rollers, we’re getting a bad knock that if you do an ab roller,
0:44:15 you’re going to hurt your lower back. Well, yes and no, you’ll hurt your back if you’re doing it
0:44:20 wrong. If you’re arched in your lower back. So for definitions, if my lower back is arched,
0:44:25 I’m an anterior pelvic tilt. If I’m the opposite movement, I’m kind of my tailbone tucked under
0:44:32 and my lower back is flat, that’s posterior pelvic tilt. Well, when my body’s horizontal,
0:44:37 then my back is supported when I’m posterior pelvic tilt. If I’m arched, it’s unsupported
0:44:44 by the musculoskeletal and I’m hanging by the disc. Which is true for a ton of exercises that we do.
0:44:50 If I feel it in my lower back, almost universally when I send you videos, the feedback is more
0:44:55 PPT, posterior pelvic tilt. It should just be a mantra. Yeah. And for people who need a way
0:45:01 to visualize this, because I realize a lot of this vocab is new and coach, feel free to interrupt
0:45:06 at any point. But an easy way to think about and remember anterior pelvic tilt is imagine that
0:45:12 your waist is the top of a wine glass. If you have anterior pelvic tilt to the front, you’re
0:45:18 going to be pouring wine out the front of that glass, basically out of your belly button.
0:45:23 And if you have posterior pelvic tilt, you’re tucking that tailbone, you’re going to be pouring
0:45:27 wine basically down your sacrum, down the back of your body. It’s just an easy way for me to
0:45:32 remember. That is clear. I got to say, 40 years of national team, and I’ve never heard it described
0:45:37 that way. It may be our go-to definition from now on. You know, I can’t do the gymnastics.
0:45:43 I’ll have to stick with refining my definitions, although I’m making progress with the fundamentals.
0:45:47 And I’d like to talk about the assessment that we did. So I flew out to a great gym,
0:45:54 Awakened Gymnastics, in Colorado, and we met up. That’s our GB Master Affiliate. We only have one in
0:45:59 the world. Awakened in Denver is our number one GB affiliate. They’re the best at what they do.
0:46:04 Yeah, it’s a fantastic gym. And we did quite a few hours of various assessments. If somebody
0:46:10 wanted to try to self-assess or videotape themselves to have, say, someone qualified in
0:46:17 gymnastics, assess them. If you were to do an 80/20 analysis, which movements or exercises give you
0:46:24 the most data? Most bang for the buck? Let’s see. No, so what? We went over with you. We checked
0:46:31 hanging leg lift. Hanging leg lift automatically is going to tell me dynamic range of motion.
0:46:36 Is that right? That’s like on a stall bar. You don’t want to be free-swinging.
0:46:39 Well, it could be most of them, whatever they can do. To my eye, as soon as I see it or our staff
0:46:46 side, they’re going to know right away whether or not that person has adequate. It’s going to tell
0:46:50 us your core strength. Then it’s going to tell me hamstring flexibility. That’ll do that in one
0:46:55 bridge. Bridge is a huge one for adults. That’s been one of our, we have a thoracic bridge core
0:47:01 stretch series. That’s been one of our best-selling products. That’s what I’m doing this evening.
0:47:06 Yeah. Yeah. Notice, guys, that Tim’s real happy right now. That’ll change in just a few.
0:47:11 Yeah. What characterizes, this is a really important question. What characterizes a good
0:47:15 bridge? And for people who are thinking of bridge, I mean, imagine you’re laying on your back. You
0:47:19 put your palms down by your ears, let’s say, feet flat on the ground, and then you go up into an
0:47:25 arch. Now, I was extremely surprised and found it quite hilarious how bad my bridge was. I mean,
0:47:33 terrible in the assessment. By your standards, yes. By what I see on a normal basis, yours was medium.
0:47:39 It was like a D-plus. It was like on the verge of pantsing. But I realized despite all of my many
0:47:45 years of wrestling where we did tons of bridges, almost all of my bridging comes from bending
0:47:52 at the low back, right? So my lumbar. Which is a huge issue. Yeah. So what is a good bridge?
0:47:57 Little background. So the lumbar, the lower back is not designed to have a ton of movement in it,
0:48:04 a big arch. Your thoracic spine, your upper and your middle back, they’re designed to have a
0:48:09 lot of movement. They’re designed to rotate. The lower back is not. But when most people do their
0:48:14 bridge work, they’re so compromised now, even back up a little bit more. They’re so compromised in
0:48:20 range of motion in their upper body because they’ve been hitting the weights hard. They’ve been doing
0:48:24 just a lot of high intensity training. Now, to preface that, there’s nothing wrong with that.
0:48:30 There’s nothing wrong with that at all. If you weren’t one of God’s gifts when you were born,
0:48:34 you’ve got to do something to make up the deficit. The problem is, when they do all that weight
0:48:40 training, they’re not doing it in balance and maintaining their mobility. If they had, they
0:48:45 wouldn’t have the issues that they ran into. So if all you do is string, string, string,
0:48:49 string, strength, and you can always tell someone who is there, they’re the curl king and they’re
0:48:52 the bench press king. They come in and they’re hunched over and their elbows don’t straighten.
0:48:57 Their arms don’t go behind them and they’re like, you know, my shoulders are killing me.
0:49:02 Most of the time what we found is, yeah, their shoulders are completely effed up. I agree.
0:49:07 But their biceps are crazy tight also. And that bicep runs up through the front of the shoulder
0:49:12 and it’s manifesting itself as a shoulder issue. So kind of all these come together,
0:49:17 long story short, to cause them a huge problem being able to get into a proper bridge, which
0:49:22 should be all upper body, no lower back almost at all. But people are doing the exact opposite.
0:49:29 They hurt their lower back and they say, man, these bridges are dangerous.
0:49:32 Bridges aren’t dangerous. Doing them half-assed and wrong without vetting your sources of
0:49:37 information is dangerous. I’ve found it incredibly therapeutic as someone who’s had a basically
0:49:44 a frozen thoracic for God knows how long, 10 years. Sure. We were worried about that. I remember
0:49:51 we’re like, hmm, we’re wondering, whoa, we’ll work through this. Tim has the upper body mobility of
0:49:55 a Lego figure. What are we going to do? So just the progression of doing, and of course, people
0:50:01 should look for visual references and I’ll point them to a bunch of resources in the show notes.
0:50:09 But can you walk through the checkboxes? Because I know we’ve done this even recently. The concept,
0:50:15 I don’t know why this didn’t even occur to me, but of helping to take the lower back out of the
0:50:19 equation by elevating the feet. Elevating the feet. Yep. And elevating them as high as necessary.
0:50:25 Some people are so tight that they basically start in a handstand.
0:50:29 And it is what it is, right? The main thing that we try to always hammer with students is they’re
0:50:35 always in a hurry. I’ve got to get it right now. Even our conversation, you remember way back when
0:50:39 started that way. I was like, dude, if you can handle it, we need to change gears here. We need
0:50:44 to go slow now in order to go fast later. Well, you said if you want to be a stud later, you have
0:50:49 to be a pud now. I think we’re your words. Yeah, that sounds like a smart ass remark. That’s a good
0:50:55 one. I wrote that down. I’ve corrupted you. All your great podcasts and I’ve corrupted you.
0:51:00 So what are the other checkboxes? So let’s just say they get the feet up and they’re like, okay.
0:51:05 Feet elevated to the point where they’re not feeling dress on the lower back. Now, it’ll depend on
0:51:12 pressing strength also. If they’re very weak in the shoulders, then they’re going to have to start
0:51:18 from the handstand and work their way down. But we’ll assume they’ve got feet elevated.
0:51:21 Hip high or higher if necessary, doesn’t matter a bit. Then from there, we’re going to work on,
0:51:29 most people are going to be up, they’re going to have bent elbows. So we’re going to work on
0:51:32 straightening the arms. No matter how close they are, they could be wide. They’d be wide. Yeah,
0:51:38 because gosh, I had one special forces guy that came to me years ago, tough, tough guy, first name
0:51:43 Mark. And he had gained 80 pounds of muscle, 80 pounds of muscle. Oh yeah. He was just like,
0:51:50 holy moly. And he was, he was just a beast. But he had completely effed himself up because all he
0:51:56 did was gain strength without mobility and athletically, unless my sport is just purely
0:52:02 lifting, unless I’m a power lifter, unless I’m an Olympic lifter, then maximal strength is not my
0:52:09 sole criteria for being successful. In fact, usually the strongest athletes in the weight room
0:52:14 are not the best athletes on the field to play. And in fact, I don’t know a single exception.
0:52:20 There may be one there somewhere that someone can share with us and let me know. But I’ve been
0:52:25 around the world, I won’t say as many people as you know, but in 40 years of world-class
0:52:31 gymnastics, I’ve met a ton of people. I’ve never seen an exception. He couldn’t even hang on a bar
0:52:38 anymore with his arms straight without hitting his head. Wow. And you think your shoulders are
0:52:43 tight and pull a mark and he was like, coach, what can you do for me? For once, I was at a loss for
0:52:48 words, which is rare for me. I think you’re screwed. What did you do with him in the bridge? Was he
0:52:54 just stuck? He couldn’t even, this was hanging on a bar. We couldn’t even get in a bridge. It was
0:53:00 impossible. What we would do with someone like that and Mark, so you’re more, so guys, just to
0:53:06 give the audience some feedback, I went into Tim’s assessment, expecting medium. Medium and Tim
0:53:14 was much more mobile, much more athletic, much more well-prepared than I had anticipated. So
0:53:21 I had spent a lot of time putting a custom program together for Tim that because he did so well in
0:53:26 his assessment, I had to throw the whole damn thing away because basically he was too advanced for
0:53:32 what we had assumed he was coming to the table with. Someone who is crazy compromised, we’re
0:53:38 going to have to sneak up on it. We’re going to have to get in there and we’re going to have to
0:53:41 first do pec minor. We got to loosen up pec minor. We got to get in there and we got to work on the
0:53:46 bicep tendon. We got to get the bicep tendon going. We got to work on forearms, get forearms loose.
0:53:52 We’ve got to break the scap. So there’s some motion there. We have to do all of that. It’s not
0:53:57 high intensity work, but it’s got to be done. And as you heard Tim say, the body thrives on it. It’s
0:54:03 like a tonic for the body. The body feels so much better because it’s what the body is supposed to
0:54:08 do. A lot of people don’t care for it because it’s not the high intensity sexy work, but it’s that
0:54:14 fundamental work that makes the high intensity sexy work possible later. Not only possible,
0:54:21 but safer. That’s a good point because we had, I think one of the questions that people asked,
0:54:26 Tim asked for questions on Twitter. You know, what would you like me to ask coach Summer? And
0:54:31 some of the people came back with, you know, I know someone who’s a gymnast and they’re just
0:54:35 beat the shit. And my answer to that is simple. They weren’t my athlete. They weren’t my athlete.
0:54:42 We don’t train through pain. As a national team coach for a long time, physical preparation was
0:54:49 always our number one priority. We built the physical structure first because if you think
0:54:54 about it, it’s kind of silly. And we see this a lot with people who are getting into weightlifting,
0:54:58 they’re crossfitters, they’re Olympic lifting, and they’re enthusiastic, they’re excited,
0:55:02 and they want to get that weight on the bar. They’re trying to build technique with a flawed
0:55:07 range of motion, which of course gives them F’d up technique and it doesn’t work. And then they get
0:55:11 hurt. Or you hear someone, oh, I changed my shoe and I blew my knee. Seriously, your knee is that
0:55:18 tight that because your heel and your new shoe is a fraction of an inch higher or a slightly
0:55:23 different angle that your knee blew. In our training program, we need to call everything
0:55:27 you need an optimal surplus. You need an optimal surplus range of mobility, range of motion. You
0:55:32 need an optimal surplus of strength. You need an optimal surplus of stability. You need what you
0:55:38 need to perform and a little extra for when things go south, not if things go south, when things go
0:55:45 south. And if you’re just right in the edge of what you’re capable of, and they hope, oh, nothing
0:55:51 will go wrong. I hope nothing will go wrong. Oh, it is going to go wrong. That’s absolutely going
0:55:54 to go wrong. And so you prepare the body for that ahead of time. So when it does go wrong,
0:55:59 it’s like, ah, that didn’t hurt. I didn’t get nothing’s injured. Moving on next turn.
0:56:03 Well, one of the questions that you’ve asked me multiple times when we’ve been going over
0:56:08 different workouts, and I would mention, for instance, I felt it in my bicep. Like I felt an
0:56:14 extreme stretch in my bicep. So for instance, there’s a movement that we’ve been calling a
0:56:18 German hang. A lot of people would call it skin the cat, perhaps, very similar where you would
0:56:23 hold on to say a bar or rings in this case. And I’m going to simplify this, of course,
0:56:28 but tucking up, going back in between the rings, and then hanging down with as little of a pike at
0:56:37 the hips as possible. Nice flat back, nice straight hips. Exactly. And sort of palms facing towards
0:56:43 the ground. And I was saying, I really felt an incredible stretch in my biceps more than in
0:56:47 the shoulders. And your question would be, and this is applied to different body parts,
0:56:50 where did you feel it in the bicep? This is getting back to the not training through pain
0:56:55 comment. And could you describe why you’re like, if it’s in the middle, I don’t really care. And
0:57:03 same for the abs, like we can smash those all day long. If it’s at the attachment points,
0:57:08 though, then I want to know about it, or we’re going to die. So why is that?
0:57:12 I’m going to sneak around to it. So most people when they do their training,
0:57:17 meaning, well, now I’m not slamming anyone by any means. And the only reason that
0:57:22 we know this and are able to share is because all these years I’ve been doing this,
0:57:25 I made the same effort mistakes that they make. We just survived my stupidity and learned how
0:57:30 to do better. You have the story of my life. So I think the story of all of our lives, right?
0:57:35 I used to tell my athletes there, there are stupid gymnasts and there are old gymnasts,
0:57:40 but there are no old stupid gymnasts because they’re all dead. But most people, most beginners,
0:57:46 they want to base all their training off muscular fatigue, which is a problem. It’s
0:57:52 problematic because muscle tissue regenerates about every 90 days, about every 90 days,
0:57:58 you know, from end to end, all the cells, everything’s done in 90 days. Okay, that’s well,
0:58:03 that’s fine. But connective tissue takes 200 to 210 days. So we have a huge gap. So if I get in
0:58:11 and I’m just sending on, I’m not a big fan of beginners training to failure, simply because
0:58:17 their structure isn’t mature enough yet to handle it safely and by mature, I simply mean enough
0:58:24 productive, well-structured hours under their belt. So particularly if it’s in new ranges of
0:58:31 motion, right? If they’ve just particularly if there’s joints, if it’s a muscle belly for,
0:58:36 like you said, if we’re doing core, we’ll beat your core down all day long. And I’m not worried
0:58:40 about it a bit because it’s just muscular fatigue. But as soon as we get joints involved,
0:58:45 everything changes. And it’s actually really easy for people to verify. Same thing back over all the
0:58:50 injuries they’ve had over their training career, you know, in their athletic career, playing around
0:58:54 with the kids in the backyard. The vast majority of those injuries are all joint related,
0:58:59 almost always. It’s extremely rare for someone to have a muscle belly injury. It just doesn’t
0:59:05 happen. Yet their training, especially in the beginning, is all skewed just towards muscular
0:59:10 development, not connective tissue development. And that’s that’s where they get into trouble.
0:59:14 So when they come to us, the first thing we like is for them to spend. Is it going to be boring?
0:59:20 It is, you know, 210 days, we’re talking six, seven months of dial it back guys, dial it back.
0:59:27 And I think that it’s important to emphasize too that dialing it back, it means that you’re not
0:59:33 rushing, but it doesn’t mean you won’t experience a lot of progress, if that’s fair to say.
0:59:37 I think that’s crazy fair to say and you found that yourself. But what happens is some of them,
0:59:43 we run into this, maybe you have also as we get some people who are addicted to the rush,
0:59:48 they’re addicted to the adrenaline rush, they’re addicted to laying there in a pile of sweat,
0:59:53 you know, they want to do the sweat angels, they want to crawl out of the gym. And the problem with
0:59:58 that is if you’re a world-class athlete, you can’t do that because I have to be back in the gym the
1:00:04 next day and train again. I can’t afford to destroy myself or the special operations guys we work with.
1:00:09 We’ve got to be able to do both. They’ve got to be operational and increase their performance
1:00:14 through their training, but they have to go hand in hand. And so it’s only in beginners that we see
1:00:19 they think somehow they can cheat time. It can’t be done. I mean, connective tissue is going to take
1:00:25 200 to 210 days. There’s no supplement, you can’t paint yourself blue, you can’t dance under the
1:00:30 moon, there’s nothing you can do to speed that up. It’s going to take what it takes. And so we work
1:00:36 as hard as we can within those parameters. If there’s joint pain, we shut it down. You’ll
1:00:41 like your elbow is a good example, years ago pushing too hard. Now that we tweak that elbow a
1:00:47 little too much, it flares up on you. We’ll repair it. It’s going to take time, but it takes much
1:00:53 longer to repair it than it does to avoid it in the first place. Yeah, for sure. And there’s a
1:00:58 couple of notes and then I’m going to swing back to the diagnostics and how people can assess.
1:01:03 But another conversation, a topic that came up, I think I’m sure I brought it up at dinner once,
1:01:10 was the use of anabolic or any growth agents. And the point that you made, which makes perfect
1:01:18 sense is that would just increase the likelihood of having connected tissue problems and gymnasts
1:01:24 because the muscular strength and growth would outpace the development of and the adaptation
1:01:31 of the tissues. Completely with backfire, huge backfire, where students make their greatest gains
1:01:36 in strength is to be able to do dynamic plyometric work and straight arm ring strength. Those are
1:01:42 your two biggest bangs for the buck. And what we have learned the hard way that’s different,
1:01:48 the main difference between working with young developmental athletes and full grown adults
1:01:53 is the order in which we need to present the material. As a young athlete, I can do all physical
1:01:59 components at once. I can do plyometric, I can do straight arm, I can do their mobility,
1:02:04 bent arm, it doesn’t matter a bit. I can do it all at one time. But an adult who’s now fragile
1:02:10 from years of making a living, sitting at a desk, day in, day out, as they get a little older,
1:02:15 kids get bigger, levels of activities, drop, drop, drop, drop. And they’re compromised. We have to
1:02:21 build these things in a different order. We have to first go, rebuild mobility, then we have to
1:02:26 rebuild core, core I’m talking, not just abs, but obliques and lower back. Most adults, a lot of
1:02:32 their lower back pain, isn’t lower back related. It’s oblique related. We have to go in and we
1:02:39 have to correct that. Then we can worry about regular strength. Once those things are done,
1:02:43 then we can get to the moneymaker, which is their dynamic strength. But with an adult,
1:02:48 especially a strong adult who’s been athletically inactive. So they’ve been doing strength training,
1:02:54 but not out moving, doing sports, being active, you know, outside of their conditioning. Or let’s
1:03:02 say for example, all they’re doing is squats. And they’re very linear in the path of their knee.
1:03:08 And there’s no meniscus work. There’s no MCL work. There’s no ACL work. Then they go outside. They
1:03:14 play a little softball here at all the time. Yeah, when I was playing softball, I blew my knee
1:03:18 going around first base. Really? How many kids blow a knee running around first base?
1:03:23 I mean, the supplemental knee exercises that look wacky as hell when you first look at them that
1:03:28 you’ve had me do. And maybe we can show some of this to people in the show notes. Even in the span
1:03:34 of three or four weeks, I’ve seen a huge difference in knee stability improvement because I haven’t
1:03:39 ever performed these types of targeted movements before. Coming back to the diagnostics, we talked
1:03:44 about the bridge. We talked about the hanging leg lifts. Are there any other movements?
1:03:51 Shoulder extension will be huge. Shoulder extension would be sitting on the floor.
1:03:57 Sitting on the floor. Sitting in that pike that you described earlier. Hands touching behind them.
1:04:02 And then without letting the hands move, trying to scoot the butt as far forward away from the hands
1:04:08 as they could. Just that one movement right there is going to let us see. Going to show me their
1:04:14 scapular health. Can they protract? Can they retract? It’s going to tell me how tight their
1:04:18 pec minor is. It’s going to tell me how tight their bicep is. And it’s going to tell me how tight
1:04:25 their brachialis down by the elbow is. Oh, the brachialis. Yes, your favorite. My good friend,
1:04:31 the brachialis. And also just, and this relates to kind of daily living, a lot of people who have
1:04:36 back pain, myself included quite a few years ago, if you’re wondering if you have a tight pec minor,
1:04:41 you can just Google pec minor and figure out where it is, but basically think right under the clavicle.
1:04:45 Get a lacrosse ball, you know, go on the wall and try to roll out your pec minor with a lacrosse
1:04:50 ball. And if you have back pain, you don’t always fix that back pain by just focusing on the location
1:04:56 of that pain. That’s a good point. And you start addressing the pec minor and a lot of that stuff
1:05:02 is alleviated. And I wanted to throw one thing out there just for people who might be interested.
1:05:07 And that is, I think part of the reason I seemed or was better prepared for the assessment than I
1:05:13 would have been otherwise is that I started doing really just one thing, one type of new exercise,
1:05:21 which was compression strength training in that pike position. And did that for just maybe two
1:05:28 times per week prior to doing the assessment as I was traveling. And for people who are wondering
1:05:34 what this is like, if you really want to feel humbled, as I did, I was traveling, I was in
1:05:40 Columbia, a very close friend of mine, almost got to professional rugby in New Zealand. He’s a beast.
1:05:46 I mean, athletically, they are extremely strong, extremely fast. He’s always going to be one of
1:05:52 the top performers in the gym when he walks into a weight room. And he saw me doing pike pulses.
1:05:58 And so I’ll explain what this is to folks because he was kind of laughing at me. And he’s like,
1:06:01 what kind of Jane Fonda bullshit are you doing here? You know, and I love that name. And I said,
1:06:06 all right, I’d like, all right, big guy, you’re such a tough guy. Let’s see you do these.
1:06:11 So for those people who are interested, you’re sitting in this seated pike position we’re talking
1:06:14 about, right? So you’re sitting on your ass on the floor, the upper body perpendicular with the
1:06:19 floor and your legs out straight in front, you point your toes, kind of tense your quads to
1:06:25 push the back of your knees into the floor, then reach forward and stretch forward as far as you
1:06:29 can. Get your fingers out on either side of your legs as far out as you can. And then just try to
1:06:34 lift your heels off the ground, keeping your legs completely straight and just pulse it up and down
1:06:38 like, yeah, three to four inches, maybe if you can manage that and just do, try to do 30 of those.
1:06:43 And my, my buddy could not lift his heels off the ground and just fell over laughing. He’s like,
1:06:49 yeah, okay, those are hard. But that compression, it’s if you think about the range of motion
1:06:54 that most people train for core, they’re doing sit ups or maybe they’re doing hanging leg lifts
1:07:00 up to like an L-sit. So their legs are getting up to kind of parallel height. Well that last 90
1:07:06 degrees and especially the last like 45 degrees where you’re bringing your thighs towards your chest
1:07:12 is so hard. I mean, I had zero strength there prior to doing just a few weeks of this stuff.
1:07:17 It just amazed me. And for those people also, we were talking about the transverse abdominis.
1:07:21 Coach, feel free to veto this. But I think it’s also nicknamed the corset muscle. If you’re trying
1:07:25 to think of what they might look like is it wraps around the abdomen. So if you cough a lot or laugh
1:07:31 a lot and get really, really sore, it’s very frequently often engaging that transverse. But
1:07:38 let me ask you, so you mentioned CrossFit. You mentioned a couple of things, you know,
1:07:43 drenched in sweat, doing the sweat angels. What are your feelings about kipping movements like
1:07:49 kipping pull-ups? Had to open that can of worms. Well, I was asking a mutual friend, I won’t name
1:07:56 him. And I said, what should I talk to Coach Summer about? And he said, kipping pull-ups,
1:07:59 he’ll lose his shit. So I said, okay, I got it. We started. I was the original gymnastics guy for
1:08:05 CrossFit way back in the early 2000s and ended up leaving. I was there before there was the first
1:08:12 CrossFit affiliate. When all there was was Glassman working out of that little gym in Santa Cruz.
1:08:18 Left just because to do GST right like anything, that a dichotomy that I always find curious with
1:08:24 people, especially the CrossFitters, is they will be so on point with dissecting everything they do
1:08:32 in terms of their Olympic lifting. You know, my pull is here, my pull is there, my knee was a quarter
1:08:38 inch this way. I mean, they’re just methodical. And they don’t bring, and I shouldn’t say just
1:08:43 CrossFitters, but then they, other people, they don’t bring that same degree of attention to detail
1:08:50 to their body weight work. So one is supposed to be meticulous and one is somehow just supposed
1:08:55 to be thrown together. Yet they expect the same quality results. So if we look back in the day,
1:09:01 CrossFit, you know, their lifting was nothing by national standards. Now they get people who are
1:09:06 qualifying to go to nationals. Fast forward all those years in terms of their mass strength
1:09:11 training, and they’re not even remotely close. They don’t match a national team. They don’t
1:09:17 match a state level athlete, let alone a national level, let alone an international level. They’re
1:09:23 not even in the same ballpark. And part of the issue is because the keeping pull-ups were a huge
1:09:30 big deal was a moneymaker. You know, I’ll be straight out of pissing people off, but it was a
1:09:35 moneymaker. As advertising for a program, they could bring someone in who’s never been able to
1:09:41 do a pull-up, have them hold their chin by the bar, and let them fall, hit the bottom of that
1:09:46 movement, bounce back to the top. And the person’s eyes light up and they’re like, you know, this is
1:09:51 the best f-ing thing ever. I’ve never done a pull-up in my entire life. Oh my god, oh my god,
1:09:55 and they’re pumped. What they didn’t realize is that this person has compromised basic strength
1:10:02 and compromised shoulder flexion. They don’t have mobility in their shoulder. So they’re
1:10:06 hitting the bottom of that movement with multiples of body weight. So they weren’t strong enough to
1:10:10 do a regular pull-up. So now we’re going to drop them on connective tissue with multiples of body
1:10:15 weight. That’s got to go somewhere. So it’s going to force that shoulder to open further than it
1:10:20 can handle. And I’m going to bounce off that connective tissue like a trampoline back to the
1:10:24 top of the bar. And then to make it to pour salt on the wound, now I’m going to do a shitload of
1:10:29 reps at the same time. I’m just going to crank on it. And they were getting people who were coming
1:10:34 in and, you know, crossing, well, there’s no proof. There’s, you know, bullshit, bullshit. You guys
1:10:39 can live in a dream world all you want. It was blowing people up. And now the good thing that
1:10:44 went into their credit, you know, it took time. There was a denial. No, it has nothing to do with
1:10:48 it. But now we’re seeing a recommendation that, you know, guys, we got to start getting some basic
1:10:53 strength built first, some basic mobility. And then at that time, kipping pull-ups, absolutely,
1:10:58 there’s nothing wrong with that. They’re healthy. They’re good to do on a healthy shoulder joint
1:11:03 with a good foundation of basic strength. But a beginner doing kipping pull-ups,
1:11:07 really? That’s insanity. That’s just pouring gasoline on a fire.
1:11:11 So kipping, then, is the finishing addition. It is not the starting element.
1:11:17 We started working with adults. So our first, we do seminars all around the world, you know,
1:11:21 we spend a lot of time doing hands-on. And our very first one we did, I don’t know, 2007 or so.
1:11:29 And we’ve got all these people, we’ve got all these beasts here and they’re strong.
1:11:33 And tried to do my entry-level plyometric work on some floorwork with them. And the stronger the
1:11:41 athlete, the faster they went down. Knees, lower back, ankles on baby stuff. Baby stuff. I mean,
1:11:49 we’re not talking anything hard. We’re talking about standing in place and with knees straight,
1:11:52 being able to bounce down the floor using just your calves. No way. Their tissues couldn’t take it.
1:11:58 They hadn’t done anything like it. Or we had 15 minutes on the schedule, for example,
1:12:04 how bad mobility was. We had 15 minutes on the schedule to stretch. Nothing hard,
1:12:09 nothing intricate, nothing intense. Just an easy, basic stretch. Get them loosened up for the day.
1:12:14 That stretch took an hour and a half to complete. It was an hour and a half, Tim. It was an hour and
1:12:20 a half. There were bodies lying everywhere. It was like I was in Vietnam or I’m filming a war movie.
1:12:27 I turned to my staff. I’m like, what the fuck am I supposed to do now? They failed warm-up.
1:12:32 They failed warm-up. Now, in fairness, this stuff is really, you would look at it, and just like
1:12:39 my friend is like, what is this, Jane Fonda bullshit? And I’m like, hey, man, why don’t you try
1:12:43 this for 10 minutes? I mean, it is really taxing. I mean, I remember doing one of the stretching
1:12:50 routines, which I’ll note, I think is might be of interest to people, is I’m hitting each once
1:12:57 per week. So there’s one that is front split focus. It’s a very hamstring focus. There’s one that is
1:13:02 bridge focused and another that is middle split adductor and middle split focus inside. And the
1:13:08 point that you make is doing this twice a week will not double your progress. It will cut it in
1:13:14 half. So you’re only really hitting each of these once per week. I mean, there are different
1:13:18 daily limber protocols. But I remember doing at the very beginning of one of these workouts,
1:13:23 I believe it was. I know is absolutely the front split workout. A shit ton for me, a shit ton of
1:13:32 calf raises with a different number. You moaning about that like different foot placements. It’s
1:13:37 like, okay, 180 calf raises later of different variations. I was like, okay, and I’m only three
1:13:43 minutes into this hour long stretch sequence. And I know we’re bouncing all over the place
1:13:48 because I want to give people kind of a buffet sampling of how this training differs. But one
1:13:52 of the reasons I respect the programming that you put together and the nuance that you bring to
1:13:57 this is that the observation then is, and correct me if I’m, or you can elaborate on this if I’m
1:14:02 missing something, but a lot of the hamstring flexibility issues or limitations that people
1:14:07 perceive are at least in part due to lower leg. Absolutely issues, including huge amount of
1:14:15 arm. Yeah, including the Achilles. So you in this particular progression in the beginning,
1:14:20 you’re engorging and then stretching the insertion point basically around the heel and then again
1:14:26 at the knee and working your way up to the hamstrings. And there’s an athlete who’s been
1:14:31 on the podcast Amelia Boone, one of the most successful obstacle courseraisers in the world.
1:14:36 And she’s basically pointed out the same thing and she said, yeah, you can take someone who’s
1:14:40 really inflexible in their hamstrings, have them roll out their feet with sail across ball or
1:14:44 something like that. And all of a sudden they gain two inches in their descent with the hamstrings.
1:14:50 It’s all connected. We found by accident. So we never intended this in it. We just
1:14:55 part of what maybe helps people to understand the layers of complexity that I approach training with
1:15:02 is that for years my bread and butter was to produce best athletes in the country. That was
1:15:09 my job. In order to have a job, I had to produce some of the best athletes in the world. And we
1:15:13 had to do it from scratch. And so it becomes an issue of one, an injured athlete is no good
1:15:20 to the United States. Doesn’t matter how talented he is, how strong he is. If he can’t go out on
1:15:26 the floor with the USA on his chest, we can’t win a medal with him. So he’s got to be healthy.
1:15:32 And then the second caveat that goes with that is that we’re trying to find a way
1:15:38 to make the best better. Because these athletes are already the best on the planet. And you’re
1:15:45 going head to head with other athletes who are the best. So then how do you find a way to make
1:15:50 something which is almost already perfect, even closer to perfect? And if you do what everybody
1:15:56 else is doing, without kind of going out into the jungle, if you went to Indian country and
1:16:02 learning new things, then you can’t get a leg up on your competitors. Now, if we go, we have
1:16:08 PhDs who come through in this and that, and we always give them major shit, major shit. Because
1:16:13 the way people think the world works is that they do their research, they write about it,
1:16:18 they publish it. We learn about it and we implement it with our athletes. That is not how the way the
1:16:24 world works. The way it really works is you’ve got high level world-class coaches who are super
1:16:30 bright decades of experience. You know, just my last senior athlete alone, I had 16,000 hours
1:16:36 into training Alan. 16,000 hours spread over 12 years. What is Alan’s last name?
1:16:42 Bauer. So yeah, you guys got to celebrate Alan. He OU just won national NCAA championships. Again,
1:16:51 major blowout by the largest margin in NCAA history. Wow. That was, well, as of this recording
1:16:58 very recently. Yeah, that was just this, oh goodness, the weekend of the 15th. I think we’re
1:17:05 scheduled here to come out sometime in May, but yeah, very big deal. But to go back to the other,
1:17:11 so we’re looking for an edge. And so we don’t know why some things work. We just know it works.
1:17:17 And I started getting notes from therapists around the world. For example, therapists are taught
1:17:22 that they should have a neutral spine. You should have a neutral spine. I was getting people from
1:17:27 around the world, they were writing me, but athletically, I’m sorry, I’ll be direct, but
1:17:32 neutral spine, athletically, is the biggest load of horseshit I’ve ever heard in my life.
1:17:36 You can’t run with neutral spine. You can’t throw with neutral spine. You can’t climb with
1:17:41 neutral spine. I can’t swim. I can’t do anything with a neutral spine, except laying a box, dug
1:17:47 in a hole, and they get ready to bury me. I mean, that’s the only thing I can do. There’s nothing
1:17:51 athletically I can do with a neutral spine. So we know just automatically to produce athletes,
1:17:57 we’re not going to do a neutral spine because torso-wise, there’s only two movements. I can go
1:18:01 from an arch, snap to a hollow, or I can be hollow and snap back to extension to the arch.
1:18:06 Those are the only two movements that torso is capable of, athletically.
1:18:10 Everything else is a variation off that. We can add rotation with some throws and some this and
1:18:15 that, but that’s all there is. So we spend a lot of time building power for that. And these therapists
1:18:22 around the world started taking our really gentle introductory work and they trained it on them
1:18:28 self first. And I’m like, you know, just real similarly what you said, Tim, you know, I feel
1:18:32 better than I have in years, coach. I feel better in years. And this is completely different from
1:18:37 what I was taught in school. Maybe we could use an example that we’ve discussed before, which was
1:18:43 a new movement for me, which is Jefferson curl. Yeah, they’re having some fun with that. So we
1:18:48 look at Jefferson curl right now. So it wasn’t that many years ago that if you squad it below
1:18:52 parallel, it was heresy. It was heresy. If you went below parallel, the knees couldn’t possibly
1:18:58 adapt to it. You’re just going to blow your knees, your, your kneecaps are going to just
1:19:02 pop off the front. Our eyes can be shrapnel, knee shrapnel, but everybody accepts now that,
1:19:07 you know what, there is nothing wrong with the body being exposed to its natural range of motion.
1:19:13 Now, do you have to build it up gradually? Yes, obviously you do. But Jefferson curl falls into
1:19:19 that. So gosh, how do we explain Jefferson curl? I mean, to give it a, I can give it a shot.
1:19:24 Yeah, you’ll be better. This would be a good, this would be a good exam review for me anyway.
1:19:27 So Jefferson curl is a gradually rounded stiff legged deadlift. That’s the simplest way to
1:19:36 visualize it. So if you’re looking at an athlete from the side doing a Jefferson curl,
1:19:42 they will most likely be standing on a box holding onto an Olympic barbell right in front of their
1:19:49 hip/legs. So it’s just like the very top of a deadlift position. But when they start the descent
1:19:56 and it’s elevated so that when you have plates on and whatnot, there’s room for it. But when they
1:20:01 come down, they’re going to tuck their chin and then vertebra by vertebra round their back down
1:20:08 all the way into the bottom position where the objective would be or one of the objectives would
1:20:14 be to get basically your wrists to the front of your toes or at least in a perfect world if you’re
1:20:19 advanced enough. Yeah, in a perfect world. And of course doing this very gradually with supervised
1:20:26 attention from somebody who knows what they’re doing and then reversing that. And again, going
1:20:32 from this vertebra by vertebra rounding up until you end up in that top position and then repeating.
1:20:38 Was that a fair description? Fair description. Yeah, the easy is just think of it as a string
1:20:43 of pearls. And we’re just curling one pearl at a time. We’ve been having some fun with that one.
1:20:48 We have done Jefferson curls, so I don’t know, 12, 15 years now. Expected standard is body weight
1:20:54 for us. Note to people listening, do not try this with body weight right out of the gate.
1:20:59 No, I don’t. So for example, one of our senior students in Australia in his training, physical
1:21:05 therapists has his own clinic doing really well. He tried it with just the empty bar, you know,
1:21:09 the 20 kilo bar at first, trashed him. He dropped all the way down to I think a kilo or two,
1:21:15 right, which is completely fine. And what we’ll talk about why in just a sec.
1:21:19 And then he built up and last time I checked with Mark over the course of, I don’t know,
1:21:23 I’m forgetting, there’s too many students. But around 12 to 18 months, he built up to
1:21:28 either three quarter body weight or maybe up to full body weight now. And that feels better than
1:21:34 it ever has. But the key there is people got to understand is that this was a gradual process
1:21:39 over 12 to 18 months. It wasn’t just go, we’ve got a very good, I’ll throw Quinn out. I’m going
1:21:46 to butcher Quinn’s last name, Quinn’s a PhD in physical therapy. Quinn, he not does some really
1:21:52 good work. How do you spell his last name? You had to ask me that. We can get it for the show,
1:21:58 Ness. Yeah, we’ll get it for the show. We chat a lot on Facebook and that Quinn likes to stir
1:22:04 the pot, if you will, you know, stir up some shit. He’s experimented with Jefferson Crowle
1:22:08 himself for I think going on about three or four years now and feels wonderful. He’ll toss it out.
1:22:14 And so one of the things that’ll always become obvious, you know, the McGill experiments where
1:22:19 they would take connective tissue from a pig cadaver and put it under such and such
1:22:25 amount of strain and if we put it in this position with this much load, it snaps. Okay, and everyone
1:22:31 runs around and it’s the sky is falling, the sky is falling. Oh my God, oh my God, don’t bend your
1:22:35 spine, stay neutral. What everyone kind of missed the big elephant in the room was the pig was
1:22:41 fucking dead. The tissue was dead. It can’t adapt. It’s dead. It’s no longer living. And it wasn’t
1:22:47 exposed to very gradual loads so that there could be progressive adaptation, which is what our bodies
1:22:54 are really good at. They kind of overlooked all that. So if I take this completely unprepared
1:22:59 tissue and I do this to it, it’ll break. So some very interesting discussions right on it. Obviously,
1:23:05 everyone’s fine. You know, we’ve, we’ve got athletes doing great, adults who are doing wonderful and
1:23:10 the physical therapist will come around simply because it’s healthy. Now they’ve got to understand
1:23:14 and other people who are listening should understand also is that our weighted mobility work
1:23:20 needs to be approached with a different mentality, a different level of intensity
1:23:25 than conditioning work because connective tissue has one tenth the metabolic rate of muscular
1:23:31 tissue. It heals slower, it adapts slower. So you have to kind of come to the table with a very
1:23:36 patient attitude or, or as I consider myself, I’m extremely impatient naturally.
1:23:44 But I’ve learned in order to get what I want and to go where I want to go, I’ve had to learn to be
1:23:49 patiently impatient. And if I give into the urge, then I get hurt, athletes get hurt,
1:23:55 we fall apart and we, you know, nationals are Olympic trials are every four years.
1:23:59 Nationals are once a year and you don’t get another nationals. You don’t get another Olympic trials.
1:24:04 If you blow it, you’ve got to be on point that day. So it teaches us and our, our environment was
1:24:09 actually a blessing because it’s very much practical. It’s very much results oriented.
1:24:14 There’s no room for opinion. I think, I feel, I prefer, it works. It doesn’t work.
1:24:22 It produces results. It doesn’t produce results. You are the best in the country.
1:24:26 You aren’t the best in the country. I mean, it’s very clear. It’s very clear and it can’t be argued
1:24:32 with. And now that was actually something when we segwayed into kind of the fitness world, if you
1:24:37 will, where you come out of national team and then everyone knows who the studs are.
1:24:43 In the fitness world though, everyone’s proclaiming they’re the stud. Everyone’s proclaiming they’re
1:24:48 the national champion. There’s nothing to support it. There’s no results. There’s no great athletes.
1:24:53 There’s no great abilities that have been generated. There’s just the marketing.
1:24:57 And that, that was hard to wrap my head around because in national team that doesn’t exist.
1:25:01 You can’t go to the Olympics and the guy who talks the loudest gets the medal.
1:25:04 Have the loudest voice. I’m champion. I think that’s national politics right now.
1:25:08 Oh wait, no, never mind. Different podcast. I did want to ask you how your visit to the
1:25:11 White House, but I figure we’ll save that one. We’ll save that for another time.
1:25:14 Yeah, Tim went to the White House last week, guys. So I’ll take his brain for you later.
1:25:19 So I, I interrupted, but yeah, you get to the fitness world.
1:25:21 And another one of the differences that you pointed out for me, which I really liked was that
1:25:26 in the fitness world, it’s exercise and diet. Whereas in your world, it’s always been
1:25:35 eat and train or eat and train. Yeah. Eat and train. What the people are trying to do.
1:25:40 And I’ll throw a little, a little blurb in here. We have an outstanding nutrition program.
1:25:46 The guy who, who wrote it, former SEAL team six, when he started, but it’s back in the day,
1:25:53 he was like 140, 145. And then Jeff got all the way up to 220, just shy at 225.
1:26:02 Lollid muscle and his waist was the same size as when he was thin. He looked like two vikings,
1:26:07 two shoulders on top of his body. He came walking and I was like, what the fuck? It’d been a couple
1:26:11 years. What the hell did you do? It’s these basic nutritional concepts that we teach.
1:26:18 But what we try to do with adults is they’re trying to stay ahead of a bad diet through exercise.
1:26:24 They’re trying to outrun a bad diet and it can’t be done. It can’t be done. And then what happens is
1:26:30 if they somehow find this crazy combination of massive amounts of cardio and they can kind
1:26:38 of keep their weight in check a little bit and then they stop that cardio, they immediately
1:26:42 start gaining weight gain, weight loss, all of that should be separate from your conditioning.
1:26:48 You know, you’ve got to get your nutrition dialed in. If your nutrition is dialed in,
1:26:51 your body is going to find its natural, healthy weight that it’s going to operate at.
1:26:55 Now, if you’re, if you want to be the giant muscle guy and that’s not your phenotype,
1:27:00 which is your body type, you know what? Tough shit. Deal with it. You know, it’s not going to
1:27:04 change. You’re not going to change your phenotype. You’re not going to change your body’s genetic
1:27:08 expression. Okay. And that being said, you can maximize what your potential is. Well, we hammered
1:27:15 through to our students as you’re not responsible for the hand to cards you were dealt. You’re
1:27:19 responsible for maxing out what you were given. Now, and so who knows what your strengths will
1:27:24 be. Maybe you’ll be more endurance. Maybe you’re going to carry easy muscle mass. Maybe you’re a
1:27:29 max strength guy. Maybe you’re very skill oriented. It doesn’t matter. Maybe you’re
1:27:33 very explosive. But whatever it is, you know, make the most of it.
1:27:37 So on that point, and then I want to come back to, I want to ask you about,
1:27:41 I think it’s, I wrote this down during our assessment, Tony Fay, quote, no routines,
1:27:47 end quote. That’s all I wrote down. So that’s a cue for a story, I believe that you told me
1:27:50 that will come back to, does that make any sense? Or is that just like a cryptic
1:27:54 3am note that I wrote to myself? I don’t know. But the,
1:27:57 you got to stay away from the wine, dude. Never, never. In vino veritas, we’ll get back to that.
1:28:02 But oh, I kind of know what it is. I think I can actually cue it up at the basics.
1:28:07 Yeah, well, we’re going to come back to that one second. The question I want to ask first is one
1:28:10 that came up a lot from listeners of this podcast, which was, and I’m going to create sort of a
1:28:16 composite of these questions. But like if someone is 35 years old, let’s just say,
1:28:22 former athlete does basic gym work, diet is okay, not terrible. They feel reasonably athletic,
1:28:30 but they’re not competing in anything, certainly have never done any gymnastics.
1:28:34 What would good goals be for such a person? And what would bad goals be at the same time?
1:28:42 Well, that without question, bad goal would be for them to jump right into
1:28:48 kind of full body weight, straight arm strength, for example, a back lever,
1:28:51 which doesn’t require a ton of strength, but they love to do it because it looks so cool.
1:28:58 It’s kind of like their first thing they can do that, you know, wow, look at me.
1:29:01 The problem is, is that it puts them in extreme load while in shoulder extension.
1:29:08 So let me, can I paint a picture for people? So back lever just to create the image
1:29:13 and coach correct me if I’m wrong. Imagine you’re laying on your stomach on the floor
1:29:18 arms by your sides, and then you turn your hands palm down so that your thumbs are pointing
1:29:25 out away from your body. And then you lift your arms off the ground as high as possible
1:29:30 with your arms straight and then place a bar in your hands and then lift your body off the ground.
1:29:35 I mean, off the ground and kind of hold yourself there, hold your body would be horizontal.
1:29:40 Yep. And what they don’t realize is that when the shoulders are in shoulder extension like that,
1:29:47 is that the biceps are under maximum stretch. So it’s not, it’s not a problem to do with
1:29:51 being strong enough. The bicep is too low and they’re going to tear a bicep for a young adult,
1:29:56 not a problem at all. And we’re lucky, you know, we, we have a lot of people who use our material,
1:30:01 but some of our material and I’ll coach your, you’re too conservative coach. It’s a new world.
1:30:07 Coach, we don’t have time. I had someone who was 21 or 23 once coach. I don’t have time to take
1:30:12 my time. I’m already 23. Okay. All right. I think you’re misreading this, but they want to jump right
1:30:19 into their strength training and they do well, but they don’t do the mobility work. So it wasn’t
1:30:24 last year. I think it was a year before. I think maybe the street workout community, five of their
1:30:28 top guys around the world snapped biceps. These are crazy strong guys. Right? I mean, we see them.
1:30:33 These guys are beasts. They’re doing one arm chance. We’re doing this and that. They all snapped
1:30:37 them on back lever stuff because they’re, the mobility wasn’t in line. Now we all know when
1:30:43 you’re young, you can get away with a lot of stupid shit because the body heals so fast.
1:30:48 Luckily, right? I certainly wouldn’t have survived being 21 if it wasn’t the case,
1:30:53 but as an adult, the structure is mature now. And I think maybe a better way to look at it
1:31:00 is people think I’m getting older, ligaments are breaking down, tendons are breaking down,
1:31:07 joints are getting brittle. And actually, that’s not the case because if we go back in time,
1:31:12 when you were a little guy, when I was a little guy, when all listeners were a little guy,
1:31:15 we ran around like mad men. Right? It wasn’t, oh, today I’m going to ride my bike three miles.
1:31:20 It was, sun was up, go jump on my bike and I’m gone all day. And I’m running, I’m jumping,
1:31:25 I’m climbing and we’re just, we’re just being crazy little guys. So we had this huge matrix of
1:31:31 activity that the body is used to. Then we hit high school. And for most people, that’s our
1:31:36 first exposure to structured athletic training. Okay, and the body does well with it. Now,
1:31:42 the mistake is thinking that the body did well solely because of that structured athletic training.
1:31:48 What they’re overlooking is all that activity, that matrix of activity that occurred for those
1:31:54 years prior to that. Then if they’re a high enough level athlete, structured training might
1:31:59 continue into college, graduate, time to get a job. All right, I’m still, you know, I’m young,
1:32:05 right? Hormones are pumping, I’m going to go to work and then I’m going to go play basketball with
1:32:09 the guys in the unions. I’m going to hit the gym, this and that. That goes good for a couple of
1:32:13 years. All right, I’m getting vibe, having fun weekends, weekends are full. Then you meet the
1:32:19 cutie, right? You meet the love of your life, you get married, suddenly I can’t go play basketball
1:32:23 every night now. Okay, so we do this and that and a little at a time, our levels of physical
1:32:28 activity outside of conditioning are dropping down and they’re dropping down a lot. Then
1:32:34 kids come. All right, well, there’s another huge chunk of time gone. Then before you know it,
1:32:39 you’re 30, you’re 35. You haven’t been doing hitting the gym very often. There’s certainly
1:32:45 not a time for just playful activity or doing sports or this or that on a regular basis for
1:32:51 most people, right? And they spend most of the time hunched over that desk. Now, the body wants
1:32:56 to be healthy. It wants to be healthy. That’s your prime example. We feed it the right movements
1:33:01 in the right dosages and it blooms, it blossoms. It’s like weeding and watering a garden, right?
1:33:07 The body wants to be healthy, but we have to do it in the right dosage. And so, for example,
1:33:12 those street worker guys, they hurt themselves because it was the wrong dosage. They wanted to
1:33:15 go too hard too soon without the mobility. So for an adult to come back around and answering that
1:33:21 question a long way, 35-year-old, very first thing we got to do, we got to fix joints. We got to
1:33:28 repair joints. We got to get that range of motion back. If you were to look at all of the adults
1:33:33 that you’ve dealt with, let’s just say 35-year-olds, if you had to pick, and of course, this does not
1:33:39 cover all the bases, but if you had to pick, say, three to five movements or exercises or stretches
1:33:46 for addressing the most common deficiencies, like getting those joints back into play,
1:33:52 what would some of your selections be? So just for joint joint, I think we’d put Jefferson Curl
1:33:56 at top of the list. Because remember, we have multiple sections of the spine, right? We’ve got
1:34:01 the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar. That’s going to come through also into glutes. That’s going to
1:34:06 go down into our hamstrings. That’s going to hit our calves. That’s going to hit our Achilles as
1:34:10 well. So for one, that’s a lot of bang for your buck for one exercise. Even if that was all you did,
1:34:18 right? And you just did Jefferson Curl, a lot of aches and pains are going to go away because
1:34:22 of that. Next point, West, tough. It’s always hard to boil it down. Boil it down. We took care of
1:34:29 pike. We’ve got to get extension. We’ve got to get some thoracic extension. I’d throw elevated
1:34:34 bridge in there if arm strength was sufficient to handle it. If not, we can scale it down to
1:34:41 some weighted work with some bars or some barbells, either some dowel with a plate.
1:34:46 We’ve got to get shoulder extension in there. Because what happens, a lot of the conditioning
1:34:50 we’re exposed to is all front delt heavy. Right. It’s all anterior delt. And pecs get tight. The
1:34:58 anterior delts are getting tight. And we start pulling our own shoulders forward. We create our
1:35:03 own impingement. It doesn’t matter. I’ll do more exercises. I’ll do more exercises. Well, no,
1:35:08 you’re just making it worse. What the problem is is there’s not balance in the shoulder joint.
1:35:13 There’s no retraction. And it’s easy to tell. What does their posture look like? What do we
1:35:17 see with everyone now? They’ve got that. What do they even have a term now? Texting neck.
1:35:21 Kind of that turtle forward, distended forward. It’s like the wally, powered down look.
1:35:28 You know, the scary thing there, and again, we have some PTs who use our stuff around the world,
1:35:33 a lot of success. And they’re the ones who come in and educate us for, we’ll say, you know, we’ve
1:35:38 noticed this and they tell us, they teach us, well, to the limit we can, because we’re not
1:35:43 professionals, but to the limits we can, they start teaching us the mechanics of what is really
1:35:48 going on. So we have a very good student. Now, Wesley Tan runs one of our affiliates. He’s a
1:35:54 full-time osteopath in the UK, runs another one of our GB affiliates, FORMA GST. And Wesley’s the one
1:36:03 who taught me that there’s a point coach where if you abuse the body, it’s not going to come back.
1:36:10 And so, for example, you see some older adults who are extremely hunched forward, neck distended
1:36:16 forward, chin up, because they’re trying to see where they’re going. And it’s not that they have
1:36:21 bad posture and they could fix it. It’s that they can’t fix it because the vertebrae are rectangle.
1:36:29 And if you spend, after spending years of hunched forward like that, it compresses the front edges
1:36:34 of that rectangle until it becomes a trapezoid. And that doesn’t come back. Once that happens,
1:36:39 it’s done. It’s over. It’s done. Same thing happens with the muscle bellies. So people will get frozen
1:36:45 shoulder or impingements in this. That is if you’re not using the muscle belly, the body
1:36:51 doesn’t want to support it because muscle tissue is expensive. And by expensive, the body looks at
1:36:56 it. It’s expensive to feed. It’s expensive to maintain. For example, your body isn’t a painting.
1:37:01 You can’t get to a certain degree of muscle mass, mobility, athletic ability, endurance,
1:37:06 whatever you want to say. And then just stop and have it continue to exist like a painting you did.
1:37:13 It has to be maintained because if you’re not using it, it costs too much resources for the body
1:37:19 to continue to keep it. So it’s going to start breaking it down. And that’s why you get a few
1:37:23 days, right? And then you start losing strength. You start losing mobility. You start losing wind.
1:37:29 Easiest physical attribute to build. Endurance. Simple. Super simple. Endurance is what?
1:37:37 Endurance is simply strength repeated over and over at a lower load. No big deal. That’s a six to
1:37:42 an eight week process. Simple. No problems at all. Mobility. Going to take some time.
1:37:48 What’s the easiest one to fix? Muscular strength. No problem at all. So for it, it’s super important
1:37:55 then that we use that muscle mass because if it’s not being used, you’re not only going to lose the
1:38:00 size of the muscle mass, the body is going to start doing deposits of collagen on it. And it’s
1:38:05 going to start shrinking that muscle on the traps, for example, of going back to those older adults
1:38:10 we discussed. It’s going to shrink until a lot of it is connective tissue on the edges. Now what
1:38:16 people need to realize and they don’t is that when they see an adult who’s hurting, right,
1:38:22 they’re older, they’re shuffling, they can’t pick their knees up, their hips are frozen,
1:38:26 they’re hunched over, their necks displaced. They weren’t that way when they were younger.
1:38:31 This is all the result of inactivity and poor progressions in their exercises. And it didn’t
1:38:39 have to be. And then they need to take the next step of connecting is that if it happened to that
1:38:45 guy or that woman, it can sure as hell happen to me also if I go down the same road that they went
1:38:51 down. Returning to the shoulder extension because I noticed in our assessment that I had terrible
1:38:56 shoulder extension and I had kind of accepted it and written it off with stupid reasons like,
1:39:01 well, you know, I’ve done too much deadlifting at too much huge slabs of muscle in my back. I can’t
1:39:06 do shoulder extension. It’s like total horseshit. I mean, I didn’t notice those huge massive
1:39:13 slabs of muscle. Yeah, the imaginary lat syndrome that I have. And I mean, that was just blown to
1:39:18 Smith Arends when I met. Let me make sure I get his name correct. Is Paul Watson? Is that right?
1:39:24 Oh, yeah. Big Paul in New York City, who’s gigantic and extremely flexible. So as soon as I hung out
1:39:29 with him, I was like, okay, no, let people know Paul is always six feet to 30. I mean, and just
1:39:36 he’s about 40, I want to say. And just probably walks around at 6% body fat and can do a flat
1:39:41 like chest to ground pancake. No problem. Can do dislocates with a weighted dowel or barbell. No
1:39:48 problem with all different types of grips, which I can’t do at all, even though making progress.
1:39:53 The shoulder extension, what is your preferred way to work on shoulder extension? Is it the
1:39:58 sitting down arms behind you, scooting the hips forward? Is there something else you
1:40:02 would add to that mix? Well, we have to sneak up on that one a little bit. So sometimes we
1:40:10 can’t even work shoulder extension at first if the elbows are deconditioned.
1:40:14 So if brachialis just inside the elbow is weak, if the insertion of the bicep tendon is weak,
1:40:21 then when the arm is extended as they stretch, there might be some discomfort.
1:40:24 So if that’s the case, we have to give that time to adapt. So you notice that’s one of the questions
1:40:30 I ask you. How’s your brachialis feel? How’s your bicep feel? How’s your elbow feel?
1:40:33 Because we never push through pain. I mean, you can, but have you noticed that the guys who push
1:40:42 through pain, they’ve got a shelf life of somewhere between two and four years. And then the body is
1:40:49 so beat up and so painful and so chronically injured that it’s just easier to be a fat slob
1:40:55 sitting on the couch and at least my pain dropped than to try to continue pushing through and being
1:41:01 a stud. It’s so common and it’s also unnecessary. For example, and I don’t get this one. I don’t
1:41:07 get this one a lot. I’ll bring it because there’s a lot of people and don’t get me wrong. I really
1:41:11 like weightlifting. I think the Olympic lifting is sweet. There’s a lot going for it. I think the
1:41:17 way that it is approached here in the States is not as efficient as it’s approached in China,
1:41:24 for example, or in Russia. So, for example, in both of them, before there’s any weight at it at
1:41:30 all, they build complete mobility throughout the body. They can straddle their legs, chest on the
1:41:36 floor, sit with legs together, pike, they’ve got bridge. They have all these basic mobility and
1:41:42 all ankle flexibility and that mobility. We talked about this. Is it related to
1:41:46 and especially, exactly. If you watch Cloakoff. People should watch this guy. Check out some videos.
1:41:54 He is such a beast. But what they also need to do is not just watch the weight he’s putting up.
1:41:59 They need to watch his warm up in the training hall and look at how amazingly flexible and
1:42:05 mobile he is. Now, what’s important to understand is at a world-class level. At a world-class level,
1:42:12 resources are limited. Energy you have for training is limited. The amount of time you
1:42:17 have for training is limited. The amount of time you have for recovery is limited. You have to
1:42:22 maximize these things because you’re going. It’s one thing to be the best stud in the town.
1:42:27 It’s another thing to be best stud in the state. Another one in the region. Another one in the
1:42:31 country. Completely different animal to be the best in the entire world. To be the best at what
1:42:37 you do out of billions of people. We’re talking livers of difference between the very top guys.
1:42:45 So, with all those restrictions and all those parameters in place, if the best in the world
1:42:51 are stretching their ass off in order to get strong, why aren’t you agreed? Not you personally.
1:42:58 Put me on the spot coach. No. No, you as in all of us, as in all of us, right? And what’ll happen
1:43:06 is people just kind of get blinders on. They want to watch technical. They want to watch
1:43:10 progressions. What do you do for this and that? And then they’ll blow off the mobility work that
1:43:15 they do early, not realizing that the mobility work was the gold nugget they were looking for.
1:43:21 They just didn’t brush the dirt off in order to see that it was gold underneath. They just thought,
1:43:25 ah, it’s just another rock who cares. No, it was the gold. That was the sweet and they missed it.
1:43:30 So, if we’re looking at, again, this 35 year old former athlete, maybe never was super competitive,
1:43:37 but has kept in decent shape, maybe does some form of exercise two or three times a week.
1:43:43 In terms of a understanding that the mobility and working with J curl, elevator bridge, shoulder
1:43:49 extension, et cetera is going to be, those are going to be ingredients in the recipe in their
1:43:53 progression to gymnast of some type. Not even gymnast. Functional human being.
1:43:58 Functional human being, right? Because if you don’t train, I’d like to, you know,
1:44:02 point out people, we don’t train gymnast. We do gymnastics training, but I don’t have,
1:44:08 I just got off the phone with our Olympic coach today, Kevin Majica, right? We had a great conversation.
1:44:12 But guys, regardless of how good you are at rope climbs and planches and this and that,
1:44:16 I wouldn’t hold my breath that Kevin’s getting ready to give you a call and say,
1:44:20 please come and be on our team this year. You know, I saw your rope climbs and you are kick
1:44:24 ass. You are the one for us. We got a uniform waiting here for you. We’re departing for Rio
1:44:30 in July, man. Be ready. Pack your bag. It is not going to happen, guys. So, you know,
1:44:35 we’re athletes. Functional human being covers it all. So let me just jump to
1:44:42 the punchline question, which is, let’s, so we look at, if I wanted to give someone a stretch
1:44:47 goal to inspire them to train consistently, right? So the mobility might not be enough,
1:44:51 but if I wanted to give them a light at the end of the tunnel. So I’m like, I know this
1:44:55 shoulder extension stuff is going to be very unpleasant, maybe not super exciting, but
1:45:00 this is the objective. This is what you might be able to do in three, six, nine, 12 months from now.
1:45:05 The back lever we’ve talked about is not necessarily a good goal because
1:45:11 you might think you have the strength and perhaps you do, but you don’t.
1:45:13 They’ll definitely have the strength, most without question.
1:45:16 Right. But they don’t have the mobility. So, you know.
1:45:18 They don’t have the mobility.
1:45:19 Snap goes the bicep.
1:45:21 There’s a nasty surprise waiting in that box.
1:45:23 What would be a good gymnastic strength training goal to have or goals? Just as context for people
1:45:32 who are wondering, after trying to do my best to survey the landscape and figure out what might
1:45:37 not be the stupidest goals, I wanted to, you know, nothing is the best goals, but I decided,
1:45:42 okay, well, press strict press handstand, which we can define in a second, seems like a good one,
1:45:48 and it just seems like a sweet thing to be able to do. And then front lever and then
1:45:52 lever straddle planche, then straddle planche. Exactly. So we can talk about what each of
1:45:57 those are, but would the press handstand, for instance, be something that incorporates
1:46:01 the strength and the mobility and all these pieces? If you had to pick one,
1:46:05 you had to pick one, that would be the one. That’d be the one. Because it’s going to have
1:46:09 all strength, all mobility, balance, agility, everything rolled into one movement.
1:46:15 Do you want to take a stab at what is a perfect press handstand look like
1:46:19 in your body? Perfect press handstand. So I’m just trying to keep it simple, right?
1:46:24 Bend over, hands on the ground by your toes, and they can be put your palms on the floor.
1:46:29 So they’re just in front of your toes, shoulder width, leg straight, leg straight.
1:46:34 Okay, now if they needed to bend, we could, but we’re talking about perfect world, right?
1:46:38 And then, hands on the floor, shoulders directly over the hands, and then no jumping,
1:46:45 using just the middle back, just the traps. Because everyone thinks traps, traps, traps,
1:46:50 anything, traps just for shrugging. Well, your traps are a huge muscle. They’re a huge muscle,
1:46:55 and they don’t just lie on the top of your shoulders, they’re in the middle of your back,
1:46:58 and down towards your lower back as well. They’re a giant muscle, and they’re capable of a huge
1:47:04 amount of power. And when you fix those, right, a lot of shoulder pain goes away, a lot of lower
1:47:09 back pain goes away. But go back to our other hands on the floor, shoulders over the hands,
1:47:15 using that middle back, those traps, pull the hips up on top of the shoulder,
1:47:20 maintain that flat back position, then we continue on with lower back, finishing the legs up to the
1:47:26 handstand. So a couple of things that make this particularly challenging. So one, obviously you
1:47:32 need to have the flexibility in the hamstrings and everywhere else, have the mobility, you have to
1:47:38 have the compression strength, like we were talking about doing those murderous, embarrassing pike
1:47:44 pulses, which look like they should be easy and they are not, bringing your legs basically to your
1:47:50 chest in that last like 10 to 12 inch range, really challenging. And then I think where you see a lot
1:47:57 of people online, do this incorrectly, at least from the standpoint of having the objective of
1:48:03 gymnastic strength training, right? So there are all sorts of ways you can cheat with this stuff,
1:48:07 to make it biomechanically easier. But if we’re trying to do it strictly.
1:48:11 And why do it? Maybe this is a nice thing to throw in, because people say, well, it’s just a matter.
1:48:16 It’s personal taste, coach. It’s personal taste. You do it this way because you prefer this form.
1:48:22 Now we do it a particular way, because this is what builds the most strength that’s transferable
1:48:28 to other activities. For example, this will continue. So who have I pissed off so far today?
1:48:34 I’ve pissed off Crossfitters. I’m gonna piss off yoga right now. So I once had, and I like yoga,
1:48:40 don’t get me wrong, but their approach to handstand is flawed. They want to go bone on bone.
1:48:45 So they want to have their shoulders depressed. So they’re bone on bone. They want to have
1:48:51 pike shoulders. So shoulders can elevate. So if I’m standing upright and I elevate my shoulders,
1:48:59 that would be like me shrugging my shoulders to my ear. And then doing the opposite is the other
1:49:04 direction. Well, when we do a handstand, and if I describe it this way, it’s going to make sense,
1:49:09 right? I want muscle and connective tissue to be doing the work. I don’t want bone grinding
1:49:15 on bone. That’s not a recipe for longevity. Not going to work. But the easy one is they’ll say,
1:49:21 well, there’s a yoga handstand, and there’s a gymnastics handstand. And my answer to that is,
1:49:25 well, you’re almost right. There’s a gymnastics handstand, and there’s a fucked up gymnastics
1:49:30 handstand. Those are the only two there are. Here’s how we evaluate it. A gymnastics handstand,
1:49:35 right, done with nice flat back, nice hand, all being a smart ass aside, right? We’re going to
1:49:41 look at it just from a purely practical viewpoint, which one leads somewhere. So if I do a yoga type
1:49:48 handstand with that arch and the flex shoulders, I’m not going any farther than that. I can work
1:49:52 on duration. I can do some other things, but I’m not going any further. I do a gymnastics handstand
1:49:57 where it’s flat. Now I have nice range of motion in the shoulders. I have strength through the middle
1:50:02 back through the traps, right? I’ve got good core strength. I’ve got good compression strength.
1:50:08 Now I can move on to good press handstand work. Why? Well, we want to get stronger.
1:50:12 That in turn allows me to go on. If I’m in the mood and I want to do more, I’m going to
1:50:16 do more advanced one-arm handstand work, pure wedding work, all those things are out results
1:50:24 of a proper nice straight line handstand that you can’t do with the flawed approach. It’s not
1:50:30 aesthetics. It’s being practical because we don’t do anything in gymnastics, right? That’s just purely
1:50:37 aesthetics. Why do we do things in a certain way? It lets us generate more power. Why do we want more
1:50:42 power? Let’s us get more air. Let’s us do more flips. Let’s us do more twists. Let’s us do
1:50:47 harder things on rings, which means more points, which means more gold medals.
1:50:52 And let me throw out a couple of observations and you can correct me if this is wrong. But
1:50:57 like one of them, an example is something that people might think is aesthetics. There is an
1:51:01 aesthetic appeal, but it’s a side effect and not the reasoning behind it would be a strong point in
1:51:07 the toes, right? A strong point on the legs. So you see a lot of people doing handstands and I was
1:51:13 going to do this, certainly. And they have kind of what I heard what one acrobat called tofu feet.
1:51:19 They’re not fully dorsiflexed, like they’re not pulling the toes back to the knees, which I think
1:51:24 looks terrible also, pretty common in yoga, but they don’t have that and they don’t have a strong
1:51:28 point. And so they’re, at the very least, their quads and their adductors aren’t really fully
1:51:33 engaged. They’re loose. They’re loose. And so they’re leaking energy in all sorts of directions
1:51:38 that it makes. I like that leaking energy. That’s a very good description. And it makes,
1:51:43 I think I probably stole it from Pavel Tsatsulin. Pavel’s a good buddy. Pavel’s a good friend of mine.
1:51:48 I like Pavel. Pavel’s great. And what is the consequence? The consequence, there are consequences,
1:51:53 one of which is you’re wasting energy. So you’re not going to be able to train as efficiently.
1:51:58 Number two is you’re not going to develop the proper balance and alignment because you’re
1:52:03 going to be flopping all over the place and having to correct more so than you should.
1:52:07 So that just that pointing has a huge impact on your ability to train the handstands,
1:52:12 like a really strong point. And the other point I wanted to make is, because I’ve, of course,
1:52:19 in the attempt to try to work on this in the past, which failed and I’ve made a ton of progress in
1:52:24 the last few months, but when doing it solo, I would watch videos online. And of course,
1:52:28 not all videos are created equal. And you would see people preach the choir on them.
1:52:33 Yeah. And you would, and you would see people doing a press handstand, but they would
1:52:36 planch really hard, right? So you would see, in other words, you’d see people, they put their
1:52:41 hands flat on the ground in front of their toes. And then they shoot their head really far forward.
1:52:47 So their shoulders travel. If you were to drop a plumb line, like a string with a weight on
1:52:51 the end from their shoulders, it would hit the floor, say like eight inches in front of their
1:52:55 six, eight inches in front. Sure. And then they go up into the handstand and they have this arch in
1:53:00 the back and maybe their feet are pointing straight up. And what does that look like? It looks a lot
1:53:05 like what was the gold standard in sort of Muscle Beach, Venice, or Santa Monica, like 19, circa
1:53:12 1916, 1940, 1950s, 1940s, 1950s, but that’s going to place a lot more structural strain on the spine.
1:53:19 So then if the, what does the proper version look like? I mean, roughly, right? Your ears are
1:53:25 roughly in between your shoulder blades or in between your arms. Yeah. In between your arms,
1:53:30 fully shoulders extended up or not extended. What am I looking for here? Pressing, pressing down
1:53:36 through the ground and keeping the hand, the shoulders directly on top of the hands. For
1:53:41 people who want to just do a little experiment, obviously do it, do it safely. But I was blown
1:53:46 away the first time that someone showed this to me. If you do a normal, say, kick up to handstand
1:53:51 on the wall, just the way that everybody does it, you’re kind of flipping up and you end up
1:53:55 looking away from the wall. There are a million ways to do it. Let’s say you do that. And then
1:53:58 instead of doing it the way you’ve always done it, before you put your hands on the ground,
1:54:03 you start with your arms overhead in the position that you want to assume on the ground and shrug
1:54:08 your shoulders up as high as possible, trying to get your deltoids to the sides of your ears,
1:54:12 maintain that position and then go up. And the stability is just a world of difference. I mean,
1:54:17 it’s nine day. It’s a completely different movement. All right, I have to ask this because a million
1:54:22 people asked since we’re on a roll here. We’ve already checked off yoga. That’s true. And I have
1:54:27 to come back guys. I like everything else about yoga except your handstand. So only a small amount
1:54:32 of hate mail for the handstand. Some of the coaches and doesn’t have to be in gymnastics,
1:54:37 but they certainly could be some of the coaches who have impressed you the most.
1:54:41 I took down in between like my bouts of hands shaking and like accidentally getting chalk in
1:54:47 my mouth doing the assessment and like when I could bend my arms and do something. I took
1:54:52 these cryptic notes. I wrote down one name, which was Alexander, world champion, male and female.
1:54:59 Does that ring any bells? Yeah, you know, I’ve been extremely, extremely fortunate in my career.
1:55:06 I have just a multitude of friends who are world and Olympic champions, world and Olympic team
1:55:13 members, world and Olympic coaches. And for a long time, you know, I just kind of, because if that’s
1:55:19 your environment day in, day out, it just kind of becomes your norm, right? And then after a while,
1:55:24 you kind of stop and think like one day I was at a competition and I was visiting with some friends
1:55:29 of mine and I came back and my oldest daughter was maybe around 12 at the time. She was like,
1:55:36 “Oh my God, you know who you were talking to, dad?” And I said, “Well, yes, sweetie. I know,
1:55:40 they’re my friends.” She says, “That was the Olympic champion and that was the world champion.”
1:55:44 I say, “Yeah, I know, babe. I know.” She’s just like, “Oh my good God.” Well, Dimitri Balozerchev
1:55:51 is a good friend of mine and Dimitri won worlds in 83 at 16 years old. 16 years old, just unbelievable.
1:56:01 He won again in 87. What a lot of people don’t know is in between there, Dimitri obviously Russian,
1:56:08 Dimitri had a car accident and broke his left lower leg between the knee and the ankle in 42
1:56:15 places, 42 places. So basically, you know, as powder, they put a man, he’s unconscious, he’s on
1:56:21 the table and he’s covered up and they’re getting ready to remove his lower leg. They’re gonna,
1:56:26 you know, taking it off. And the surgeon pulls the towel down, the sheet down because he’s prepped
1:56:33 for surgery and he’s out and he sees it’s Dimitri. Now, this is Russia, right, in the early 80s.
1:56:40 So he didn’t know this. It’s not warm friendly Russia. The doctor and me like, “Holy shit,
1:56:45 I am not cutting this leg off because the surgeon who takes Dimitri Balozerchev’s leg off is probably
1:56:50 going to lose his hands shortly thereafter also. You’re a national hero.” So they save his leg
1:56:56 and Dimitri comes back from it and wins worlds in 87. Goes 88 Olympics, does great medal, gold
1:57:04 medals. Well, Dimitri was lucky enough. We’re at different training camps and that Dimitri was my
1:57:09 roommate. And you know, Russians are Russians, right? It takes a long time for them to warm up to
1:57:15 you. So it took, I don’t know how many years, but we started getting along real well after some years.
1:57:19 He starts sharing some stuff. I mean, I’m like, you know, Dimitri, because his leg is trashed.
1:57:23 His leg is trashed at 88 Olympics. I said, “Dimitri, you know how? How the hell, dude?”
1:57:28 He said, “Yeah, only less for a few seconds. I can do anything for a few seconds.”
1:57:33 I said, “I don’t know, dude.” Well, so it’s just great, right? So he’s, you know, a legend in
1:57:39 gymnastics. We get together with a room full of world and Olympic champions who are Russian.
1:57:45 They were all deferred to Dimitri. He’s that big a legend. And this is in a room full of massive
1:57:50 egos. Yeah, there’s no shortage of confidence here. And if Dimitri’s in the room, they treat Dimitri
1:57:55 awesome. It’s a very, very cool thing to see. Well, we go forward. We had a world champion
1:58:03 from the Russian on the women’s side who won Worlds. And Dimitri’s coach Alexander was responsible
1:58:09 for training both of them. So Alexander is the only one in history who produced a male world
1:58:15 champion and a female world champion. He’s the only one. And Alexander right now is down coach
1:58:22 in the Brazilian team. What is Alexander’s? Is that his first or last name? I always screw up
1:58:27 all the Russian pronunciations. All my Russian friends are going to laugh because they’re totally
1:58:30 used to me butchering this, but it’s like Alexander, Alexandernauf or something. Got one of those,
1:58:36 Alexandernauf? If I’m with my Russian friends, I just say Alexander and everybody knows who
1:58:40 I mean. So I don’t have to embarrass myself. What do you think allowed him or made him?
1:58:45 What makes him him? Yeah, exactly. What makes him different?
1:58:48 What makes him him is the ability. So it starts with depth of knowledge to have enough depth of
1:58:57 knowledge that you can look at an athlete and plan what you need to be doing four years from now,
1:59:03 eight years from now, and then reverse engineer all of it to today. All the training cycles,
1:59:10 the strength, the deloads. It was from Dimitri that I for so back in 83, Dimitri was the only
1:59:17 gymnast. I think today probably one of the only ones who every fourth week was a deload week.
1:59:22 Why? To give the body a chance to recover. Now there’s a lot of people who talk deload but way
1:59:27 back then, right? The training, if you visit with Dimitri, right, it’s always Chris, it’s mathematics,
1:59:32 it’s all mathematics we do. To them, you take these correct pieces, would you be like doing the
1:59:37 correct numbers? That creates your equation. If you put the equation together correctly and then
1:59:42 you solve it, there’s your answer. And your answer is the physical preparation at the end in a
1:59:47 successful competition. So Alexander is great, great head knowing. We’re going to just be consistent
1:59:55 over this training block. So, you know, an Olympic cycle is four years long. So we’re getting ready
2:00:01 to finish this Olympics, right? And then the next cycle starts. So it could take, for example,
2:00:08 to get someone to 75, 80% of their genetic capacity with a good coach, a good world-class
2:00:17 coach, going to take three to four years. It’s going to take three to four years just to let the body
2:00:22 grow, adapt. Do you think that’s also true for 30, like training an adult? I do. Okay, great. All right.
2:00:30 Now, that’s a healthy adult. So if they’re severely compromised, so, you know, to get
2:00:36 through our whole curriculum should take three to four years. If they’re severely compromised,
2:00:41 and we have to do damage repair, we’ve got to heal some injuries, we’ve got some chronic things,
2:00:48 because what’s a chronic injury? A chronic injury is simply an injury that you kept abusing until
2:00:53 it became semi-permanent. That’s all chronic injury is. It means you slammed your hand in the
2:00:58 door and it hurt. Your response to slamming your hand in the door and hurting was to keep slamming
2:01:02 your hand in the fucking door. You kept slamming in the door and you said, “God, my hand really hurts.
2:01:07 What should I do? What should I do?” I said, “Well, quit slamming your hand in the damn door and it
2:01:12 will get better.” But people, they don’t think that way. They’re just like, “Well, I really,
2:01:16 really like doing this.” And we get people coming to us really beat up because we’re taught no pain,
2:01:21 no gain. Well, we flip that around. We say no brain, no gain. We’re not talking about the pain
2:01:26 of fatigue. The easy way to know the difference between fatigue and injury is simply the sharpness
2:01:34 of the pain. So, for example, and it’s some experience also, if you’re feeling pain and maybe
2:01:39 it’s from a core workout and you stop, you’re doing hollow body rocks, whatever, it doesn’t
2:01:44 matter what you’re doing, sit-ups, you stop. If it’s fatigue, it’s immediately going to start to
2:01:49 lessen. As soon as you stop, the pain starts going away. If it’s an injury and you stop,
2:01:55 it’s immediately going to begin increasing. That’s your, “Oh, shit,” moment. Now, it’s, “Oh,
2:02:01 I screwed myself up.” And so, you kind of have to ride that. We want to work to where the body is
2:02:07 working, but we don’t want to work so hard. It’s like, for a long time, it was a big thing for
2:02:11 people doing kipping pull-ups to take pictures of their hands being raw and bloody from their ribs.
2:02:17 They were looking at it as a badge of honor that I worked so hard. And in the short term,
2:02:23 for that moment, yeah, they worked really hard. Now, I looked at it differently. I looked at it as
2:02:29 like, “You stupid shit. What are you going to do tomorrow now?” There’s no amount of work you can
2:02:36 do today that could offset the amount of progress you could have made throughout a properly structured
2:02:41 week. It can’t be done. You see that with kettlebells a lot too. I remember when I was really deep in
2:02:47 kettlebell training, it was, “Yeah, you take yourself out for God knows how long you rip all
2:02:51 your calluses off.” But they mean well. They mean well. We tend to use two terms with our
2:02:57 athletes. We have immature athletes and mature athletes. And it’s not an age deal. It’s an
2:03:05 attitude deal. So an immature athlete is someone who wants what they want right now. Okay? A mature
2:03:12 athlete is someone who’s willing to do what needs to be done now to get rewarded for it later,
2:03:17 delayed gratification. And it’s the mature athlete that in the long run always comes out on top.
2:03:23 They’re always the ones with the greater longevity and the greater success. The other
2:03:27 ones, the immature ones, they’re really talented. They may stay ahead for a while, but eventually
2:03:32 you’re going to get so dinged and broken and beat up that they have to step aside. And the mature
2:03:38 guy and the mature athlete or the woman, they’re just doing their thing day in, day out. It’s like
2:03:43 writing a book that has 365 pages. And if I ask you tomorrow, “Tim, go home tonight and write me
2:03:50 a book with 365 pages.” You’re like, “Chris, you’ve lost your fucking mind.” But if I say, “Tim,
2:03:55 I want you to write me a page, a single page every day.” In a year, we’ve got a book with 365 pages.
2:04:04 And if you picture that, that thickness of a novel, it’s a lot of pages there. But if I look at that
2:04:09 thickness of a single page, it’s so thin that it seems negligible that it doesn’t even matter.
2:04:15 It’s like, “Why did I bother?” Well, it’s the consistency that adds up over time. That’s where
2:04:21 you see these great athletes. Got to understand, you see a world-class athlete that did not start
2:04:28 training yesterday. This is a multi-year process. Well, also, I think that there’s a behavioral
2:04:34 modification and a component of this, which if you wanted to dig in the research is supported at
2:04:39 this point, which is doing each day less than you feel maximally capable of. It’s a fantastic
2:04:46 sort of positive reinforcer. And this applies in sales. This is what IBM did way back in the day
2:04:52 when their sales force was slaughtering the competition. They had the lowest quotas in
2:04:57 the industry because they wanted their sales to be able to be unintimidated to pick up the phone.
2:05:02 So we get substituted, intimidated to pick up the phone with intimidated to go to the gym
2:05:06 or start a session. You could also apply it to writing. Leave a little in the bank.
2:05:12 Leave a little in the bank. I remember there were two examples offhand as it applies to writing.
2:05:16 A friend of mine was a very, very consistent, prolific writer. And he said, “My key is every
2:05:22 day I write less than I feel capable of.” And a guideline that I was given was two crappy pages
2:05:27 per day. That’s all you have to do. Two crappy pages. And sometimes you overshoot that and you
2:05:30 have a great workout and you’re feeling, as you put it, froggy. You’re feeling fantastic and you
2:05:36 just blow through and set a bunch of PRs. But you didn’t go into the workout with the pressure
2:05:41 of having to achieve PRs in every exercise. And Hemingway, maybe not the best life model, but
2:05:48 was prolific writer. Still a stud, man. And he would end mid-sentence. He would end still feeling
2:05:54 like he had more to say in a specific paragraph or sentence so that he had a place to pick up the
2:05:57 next day. So on the point of consistency, and actually I want you to finish your last thought
2:06:02 because I totally hijacked the conversation. But you said it takes three to four years
2:06:10 to get them to what percentage of their genetic? This is ballpark 75 to 80. This is just an example
2:06:16 to people because the body will not let you run at 100%. Won’t do it. Won’t do it. There’s not enough
2:06:22 optimal surplus that we mentioned earlier. Three to four years to get to 75, 80%. It will take me
2:06:29 another three to four years, another three to four years to get to about 90%. Another three to four
2:06:37 years. And then after that, it will take me another three to four years to get to about 95%. And that’s
2:06:46 me writing heard on them. That’s my standards. Because remember, it’s easier for me to maintain
2:06:52 that immaculate standard because I’m not the one feeling the fatigue right now. It’s very difficult
2:06:59 for a world-class athlete to train themself. And it doesn’t do a world-class coach any good to have
2:07:04 all that knowledge. And it takes a partnership. It takes both of them working together to create
2:07:10 this great athletic animal. But the interesting thing is that another three to four years to get
2:07:14 to 95% and as soon as they ease up, the body drops back down to that 75, 80. That’s where it likes.
2:07:21 Now, to build back up won’t take nearly as long as to build it in the first place because the
2:07:26 structures are already in place. Nervous systems are developed yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada,
2:07:30 but that’s where the body is comfortable. So as far as adults are concerned, there’s a 35-year-old
2:07:38 need to be able to produce at 90%. No, they don’t. Do they need at 95%? No, they’re not full-time
2:07:46 professional athletes. They don’t have time for that. Can they produce at 75, 80%? Yes, they can.
2:07:54 And the interesting thing is, will that put you on the Olympic team? No, absolutely, absolutely not.
2:08:00 Are you going to be close to it? No. But will it put you being better than 99 out of 100 people
2:08:06 around you? Absolutely. Absolutely, it will put you there. And if we put a percentage on that,
2:08:13 that means that just by being consistent, putting some consistent years of training and that puts
2:08:18 you in the top 1% of the human population in terms of physical ability, that is not a bad consolation
2:08:26 price. No, it’s not. And I want to underscore the consistency point because I’ve always been an
2:08:32 intensity guy for the most part because that’s my default mode. And it’s served me well. And
2:08:38 everybody’s right. It’s served me well, but there’s a point where the sword cuts both ways.
2:08:43 You sent me an email recently. I’m going to replace the name just unless we decide to…
2:08:49 As you’re going to say, or maybe take out the profanity just in case. Yeah, I’ll take out the F-bombs.
2:08:54 Dear you lazy bastard. No, that’s not how it starts. Because I want to talk about older students
2:09:00 who have picked up gymnastics and… Okay. So there are a lot of people who are rightly, I think,
2:09:05 or naturally skeptical of the ability of, say, 35, 38, 40 plus year old to acquire
2:09:11 the skills that are associated with people who start when they’re five, six, seven years old.
2:09:16 So I’m going to replace the name with Frank. Okay, so I was having a hell of a lot of trouble with
2:09:21 Tuck Hopps. And to just explain that, I fully plan for everyone listening to put a lot of video
2:09:28 examples in the show notes. You’ll have visual references for a lot of this, but Tuck Hopps
2:09:33 is a great exercise. There are different ways to practice this, but a Tuck Handstand is instead of
2:09:39 having your body ramrod straight from your hands all the way to your pointed toes at the very top,
2:09:44 you’re basically bringing your knees to your chest or rib cage while you’re in the handstand position
2:09:51 with your feet still pointed, but your heels kind of touching your ass. Is that a fair description?
2:09:57 I agree with that. And I was having a lot of trouble with range of motion. I just couldn’t
2:10:01 get low enough. And so Coach sent me an email, which was, you know, Frank is one of my senior
2:10:06 students. Here’s a video of him working his Tuck Handstand compression. While it’s not exactly the
2:10:11 same exercise, this does provide a nice visual example. Now the part that stands out for me
2:10:15 is what follows the video. Because I watched the video and I was like, okay, that’s pretty solid.
2:10:19 And you said, you started roughly two years ago out of shape, weak and rather pudgy on his first
2:10:25 workout, I believe that he failed three times 12 seconds bent hollow body hold. And there are
2:10:32 people on wheelchairs that are stronger in that. Yeah. And I’m probably going to get the not going
2:10:36 to do this exercise justice. But I mean, a bent hollow body hold is effectively like imagine if
2:10:42 you’re in a crunch position on the floor, right? And then you put your arms just kind of pick your
2:10:50 feet up like you were going to do a sit up, except don’t sit up shoulders up a little off the ground,
2:10:54 feet off a little ground, and then just try to rock back and forth. That’s it. So he failed that
2:10:59 couldn’t do with three sets of that times 12 seconds. Couldn’t do it. Not a chance. Fast forward
2:11:03 two years and he’s a beast. There are two points here that really left a mark on me. So the first
2:11:10 was he’s very consistent. Okay, we’ve talked about that. Here’s the part that I really liked. So he
2:11:13 never rushes through exercise and every time he gets stuck on a progression and is not able to
2:11:17 break through that particular plateau, he simply drops all the way back to the first progression
2:11:22 and begins working his way up. So I want to try to illustrate this because this is a really
2:11:28 because most people, myself included, will just bang their heads against a wall with the plateau
2:11:33 movement. Let’s take the press handstand, which we’ve been talking about as a great kind of bang
2:11:37 for the buck objective, because it incorporates so many different elements and attributes that you
2:11:41 need to develop. What would a series of progressions like four or five progressions for that look like?
2:11:50 And does it literally mean that if he couldn’t get through movement five that he would drop
2:11:55 all the way back to number one? Or would he go back to number two and number three?
2:11:59 He’d go right back to number one. Now he might go to, he might not start with the very week one
2:12:07 programming of three by one rep. He might drop back to week 11 where we provide the programming
2:12:14 where it’s five by five and you demonstrate mastery, then next workout bump. But basically,
2:12:21 what he’s doing is if he failed on that exercise, that means there was a chink in the arm or some
2:12:28 or there was a hole in the preparation. There was some deficit that had been overlooked or some part
2:12:33 of the body that had not yet super compensated. So basically, we want people to go through when
2:12:39 they’re in training to just be super simplistic. We want their training to go through a period of
2:12:43 overload where whatever they’re doing is kicking their ass. It’s hard, it’s intense.
2:12:49 And then without changing reps or sets, we want the body then to go into a period of load where
2:12:56 that same amount of work, that same load, same exercise, same reps, same sets feels moderately
2:13:03 difficult. It’s feeling easier because the body’s gotten stronger. And then where people always
2:13:09 cut it short, where they undermine themselves here, is they don’t go into under load. So to be super
2:13:16 simplistic, under load is where, damn, I’m just not feel like I’m working very hard. You’re moving
2:13:21 the same weight. You’re doing the same reps, you’re doing the same sets, right? But you’re just cutting
2:13:26 it short. What people tend to do is they want to ride that razor’s edge. I did this much today.
2:13:32 I’m going to do more next week of that typical five pounds on the bar. Okay, well, that’s great.
2:13:37 You know, if that was the case, I remember my first way to pull up workout. I was excited.
2:13:41 I was excited way back when I was a teenager. I came home, I did my five pounds. I pulled out
2:13:45 my calendar, did five pounds. I’m going to do a pound every week. Holy shit. I’m going to be pulling
2:13:51 1500 pounds in a year, man. I’m world champion. I’m world champion in the making. Linear doesn’t
2:13:56 work that way. It doesn’t work that way. So what happens is that you hit that point of where you’re
2:14:02 maxed out currently, and then you got to step off and we got to give the body a chance to accommodate.
2:14:08 So for example, you mentioned Rob Wolf. Rob is a good buddy. Rob’s super sharp. For those of you
2:14:12 don’t know, he’s a nutrition guru. Check out his stuff. ROBB for people. ROBB. Yeah, he’s got two
2:14:19 Bs there. Well, Rob is a high intensity guy like you, Tim. And so I shared with him the year Allen
2:14:27 won national. So in the national champ, imagine you’ve defeated the entire country. There’s one
2:14:33 champion and you’re it. Everyone you kick their ass. Unbelievable feeling. Extremely awesome. Well,
2:14:40 that year, I didn’t change anything on Allen’s conditioning the entire year. Not a damn thing.
2:14:47 I didn’t change an exercise. I didn’t change a rep. I didn’t change a set. Not for that entire year.
2:14:55 See, you mean that they’re for the progressive resistance purists out there. There might be
2:15:02 another way. But remember, he wasn’t a beginner at this point. Now, because a beginner, right,
2:15:06 it wouldn’t do any good if I can do a wall pushup inclined on the wall. I mean, Allen was strong.
2:15:11 He was already doing hollow back presses, you know, rope climbs were for maintenance of healthy
2:15:16 elbows, yada, yada, yada. But for that year, I didn’t change anything. All that changed was
2:15:23 workout that took an hour, got to the point where it was taken 40 to 45 minutes, at which point do
2:15:31 your stretch and get out because the less time you’re in the gym, the better. Okay, because it’s
2:15:35 less wear and tear on the body. Think of it when I hear what you mentioned, you know, people who
2:15:38 love to be high intensity. Okay, it’s cool. But the analogy that comes to mind is someone who wants
2:15:44 to be high intensity all the time. It’s like having a new set of tires. Every time you come up to a
2:15:49 stop sign, you don’t gradually break, you slam those brakes hard, you skid to a stop.
2:15:54 Every single stop sign, how long does that pair of tires going to last? It’s going to wear out
2:16:00 pretty quick. And now the body’s not like tires, it can rebuild itself as long as you don’t put it
2:16:06 too deep into a hole, or physically break the structure, damage the structure beyond repair.
2:16:12 As long as you show some degree of care, you rebuild yourself. But if you keep getting to that
2:16:18 stop every single day, matter of times, not if it’s guaranteed.
2:16:21 So let’s throw out a couple of, I’ll use another automotive metaphor, let’s switch gears. And I
2:16:28 will ask just a couple of questions that I think people would love to hear answers to. The first is
2:16:34 someone listens to this, they’re extremely excited to do gymnastics strength training.
2:16:40 And maybe they go out and they’re like sampling different things from all sorts of different
2:16:45 places. And, you know, of course, I have no business, I should say with full disclosure,
2:16:49 I have no business association, I’m not getting any kind of affiliate, anything from you. I just
2:16:54 am a real fan of how you train. So I think people should check out your training programs. But
2:16:59 what exercises should people not attempt or just remove from consideration for the first,
2:17:04 say, six months of gymnastics strength training? Probably, I would say muscle ups. The issue becomes
2:17:13 it’s nothing wrong with the pull, there’s nothing wrong with the dip. The shoulders will adapt
2:17:17 relatively quickly. You know, they’ll get up on rings at first and they’re shaking. And that’s
2:17:21 simply because the stabilizers aren’t used to the load. That’ll adapt within, you know, two weeks,
2:17:26 four weeks, they’ll be fine. The issue they run into is because their shoulder extension is weak,
2:17:32 they can’t get the elbow behind the torso. So instead of doing a dip with body weight,
2:17:38 now they’re trying to do a tricep extension with body weight. Completely different animal.
2:17:44 Their elbows can’t go, their elbows are trapped at their side and now their hands are in front of
2:17:47 them and they’re just trying to press themselves up. Of course, they’re just trash and their elbows
2:17:51 are not some people. Okay, we do see it. Some people have incredible joints that you can just pound
2:17:57 and pound and pound and pound and pound. Nothing happens to them. Run them over with a car. All
2:18:02 you’re going to do is hurt your car. Everyone assumes they’re that guy, they’re that woman.
2:18:08 The reality is you’re not guys. You are not that person. If you were that person,
2:18:13 I would see you at training camps right now or you would be a celebrated professional level
2:18:16 athlete. So accept the fact that you’re human and those are not your joints. You can’t take that
2:18:22 approach and have longevity. It’s not going to happen. Okay, so muscle-ups go out. Muscle-ups go
2:18:28 out. Now, how do they get around the muscle-up? How do they get, because their elbows hurt,
2:18:32 they can’t do it slow. We need to build strength. We got to do it slow. How do they get around?
2:18:37 They do the kipping muscle-up. Okay, well, that gets me on top of the rings, but where I get the
2:18:44 benefit of muscle-ups is through that transition as I’m going between the pull-up through my chest
2:18:49 up above. That’s where cross is. That’s where planche is. That’s where Maltese is. That’s where
2:18:54 all advanced rings drink this. It’s that strength. When you see a gymnast, right, when you see in
2:19:00 this summer at the Olympics, right, and we’re just as an aside, guys, we’ve got some podcasts
2:19:04 coming out for a gymnastic body. Sorry, Tim, competing with you here. That’s all right.
2:19:08 And we’re going to talk some training, right, with some of our Olympic guys. And when you see
2:19:13 them, you are, you’re going to see this massive musculature and it didn’t come from push-ups and
2:19:18 it didn’t come from dips. It came from that advanced ring strength they do. So, if you’re
2:19:23 doing a kipping muscle-up and you’re going from below the rings to on top of the rings and it’s
2:19:27 gone, you just skip the most beneficial part of the muscle-up. Let on. You waste it. Let me ask
2:19:32 a related question, because of course, every four years, I watch gymnastics. I love watching
2:19:37 gymnastics as do a lot of people and they go, holy shit, if I can get arms that look like that
2:19:42 by hanging from a bar for an hour a day, I need to start hanging from a bar. How much of,
2:19:48 I know we’re talking about the rings, how much of the musculature in the upper arms,
2:19:53 biceps specifically, comes from straight arm work versus some form of bent arm work.
2:19:58 Excellent question. So, the majority of the massive biceps they see is going to come from
2:20:04 the straight arm work. So, for example, when the guys would, at that level of training,
2:20:10 at that level of strength, rope climbs for example, my guys had to do a triple on a seven-meter rope.
2:20:17 All rope climbs are done with no legs. Okay, in GST, we do ropes without legs. We get some people
2:20:24 say, oh, the rope is used for transportation. As soon as they take out the escalators in a mall
2:20:29 and they put ropes in in place of it, or they take the elevators out and they put ropes, I’ll buy
2:20:33 that argument that we use a rope for transportation. Until that happens, a rope is used for getting
2:20:38 freaking strong. Right, that’s the point of having a rope. So, they would, in five minutes,
2:20:45 they would do a triple on a seven-meter rope, get in the back of the line, do a double on a seven
2:20:49 meter, get back in the line, and do another. And that’d be about five minutes worth of work. Okay,
2:20:54 now, for them, what we did notice, and a lot of people missed this, we’re going to do two things
2:20:59 here at once. So, for the maximal strength component of it, it’s the straight arm work,
2:21:03 Maltese work in particular. All right, just blows the body off. And people listening,
2:21:09 don’t just go into your garage and try a Maltese on your rings. You can, you can totally,
2:21:14 because I don’t think Maltese will hurt you. Maltese won’t hurt you, but you’re landing
2:21:18 on this concrete on your face underneath the rings is probably going to hurt. Maltese won’t.
2:21:23 It’s the sudden stop at the end. That will be uncomfortable. Now, what we found out with the
2:21:27 guys, though, is, you know, we did over the years, the weight vest, the weight, the heavy weighted
2:21:32 rope climbs, pull-ups, nothing put better mass on a biceps, secondary from the ring strength,
2:21:39 than high volume rope climbs. Nothing. Nothing blew them up. Now, the key, though, is for everybody
2:21:45 listening, if you go and you jump right into ropes right now and you haven’t built a foundation of
2:21:51 rows, pull-ups, multi-plane pulling, and then get to rope climbing, right? You’re going to give
2:21:57 yourself a raging case of elbow tendonitis. Yeah, your elbows are going to just burn, disintegrate.
2:22:04 Yeah. Like anything else, you got to pay your dues. But if you go through the proper steps and
2:22:09 you’re prepared to do rope climbs, there is nothing better because the bicep is an endurance muscle.
2:22:14 That’s its job. Now, it can do this, but its primary function is not to how much can I do
2:22:20 the heaviest load for one rep. Its primary function is go out and kill something, pick it up,
2:22:26 and carry it a long ass way back home. That’s its primary job. That’s its primary job. So it
2:22:32 just blossoms from high volume work. Now, the key is, is that it’s got to be high volume with
2:22:39 a reasonably high load, which on the rope climbs is body weight. But we’ve got to build to that.
2:22:45 Two things that I’ll throw out there just because people might find it interesting. So the first is
2:22:48 you can build extremely muscular biceps. This is not gymnastics related, but with purely straight
2:22:55 arm heavy pulling in the deadlift combined with let’s just, let’s just say you had one day of
2:23:01 heavy pulling. And by heavy, I mean two to three reps, like to the knees, kind of like the Barry
2:23:07 Ross protocol in the forearm body, no eccentrics, you know, drop it. And then let’s just say you
2:23:13 do that on Mondays and then on Fridays or Thursdays, whatever it might be, you do high rep kettlebell
2:23:18 swings, two armed kettlebell swings. You can get really, really muscular arms without doing any
2:23:24 bent work whatsoever. Also, when we’re talking about an easy enough to switch that high rep kettlebell
2:23:30 work to throw rope climb on Friday, if you’re advanced enough, if your elbows are bulletproof
2:23:36 enough, which mine are not as an example for folks like I’ve done plenty of rowing. But here’s the
2:23:41 difference though, when I have a parallel grip, if you’re like, I can pull fuck that, I can do
2:23:46 bent rows of the barbell with 225 pounds and throw whatever. And you think that you’re the king of
2:23:51 pulling. If you don’t do a lot of parallel grip work or a sat bar work, and then you go to a thick
2:23:57 rope, you’re in for a surprise. Maybe we should touch base on the difference real quick between
2:24:03 the various grips. Yeah, please. Okay, so guys, in terms of GST specific strength, if you’re doing
2:24:12 just pull up work, your parallel grip is by far going to have the greatest return on investment.
2:24:19 Simply because that parallel grip hits the breeky Alice so hard down in the elbow. The reason we
2:24:26 need that is when you climb a rope, you’re going to have more of a parallel grip,
2:24:29 you do that parallel grip pull up, obviously, you’re developing that when we’re on the rings,
2:24:34 we’re on top of the rings, right, because we always everything is aimed for eventually
2:24:39 getting onto the rings to build strength. So when you’re on the rings, we need the grip turned out
2:24:45 past parallel. Now back in the day, Greg Glassman, Greg is the, you know, he’s a super bright guy,
2:24:52 founder of CrossFit, but he just didn’t understand why we would turn the rings past parallel. He
2:24:58 thought it was just aesthetics. Coach is just aesthetics. Well, the problem is if I’m on the
2:25:02 rings and I do a dip, I do a muscle up, I do whatever. And I straighten my arms and I don’t
2:25:08 turn the rings past parallel. Now, coach, I apologize for interrupting just for people to
2:25:13 visualize this. So let’s just say you’re up on rings, and you’re doing dips, and you’re in between
2:25:19 the straps, what incorrect me if I’m wrong here, coach, but when you get to the top, that means
2:25:24 the top of the rep and your arms are straight, that the rings themselves out slightly. That’s
2:25:31 right. So instead of having the rings parallel pointing straight ahead or turned in, which is
2:25:36 what most people turned in, they would be at say 10pm and 2pm or something like that. Exactly.
2:25:42 And it will vary as long as they’re out. The reason is is what’s the weak link and straight
2:25:47 arm strength is the elbow. The weak link is the elbow. And what a lot of people will do is we’ve
2:25:52 had people who were taught, well, elbow pain is just part of doing ring strength. No, it’s not.
2:25:57 Elbow pain is an indicator that your ring strength is f-ed up and you need to do better
2:26:01 programming and hurt for a reason. I took you off track there just because I wanted people to
2:26:06 visualize the proper thing. So you were saying to Greg that when you get to the top, you know,
2:26:09 the issue is it’s not just aesthetics. When you get to the top, it’s not aesthetics. You’ve
2:26:12 got to turn past parallel so that the brachialis is activated. There’s a reason that after all
2:26:19 these years of CrossFit being on rings and doing thousands upon thousands of kipping pull-ups and
2:26:25 dips and all this stuff that there are no iron crosses. Unless they were previous gymnasts,
2:26:31 there’s no homegrown Crossfitter who has an iron cross, homegrown Crossfitter who has
2:26:36 lions or a malt, because right from the beginning on those very basic movements, they didn’t turn
2:26:42 past parallel. They didn’t turn the rings out. The brachialis wasn’t trained. The brachialis is what
2:26:47 supports the elbow when it’s straight. So if it never got trained, they can never move forward
2:26:53 into the money-making exercises. So that’s why in those pull-ups, if we use a parallel grip,
2:26:59 and it’s easy enough to do some, just do a set, do a nice parallel grip workout,
2:27:03 and then compare the soreness that you feel on the inside of the elbow from fatigue
2:27:09 compared to regular chin-ups and regular pull-ups. It’s night and day,
2:27:13 then we would do chins and then pull-ups. So the other exercises to remove, if any,
2:27:19 so we have muscle-ups, back lever. Yeah, muscle-up, back lever.
2:27:23 And you would add to that list? You know, this one is a little unfortunate,
2:27:29 and I don’t know that it’s so much of a removing as…
2:27:33 De-prioritizing? Yeah, a cautionary tale. It takes time to rebuild connective tissue,
2:27:41 and it’s connective tissue through the ligaments and the joints that generate power through the body
2:27:47 when they’re doing plyometric work. There was a rash of Achilles ruptures when there was a
2:27:53 couplet done of, so they were doing deads, I believe, with 225 pounds, and then that was coupled with
2:28:00 box jumps, and they were doing that for round. There’s not a problem with either one of those
2:28:05 in isolation. The problem came when it was in a competitive environment with most of the adults,
2:28:12 right, were in their later 20s and in their 30s, even on the typical people who are working now.
2:28:17 And because it’s a race, the box jumps turned into jumping down also, which turned into
2:28:24 rebounding a plyometric off the floor, because I’ve got to get these done, right? I’m in a race.
2:28:29 So they had pre-fatigued the Achilles with the deadlift, and then went into the plyometric of the
2:28:34 box jump. Nothing wrong with either one of them, but in combination, took some people, I think there
2:28:40 were like nine ruptures that year, which is, you know, one, okay, it happens, right? Ivankov had
2:28:47 it had his Achilles, he was one of the leading guys we were looking to from Russia. Ivankov,
2:28:53 former world champ, he was the top guy that was favored to win the gold at the 96 games.
2:28:58 His Achilles popped walking across the parking lot. Now is it because walking across the parking
2:29:03 lot is a dangerous thing and we should all avoid parking lots? Well, it just happened to be the
2:29:08 last straw and it had been damaged prior to that, which a long story short, you went back to the
2:29:13 front split series. That is the very reason that there is that high rep calf work there to promote
2:29:19 Achilles’ health because connected tissue, the tendons in that do not have their own blood supply.
2:29:24 They get fed, they heal, they strengthen through the muscles moving around them and
2:29:30 gravity, that’s what flushes the area. So if we only do very high, high intensity, low rep work,
2:29:35 there’s not enough blood flow for them to be healthy. This isn’t mine.
2:29:39 A friend of the Bulgarian Olympic coach for the 70s and 80s is a good friend of mine,
2:29:45 a genius. Genius at programming. Ruhman makes me look like a tottering idiot who should be sat in
2:29:51 the corner and no one talked to me. What’s his name? I can never pronounce Ruhman’s last name.
2:29:55 You guys can look him up. Bulgarian Olympic coach for the women 70s and 80s. Ruhman,
2:30:00 I want to say our bastardized American spelling is R-U-M-I-N or N-A-N. Sadly, Ruhman had a really
2:30:09 heavy accent. So a lot of the American coaches, they didn’t want to take the time to talk to him.
2:30:14 But I was a linguist in the military way back when, so accents not as good as you, Tim,
2:30:19 but accents don’t bother me. Then he was an older gentleman. I would keep this guy up late
2:30:23 so many days or he’d be. Chris, I’ve got to go get some say. It’s okay, there’s one more question.
2:30:28 There’s just one more question, Ruhman. It’s one more. So our knee series that we do came from
2:30:33 Ruhman. The one that we know. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, that I’ve been doing with the skiers.
2:30:36 That’s directly from Ruhman. Inside squats. He saw Allen when he was eight and Allen was
2:30:41 incredibly powerful at eight years old. That’s just unreal. And he was getting too powerful for his
2:30:47 frame at that age. About eight, we’re starting to hit a preliminary growth spurt. Ruhman gave me
2:30:53 that knee series and it was about a week, week and a half. His knees weren’t hurting. They were
2:30:59 starting to get slightly uncomfortable. Ruhman showed us that, boom, knee issues gone, never again,
2:31:05 nothing with knees ever. Wow. We could talk for hours and hours more. But I want to be respectful
2:31:10 of your time and we can always do around two sometime if you have the willingness and if the
2:31:16 audience wants more. But I do have a couple of questions before I get into some of my usual
2:31:20 rapid fire that I’d love to ask. Do you still have some time to chat? You’ve opened a can of
2:31:24 words. I’ll talk training all night. All right. Here we go then. The next question is from one
2:31:32 of my listeners and it’s quite simply, how do you mentally prep your athletes for big competition
2:31:37 when you’re down to that, Peter, you go to the nationals or any competition, but specifically
2:31:42 big competitions. How do you, and by prep, I mean mentally prep the day of, is there anything in
2:31:48 particular that you do? It starts with repetition. We talked a little bit about training. In a
2:31:55 nutshell, we’ll come back around, we’ll fill this out. In the preparation prior, successful
2:32:01 repetitions, it takes a certain number of repetitions to lead to competence and its competence that
2:32:08 leads to confidence and that’s what leads to a successful competition. As Americans, we tend to
2:32:17 be in a rush, be in a hurry. We don’t want to take a lot of reps. We want to get something. We do it
2:32:23 correct a few times and then we want to bump on completely different from the Chinese approach,
2:32:28 completely different from the rushing approach, where they’ll literally do hundreds of repetitions
2:32:34 before they move on to the next drill. And then they’re not upset about it because they understand
2:32:38 it’s a process. As Americans, we’re always looking at, it’s both a good thing and it’s a curse. One,
2:32:44 it’s a good thing because it forces us to be so creative. We’re so hard charging. We get so many
2:32:50 things done. Physically, sometimes it kind of works against us because we don’t give the body and the
2:32:56 nervous system a chance to stabilize. So if you want to be confident at a competition, you have to
2:33:04 pay your dues and prep example. And that’s mentally and physically. For example, 72 Olympics. And these
2:33:12 are, I was talking about this with Dmitri Belozarchev, my friend, world in Olympic champ.
2:33:16 So in 72 Olympics, Olga Corbett was, by all accounts, going to crush everyone at the games.
2:33:24 She was going to crush everyone in training as they went back and the Russians went back and
2:33:29 they reviewed all her training. She had over a 98% hit rate on her routines. That meant she was
2:33:36 almost perfect, almost perfect. When she went to the games, she had a major meltdown.
2:33:42 Now the question of course raises, how was it possible for someone who was this perfect,
2:33:47 for this long in training to go to the competition and just fall apart? As they dug into it,
2:33:55 they found out the error was not in physical preparation. The error was in mental preparation.
2:34:00 So as Olga was cranking at home, she was the one who decided when to go.
2:34:05 Coaches waited on her. Judges waited on her. Everything was structured on her. She was very
2:34:11 comfortable. She didn’t start till she was ready. Equipments she’s ready for,
2:34:16 lighting she’s ready for, mags familiar, everything is good. When you get to the
2:34:20 worlds and you get to the Olympics, judges don’t give a fuck if you’re ready or not. When they raise
2:34:25 that flag, it’s brutal. In fact, to give everyone a little taste, the warm-up gym is not there.
2:34:31 The warm-up gym might be 10 minutes away, or it might be a five-minute walk down this
2:34:39 concrete hallway. So you go when you warm up, you walk down this hallway and then your ass waits
2:34:44 there and then the flag goes up and you got to go to 100% within 30 seconds. You got 30 seconds to
2:34:50 be on the equipment. Massive hit. Yeah, a massive head game. So they went back and they found out
2:34:56 that Olga’s problem was that everything had gone her way. She controlled too many variables.
2:35:00 Too many variables and they were too easy. They were too accommodating. And so what they did is
2:35:07 the Russians changed their training just to screw with people. So if I’m coaching someone, right,
2:35:11 and there’s going to be a mental component, I’m going to fuck with them. I’m going to tell them,
2:35:17 and not in a mean way, but all right, you’re up, and then walk away. Leave them waiting.
2:35:22 Let them get antsy. Make them go when they’re not ready. Make them do a cold set.
2:35:26 Any and everything you can. Have a crowd of people around them trying to mess with them.
2:35:32 Any and everything. And I will also say it’s much harder for women than it is for guys simply because
2:35:40 women are more caring and nurturing than guys. A guy goes out to compete and he’s worried about
2:35:45 one thing. He’s worried about kicking ass. Okay. The girl goes out there and she’s worried about
2:35:49 kicking ass also, but she’s also worried about not wanting to let anybody down. Are they going to
2:35:55 be disappointed with me? Are they going to like me? She has this whole range of other emotional
2:35:59 burdens that a guy doesn’t get to shit about. They just don’t care. I’ve seen girls who are just
2:36:04 amazing in training and get out there. And just because they have this other load that they play
2:36:09 some themselves that guys don’t have to deal with. And the way you handle that in training is we just
2:36:14 have to get more reps in. I got more reps and do everything you can to put them in a situation
2:36:20 to where, for example, 2004, I was doing some of the prep. I was doing some of the floor and the
2:36:28 tramp and helping with Volvo and doing the physical preparation for a girl we had trying out for the
2:36:33 Olympics. She did not make it. You had to be top six. She was ninth. Okay. And Carly, fantastic girl.
2:36:41 Great girl. Their approach though for mental training, I thought was flawed. They brought
2:36:46 someone in and, you know, I’ll say names. I’ll just say that I disagreed. And it was a very,
2:36:50 they were trying to be really, really positive. So, you know, 30,000 square foot gym,
2:36:54 big giant yes signs everywhere. Yes, you can. Yes, it’ll be great. Yes, it’ll be wonderful.
2:36:58 And the reality is it’s not going to be wonderful. It’s going to be stressful. It’s going to suck.
2:37:05 When you are in a competition at that level, the pressure is crushing. It’s a physical pressure
2:37:12 that you feel on you and you still have to produce performance at a world-class level.
2:37:17 And the only way to handle that is we have to try to replicate that in training, right,
2:37:23 so that the pressure is not going away. The error that was only Carly was trying to downplay the
2:37:27 pressure. I would say do the exact opposite. Do the opposite. You should go to the training,
2:37:33 to the competition, and hopefully competition is less pressure than what you go through in
2:37:39 training. Now, that’s not going to be true at Olympics and such, but at most things,
2:37:42 it should be the case. It should be the case. So, mentally, if you’re scared, oh, let’s say,
2:37:49 if you’re feeling unconfident, if you’re feeling threatened, uneasy, your preparation was flawed.
2:37:56 Yeah, it brings up an anecdote that I heard from Paul Levesque, better known as Triple H,
2:38:01 the professional wrestler who’s also an incredible business executive for WWE,
2:38:06 but he visited Floyd Mayweather and he visited Floyd maybe an hour before a huge title fight
2:38:14 for a championship belt or to retain his belt. And at one point, Paul said, “I’m going to leave.
2:38:21 I don’t want to interrupt your prep.” And he goes, “Why would you interrupt my prep?” He goes,
2:38:24 “If I’m not ready now, nothing I do between in the next 60 minutes is going to make me ready.”
2:38:30 Yeah, I love that attitude.
2:38:31 Yeah, feel free to hang out. You’re just walking and watching basketball or something.
2:38:34 And it also, you brought up this SEAL team, six members and so on earlier. I mean, that’s,
2:38:39 I think, a great example of a parallel track, right, in the sense that they very much want to
2:38:45 sweat more, in some cases, bleed more in training so that they can avoid dying in real battle. So,
2:38:52 the simulations are extremely brutal and intended to be sort of along the lines of,
2:38:58 I’m not really up on my ancient name pronunciation. But I think it’s Arkelocus,
2:39:04 who’s said, “We do not rise to the level of our hopes. We fall to the level of our training.”
2:39:08 So making the conditions equivalent.
2:39:11 My buddy would tell, “They’re so well-trained. No stress. Now, how in the world you can be in
2:39:16 145 gunfights and not feel stress when you’re heading out to another one?” He just, “Yeah,
2:39:21 fall asleep on the helicopter.” Yeah, he’ll do my thing and get back on. Now,
2:39:25 seriously, he’s like, “Oh, yeah, I mean, gosh, just another day in the office, holy moly.”
2:39:31 So on the day of, assuming you’ve done the requisite preparation, you’ve conditioned them to
2:39:38 perform well under stressful circumstances. Change nothing. Change nothing. Change nothing.
2:39:44 Where people fail, there’s an important lesson, not just in competing, but in everything.
2:39:50 So a lot of people psych themselves out of doing as well as they could of by prematurely
2:39:57 comparing themselves to the people around them. Instead of, just go out, take care of your business,
2:40:03 do your best, and see where it falls. If you’re going up against the best who’s ever been born,
2:40:10 you’re not going to beat them. There’s not going to be a miracle. This guy’s not going to open.
2:40:13 Guy’s not going to reach down and bless you with extra athletic ability.
2:40:16 You know, it’s not going to happen. So you just ignore that. You go out and you just
2:40:22 stay in your own head and do your thing. Now, psychologically, people handle it differently.
2:40:27 Some people, we have the same chemistry on Olympic teams. Some people like to be left alone.
2:40:32 Let me go do my thing. They’ll come together for the team, but then when they’re prepping for
2:40:37 their set, they got to go off on their self. There’s other guys where they feed off that
2:40:42 interaction. They want people coming around and getting them pumped up. Then there’s all in between.
2:40:47 None of them are right and none of them are wrong. It just is what it is, and it’s important to just
2:40:53 deal with who you are. Same in training. There are some people who thrive on multiple training
2:40:58 per day, and they just blossom. They do awesome. There’s other people who have to train just a
2:41:04 few times a week. Doesn’t matter. There’s been Olympic champions who trained both ways. It just
2:41:10 depends on what your body does best with. I’m very curious to hear the answer to this. This was
2:41:15 from, I think it might have been a mother. I think it was a father who said, “What questions would
2:41:19 Coach Summer ask a gymnastic coach at a nearby facility before sending his own five to 10-year-old
2:41:28 off to train with them?” Yeah, and I went through that. So I didn’t coach my daughter. I didn’t
2:41:33 coach my daughter. I wanted to be dad, and I didn’t get involved. Were there things I would
2:41:39 have done very differently? Yes, but her happiness in the process was more important to me than
2:41:45 her success. And she was state champion, but that was more important to me than stepping in and
2:41:50 making sure everything was world-class love. I didn’t want to go there. First thing I would do
2:41:55 if I’m reviewing someone, because everyone, have you noticed that the bell curve is reality, right?
2:42:01 The bell curve shows that there is a huge majority of people who are average. There’s
2:42:05 a few who are at the top and there are a few who are at the bottom. But if you talk to someone,
2:42:09 you’ve never met anyone who says, “Yeah, I’m in the middle of the bell curve.”
2:42:13 Every fucker you talk to is exceptional. Every single person, right? Every person is another
2:42:19 millionaire in the making. They’re going to win the voice. They’ve got Academy Award. It’s coming.
2:42:24 Nobody says, “Yeah, I’m average.” And it’s the same thing with gyms. So the first thing I would
2:42:29 do is look at competitive record. How have they done and at what level have they been successful?
2:42:34 Are they successful at a local level, at a state level? How have they done in terms of regionals?
2:42:40 How have they done in terms of nationals? Are they on national team? How consistently have
2:42:45 they been on national team as a year in, year out? Was it a one-time deal? After I look at that,
2:42:51 the very next thing I’m going to look at, I’m going to look at injury rates.
2:42:54 How healthy and successful are these athletes? How would you find that data? Would you just
2:42:59 ask them point blank? If they’re a world-class coach, they’re always going to be straight with
2:43:05 you. The only people in my experience who talk shit are the wannabes. Yeah, that’s consistent
2:43:12 in everything that I’ve explained. In everything. I had, so 2003. Yeah, it’s 2003. I’m at a training
2:43:19 camp and Paul Homme has just won the world championships. He’s just won Worlds. And Allen
2:43:26 is a little guy. We’re at a training camp and Paul’s coach Stacey Oani is there and we’re at
2:43:33 a technical meeting. And it’s on roundoffs, on roundoffs of all things. And so Stacey comes and
2:43:38 he sits down next to me. This is Chris. What do you think about this? Now in my head, I’m thinking,
2:43:43 who is a fuck what I think about this? You just won world championships. I want to know what you
2:43:48 think about this. But he asked my opinion. I don’t say I’m not going to be rude to Stacey,
2:43:52 but in my head, I’m thinking that. So we talk about it for a little bit and then Stacey gets
2:43:56 up and he goes around the room, visiting with other coaches that he respect. And he wants
2:44:00 their opinion and then he makes his own opinion. He had just won Worlds. It would have been so easy
2:44:05 for him to be kind of aloof and snooty and arrogant. I’m this and that. But the point is that that’s
2:44:11 the reason that Stacey won Worlds. That he was a coach of that caliber because he was always open
2:44:17 to learning more. He never said, I know everything. And like you said, I’ve never met an exception.
2:44:23 It’s the ones who aren’t at a high level who think, you know, I know everything. There’s nothing left
2:44:28 to be learned. And it is just not the case. So I would check that check around, you know,
2:44:34 talk to people, watch the athletes in training. You know, they’ll go and watch some workouts. How
2:44:39 does the coach handle it? Is there a lot of tears? If it’s a guy and there’s tears in the workout,
2:44:44 he’s got a broken leg. And girls, you know, girls are girls. I live in a, I’ve got two daughters,
2:44:51 a wife, even my dog is female. There’s tears here constantly. This is part of being female.
2:44:56 So if it’s an occasional tear, no big deal. But if there’s a lot of crying all the time,
2:45:01 there’s a problem. I’d move down the road. But if they’re happy, now, doesn’t healthy doesn’t mean
2:45:07 a free for all. Healthy and happy doesn’t mean indulging. You know, there should be structure.
2:45:13 There should be accountability, but it should be pleasant. You know, kids or any athlete,
2:45:18 adults as well, will either live up to the standard you set or they will live down to the
2:45:22 standard you set. I think it’s kind of go ahead and try to get a feel. You know, is this a place
2:45:26 for you? Is the competition record is good? Is this an environment that I’m content with my child
2:45:32 being in? You know, if you get a good feeling, okay. As an adult, if you were assessing a gymnastics
2:45:39 coach for yourself and you could observe a workout, let’s just say you could only watch
2:45:44 the warm up. That’s on. What would you look for to be there or not be there? Or what would the
2:45:51 characteristics be? Do they take the time to warm up the joints? Or do they jump right into work?
2:45:58 Do they actually take time to mobilize? Are they doing stall bar work? Are they doing
2:46:04 Jefferson Crow work? Are they are they loosen up their wrists and their knees and their ankles?
2:46:08 Are they loosening their back before they get going? Are they doing some type of pre-strength?
2:46:15 Are they doing lower level strength elements to get the muscles warm and firing before jumping
2:46:20 into the hard work? You can tell a lot from how a program warms up. No, that’s what I was asking.
2:46:26 Great question. Yeah, there’s, I mean, there’s a movement that also from an evolutionary standpoint
2:46:32 makes a lot of sense. Just like we were talking about the biceps and high capacity for volume,
2:46:38 the QL walks, which you introduced me to, which if you really want to have people laugh at you,
2:46:42 this is a great move to do. Although you had mentioned, and this doesn’t surprise me at all,
2:46:47 that you’ve seen high level power lifters using doing this. That’s where that’s where I got it
2:46:51 from. Yeah, holding on to kettlebells kind of with a goblet squat type of grip. So what this looks
2:46:56 like, folks, we’ve already talked about this seated pike position. So you’re sitting on your ass,
2:47:00 legs together, legs straight. So basically keeping your legs completely straight. If there are other
2:47:05 elements, please let me know, coach, technical points, but basically you’re like walking your
2:47:10 ass cheeks. Yeah, doing a speed walking, sitting down. Yeah, that’s actually that’s a great
2:47:17 description. That’s exactly what it looks like. And QL refers to the quadratus lumborum. Yeah,
2:47:24 quadratus lumborum, which is sort of like the grand central of all sorts of muscles and fascia
2:47:28 in the back. And it’s incredible how much that loosens up my entire lower back and hips.
2:47:35 Doing this very, very simple QL walk. I’ll pick up, gosh, sometimes three,
2:47:39 four inches. Oh, yeah. Just from loosening up from those first. Yeah. How long should a proper
2:47:46 gymnastics warm up take? And one more, which is warming up the joints. Are there any specific
2:47:53 movements that hit the shoulders from any angle, more perspective, they would indicate a better
2:47:59 warm up for gymnastics strength training than others? It would depend on duration, duration
2:48:07 of the workout. So if you’re in there for an hour, yeah, I’ll preface it. Say you’re in for an hour,
2:48:13 I would say probably 10 to 15 minutes is reasonable. Now, at the same time, if I have
2:48:21 significant mobility deficits, and perhaps the majority of the workout needs to be mobility work,
2:48:29 it could kind of shift possibly as high as a half hour. If I have a multi hour training
2:48:34 coming up, it’s complicated enough. And we’ve tried this over the years. There are enough
2:48:39 things to address that should be addressed on a semi-regular basis that you can’t really get
2:48:46 everything in to a single warm up. You’re probably going to have two or three variations.
2:48:51 You know, if you do an advanced work, you’re probably going to have two or three variations
2:48:55 in order to get to everything. Like for example, ring strength before a good hard ring strength,
2:49:01 it’s very nice to do TheraBand series for the shoulders. Different shapes and pulls and circles
2:49:07 and all these things with TheraBand are really great for warming up the interior of the shoulder.
2:49:11 On other days, do I need to do that as much for shoulder? No, it might be more weighted shoulder
2:49:16 work is appropriate for other days. Is it necessary you do all of them at the same time?
2:49:22 Most of the time, no, we have one senior student really, really good. Matt started
2:49:28 training with me in his late 40s. He’s now 52 beast, press handstands, planches, front levers.
2:49:36 I had 52 ridiculous shape. And he went through a period where just for shoulders to feel better,
2:49:44 he did every shoulder prep we had all our integrated mobility. Our courses are set up very
2:49:50 unusually where for our introductory courses, the adult students come in, alternate and exercise
2:49:56 with an integrated mobility because we want them 50/50. So we found if I told people how important
2:50:02 stretching was, they always blow me off. But if I required it, do a set before your next set,
2:50:07 you have to do this stretch. Then back and forth and we just had great results. So Matt’s is crazy
2:50:14 maniac, still skateboard, still water skis, those as GST and our shoulder would get a little finicky.
2:50:21 So he just did extra mobility and it just fixed his shoulder right up.
2:50:24 I was introduced to an exercise by a master’s CrossFit competitor, actually, that really helped
2:50:35 with shoulder, I would say warm up more than mobility, but for pressing exercises even in GST,
2:50:42 including any type of hand balancing or handstand work, which you have to have a decent amount
2:50:47 of grip strength for this. But I was very skeptical of this, even as someone who’s done
2:50:51 a lot with kettlebells, I’ve never been a huge fan of the bottoms up work with kettlebells,
2:50:56 meaning yeah, it’s gotta flipped up, gripping up by the handle, the bell on top. Exactly.
2:51:02 But I was like, you know, it’s great. I’ll try it with a lightweight and I started with say whatever
2:51:06 it is might be like 15, 16 pounds and I’ve increased that I use 35s now, but a little bit of chalk
2:51:11 is a long way here. But you you would basically swing it up to a clean and then press it overhead
2:51:17 and then you just do rotations. So I’m doing like side to side rotations and it’s incredible how
2:51:24 well that activates the smaller musculature. The shoulders are wonderful, isn’t it?
2:51:30 Oh, it’s great. We didn’t do it with kettlebells, we’ll do them with light dumbbells. So basically,
2:51:36 guys will what Tim’s is trying is just to take a dumbbell, push it up overhead,
2:51:40 turn the thumbs externally rotated just a bit and then just do outward circles.
2:51:45 Keep a flat back, shoulders open, no arching, do them for time one to two minutes.
2:51:50 You know, just good gracious, wonderful warm up. And then, you know, something we didn’t address
2:51:56 and I’ll throw it in just real, real, real quick. I know, I know we’re running out of time,
2:52:00 but some people who are experiencing shoulder issues in terms of mobility,
2:52:05 I’m not gonna do it with the shoulder or necessarily the bicep, but sometimes it’s
2:52:08 because the lats are so strong and tight. That’s an issue that I have, absolutely.
2:52:13 Yeah, exactly. A lot of the lifters too, because those lats are working hard. You
2:52:18 guys are moving some serious weight and those lats are of course working. And if there’s not
2:52:22 corresponding mobility going with it, it’s really easy for those lats to kind of get
2:52:26 chronically contracted, lose their mobility. So a lot of times you get in there and just
2:52:31 stretch the heck out of that lat, automatically get relief on the shoulders.
2:52:35 Okay, coach, I am going to do a couple of rapid fire, then a couple of
2:52:40 closing questions. And then maybe, I mean, you and I are talking quite a bit these days. So
2:52:44 we’ll consider doing a follow-up. And I definitely want to share
2:52:47 sort of the results of our experiment with people also. So we’ll certainly be
2:52:51 in constant contact. But the first rapid fire question is, and the answer doesn’t have to be
2:52:56 short, but it certainly can be when you think of the word successful, who is the first person
2:53:00 who comes to mind for you and why? Well, it’s not Obama. It’s not Obama. There’s all the people
2:53:06 off out there. You know, someone I have admired for years and years is Tony Robbins. He would be
2:53:12 very high on my list. I tend to be very eclectic. I’m not trapped just in athletics. What I found
2:53:20 in terms of business, arts, politics, it’s all the same. When people get to that level of success,
2:53:28 they all have the same attitudes. They bring the same tools and attitudes to the table.
2:53:33 And I found it surprising that I could sit down with you, Tim, and visit. I can sit down with
2:53:39 special operators and visit. I can sit down with world-class ballerinas and dance and artists
2:53:46 and that. I just did this weekend visit with a world-class artist. And you would think there’s
2:53:52 no common ground there, but there is common ground because what’s required to achieve success in all
2:53:58 of those requires the same skills. You’ve got to be consistent. You’ve got to master the basics.
2:54:02 You’ve got to be patient. You’ve got to constantly reinvent yourself. Look for a flaw hole in the
2:54:07 preparation. Fix it. Move forward. You also need to be very observant. And I think part of training
2:54:14 yourself to be observant is asking questions. Right? So I think that’s why- And being willing
2:54:20 to hear the answer. Definitely. That’s why you take a bunch of people who are the best at what they
2:54:23 do and you put them in the room. Generally speaking, they’re going to get along just fine.
2:54:28 Absolutely. Now, why Tony Robbins? I mean, I wish you’d trained at Tony Robbins. He’s been
2:54:34 on the podcast and I have tremendous amount of respect for him, but I want to just hear your
2:54:38 reasons. I like that I firmly believe, especially in the U.S., I firmly believe that if someone isn’t
2:54:45 as successful in any arena you toss it out, whether it’s professionally, personally in your life,
2:54:51 financially, if you’re not as successful as you would like to be or making progress towards that,
2:54:58 it’s our own fault. We have so many opportunities here that so much wealth of knowledge that a lot
2:55:05 of times, so for example, when GB got started, there were two years, a year and a half, two years
2:55:13 in the beginning where I was doing 18-hour days and didn’t make a nickel, nothing. And everyone
2:55:19 around me was like, “What are you doing?” Well, you know, I got plans for this and we talked about
2:55:24 a little bit and they’re like, “Well, you know, if you need some extra money, you could go get a
2:55:27 job. Think about how much further ahead you’d be right now, but you have to have that vision.”
2:55:32 Once you have the vision, you’ve got to be able to put practical steps to it and then everyone’s
2:55:37 good at that. I outlines the people, I outline stuff all the time, but then can you stick with it?
2:55:42 Because, you know, when you run your business, Tim, when I run my business, there’s no one telling
2:55:46 us what to do or the ones to monitor ourselves. This needs to be done. I’m going to get it done.
2:55:51 And it’s kind of that difference between letting someone else being in control of your life and
2:55:57 you choosing to be in control of your own life. I know some people are going to get upset at your
2:56:01 coach. You know, I’m a single mom, assistant dad. I can’t do everything I want to do. And I get that.
2:56:06 I get that. I’ve been there. I’ve gone through that. I’m certainly not saying there are quick fixes
2:56:11 because these fixes can take years. But I think if someone’s willing to put the time in that there’s
2:56:17 so much opportunity and they’re willing to do that for years, it’s kind of a big, giant blank
2:56:22 check. A lot can change. You really have a lot of control. And so that was a message that, you
2:56:27 know, and I didn’t say it nearly as well as Tony Robbins does. And I am going to twist your arms
2:56:32 so I get an introduction someday to Tony. That’s high on my list. Yeah, well, I throw a little jam
2:56:38 session for the people who are on the podcast. So both of you will be invited. Totally awesome.
2:56:42 I’m so looking forward to that. But, you know, way back when porous could be hadn’t made national
2:56:47 team coach yet was just getting started in my coaching career. Everything that could go wrong
2:56:52 went wrong. And here’s this guy saying, you know, I just think clear plan ahead and be willing to
2:56:58 work that resonated with me. You know, it’s like, God, I just had this discussion with someone this
2:57:04 morning. You’re young. It’s so challenging. It’s so difficult to be patient where you’re 35 and
2:57:09 you’re starting to get back in shape again. And the hardest thing they need to do is they’ve got to,
2:57:14 especially if they were a good athlete previously, you’ve got to set that attitude of having been
2:57:18 a stud before aside, because that body you have right now is not that studs body that you had
2:57:25 previously. It could be again, but it took time to build it the first time. It’s going to take time
2:57:31 to rebuild it this time. Or personally in your life, if things aren’t where you wanted to be,
2:57:36 it’s going to take time to build it there. I had this Olympic weightlifting coach,
2:57:41 I think you guys would hit it off famously, especially if you were both a couple of drinks in.
2:57:45 But she’s dangerous. Very, very similar approaches. He said, you have a Ferrari engine in a Toyota
2:57:54 Corolla chassis. That’s not the level of that. You can’t just slam on the accelerator and expect
2:57:59 good things to happen. But Tony is very tactical, practical. And I apologize if you and everybody
2:58:04 else can hear metal bowls being spun around. That’s what my dog Molly does when she’s trying
2:58:08 to tell me that she’s hungry. She just licks an empty bowl and sends it spinning. I’m like,
2:58:12 yes, I get it. I know you’re hungry. Being subtle. Yeah, being very subtle. What book or books have
2:58:18 you given the most to other people as gifts? It’s not so much as I’m a big fan of Robert Heinlein.
2:58:27 Oh, yeah. Stranger in a strange land.
2:58:32 Just all of them. I come back to those over and over again. The theme of self-reliance.
2:58:39 I came from a really, really humble, modest family background. And so I think that instills a hunger
2:58:46 and a work ethic. It’s a little bit kind of embarrassing. Actually, it’s a little bit of
2:58:50 Charles Dickens theme there. Frustration things weren’t where we wanted them to be or where I
2:58:55 wanted them to be. And then how big a price, how hard you will end to work in order to change it.
2:59:01 What I’m enjoying right now, and I’m just getting into it, is the obstacle is the way.
2:59:06 Oh, yeah. By Ryan Holiday, very close friend of mine.
2:59:09 You’re killing me, dude. I’m just going to hang out in your living room so I can meet
2:59:14 all these people. Oh, yeah, yeah. You and Ryan would hit it off. Oh, yeah. That’s a great book.
2:59:18 I actually, this is a really small world. So I actually produced the audiobook for that.
2:59:22 Are you kidding me? I don’t know. And, you know, when you were talking about preparing your athletes
2:59:30 for the stress as opposed to painting it over with yes, you can and positive psychology and
2:59:36 really kind of sowing the seeds of their own destruction by doing so, I was thinking about
2:59:40 stoic philosophy. So it doesn’t surprise me that you’re reading the obstacles the way, which has
2:59:45 become an extremely popular book among professional sports teams and coaches. I mean, the Patriots,
2:59:50 Seahawks, they’ve all read this. Someone else that got my eye who had read it and that led me to it
2:59:55 was Schwarzenegger. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he’s a guy. Gosh, I mean, comes to the States with no money in
3:00:01 his pocket and then becomes world champion in athletics, becomes a millionaire in business,
3:00:08 becomes a movie star, and becomes a governor, success in four different arenas in life. Oh,
3:00:14 yeah. Good Lord. Oh, he’s. He said he liked that book. And I was like, well, good enough for me.
3:00:18 Yeah. Arnold’s is an impressive unit. So two things, I know we’re bouncing around here,
3:00:23 but two things that also astonished me when I interviewed him for the podcast was number one,
3:00:28 I didn’t realize in doing the research until I did the research that he became a millionaire
3:00:33 before he ever had his first starring role in real estate. Yes, absolutely. And that gave him
3:00:38 the ability to only audition not out of financial necessity, but for the roles that he wanted. So
3:00:43 you could say no. And that his highest grossing film of all time for him personally was Twins,
3:00:49 because no one wanted to make it. And so he took a cut on the upfront payment for the salary, per
3:00:55 say, in exchange for back end points that were abnormally large for the film industry at that
3:01:01 point. Yeah, fascinating guy. Love that. Do you have any particular morning rituals?
3:01:06 What is the first six minutes of your day? The morning rituals I’m supposed to do.
3:01:11 No, the ones you actually have or don’t have. I tend to find, as I’ve gotten older,
3:01:16 because I’m in my 50s now, early 50s. As I’ve gotten older, I find that by far my most productive
3:01:25 times are early morning. That’s when I’m sharpest. I’m clearest. I’ll tend to get up pretty early
3:01:30 before everybody else in the household is up. When do you get up? It varies. I’ll get up somewhere
3:01:38 usually between four and five. It gives me a chance. My girls get up in a few hours. It gives
3:01:43 me a chance for that two, three hours of just clear thought. Maybe it’s working on a project.
3:01:48 Maybe it’s a new manuscript. Maybe it’s just, you know, I indulge some reading. The house is
3:01:52 quiet. I do my best after that. The girl said to school, and then I get my workout in. If I’m
3:01:57 consistent with that, then my rest of my day is usually pretty golden. Yeah, you’ve already won.
3:02:03 But remember, somebody said to me, “If you win the morning, you’ve won the day.” I’m still working
3:02:06 on it. That’s work in progress, but I definitely agree with that. Do you drink coffee? Do you eat
3:02:11 breakfast? Do you drink coffee? I went for years and, you know, you’re always told I’m not a coffee
3:02:17 drinker. I’m one of those few, I think it just tastes like cough medicine to me. It’s not me
3:02:22 being virtuous. It’s just me despising the taste. And it’s funny because my wife is a big coffee
3:02:27 drinker. She loves it. So she’s got her gourmet grinder and all this stuff. But for me, no way.
3:02:32 You know, I found as I got older that I do best if I don’t do breakfast. I do best as I used to
3:02:41 be heavy, heavy protein. And then after I got over 50, if I cut, and this is me personally,
3:02:47 would it work for younger athletes who are training? I doubt it. It’s bigger engine,
3:02:51 need more fuel. But for me, older, it’s slowing down. I find that not doing breakfast, reasonable
3:02:57 lunch, my protein sizes are so much smaller now, mostly veggies, have a good healthy starch, usually
3:03:03 it’s rice or potatoes, reasonable little protein there, some fatter lunch, wait, do the same at
3:03:09 dinner. You know, I’m done. I’m good. I was amazed how much I was overeating just from habit.
3:03:16 Oh, yeah. Yeah. Eating by the clock. I mean, I’ve noticed the same thing
3:03:20 for myself. And I’ve been amazed how many people I’ve interviewed for this podcast who are the
3:03:27 best at what they do who do not eat breakfast. You’re kidding. Really? Not that I was alone
3:03:31 in the Netherlands. Yeah. Yeah. Pavel, you know, his answer was coffee,
3:03:34 dim, I give it simple, you know, and then Wim Hof, same story, you look at former general
3:03:40 Stan McChrystal, same story. And it just goes on and on and on. I’d say good third of the men,
3:03:47 specifically, not sure if the female body responds as well to it, although I’m sure there are
3:03:51 intermittent fasting people out there who would say that women respond in the same way. But
3:03:56 very high percentage, I’d say maybe a third of the men I’ve had on the podcast do not eat breakfast.
3:04:01 Now, specifically, these are men probably over the age of 45. So I don’t know. I would imagine
3:04:06 their diet has probably changed over time. And interestingly enough, if you do dig into the
3:04:12 literature, there is, or if I want to be a nerd, there are data to suggest that as we get older,
3:04:19 it is possible that we absorb protein more effectively when we have larger doses of protein
3:04:27 less frequently. So having them… See, that is interesting. That is very interesting because
3:04:32 I find myself, every once in a while, getting a big steak. You know, once a week, once every two
3:04:38 weeks, I’ll go and I’ll just get this massive thing of protein. And then I’m good for a while,
3:04:41 I’ll just marry modest. Yeah. So this like bolus of protein for like older women, I think this,
3:04:47 I saw one particular study, could have been an observational. And now I doubt it if they’re
3:04:51 trying to standardize the protein amount, but it was some large amount. It was like 70, 80 grams
3:04:55 of protein in a single feeding was absorbed better than that same amount split over several meals
3:05:00 in the day. Really fascinating stuff. What would you put on a billboard if you could put a billboard
3:05:06 anywhere? What would it say? Just what’s on top of my mind right now. Yeah. What’s top of the head
3:05:13 doesn’t have, we’re not looking for universal truth, but just what’s, I would say probiotic.
3:05:19 Probiotic. Probiotic, we went, I don’t know if it was a history of, I had to cut them out,
3:05:25 you know, too much margaritas. You know, it’s kind of funny, you know, as you get older,
3:05:29 it starts creeping in more and more and more. But I went through a phase where it didn’t matter
3:05:33 what I ate. It didn’t matter what I ate, if I ate fat, if I ate low fat, if I ate village,
3:05:39 if I ate high protein, terrible digestion, just terrible digestion. I happened to come across
3:05:45 something that said, yeah, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Might be a probiotic issue.
3:05:50 And so through a good buddy, I had a laboratory grade. These particular ones were from Claire
3:05:55 Labs. You kind of need a prescription for them, but they’re a laboratory grade probiotic.
3:05:58 How do you spell Claire?
3:05:59 I want to say it was H-L-A-I-R-E. Got it.
3:06:04 You know, I’m not paid by them guys and they’re a son of a bitch to track down because you need
3:06:07 a prescription for them. Yeah. And I got to get them a health provider, but hooked me up in 12 hours.
3:06:13 And so I was like, holy moly, because I’d been uncomfortable for months. And in 12 hours, this
3:06:20 took care of it. Contacted a buddy of mine who was great at nutrition. He went over and said,
3:06:26 you know, coach, you should go ahead and probably take, you know, two, four weeks and just really
3:06:31 hit these probiotics hard and repopulate the guy, you know, years of too much margaritas,
3:06:37 too much protein, not enough vegetable matter to feed the good bacteria.
3:06:41 It sounded like a night and day difference. I bet simply because of that, I dropped eight pounds.
3:06:47 Yeah, I bet. I mean, I’m currently taking a VSL-3 and a few other probiotics, but one of the
3:06:54 points you made that I think is really worth underscoring is the vegetable matter and prebiotics.
3:06:59 So you’re providing the food that creates the environment in which bacteria that you want to
3:07:06 grow can grow effectively, whether that’s through foods where I think, you know, one of the ways
3:07:12 I had this biologist tell me at one point, he said, I think slow carbs going to be vindicated
3:07:16 because, you know, the beans and lentils and so on are vilified by paleo, but they provide
3:07:21 the perfect vehicle for a rebiotic environment that can foster the development of and growth
3:07:28 of these various bacteria in the gut. And if not that, you know, if you’re, if you are a paleo
3:07:33 purist, you can also consume something like FOS, you know, fructooligosaccharides or inulin or
3:07:38 any of these other things. But wow, I had no idea that you had that experience.
3:07:42 Yeah, it was, it was shocking. Prior to that, I would have said number one supplement was
3:07:46 emulsify vitamin D drops.
3:07:48 How much were you consuming just out of curiosity? And of course, the amount you take depends on
3:07:52 what your levels look like. It depended. Yeah, just, just a little background there. So I was at
3:07:57 our winter national seven years ago, just kind of the environment, you know, national team,
3:08:02 kids everywhere, middle of the winter, it’s always in a February. And I would just get
3:08:07 sick, really bad kind of bronchitis like sickness once or twice a year for gosh, decades.
3:08:14 And at one of these, I was, I was half dead. My assistant coach is trying to run my athletes.
3:08:20 He’s doing his best, but it’s not going real well. I’m trying to coach hanging over a railing.
3:08:25 I’m visiting with Rob Wolf later that night. And I’m just like, you know, this,
3:08:29 this is ridiculous. And Rob’s the one who tagged, he said, coach, you know, it’s,
3:08:32 it’s always in the middle of the winter. Try some vitamin D. It started the liquid vitamin D.
3:08:37 If we don’t count food poisoning in Hong Kong, I’ve not been six cents. And that’s quite a swing.
3:08:43 You know, once or twice, pretty serious per year to nothing for seven. And the only thing that
3:08:48 changed in that time was the vitamin D. So I, I mean, I’m pretty, pretty practical. If that was
3:08:53 the one variable I changed and that was a result. Well, boom, that’s the doorstep I put it at.
3:08:58 Do you have a particular brand that you use for that?
3:09:00 I want to say, I looked at it so many years, I just kind of pick it up off the shelf. And I
3:09:05 want to say it was biotest perhaps. I can’t swear about other ones. I just know I’ve always used
3:09:10 that particular one. I’ve done, gosh, all kinds of different protocols from one or two drops a day.
3:09:19 It’s like a runny Elmer’s glue for those who haven’t had it. Yeah. It’s the taste isn’t, you know,
3:09:24 anything to get upset at all. My daughters when they were young disagreed. It’s the worst thing
3:09:29 about it. It’s, it’s not bad at all. We’ve done daily a few drops all the way up to once or twice
3:09:35 a week with eight to 10 drops, you know, and just mix it up. It just seems like, you know,
3:09:40 as long as you’re consistent, it almost doesn’t matter.
3:09:43 Yes. I’m guessing each of those drops is probably an IU and one international.
3:09:47 Oh, gosh, it seems like, man, I’m tied to a computer right now. I’d go grab it for it. It
3:09:53 seemed like the dosage is surprisingly high in each drop. And, you know, I’m a big fan,
3:09:59 especially as you get older, you’ve got to go get blood work. Anything else is guessing.
3:10:05 Yeah, you need to get blood work period. I mean, if you get your car checked out more often than
3:10:09 you get your blood work done, then you need to rearrange your priorities. So last question,
3:10:14 and this is where I’d like you to, certainly among other things, point people to where they
3:10:18 can learn more about you and gymnastic bodies, but what ask or request would you have for my
3:10:23 audience, for the people listening? Oh, okay, very good. Actually, I love that question.
3:10:28 I would like them to consider two things. I would like them to consider where’s the fire?
3:10:33 Where’s the fire? Where’s the rush? Where’s the rush? Why are they trying to accomplish everything,
3:10:40 their current goals, yesterday? Why not slow down a little bit? Not saying not to work hard,
3:10:45 but why don’t we just slow down a little bit, a little more reasonable pace,
3:10:49 some more consistency? That would be number one ask. And then second one is mobility,
3:10:56 whether it’s my material, whether it’s just the stuff that Tim posts for you,
3:11:00 whether it’s someone else’s material, it’s fine with me, guys, but we’ve got to get those bodies
3:11:05 moving. We’ve got to get natural range of motion back again. That alone, if we did the hierarchy,
3:11:11 what will increase quality of life the fastest for them is going to be mobility first, then core,
3:11:18 then you know, your more conventional strength, your arms, your shoulders, yada, yada, yada.
3:11:22 And where can people find you online on social media, etc. What would you recommend as a next
3:11:29 step for somebody who’s never done gymnastics anything who wants to dip their toe in the water?
3:11:34 First thing, go to gymnasticbodies.com. We have a special landing page for your listeners, Tim,
3:11:40 with a nice discount form. We have a nice introductory program that’s just gymnastic
3:11:45 bodies, g-y-m-n-a-s-t-i-c-b-o-d-i-e-s.com/tim. We got a nice discount there for you for a nice
3:11:55 intro program. It’s about a 24 day program, gentle introduction to kind of the language we speak,
3:12:01 get started on some mobility, some great follow along videos for them, you know, kind of hold
3:12:06 their hand, make sure they get started off on the right foot. It’s been a tremendous learning
3:12:11 experience for me so far, and it’s only been, I mean, really a handful of weeks that we’ve
3:12:17 been digging into this deeply, although we had some prep time and talking about it prior to that.
3:12:22 And definitely, guys, if you are like, “Ah, I’m so busy, I’m doing this, that, and the other thing,”
3:12:27 take a look at the program, but at the very least, follow gymnastic bodies on Instagram.
3:12:33 And every time you see a video from a student who seems to throw one of your excuses at the
3:12:39 window, like, take a second. Admire what someone has done from scratch, like Matt, who you mentioned,
3:12:45 who started in his late 40s, because– Do it when you’re awesome.
3:12:48 Like, one by one, if you just watch that Instagram account for a week,
3:12:51 you’ll run out of excuses very, very quickly. What about elsewhere on social media? Is there
3:12:56 anywhere else people can say hi to you? Our Facebook page is jimassiebodies.com.
3:13:03 A little more proper there. My personal page, Christopher Summer, S-O-N-M-E-R. A little more
3:13:09 no rules there. And I’m not insane, but my interests are wide-ranging. So if you come to
3:13:15 my page, you’re taking your chances, what I’m going to torture you with that day.
3:13:19 It might be conditioning, or it might be, you know what, I think such-such is kick-ass,
3:13:23 and I like it, so you’re going to like it, too.
3:13:25 And you do throw up some ridiculous, in the best way possible, videos of just monsters
3:13:31 doing some absurd, absurd stuff. I mean, who’s the gent? You sent me– You encouraged me to
3:13:38 check this out. This guy who was going from– You were trying to explain the– Let me get this
3:13:43 right. I want to say plate planches that I was doing a while back, which are kind of like a front
3:13:47 raise holding onto a plate with the shoulders super, super protracted, and the massive posterior
3:13:53 pelvic tilt. Oh, I sent you that clip of the World Champ on rings. Yeah, I think you sent me one of
3:14:00 Van Gelder on rings, and then you sent me one of this guy on parallel bars going from– That was
3:14:04 Van Gelder again. Okay, going from the handstand to the straight body planches. Oh, my God. Full
3:14:11 body weight and set it. We do it with 10 or 25 pounds. He was doing it with full body weight.
3:14:15 Oh, my God. How do you spell Van Gelder? So it’s Yuri Van Gelder. I think he’s from
3:14:22 Netherlands, if I’m remembering right. Former World Champ, V-A-N, space-G-E-L-D-E-R.
3:14:29 Just a monster. Oh, my God. So just crazy strong. I mean, doesn’t look like a small guy either.
3:14:37 He’s a big boy. He’s got like two people’s back. He’s got a wide back. Yeah, so people should check
3:14:44 that out. And I’ll link to everything in the show notes. Well, Coach, thank you so much for the
3:14:48 time. I know it’s precious, and I think people will get a real kick out of this, and we crammed a lot
3:14:54 into the talk. He did talk a lot. It was good. So I look forward to chatting again soon, which I’m
3:15:00 sure we’ll do. And to everybody listening, you can find all of the links to everything that I can
3:15:05 track down, that my team can track down related to all the topics we covered. Links to coach
3:15:11 everywhere, gymnastic bodies everywhere in the show notes. That’ll just be at fourhourworkweek.com/podcast.
3:15:17 All spelled out fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. And as always, and until next time, thank you for listening.
3:15:26 Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday.
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