Barbell Shrugged - 104- Should You Give It All Up to Live YOUR Dream?

Episode Date: February 19, 2014

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we interview Zach Evanesh and learn how to become a bad mother. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Too much energy. All converted to heat. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Blatter with Doug Larson and Chris Moore. We have come to Underground Strength. Zach Evanesh's gym here in New Jersey.

Manisquan. I was going to see if he even knew. Manisquan, New Jersey. I was going to see if he even remembered what town he was in. I thought this state was just one big city at one time. I was like, Jersey, right? That's the place at the beach and everybody beats each other up and gets too drunk, right?

Anybody that hears about Jersey, you're like, yo, is it really like the Jersey Shore? I'm like, I don't live near what's going on there. We're like 20 minutes from there and that's like another planet. That is a strange boardwalk. It's like a different planet.

Lots of blowouts up there, bro. The blowout. It's out of control. Before we go any further, go to barbellshrug.com, sign up for the newsletter, and we will give you a video of the eight snatch mistakes you might be making. It'll be basically Rich running with his shirt off,

which we know that we've been getting a lot of ladies signing up for the newsletter. Even if the content is shit, you got that much. with his shirt off, which we know that we've been getting a lot of ladies signing up for the newsletter because they know they're going to see Rich with his shirt off. Even if the content is shit, you got that much. Yeah.

No one doesn't not want to look at Rich. I want to look at him. I'm a perfectly straight dude. I'm like, look at those abs, man. Look at you. Look at you over there.

Chris is like, look at those nipples. I go, bro, you're so fit, man. God, you're so fit, bro. Just so you know, this podcast is probably going to be one of the more fun ones. Zach is a character.

I mean, he's from New Jersey, man. We're going to wind you up and let you go, man. Let's say whatever the fuck we need to say here. I get fired up when I'm talking about training. Take that jacket off. Getting hot already? I'm getting hot already. We were down in Miami, what, two, three weeks ago for Wadapalooza.

Great time. We got to organize. They were nice enough to let us organize some educational lectures where we invited people like Zach out, and you came out and you spoke for about an hour. There was a baby in the audience. Oh, yeah. It threw me for a loop.

As soon as I was about to talk, I saw this mom sit down with two babies. Oh, shit. Well, then I thought, they look like they're 10 months in, and they don't even know if I'm cursing. Yeah, so we had about eight speakers. Zach was one of them. But Zach came up and just gave the most inspirational talk ever. I know he inspired Chris over here.

Yeah, when I'm going to quit my job. Zach's like, no, don't do that. You listen to the talk and you can't help, but every time you hear a real emotion like that, you feel something that's not bullshit. You hear bullshit talks, like, good information here, I'll take a few notes and that's it. But you overcame everybody with just honesty.

Even though you're saying like, fuck man, I'm just going to be real. Even though people on the audience might have been a little like usually a little turned off by that kind of language everybody was fucking fired up i get i don't know authentic and real i never i actually never used to curse and then when i started like speaking in front of groups i remember like somebody told me um they're like dude you dropped so many f-bombs i was like oh shit i i got caught up in the moment and i remember the first like uh fitness you never were spraying before but maybe you just didn't know it dude i'm telling you i was like i was a clean mouth person then i started like i think when i started and then you moved to

the jersey shore dude i i started like really like getting into the the training aspect of everything i think when i you like get into the gym, it's you, but it's not you. You lose yourself, you find yourself. So I remember at that first fitness conference, the guy, he's like, keep the swearing down, keep the F-bombs down. And I think once it just started going, I didn't realize. Your brain just heard F-bomb. Do more of that?

Yeah, okay. Well, you primarily deal with kids, right? we got like how does that work you turn mostly this is what I say to them when I start like losing my mind I'm like curse law I'm like don't be fucking going home telling your parents I'm cursing at you I'm like don't be fucking telling your parents that I'm crazy I think they like it. They get in here and I think it's like they know the difference, man. They know they don't need to go home and cuss a bunch.

If anything, this is making them obviously way more refined and disciplined. They're probably less likely to go home and be a potty mouth in the wrong situation. I'd imagine you got a couple of dads that are like, yeah, he needs that shit. They're all about it too. When the moms are around, they're like, no, we can't have the cuss. He's like, keep the fucking shit up, bro.

You know what that reminds you of? This is such a funny story. I remember, check this out. Senior year in high school. So my wrestling coach was a phys ed teacher and he hears in the locker room, this one kid's like dropping F-bombs like crazy.

And like, every other, I was like, oh man, kid's name was Danny. I'm like, Danny's like going crazy. Coach Pagas walks in. He's like, hey, hey, hey, watch man kid's name was Danny I'm like Danny's like going crazy coach Pagas walks in he's like hey hey watch your mouth and my coach had this like very like

cutting voice like he could like just like stop a room and he's like oh come on coach Pagas I knew you cursed at the wrestlers all the time and I was on the wrestling team and coach Pagas like there's like silence for like a few seconds and he goes no fucking way man and the whole locker room was like just dying laughing but when you know when i don't like come in and say all right i got plants like curse and freak out but like when that music like goes on starts getting loud and like i get them like training like i don't know what the heck happens to me but i start like freaking out i cannot light comes on i cannot tone it down i

always say like on a scale of one to ten i'm i'm a 20 when i'm in here and i and i'm like i'm just start like freaking out on them well that's that's sort of his inside like rogan makes this point like why he thinks training supports like you got this fucking fire and it's this primal nature and you if you don't get it out in a very rugged way slam something heavy and yell and grunt a little bit and smash and kind of honor your legacy as a human you can't be normal you can't just then go be calm and normal and do a job if you don't exercise that it's not a demon it's just a primal core you gotta get in here slam some fucking heavy metal weights turn up some fucking metal you're after it a little bit sometimes so uh this gym isn't a traditional crossfit gym are you guys affiliated with crossfit, I've been an affiliate for almost, let's see, what is this, February now?

Yeah, 2014. Was it 2009? Six and a half years I've been an affiliate. And we actually, I was talking with Alex on the way here. So the original affiliate name was CrossFit Underground. And I think that was like really scary. Like I'm always shocked at like how even the toughest of people are scared. Like Doug, you're an MMA fighter.

Very tough. Scared. But he's scared all the fucking time. They're just walking in here. I trained a couple of jujitsu guys and very high level guys. And they're telling me about like black belts. They're like, they're nervous. They're afraid to come.

I'm like, dude, you're a black like you could you could break somebody's arm like in a fraction of a second so i said you know what i'm just gonna like i'm gonna change the name make it to crossfit manasquan start getting the people in here more but the uh the original uh affiliate was at the other location right the smaller location and um because you own two gyms i own two gyms so the uh this is a funny story is when i did my uh level one cert it was at the quantico uh marine base in quantico virginia and uh the military base it was amazing and back then was like tony budding was doing the media and he was also teaching so he'd be like doing like media with you like sweating and then in between he's like showing you how to do the snatch with like the PVC pipe. And I remember he interviewed

me because I reached out to them a year before I was training people out of the garage, out of the first house that my wife and I bought. And, um, during the interview, he's like, so I remember you reached out to me like a year ago and you were asking us about affiliation. He's like, what, like, why did you hold off? I was like, well, I didn't want to affiliate until I was in an actual gym. I was like, cause I was training people out of my house. And I was like, I don't know if you guys know, but that shit's illegal. And I was afraid if I ever got arrested that I would bring CrossFit down with me. So Tony's like, nah, man, you would have been all right. And what's so interesting

is like after that is when I started seeing a lot of people, you know, just affiliating in their small garages, residential neighborhoods. But I knew that that shit was I wasn't supposed to do that. So the way it would work is when I started training athletes out of that garage, I would tell the parents, I'm like, this is how it works. You don't knock on the door. So we would train at four or five or six or seven, whatever the hour was. I was like, you pull up in front of the house. You wait to see the garage door open. You let your son out of the car.

When he goes, you don't go. There was no parents allowed in the garage. So it was like kids would like walk up the driveway. Garage opens. Kid goes in the garage. Garage door closes. I know it's all nothing. Now, like, I think- No one saw nothing.

Dude, you make a great drug dealer. Now that I think about that, I'm like- No one's supposed to be doing this. If I was a parent, like, now that I'm really thinking about that, I'd be like, damn, what the fuck is going on here, man? But, like, this is phenomenal. We had creepers, man. It's what this gym is.

It's what, actually, on a wide scale, you can hear how hardcore it is here. That's the train. Train's what actually on a wide scale. You can hear that how hardcore it is here. That's the train. Train, trucks and shit, man. Hardcore. Your gym's near a train station.

Tracks. Tracks. That's hardcore. Well, I got this place, this place, what you've built, this underground movement is bottom up.

CrossFit's bottom up. Meaning like no one started with a bunch and organized something in a complicated way. It was all all some guy had an idea and it's all he had was a barbell in a garage and he did it is it perfect it's always up to code and shit not an original CrossFit Memphis it wasn't you got what you got and you make something out of it you don't wait for perfection you don't wait for somebody to give you all the permission you need you you take what you got in the spark and you make whatever you can do happen happen with what you got it's like fucking and organize itself in a beautiful way i love you can never plan this shit really now i feel way more at home when things are imperfect not planned like i mean there's things obviously planned but i actually don't i'm like a more of a uh like a

proponent of just getting shit done speed like i don't like perfection so actually when i was training them out of the garage like a reason why i actually didn't have the reason why we started using like sandbags kegs and all that stuff is because um back then there was no rogue and if you wanted to buy a barbell like that it was a lot of money it was dude it was so much money and also i didn't have money i was like getting myself out of debt and i remember saying to myself well shit dude if i can't uh buy these things and anybody back then when i started really like there there weren't like crossfit gyms if when they were going on they were small they were like the other one that i have up in edison they weren't these modern

you know amazing perfected boxes you're seeing now. There wasn't somebody who came in and matched all the branding. Like, oh, we're going to have these colors here. It was like, let's try to make it not as dirty so no one gets sick. We don't want to get malaria in here. We have a mosquito problem in our gym. I miss those days a little bit. I miss all of this. Look, I'm like a nostalgic guy. I miss the days a little bit. I miss all of this. I'm like a nostalgic guy.

I miss the days of getting the CrossFit journal as a PDF once a month. To me, I love that stuff. And I remember they actually had articles of guys like sandbags, flipping tires. There was a lot of garages. That's what actually, when I would go on

the CrossFit forum, that's what would actually fire me up is I was connecting with everybody that had a gym in their garage or in their backyard. So I remember like I was like, damn, look at that dude. He just set up like all those like pull-up rigs in his backyard. He's got like a mountain bike hanging on his wall. They set up pull-up bars all around and that's what started to get me. It's authentic and it's like it carries a certain realism.'s like this is somebody's going for what they want they're

not making excuses you have what you need yeah you know you're building the equipment around how you want to train not walking into a gym and saying you need this equipment and then like just using it out of obligation they were like this is just gonna yeah they were like this is gonna be this is gonna be place of like doing work like Like you could, you could see that stuff. And what was interesting is, you know, there was that. And then there was like the other realm. Do you guys remember like the functional training craze? Like any book that was out, what was every, they're like, people be like standing on like

a wobble board and like turning to the side, holding a medicine ball. Everything you had to do was like on one leg on one foot like it's just like everything like cable chopped all this shit and uh i remember i actually was like in the beginning it kind of like messed with my head because i was like i think i have to go this route i have to like put on the collared shirt and i remember like having uh wobble uh whatever those fucking things are wobble boards wobble discs i don't even know what they are, but I remember like saying to myself, I was like,

damn dude, this shit is fucking fake. Like this, this is a bunch of, this is bull. I was like, this is bullshit. We were in an NSA talk

with Dr. Mike Stone one time. He was, you might've been there, Doug. He was asked how strong is strong enough. He's like, and about the special exercise

and stuff. He goes, well, I would argue that that's sort of for most people, like that's the stupidest question in history. Like, most people could get a lot stronger. And he goes, yeah, and things like what you're describing,

chops and wobbles, like, I guess it's okay. That's kind of when he used to say shit like, these little dumbbells are great if you take it and just throw it as fucking far as you can. Then you get a training effect. But it's like, and a guy walked out of that talk, after Stone says something like, well, you can, like, snatch 300, 400 pounds.

There's not a lot of need for stability training and shit, is there? And this guy walks and goes, yeah, I heard we say that's fucking bullshit. You got to do those chops and twist, man. She's fucking guys like a hundred pounds. Some guy prescribing to that idea. Like, well, you got to twist and chop. Yeah, you can snatch three pounds. But that's fuck me.

We got to do this. This gimmick shit. Yeah, I don't know. My mind was blown by that. I can't. I don't know how like this, like that, I don't know how it like came in and like duped us all.

And you know what's weird is like when you see it like all around, at least for me, it did fuck with my head because I was like, I'm this outsider. There was like, you know, people making fun of me.

They're like, look at this guy. He's a fucking idiot. He's training these kids with like sandbags. We were carrying around tree logs because the house had an old- Dude, yeah, that was stability. Like throwing a deer over your shoulder and walking with it. That's your core stability? The house had this old cherry tree.

We had to cut it down. My wife's cousin, he cut the tree down. Then he cut it in half. We had a five and a four foot log. I remember carrying it around the backyard. Dude, I never felt such core stability. I was like, holy shit. You were probably smiling so fucking wild.

Have a good time doing it, dude. I was so fired up. The first climbing rope that hung up in the back was that rope that you see at Home Depot. It's for tow trucks. It's like a yellow. Don't touch my mic, man. This mic's hot, yo.

Where's security? Dude, so I threw that rope. I like had to take a chain and attach and try to sling it over the tree branch. And I remember like for like 30 minutes I'm throwing that thing. I almost lost my fucking eye like throwing that thing over. And we used to just train those guys in the backyard, train them at like a field. And what happened one time was I saw like an backyard, train them at like a field. And what happened one time was I saw like an undercover cop car down at the elementary school. We'd go there, we trained

five, six o'clock. So nothing was going on there. Those cops would go down there, take a little break. I was down there training these kids. They were like sprinting up one hill, pushing my truck across, dragging sleds. And then I see the cop car roll up with the tinted windows. And I had this like flash of like looking into the future of like, oh shit, man, these kids are going to see me like get arrested here. Somebody like called the cops on us. These cops are going to like block me. You come across, after talking to you a little bit,

as a very paranoid person. You worry a lot about like some men. I think because back then, I was like, everybody I spoke to already had a gym they had like this professional setup and here i was i didn't have anybody that i could connect to that was truly running a business from their house yeah you know i didn't have any you feel like you're on an island it's kind of a scary time everybody was like you can't do that shit you'll get shut down your neighbors will complain they'll do this and i was like i'm gonna do

everything i can to not let my neighbors complain so when i would mow the lawn i would like mow the lawn all the way like past their past most of their lawn too oh dude i'd mow the lawn if it was like snowing out i was fucking outside at like 5 a.m snow blowing this this house that house i did everything i could to try to keep the peace so i dude i was legitimately because everybody around me saying you're gonna to get arrested. That shit's illegal. That's why I ended up loving you, didn't I? I can't believe everyone was so concerned about it.

Holy shit, our neighbor's... Who cares? Our neighbor Zach's this great guy. Is that like a Jersey thing? People just getting arrested for doing normal things? Those guys are exercising in his garage. Whoa, let's go. This shit can't be cut to code.

Yeah, I'll face you. But meanwhile, no one ever gave you shit though really I mean it was the fear we say it's fair to say that people when they do something like that it's very natural to go well I feel a lot of fear I'm leaving a sure thing I'm starting something in a new way

no one else is trying to do this shit in the garage people got money they got facilities you quit being a school teacher with an income yeah so what happened was I was we bought this house, and this is a fixer-upper. So I think it was my, I was like a fifth-year teacher

or maybe going into my sixth year. So I taught for 11 years. And we couldn't live in the house for a year. So the first thing I did was I used my money, and we had the contractors fix the two car garage. They sheet rocked it. Then they're like, Oh shit, that sheet rocks. No good. We have to do like fireproof sheet rock for code. I'm like code motherfuckers. I'm like, this shit's illegal. Like I don't even have the money to pay you for more sheet rock. I got all this equipment from

eBay classified ads. So I was training out of that garage for a couple of years and I was teaching. So I would teach, come home, then I would train athletes just a couple of times a week, one, two, maybe three hours a day. I would train them at any time on the weekend that they wanted to. In the summertime, we had people coming from like all over New Jersey, all over New Jersey. And I would train them at any time. Oh, you want to roll up on Wednesday at like 2 o'clock? Fine. Oh, Sunday at 10 a.m.? Fine.

I did it at any time. When that like garage grew, I finally segued into the place up in Edison, which was actually a part of the gym that's next door. And to make a long story short the gym next door was kind of known as a hardcore place a gym up the street opened up it was a little bit more posh they got nervous they acquired that little building that i'm in they started doing like karate fitness stuff like that but like what was them they let go what was them so what do you

think happened to that business boom it went down it failed so they started having fucking poker games in there so when i went to like when i went to check it out i was telling i was telling the uh guy who ran the gym i was like well i'm training all those people in my garage he's like oh i got this space next door let me show it to you i go in the windows are tinted out there's fucking poker and blackjack tables everywhere and i'm like oh this place is huge you know know, compared to my garage. So it actually took me like a year of visiting that little space a couple of times. Like I think I went into it like two to three times and I'd look at it like this.

In awe of it. In awe. I don't know if I could ever have a place as cool as this. Or as big as this. Or, oh, shit, I'm going to have to pay rent. I got to, you know, this month, all this stuff. Like it just, it was so far. If I could only get some money now get if I could get some dollar bills baby

and then finally I remember saying myself like damn fuck it it's time to go because you know what happened is when I made that transition Alan Cosgrove's like okay you're a world-renowned strength coach right everybody around the world knows about you he's like but nobody in your in your life he's like yeah the kids in your area know about you he's like but how big time are you in that garage i was like oh it's like that i was like that was the honest truth though dude that was the honest truth and then i remember i did say myself i was like i remember reading an article about dan john on uh t-nation dan john's like i train in my garage and uh and it's frozen and i do clean and press.

How's that for functional training? So I said to Cosgrove, I go, Dan John trains in his garage. He's big time. And then Cosgrove goes, he just says, question again. He's like, how big time are you? He's like, you're going to be training out of your garage. So I, I went to the dude who owned the gym and I said, look, man, I'm going to rent. I'll rent the gym.

What's, what's the price? I think he wanted like 1500 bucks. That's what he was paying. So, um, I was like,'s the price? I think he wanted like 1500 bucks. That's what he was paying. So, um, I was like, I'm not going to be able to do 1500 bucks. Can you, uh, like make this, like, give me like the first few months, a little bit cheaper. He dropped it to like 1350. So what I did was training out of the garage. I was like, I, I set like just a plain goal. I said, I have to double my rent. So my rent was going to be 1350. I started telling the dudes that train. I was like, yo man, all of your friends that are fucking hardcore. I was like, don't be sending me no

pussies. I was like, I want to start training some real dudes, man. So I like kicked in like this simple, like referral system. They started bringing their friends. We had like 20 something kids training out of the garage and this is the way it worked at like four o'clock first group. And then the kids would drive for the five o'clock suddenly my street had like cars parked out front cars parked across the street four o'clock to five o'clock there's like 15 kids roaming the streets with their shirts off like grunting and yelling dragging metal like finishing their workout 180 pounds all ripped up and i remember like looking up in the bay window and i saw my wife staring out the window and like I like could read her mind like, OK, like it's time for you to like take that step.

But she didn't like say nothing. But I just remember her seeing like this like large group of kids outside. And I was like, it is it's time to go and make that step. So when I eventually quit my teaching job, I think I had the Edison gym for trying to think how many years I was working the gym while teaching. So I would go to school and then I'd go right to the gym and I'd run that. And then I trained myself. I wouldn't leave till like nine o'clock at night. And you realize that wasn't sustainable, but life did my final year of teaching, uh, before I took a one year leave. And then I actually just resigned was like, I was so beat up. I was, my back was always getting messed up. Like I, I just was exhausted and I was, I will wake up an hour before everybody else woke up so I could like work on

the internet. I had the internet stuff. And then, and then everybody, like I was telling you guys in Miami, I'd wake up and my wife and my daughter were asleep and then I'd come home and they were asleep. So they'd wake up, like, right after I left, and they'd go to bed before I got home. And the only thing I wanted to do was, like, eat breakfast with my – I wanted to make breakfast and eat breakfast with my family. That was, like, the one thing that just –

That's all I wanted. That story you fucking told in Miami, that point you're like, I'm getting to a point where everything is sort of manifesting around this new thing I've got going, and it's coming together, and you can't quite let go of that space where you're trying to do it all yeah you told that story over breakfast i go no i guess the one that really got me was you thought about how you had that conversation like one day if i give like advice to my daughter about what she should do and you go who would who would i be how would i feel if i said go for what you

want she goes well who the fuck are you you never went for what you want you never made that decision you let us you let us rush out the door every morning without breakfast or you cooked it and rushed it you didn't enjoy that time like that kind of a that that struck me right down in the deepest part of me i go fuck i'm not gonna let that happen dude it was like it was like a nightmare to me what what i was thinking was like for when my daughter was born it was just like anybody who's like a parent like it's you can't really put it into words. But what I was always like thinking to myself was like, this girl's going to be something amazing.

She, I want her to like, she's going to be amazing. And I want to be able to almost like, how do you say like, kind of like lead, like lead the way. Like I can't like, she will never like trust my words. So I like had this like nightmare if I said, if she's like daddy i think i want to like whatever be on broadway i'm gonna move to california i'm gonna whatever it is and that yes that's what you should do and you should do this and then she like cuts me off and

she say like who like who the fuck are you like you grew up in this town you worked in this town you still work in this town you did you dared nothing and that was like no risks taken yeah she's like you didn't yeah and you know what's so funny is that anybody like when i was teaching that i that i would like give them the idea to like keep this job try to keep it part-time the pension they're like yo the pension the benefits this and that and i started saying to myself like i started saying to myself really so i'm gonna fucking go to the grave and I'm going to be like, yeah, I stuck it out for 30 years because I wanted this pension.

And I, and I just, to me, anything I read about somebody doing something great took a risk. And the one, they didn't have a pension.

Dude, they didn't have a pension. Everybody feels that paralysis. Fuck, holy fuck, what am I about to do? And the people who get what they want go, I'm going for it,

man. Yeah, anyone who does anything great, they don't go, wow, I'm glad I had that 401k after I did all that cool shit. It reminds me of getting a fucking gyms call. if you, like people wish like, go, I'm going for it, man. Yeah, anyone who does anything great, they don't go, wow, I'm glad I had that 401k after I did all that cool shit. It reminds me of getting a fucking gym's call.

Like, if people wish, like, well, if the situation was better, if the time was right, I could do that. I could be that. There's no right time. There's no such thing as right time. If I could just train full time, I'd be so strong. No. You're weak because you're weak.

You're unsuccessful because you're unsuccessful. You're not driven because you're not driven. Like, that's who you are. Like, more optimal would make you more of what you are. But if you look at what we've been trained to do, people our age, 30s and older, is we've been trained to really be just followers. You go to school.

You get the job. You do your career. You are trained. You've been lied to. Nobody ever said to you, like, yo, man, no teacher ever said to you like yo man no no teacher ever said to me yo you know what man fucking you should do something awesome you're gonna be awesome at whatever you do i was not pegged to be more i'll never get my guidance counselor like after

i took the sat three times he's like he goes he says to me he's like maybe three times is the max times you can make it before it starts looking bad. The first two times I took it, I scored 840. And the difference was like 10 points, which is one. It was like a 10 point change in the verbal and the math. And I was like, damn, I think they sent me like last time scores. And then I look at it and I was like, oh, 10 point difference. I fucking did the same exact thing. My guy's guy was like, he's like, maybe college't for you and i have you considered majoring in shoveling yeah i think like and i

look back at like all that shit and that was like the beginning of uh that was like the the beginning of uh kind of like i don't know how you say like the people trying to like hold you down everybody's trying to make you fucking man dude the fucking man trying to hold you down. Everybody's trying to make you- The fucking man. Dude, the fucking man trying to hold you down. Everybody's trying to get everybody to conform, to be the same, because if you dare go outside the lines of quote unquote normal, like you're already seen as the enemy. And now that I've been doing things that really aren't-

You make people look at themselves and go, I'm not doing that. I don't know what it is. I don't have the nerve to fucking do it. You get a projection. I don't know what it is. I don't really know what it is. I don't have the nerve to fucking do it. You get a projection. I don't know what it is. I don't really know what it is. And trust me, even today, there's still times where sometimes I'm like, damn, this shit is a grind.

This shit's fucking hard. It would be so easy to like punch the clock, wake up, know I got the weekends off, all that shit. But then I think of like, you know, little things like, you know, a quote that I've heard Joe Vitale say. He's like, dare something great or dare something worthy. Or I think about like books. Sometimes I don't even read the book. I could just look at the title of a book and, or I could read a chapter. And I remember one book that, you know, that like really pushed me was the guy that created, um, survivor and he created like all those other shows. I think the name of the book is called like, like make the jump. And he was like talking about how anytime he did something great

like when he did um survivor he like bought like this fucking all this like land and all this shit it was like millions no guarantee that model he lost he lost all he lost all that money and he was just like fuck it i'm doing it again anyway. I'm not going to do this again. I was like, damn, this dude has balls. And that's when I started saying, okay, you know, now I started like being more like strategic about leaving teaching. So I started saying, okay, here's how much money I make. Here's how much money I need to replace to take care of not just the money that I'm making, but all the health benefits, this, that. Then it started becoming a game because I was working my business part-time,

right? I would work on the internet an hour before school. I also worked on every lunch break. So when all the other teachers would go out to eat, I fucking like went and sat at a desk that faced the cement wall and just would do blog posts and all this, all this stuff. I would go to the playground. I would go to the playground, grind them. I would go to the playground and I tell one of the teachers, the same people like if you, if you do really well, like five years down the road, you got so lucky. Man, this guy's an overnight success story.

This guy for the past 10 years, he's an overnight success story. So everybody would go out to eat. I would just frigging work. I remember like using my teaching salary to pay a fucking web designer. I'll never forget this dude. He was designing websites in the fitness industry. And because he was like the guy, it just kept getting more and more expensive. And I'll never forget like spending an entire two-week paycheck for him.

Do we know who this guy is? I don't know. I don't think you guys know who he is. I fucking spent my entire paycheck. It must've been like just shy of two grand to get a website built. It's like, Holy fuck. I just,

by the way, this was a figure. Let's see. It's 2014. I'm like, everything's a blur. Let's let me just try to think back. Cause I may not have been in my gym.

So it may have been about eight years ago. Yeah, I was gonna say at that time, there was no WordPress blog. I don't know how to fucking make a website. Everybody's like, yo, you got to figure out Dreamweaver. Remember that shit? I had the animated flash and music intro to your website, bro. You had to take classes for that. So I had a blog spot.

I paid this guy my whole paycheck. And I was like, my god my i was using like my teacher salary to fucking like support the business to get that shit done so i we've all been there it's just like today i today i really think it's so much easier to uh but if you didn't come from like back then it's just different like back in the day if i wanted to speak to somebody let's say i wanted to speak to you guys there's no podcast i'd have to pay for you to like get email time with you and i did all of that shit i was putting out so much money i remember i would every time i used the sick day at school was to go to like a business seminar exactly dude there was no

such thing as sick days i was like if i if I was legitimately sick, I showed up. My sick days were to go to like conferences and shit, conferences. So when I did like say, I'm going to make this, I'm going to make this transition full-time business. I just looked at all the numbers. And like I said, I knew it wasn't going to be perfect. And I was fine with that because I was so used to imperfection with the gym and not having the real barbells, not having the fancy equipment, but I knew, I just knew I couldn't fucking fail. I was like, I remember saying myself, I'm like, I'm the fucking Navy seal of strength coaches. I was like, I was like, yeah, I would like, can't fucking like be stopped. Not even entertain the thought of it. Dude. I exactly, there was like, it was like, Oh, what if this happens? I was like, dude, there ain't no way I'm fucking going down. Like I can't lose. Like I'm going to build this gym. I'm going to change the culture.

I'm going to fucking change these kids. People are like, you can't train wrestlers. That's a poor man's sport. You can't train athletes. They don't want to work hard. This and that. Everybody told me,

fucking, you can't do this. You can't do that. And all I ever wanted to do was be like, fuck you, man. I think there's two. I just contained it.

It's like two things I've realized, dude. And it seems like everybody feels this. One, you can it's like, fuck you, man. I think there's two. I just contained it. There's like two things I've realized, dude. And it seems like everybody feels this. One, you start seeing fear in people. You feel it yourself and you realize this is not a bad thing. I go, fear, I've come to think, fear is what makes you more alive and more sharp and less numb and more ready to fucking live. You learn to harness it. Your whole history of being a human being, as far back as it was, like fear and being on the edge

and being out on that risky plane, you're not necessarily so much at risk because you're thinking it through. You're working hard to know what you're doing, but that's where you're most alive. The comfortable path is the most unhuman fucking thing, the most numbing, stripping thing you can possibly do. Going for the sure fucking bet

will remove your magic. Some people love that shit, though. I can't relate. Some people love that. some people love to know that they're fucking going home watching tv eating chips and to me they got masks on man like the routine and their stability it's the matrix they're plugging back in i you know ignorance is bliss you have to get comfortable being uncomfortable and i think if you're an entrepreneur you need to be you have to be mentally tough. You have to be ready for the grind. You know, like I tell people think that like when they see all the stuff I have going on, they think like everything's easy.

Like even growing this gym, this gym comes with its challenges. Like we get no foot traffic. We also like. Yeah, we had to like drive back like almost like into an alley and it's next to what a, an auto shop. It's like, yeah, we're hidden in here. Yeah. So there's machine shops, garages, all that shit.

So finding the front door is hard. Finding this place is, it's like, it's tough. If I had, if I had the foot traffic that, that would be easy. And, and you know what? It's like, you just always have to just like find a way. It's like, okay, another imperfect have to just like find a way it's like okay another imperfect opportunity to just kick some more ass don't people wait too fucking long for everything to be right it's too late because you wait you've already missed everything what makes

you you you need to act on now even if it's for 30 minutes in your lunch break if you're not willing to do that you can't have anything else dude there was no such thing as a lunch break when i was teaching it was fucking eat and work yeah i'll say at one point you you finally made the leap and you were growing and growing and growing and you're thinking like i need to make enough money to survive and you kind of at one point started getting off of your path and doing things that you were supposed to do and taking people's advice oh yeah but it wasn't really your passion and you're getting away from like from like who you really want to be in this industry and then finally you just you're just like fuck no i'm not doing any of that shit anymore and you're getting away from like, from like who you really want to be in this industry. And then finally you just, you're just like, fuck, no, I'm not doing any of that shit anymore. And you just cut it off. And like, can you talk about the whole transition, how that happened?

Yeah. So it actually, it's like, it comes full circle. I actually, it happens like several times, like even in this gym, people were telling me like, you're going to have to like, get used to the kids down here. They're down by the beach. Everybody's just chilling out. You know, nobody's in a rush, this and that. And I was like, maybe I do need to be a little bit like easier on everybody. Maybe, maybe like I don't have to be so tough on them. And then every time I try to like, um, like mute my inner fucking voice of whatever it is, it just, I feel it in my stomach just when I talk about it. And then the business starts to fucking slip. But as soon as I start fucking pushing people the way I believe, the way I truly believe that people are capable of doing, because it'll help them become

great. Then it's like, I get that text message, text message from the parent, like, this is his best year ever. His strength is showing or to father or like, you know, like it just brings tears to their eyes. Like the things that like these kids go through. And every time I like try to like be a little bit like, you know, more mainstream, let me like fit in with everybody. What's everybody else doing? Let me, you know, all that stuff. Anytime I move towards a direction outside of like what I'm about, it, uh, every, it's like, it just doesn't work, you know, not just from a financial standpoint, but just from like peace of mind. I can't like even sleep. So even, you know, like I'm saying here, like I just, you know,

people are like, you have too much expectation. You care too much. Why? You know, Hey man, don't text message that kid. Don't text message him. So what? Maybe he's busy. I was like, dude, he ain't fucking busy. He needs to be here training. Fucking hasn't been here for three weeks. And then I tell him straight up, I go, yo guys, I wouldn't be text messaging you guys to show up if I didn't give a shit. I was like, get into this gym. I was like, I don't want to be working with you when it's crunch time. Cause I know, look like I'm 38. I remember like being 16, like it was two minutes ago. Like you were talking about time going too fast. I don't want these kids fucking hanging out in these bars when they're 40 saying, Oh man, I should have done that. I could have done that. I want them like, if they do go into that bars, I want them to be able to like walk proud and just

be like, you know what, man, fucking busted my ass in that gym behind that railroad tracks i deserve the scotch yeah i deserve this scotch the scotch i deserve yeah hit me with that jameson baby see i'm talking some of that irish liquor baby all right we're gonna take a break real quick when we come back we're gonna find out what magic magnet necklace you wear for success. Magic magnet necklace. Oh, shit. Crazy eyes. Oh, and we're back here with Zach Evanesce here at Underground Strength and Manisquam, New Jersey.

This is hardcore, son. This gym is awesome, and it's not a typical CrossFit gym. You're training high school athletes. Most CrossFit gyms really don't even go after high school athletes. They're training mostly average Joes, people who have professional lives and are in their 20s, 30s, 40s, up to 80, maybe 90. I don't know. But you focus.

I mean, you don't have, like, the big rogue rig running across the gym. You're not running classes of 20 people. How do you run your classes here? And, you know, it's obviously different. It's definitely a more, it's more complicated, more complex. Like, because when you got the high school kids, number one, their schedule is very fickle. You got the in-season, you got the off-season. You're working around when mom and dad could get them here. Um, if mom and dad have like kids at different, um, schools, like

the middle school, the elementary school, they're driving all around. So the scheduling stuff is, uh, it sucks. And also, um, what makes it even more crazy is like, you know, you guys are hanging out with the Wattify guys yesterday, you know, of all these, like, gym management softwares. Kids today don't even have email. They don't even have an email address. So, like, they can't log into shit. They have Facebook. They have Instagram.

They don't communicate. They have an email. They just don't know how to check. They don't even know. Yeah. They don't give a shit. They're like, I don't know if I have an email. So, they communicate through text messaging.

So, it's a very different way to communicate. I've got one high school kid who like, it's weird how like he doesn't use certain pieces of technology, but it uses others. Right. I'm like, you don't use Twitter, but use the shit out of Instagram and Facebook.

He's like, no, Twitter's for old people. That was news to me about the email addresses. I just figured everyone had one. Dude, they don't, they don't have to sign up for services,

but I think that's all they're using it for. They probably don't have it until they're forced to have it when they get a college email. So in a nutshell, we do small groups and we do- They have email addresses. They're just not giving it to you. They don't even know how to- This guy's going to spam me. They don't even know how to-

They're like, I have an email,, but it's only for dick pics. That's only where I send my dick pics. We tell them all the time when you're like, we're like, yeah, it's right. I'm like, don't be watching all that porn, man. And your phone ain't gonna be messed up. They're like, ah, I'm like, don't even coach. I never shut up, man. You guys are advanced.

I know you know what's going on on the internet. But in a nutshell, we do small groups. In a perfect world, we break it down and say, okay, this will be the time where the middle school athletes come in. This is the time where the high school guys come in. But that shit never works. So you need to have your you have to have like mental agility as far as coaching. You'll be in here and you'll see kids doing back squats. Other kids will be doing kettlebell goblet squats.

Somebody else will be doing trap bar deadlift. Maybe, you know, this kid trains three times a week. This other kid hasn't been here at all last week. He's only here once a week. So if he's only here once a week, then he's not going to be following, you know, the program that the other kids on. So in a nutshell, everybody gets what they need. And that that actually makes it very it makes it very challenging to run the business. But I'm going to tell you this.

That's that's the right thing to do, because if I if you know, if whatever, today's Friday. Hey, everybody who shows up on Friday, this is the workout that we're doing. It just doesn't. Max out Friday? Max out Friday. Today's especially a tense day then. Max out Friday is something that I picked up from Travis Mash and the kids. It really, it definitely changed the culture in here with getting them to,

because on Fridays, this is really a quiet day. Why? Because when you train athletes, when do they, this is really a quiet day. Why? Because when you train athletes, when do they compete? Friday night, Saturday morning, so everybody's like trying to go easy

or they're not even in here. But in a nutshell, it's small groups and, you know, each, we, I put up training cycles,

probably like say highly influenced from more of like a West Side Barbell type style of training. Focus on work capacity, focus style training, focus on work capacity, focus on strength, focus on power.

These kids got to put on muscle. So they're not going to go through like a typical CrossFit workout where they're always doing Metcons. Right. You know, I tell people like you could never, um, you could never, um,

overestimate how weak athletes are going to be. I'm talking kids like varsity athletes will be rolling up here. Can't do one pull-up. Can't do a good, can't do a good body, one good body weight squat, which is like saying, yo Holmes,

you can't even sit on, I almost made out with that microphone. I got a little too close. You actually just wrote an article about that, right? Someone who came with a big strength background, but couldn't do some body weight stuff. So he was so strong.

He was actually going into college. I remember he would box squat 405. He could floor press 315. He would trap bar deadlift 495, but he couldn't do our warmup. He couldn't hop on one foot. He couldn't do pushups on the floor. It sounds like he needed a bozu ball. Dude.

That's right. And then as soon as I incorporated the crossbody wood cable chop it fixed everything but this is this is what happens crosswords don't know what that is no yeah it's true they're like i don't even they don't know what the heck we're talking about with that shit we'll have to post a photo but what happens is um also being an independent strength coach you don't really get a lot of cooperation from the athletic coaches. You know, people think that you could just call up like the local football coach or the local anybody coach and they don't want to hear from you. They get jealous, man.

They get jealous. It's a lot of ego stuff. Here and there, you have a coach. When they see what you do, they like fall in line with it. They support you full blown. They're just, but that is a very rare. It happens. I've, it, you know, I have some of those coaches.

It is so rare that it makes it tough. And it could, it could drive you to the point where you're like, damn dude. Like, you're like, what the hell? I'm just trying to like help these kids. You know, I don't look at it as helping these kids because what they learn when they train here is so life-changing and me as a former teacher you know it when i was teaching at the uh i taught at an elementary school and the high school football team was going on a four-year losing streak they lost 36 games in a row

i remember i i was telling stop just stop the program dude i was like i told them uh i said guys get me into that weight room like get me into that weight room let me work with these kids for years they even i worked in that town for over a decade and they never put me in there eventually the the athletic director said uh he was why don't we uh do this as a uh ceu like teachers have to get 20 hours of continuing education. I said, uh, no, I said,

I'm not fucking doing, uh, two hours. So somebody could fulfill like their continuing, like education credits. I was like, we got kids that are graduating high school that never won a football game in their life.

I was like, that kid ain't never going to forget that. And, uh, that's when I started really getting fired up saying, uh, cause the, the motto of that school was like nothing less than excellence.

And that's also what led me to leave. That pisses me off, man. Dude, that fucking piss. What the fuck are you guys talking about? That shit's fraud. Yeah. That's a fucking fraud. This is some bullshit you put on here

to impress parents and make them sign the kids up. That's when I started really getting to the point where it's like, oh, you're going to fucking say nothing less than excellence? Then do it. Fucking live that shit. Don't be talking about, oh, these kids are number one. These fucking kids are getting their asses handed to them every day. I don't give a shit. That's the worst part. I don't

care. If that happened, I don't give a shit about it. I was fucking, I get pissed when I talk about it. I get pissed when I talk about it because here's the thing. Bring it. Bring this shit, kids. This is, this is what, this is the problem that when kids are weak they lose that's the bottom line they lose who wants to fucking see a kid lose i if i as a parent i don't want to see my kid getting his ass kicked and as a coach if you ain't the fucking like you know numero uno top dog at what you're doing then find somebody else to help make it happen yeah period get better those kids dude it's a kid, man. They deserve, they deserve better.

And, and, you know, it's ironic is that, you know, I was telling you guys that last week there was the county wrestling tournament. Yeah. And, uh, it was real successful for, uh, the counties in the other gym, uh, up north. It was very successful for us. And while I watch our kids like, uh, deliver some ass whoopings, there's a part of me where I'm like, man, I feel horrible for the kid that he just like kicked the shit out of the kid. He just kicked the shit out of the kid.

But then I say to myself, well, everybody has the opportunity to step up and do work. You know, you know, the parent could support. The parent could say, you know what, I'm going to go and find a way to help my kid. But that's the other thing that's tough because not all parents, like they could shrug it off. Some kids, if they lose, they don't care. I don't get, I can't relate to that stuff. So there's like a lot of emotions tied into that, which makes it-

The parents of the people working those jobs, that they're also, they're just following what they're- Yeah, robots, fucking robots. And I think that's what makes it, it makes it very tough to run a business that way because you're tied into it emotionally. I mean, if, if some, if you spoke to like Donald Trump and he, and you said, you know, he said the Trump, man, what's the number one, why,

why am I running this business? The Trump would be like, you're running that business to make money. You wouldn't hear the Trump saying something like, you know, maybe he would, but I don't think he would say you need to change lives. You need to change this world. I don't think he would take it that far, but you know, every day, all day, you know, I come, I go back to when I told you guys about having dinner with a friend and he goes, I think he goes, I think God put you on this earth to make kids strong. When he said that to me, I was like, I was like, damn dude. That sort of solidify you. Like I see what I'm doing. I see it crystallizes. This is what I need to do. Like it starts making sense to you. Yeah. He's, he saw it in me and uh, everybody else that I saw that was being successful was selling eBooks

about six pack abs and their workouts were like 20 jumping jacks, 20 mountain climbers, 20 crunches. I'm like, I'm like, nah, no way no way and but then i saw those are those were the same people that were making fucking thousand dollars a day selling ebooks and it fucks with your head because you're like man i'm telling people to squat to deadlift to fucking work hard to like get in there and people are telling me hey man chill out nobody wants to work hard you're fucking pushing people too much and then i started saying myself well you know you start like going down that road like that route like what d Doug is saying, like, you know, you start losing yourself. And anytime I veer from this is the path I'm supposed to be on. Just you, I feel it in my gut. The

success isn't there. And every time I go back to being who I am, that's when those emails start coming in. And they're like, yo, man, like, you know, I don't try to pull it up here, but some dude like sent me this email from I'm not really sure. Can I read that email? So he's from. I'm not kidding. I'm going to tell you what country he's from, from Belgrade, Serbia. And he's like, I'm receiving your emails for a year and a half now. I want to thank you for the great motivation you're providing me

when I lose focus from time to time. My basic sport is BJJ since the year 2000 with lots of rises and falls since then. At the moment, I'm training BJJ three times a week and my training partner and I train at the gym three days a week. He's like, we're crushing lots of body weight training, kettlebells, and fucking sledge. He didn't put sledge he didn't

put sledgehammer in there he's like conditioning and some lifting he's like for me it's mostly deadlifts and uh what my wife's called he's like for me it's mostly deadlifts and squats he goes also i love your mindset no excuses always a white belt get out of your comfort zone he's like those are the perfect guidelines thanks the hashtag in that always a white belt, get out of your comfort zone. He's like, those are the perfect guidelines. Thanks. The hashtag in that always a white belt thing. Always a white. I feel like you should always be a white belt. I mean, like, you know, you got to drop your ego. You should always be willing to learn the people that aren't willing to learn is like our programs good enough. Really? Is it good enough for kids? I would never. That's like, you know, I don't know who this thing about being good enough. Like I would never say like, that's good enough. That's that's good you know i don't know who this thing about being good enough like i would never

say like that's good enough that's that's good enough for my kids like fuck good enough like how about fucking like now we rise raise the bar and and everything should be fucking awesome or the coaches that are like you know what i already know how to do weight lifting i don't need to go to this seminar i don't need to keep getting better. When somebody says that to me, it says that, um, we're good enough for our members. We're good enough. And to me, I don't ever think like I'm doing a good enough job. And that's maybe something I learned from, from wrestling and you know, it's, you know, whatever problems I have upstairs in my mind, but I just, I just think that whatever you do be fucking awesome at it. And that's not a lie. And I think it has to be, you got to go all out. Like when I leave this gym coaching, I want to be tired. I

want to be exhausted. I want to know I gave everybody everything I had and I don't understand anything less than that. That's probably also why I'm like, you know, from a business standpoint, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk said, he goes, you know how you run your business. He goes, you got to run it like your second child. He goes, when I had my first daughter, he's like, I was checking up. I was in that room looking in that crib, like every 30 seconds. Oh, she breathed and she did. She did. Then you have your second baby and you're like, all right, she's all right. All right. Uh, baby craps his pants. I'll get there in like 20 minutes. Like you got all these other things going on. You're not like freaking out about it. And he said, that's how you should run it. And I

try, I try to like chill out a little bit and not like try to make everything perfect, but it's just not me. Like I see, you know, if I'm going to be, you know, training these kids, um, I'm just going to give them the best I got. And I feel, you know, the most, uh, in my right space when I'm working with athletes, like, that's just like the only thing I understand. Like, I like, I love working with adults. I trained some adult men here and, uh, I love working with those guys. And I think the reason why I love working with them is because I took it beyond training. Like I started talking to them more about life and lifestyle and like, you training be strong because you're a man be strong as a father be strong as a husband take this work ethic put it back into where you work and um it's

it's just different so i don't even know what tangent i fucking got off of but uh usually somebody asked me like one question it takes like 20 minutes it takes 20 minutes for me to answer because uh keep going one thing you remind me of is that being, that's all two things. One, you said, when the imagery of like, it's good enough, man. We've got a good program. I'm thinking that's not too far

from that fucking principle. It's like, we go after excellence. And those kids, they're losing, but whatever. You're on that path towards, when you lose your momentum, it's all is lost. And I think back to Louis C.K.,

the fucking great comedian, he goes, I looked at George Carlin, he goes, I would see how much material you turned over, go, that makes sense to me. That's going to be C.K., you know, the fucking great comedian. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I looked at George Carlin. He goes, I would see how much material you turned over. I go, that makes sense to me.

That's going to be me. Like every year, I want to know that I'm bringing everything I got. I'm on the leading edge. Like year to year, I'm tossing out my old shit, my old material.

So he gets better. I'm on the leading edge. I'm always looking. I'm always thinking like, what can I, what different association can I make? What else is there?

And because you're on that edge, it's the habit. Before you know it, you're always just refining, always seeing. And year to year, you're not the same person in all the best kind of ways. I feel that too. You have to evolve. I want to be on the edge of, not on some kind of intense hardcore edge, but I want to be out there where new ideas can be connected

and I can see things differently. That's what I like about CrossFit because I had to go back to the beginning. The first edge I was ever on, I go, I got to rethink how I just move. And that starts changing everything all over again. Everything that was normal and great and optimal and close to good enough or whatever, the definitions change. I don't see it the same way. It can't be perfect. It was perfect

the way I saw it and now it's bullshit. I got to fix it. It's so fun. Like I was thinking that too. Like today, I was thinking to myself, all right, we got Travis Mash coming here Sunday. And I'm like, damn, I'm 38 and I'm like learning weightlifting. You know, I haven't, you know, it's, I've been there, dude. Dude, I've been working out since I was 13. That's, so this June will be 20.

I started, I was 13 and a half. I mean, it was like two weeks before eighth grade ended. And I'm not like, well, I've learned enough. I'm good enough. Like I'm learning like power cleans. I'm like learning more mobility, like all these little things. It's fucking satisfying as hell

when you go back and you do something like you have this big reward and you get this big fucking, wow, I move better now. After years and years of grinding on deadlift or bitch.

You feel like you're alive. Like if you don't, if you don't keep like evolving and keep growing, I just feel like you're, I just feel like you're dead. And that's what we talk about, just get comfortable being uncomfortable. So I'm not always like, I remember when I started trying to practice weightlifting,

when I set up the rack and I just had the barbell in the garage, I started trying to do the snatch. And I remember I was doing dumbbell snatches with 100 100, 110 pound dumbbell, 120 pound dumbbell. I was doing a snatch with 85 pounds. I was like, dude, why is this so fucking hard? I like do this with like one arm. And then it just started like firing me up to take things, you know, to that next level. So, you know, when you guys asked me about like, you know, how do you train athletes and all that stuff it is very hard because I'm so like emotionally into it that you couldn't you just couldn't stop me from doing it and I mean this is legitimately like if we win the lottery my wife's like always playing the lottery I'm like I would still be fucking training athletes you know when you talk about what

would you do for free and really my vision is this is this, is that I want to have a barn and train people in a barn. And did you guys ever see, they put it on CrossFit Journal, Al Buck, Buck's gym. I think he's in Tennessee. He's an anesthesiologist. He started training a couple people.

Oh, yeah. I've heard about this guy. I want to go. They have like a 10, 12 minute video. I want to go. He's got a small garage, got like one or two squat racks. Then outside, there's like Atlas stones in like a 10, 12 minute video. He's got a small garage, got like one or two squat racks. Then outside there's like Atlas stones in like a pit.

He's got a lot of outdoor training. Everything is outdoors. And when I was training, oh, it's like heaven. When I was training the athletes before I even had the first gym, we like took this like, yeah, we, it was just me training them. There's this group of wrestlers that started and they didn't qualify out of the district. There's the districts. Then you go to the regions.

Then you go to the States. The States are held in Atlantic city to go to the States as a wrestler is like, quote unquote, living the dream. And I got like six minutes before I got to pick up my son. So he can wait. He can wait. Fine.

He's pretty autonomous. He's toughen that kid up. Make him wait on the snow. So he can wait. He can wait. Fine. He's pretty autonomous. Toughen that kid up. Make him wait on the snow. Toughen up son. Fucking run your ass here. Down the highway. And, uh,

we trained this group of kids and, um, they went, they, uh, their senior year, actually some of them, their junior,

but they all went to the States. They all placed in the States and they were like, just dude, I felt like they were like bad mother. They were just just they became bad motherfuckers because we trained them so in in perfectly whatever the word is like not perfectly right and i feel like when i get out of those elements when we get out of the gym and train out of the gym you build bad motherfuckers and to me i want to get back to like that, the garage, but in a barn, because I'm going to tell you why I never, I never want to like, uh, take on a client, take on a member

ever. And in the back of my head saying, I don't want to work with that kid, but I could use that money to pay the rent or to pay these bills. I don't want that shit. So I want to own my building, put it in a barn and just gonna be like you know that's it you're coming here prepare to fucking do battle like war that's it and i think that's where i'll connect to that point uh so there's there's a lot of young kids getting fired up the energy is there that's a huge component of what makes this successful i imagine yeah the atmosphere you follow imagine you follow a conjugated West Side, quote unquote,

highly variable system because these kids fucking just have a fucking good time, right? They have ADD, no doubt, with the training, so you have to vary the training, but you can't vary it so much

in a CrossFit sense, constantly varied, or they'll never even be good at the shit. They're so uncoordinated because now young athletes can't get strong. Now you can't get strong. And they specialize in sports so early that their movements are so out of whack.

They're so fucked up. Like very tight on this side. Can't do a squat. What do you do with that kid who couldn't fucking bound on one leg, by the way, dude, we stopped, I stopped letting him squat bench and deadlift.

And I said, that's it. Now we're doing fucking kettlebells, sleds, sledgehammers, body weight work. Now we're doing fucking kettlebells, sleds, sledgehammers, body weight work. I, I didn't,

I was like, dude, you could already do all that other shit. But the other problem was, first of all, that kid, you know, they were,

he was training with us twice a week. And then I, and then he'd always get pissed. Like when he'd get crushed during the workout, he was training with us twice a week. And, uh, I remember him doing like farmer walks with the 45s on each side so

the bar was only so it was like 110 pounds he'd do one set second set shit would like fly at his hands oh fuck he'd be all mad I'm like dude why are you pissed like like why are you fucking pissed I got kids there was kids that were like 130 pounds carrying the 120s in each hand and um I was like you've been coming here for two months I like, what do you do on the days that you're not here? He goes, well, nothing. And I was like, oh, I fucking ripped into him because we had other kids that were killing it and they were training with us more frequently. And not only would they train with us more frequently, but they'd be like, I went to the high school weight room when I was done with the high school weight room. I went out to the soccer field and I did sprints and then I did pull-ups off the soccer goalposts. They were doing, you

know, champion shit. They were doing, they were doing stuff on their own. And that's what I tell these kids. I go, you need to do training when you're not with me. Cause if you only wait for training with me, or you only wait and train when your parents tell you to train, or you'll never be a champion. I think you have to like, yeah, you have to like pull it out. You got to get to know yourself and you're uncomfortable. You're out, you have to like pull it out. You've got to get to know yourself. And you're uncomfortable. You're out. You're grinding against a heavy, heavy knurled thing. And you've got to be on your own to realize what it gives to you. And sometimes you need quiet and solitude for that. That's why I love a garage gym.

And it doesn't have to be perfect. I tell them, look, don't be emailing me like how many sets and reps I do. It doesn't fucking matter, dude. Dude, fucking go to war, whatever you do. Go out to the fucking, go to the woods, start fucking running. You come up to a branch, you come up to a branch, fucking do pul do pulps you come up to a stone carry that shit till you can't carry it anymore like is that your is that with a functional because you can we can talk all the periodization shit you want with these young kids it's tough do you simply say i'm gonna i'll tell

you when the rest don't you fucking worry about resting but every time you do i just want a little more is it as simple as that like all these all these i basically you know if we tried to do any kind of scientific shit i'd say it's auto-regulated so you know i'm pretty i'm very dialed in i'm going to tell you that and uh one thing people look at me is they see like the passion and they that overrides like my knowledge and training every workout i do is an assessment the warm-up is an assessment because every day is different from the for these kids because they're competitors they're sore they're beat up Mentally, they're maybe mentally they have a great day or mentally they're beat up I have to be able to find a way to know

Is this the right day to fucking push him to really hit a max workout or is this the day? Where i'm going to back off and make it a high rep day or is he injured here? How do I mobilize him and still get working? How do I build up his confidence after he just lost that match? What is the thing he needs to experience? Um, because he's going through depression. I've worked with all those fucking kids. Kid comes in, he's depressed. He shows up late. I have to fucking pull him out of his car. Okay. That kid doesn't need to go through a Metcon. That kid needs to do a couple heavy sets of a couple hard reps, low reps, of some squatting, some deadlifting,

some typhoon to fucking feel powerful. Then the other kid, he needs a confidence booster. I'm going to put him through a challenging workout and then I'm going to fucking crank that stereo like that Limp Biz song. I'm like, see, I fucking told you you're a warrior, a fucking warrior. They're fucking...

The guy's like, maybe I am a warrior. Yeah'll be like dude you're a fucking you're a fucking warrior yeah all these other kids they're home nobody's working harder than us right now motherfuckers you guys are gonna kill it like you guys are gonna kill everybody like i do what i do what needs to get killed everybody yeah Performance is not just the physical. Imagine fucking getting on a wrestling mat with this dude's kids. And you're a fucking 17-year-old kid. This guy's kids get their hands on you. You quit immediately. I would just start talking to them nicely.

Like, you know, we can solve this other ways. How much money do you want? It's a big mental thing. But then you have kids, you know, when they are beat up and they are banged up, then you got to say, okay, I'm going to pull back this week. I'm going to deload. And when I deload, I deload all volume by volume. I mean a total amount of sets, total amount of time in the gym, intensity, the weight they use, and they'll train for maybe 30 minutes. They won't, you know, squat or deadlift. And then I let them just do whatever the fuck they want for the next 30 minutes.

You know what they do? They do this. They chill out with one another. They start talking. They don't eat, they don't go home, but then they start like the end of the week, they start itching.

And then that next week they come in and they fucking ready to kill the weights. They're ready to kill the weights. Yo, can I take a quick break here for a second? Let's take a break. Uh, I think you need to go pick up your kid.

Yeah. I got to see my wife might be able to pick him up. Come back, wrap this up. We'll train. We'll do that high rep confidence building thing. We're all hung over.

We need a confidence boost. Oh, yeah, we crushed it. Fuck, I don't know. Well, dude, this is, consider this part one of like 15 we're going to do with Zach over the years. Zach, if anyone wants

to learn more about how you train people, where can they go? Yeah, go to undergroundstrength.tv. That's like the easiest way. That's the blog. And then you can connect through like Facebook, Twitter, my seminars, all that shit. You got your own podcast too? Yeah, we got on iTunes.

It's called Strongcast. And I have a certification. I don't travel too much for it, but I'll be in Florida, San Diego. Here and there I travel. Most of the time we do it here in New Jersey because when they come here, what I like to do is tell people like, come here, chill out a little bit.

You go to the beach. If you've never went surfing before, you know, you learn to go surfing. You could go mountain biking. So it's a, you know, when I do like training shit, man, I think like training should be beyond the physical. Like it has to be like,

like a spiritual experience, man. Like a traincation. Yes. Get out of your own element. Go to a gym. You need to hang out with different people. Yeah.

Something that's rejuvenating. Yeah. And train outside of the gym. Meaning like, I call it like being a soul lifter. Like a, like a, you ever see that movie North Shore?

Remember that shit? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah North Shore? Remember that shit? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fucking old school Lear Hamilton and the guy was teaching the kid how to surf and he's like,

surf on the long board, surf on the short board, surf big waves, surf small waves, surf with no surfboard, just go body surfing. He goes, that's what a soul surfer does.

He don't discriminate against the surfboard. So I feel like training, like for me. That connection that Louis would identify with that. Dude,

I would train, yeah, I would, I'll train using a stone. I'll train outdoors at a playground. I'll train out on the sand or I'll just go surfing or stand up outboard or I'll go mountain biking.

And if I'll go mountain biking, I'll fucking find myself, I don't even pay attention to the trails. I'll just stop where I'm at. Sometimes he's out there for days. Dude, for days. I hashtag D- where I'm at. Sometimes he's out there for days. Dude, for days. Hashtag DAT kids.

Alright guys, make sure to check out Zach's stuff and of course go to barbellshrug.com, sign up for the newsletter and you'll learn some weightlifting stuff. Thanks Zach. Thanks Zach. Cheers.