Barbell Shrugged - 137- Tips for Getting Strong as S#*T w/ John Welbourn of CrossFit Football

Episode Date: August 13, 2014

Several months back the entire Barbell Shrugged crew called into the 50th episode of Power Athlete Radio. We had a blast chatting and bullshitting with the entire Crossfit Football crew, so I knew this interview with John Welbourn was going to be great. But I’ll be honest. I did forget just how big he is.    At 6 ft 5 in and 310 lbs, this man is not your average Crossfit Coach. John reminds me of Tony Robbins’ larger, more athletic, Warrior/Mercenary brother. To borrow a phrase from the fantastic movie Shallow Hal, shaking that mitt of a hand really was like grabbing a bunch of bananas.    Don’t get me wrong, there are some amazing people in the sport of fitness. Athlete’s are getting fitter by the day, while also getting strong enough to compete nationally as competitive lifters. That’s extraordinary. But that said, the world of the NFL is a few level’s up, to say the least. Just check out this video of John and his former colleagues warming up before a “WOD.” Your Fran time is awesome, dude, but I don’t think it’s going to be much help if you find yourself on the other side of the line from one of these real-life juggernauts.   John was an incredible Football player, but he’s an even more impressive competitor. Did you know that he competed in the 2008 Crossfit Games? It’s True! You can see an old video on John WODing right here. That’s a super-duper impressive feat for a guy that large. “Why didn’t he lose some weight so that he could be more competitive,” you might ask. The answer is that he wasn’t done playing professional football yet! That’s right. He went off to training camp just a few weeks after the Games, which for lack of a better phrase, really takes balls.    I really enjoyed talking with John. It brought back so many memories of my own career, which had many up’s and down’s, but was an amazing time in my life. Just in case you were wondering, no, I was no John Welbourn. Not even close. But I did alright, and I did it with a bitchin’ haircut. But I also wanted to thank him for showcasing the most important strength lesson in his Crossfit Football programming. That’s this, listen closely - If you want to get really strong and maximize your result, you have to train appropriately.    I know,  I know, the strongest people you can name train Westside, Smolov, Sheiko, whatever, so why not you? Why not do as the strong do? Well, because you have only been training a few years, not a decade or two. You don’t have the skill, the foundation, the muscle mass, or the recovery potential to take on such programming, so the only thing you’re going to get is frustrated, tired and hurt. The key to long lasting and enduring strength is to progress up to the intermediate and advanced levels ONLY WHEN IT IS REQUIRED! To be more specific, you should do the simplest possible thing until it stops working for you. Only then should you make things fancier and more complicated.    That fundamental approach is baked right into John’s programming. If you are in need of some strength and power, but you also don’t want to give up an inch of your overall athleticism, you really can’t beat Crossfit Football. Give it a try, just be honest with yourself. Are you an Amateur, Collegiate, or Professional level athlete? You’ll truly know by the results you get. Be honest.   For more information on Crossfit Football, make sure to check out their website for ton’s of cool training information and a full list of upcoming seminars. You can also follow all the latest from the Crossfit Football team on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.    Cheers,      Chris

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we interview John Welborn, former pro football player and founder of CrossFit Football. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bletzer here with Doug Larson, Chris Moore. We have CTP behind the camera. We are in Anaheim, California, secret location. Get the wide shot, CTP, ready. Get the wide shot ready. And then we're here to watch the games, of course, which we've done none of.

And we've just been hanging out with cool people the whole time, which is a lot of fun, actually. Hence our guest, Mr. John Wellborn. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yes. You might know him from CrossFit Football, Power Athlete, Power Athlete Radio, and former professional football player.

All I know is I'm wearing black, and I must be looking lean and small as shit right now. Like, look at me sucking this tummy next to John. Like, damn. Stand next to him. All right, everyone knows that Chris Moore is a big guy. Like, let me suck in his tummy next to John. Like, damn. Stand next to him. All right, everyone knows that Chris Moore is a big guy. Well, yeah, I'm still like 275, whatever. And I feel like a fucking munchkin.

Look at this. Hi, sir. You said you're only 295? Yeah. You look way bigger than 20 pounds bigger than you. I think it's a black t-shirt, you know? I got this free Reebok t-shirt, and it just definitely. There was two kinds of offensive linemen.

Real offensive linemen like John. And then fat chubby kids who try to find something to do in sport like me and try to make themselves. That's a lot about eating too much. And that's the lesson here. But you're saying you're getting charged up right now because this is the end of July. And this is the time of year, isn't it, man? Yeah, it's third week of July.

Yeah, John was saying he's been eating a little extra without really knowing it and looking at heavy-ass barbells and can't help but throw shit around and getting the warrior spirit up. Yeah, no, it's such a weird compulsive habit. All of a sudden you find yourself eating more and you want to go lift some heavier weights

and you're like, man, I think we should go out and be running sprints or maybe some conditioning and all of a sudden people are like, oh yeah, the CrossFit Games. I'm like, no, third week of July, training camp yeah but now the third week of july is the crossfit games yeah you said you show up the crossfit games and you feel like you're big because there's so many skinny people running around well i mean you can't be that big doing crossfit i mean there's no way i mean it just uh you're not gonna be 295 no and uh when i competed in the games i was like 312th and i

remember lining up and looking that video is fucking epic if you're running down the fucking mountain was it they uh what was it the hill sprint yeah what movie was it they did that documentary yeah every second counts every second counts and the way you just come down that mountain is i had to laugh dude i was trying not to fall because i thought if i fell, I was going to hurt myself. So I was literally coming out. And like a bowling pin, just take out all these poor sons of bitches who happen to be in your way. I remember lining up to do it.

I look at Chris Spiel and he's like 135 pounds. And I'm like, how the fuck am I going to beat this dude in burpees and pull-ups? Kill him. And I was like, there can only be one. Like Highlander style, maybe. But dude, like Hunger Games. But yeah, I was like, oh yeah, this CrossFit Games thinglander style, maybe. But dude, like Hunger Games. But yeah, I was like, oh yeah, this CrossFit Games thing. So I didn't even really know what it was.

You didn't do it in 07. 07 was the first one? Yeah, no, I did it in 08. And then you did it in 08, and that's the one that got a lot of publicity, the initial publicity of the games kind of happened there. Well, it was actually three weeks before the games, they hit me up about making the movie. Yeah.

And they were like, oh, we want to make this movie. And I was like, oh, that sounds like a great idea. And you have to do this CrossFit Games thing. I'm like, what's that? They're like, oh, it's this competition thing in three weeks. I was like, oh.

So I got to learn all this CrossFit stuff, huh? Oh, you hadn't been doing CrossFit up to that point? No, I'd been doing my football training. I'd been training at a CrossFit gym, but all my stuff had not been CrossFit. Oh, wow. Yeah. I mean, it looked a lot like what you see in CrossFit football, but I had to learn handstand push-ups, muscle-ups, all the CrossFit-y stuff.

I had three weeks. You knocked all that shit out at 312? No problem? Yeah. Handstand push-ups? Yeah. I thought I was okay doing them. Yeah.

If you watched the movie, he was in the mix. Yeah. Except for that mountain thing. Yeah, that fucked me. Yeah, dude. It was like an 800-meter run straight uphill and then straight downhill. Yeah. As freaky of an athlete as you are, if you're 300 pounds,

at some point you're like, man, this is just not in my domain at all. Well, that's where ego bites you in the ass. Because I was like, oh, yeah, I'll fucking win this thing. Are you kidding me? You went to win? Yeah. You're fucking playing NFL, man. Dude, yeah.

Get the fuck out of here. I would never expect to do anything and lose like we're playing checkers i don't care if we're playing hot hands or drinking beers i want to win every time so i'm not going to show up there just for a good time and then uh after that challenge me to ice cream eating competition later you son of a bitch my kids are really good at eating ice cream those little fuckers. But I finished and I went home and six days later I left for training camp. Oh, you were still playing?

Yeah. Holy shit. I was under the assumption you had retired. No, I was still in the fight. Holy shit. Oh my God.

Dude, talk about fucking ego. I was like, oh yeah, I'll fucking win this thing and then I'll go to training camp. Were you like tore up those three weeks

or what was the recovery like from, I mean, you obviously were surprised by how difficult it was. Yeah. Oh, so, uh, yeah, my training was great. Everything was perfect. I was dead on. Then all of a sudden we changed the training for the CrossFit stuff. And like at the end of three weeks, I was pretty torched. Yeah. Just from the preparation and then the weekend. Yeah. And then the weekend. And then, uh, about six days later I got a call

from Baltimore and I went out there for a tryout. Yeah. And then they kind of were a little funky on the money, so the money wasn't right. So I came home, and the next day I signed with the Patriots. Oh, nice. Yeah, I mean, if you didn't join the CrossFit cult until after 2009, you might have missed the movie. Yes. Every second counts. It was real huge for about three months. It's probably worth going back.

But online somewhere, right? Go back and find it i loved it i thought it was a great i thought it was a great little docudrama well people were also like tripping out because they had never seen people really eat that much and they're like i'm a sheet i'm like i don't know like six or seven thousand calories a day and they're like how many blocks is that i'm like the fuck you and your blocks i was like what's a block and i remember that i'm like blocking out my food it's calories counted a different way yeah exactly it seemed way too complicated like yeah i have like typically 10 blocks of chickens and I remember that I'm like blocking out my food calories counted a different way.

Yeah, exactly. It seemed way too complicated. I have like typically 10 blocks of chickens a day. I was like, I do think the first couple of times I heard about you, it was always in relation to sweet potatoes. It was like, John eats 12 sweet potatoes a day. And I was like, I don't know who John is. And then like a week later, I heard it again. Mike was talking about it. He's like, I want to gain weight and eat more sweet potatoes. Like Johnbois. I'll be 300 pounds before I know it. It's easier with rice. Just put that in the cooker and eat that stuff. But, you know, the paleo people freak out about the rice stuff. So earlier you said that you can't be big and do CrossFit.

Is that why you started CrossFit football? For the bigger guys? Or is it the contrast of that? No, so the way CrossFit football started was after I got hurt. I got hurt in the last preseason game. So i chipped off a piece of bone in my knee i saw some scars down there on both knees right yeah both knees so i've had five surgeries on my right and one on my left holy shit no matter how genetically blessed you are at nfl your alignment how long did you play john uh 10 years yeah your knee something's gonna break bad yeah it's gonna happen so i came home

had surgery and i was sitting on the couch literally with my knee and like the CPM which is this like constant motion machine ice bags and the whole deal and my phone ring and it was CrossFit and Greg Glassman he's like hey do you want to start this thing called CrossFit football I was like what the fuck is that CrossFit's not about specializing so you want me to specialize he's like I think it'll be great sounds like an opportunity let's do it I was like yeah well i mean it seemed i mean i was like well man these people are super uh passionate about training and i mean it seemed like a good deal so i was like yeah let's do it so we launched the website and that first day we had 17 000 hits

wow and you've been fucking huge that's a lot of hits day one literally launched day one 17 000 as we talked we talked about on his podcast right power athlete right or whatever but you programmed that shit yourself this whole time right since 2008 or whatever yeah i've programmed that website every single day for the last dude i did i did crossfit football maybe for i think i did it for a solid three or four months at one point i was like i'm just gonna follow that for a while i'm tired of programming for myself i got stronger yeah i think it's brilliant in that um it's the first blog where it's openly acknowledging, and it's really the only secret of training. Like, here's what you want to achieve.

You want to be big and powerful. All right, where are you at? And understand that if you're an amateur or a collegiate athlete or a pro, you're going to have to go about your training differently. And there's more variation here, and there's less here. Aren't those actually programmed levels? You have different levels on the site yeah well it's um it's kind of insanity to assume that somebody who's never lifted weights can make the same gains and really follow the same

program that i can follow yeah i mean it's like the the amateur is like five by five yeah try to increase your load five pounds from last week yeah it's basically linear progression and then you get at a pro level yeah Yeah, a lot lower volume on the strength work. If I could name just like one central issue that fucks people up, it's this.

People will chatter and yell back and forth like, I do this and you do that. That's wrong. Well, I do west side. I don't do that shit because that's not how

you're supposed to train. Meanwhile, it's all on this gradient. People forget that everything works beautifully depending on what you need. And where you are in your training deal.

So, I mean, you walk in day one, your level of adaptation is so small that anything you do works. So we had a, there was a study years ago that talked about, they took a bunch of untrained people,

took them in, and they tested their 1RM leg press or leg extension, I think, which, you know. Hardcore shit. Hardcore shit. And then I think it was like eight weeks of bicep curls.

And then they tested their 1RM leg extension and everybody made like a 30% gain. And I mean makes sense like uh you know people come in and really that's where a lot of this stuff is uh is super exciting especially with crossfit because what most people this is their first exposure to this style of training yeah they come in in the first three weeks they make or sorry first three months yeah make fucking phenomenal gains they're like crushing it they go from being like this person that can't do anything to like, I'm going to compete

in the CrossFit Games in three months. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then for like the next three years they make like this much. Yeah. Because they try to do

whatever they did not realizing that whatever you do when you first start works. Yeah. And so when I really came and it always really bothered me with programming

because it's like, oh, I squat a thousand pounds. I've been training for 20 years to do my program beginner. Or it's like, you know, you have a professional athlete. I've been training for 20 years to do my program beginner. Or it's like you have a professional athlete. I tried that Westside shit, man. This doesn't work. Oh, God.

I mean, it's such a – and like when I looked at it, I was like, you know, you can't train a beginner day one person like you can a professional athlete or even the intermediate athlete. So it was easy to program different levels of training. And I think that's why people have gotten such good gains because they actually are training within where they should be instead of trying to like secret squirrel a program or look out and then follow their hero

and not realizing that either their hero has been training for 20 years, has been on the drugs for 20 years, or is not doing that. He's just putting out a fucking program. So big picture, what are those different levels look like when you're programming day to day?

Like what's your model for kind of the level one, level two, level three? So the beginner is usually just basic linear progression. Where that really came from is Mark Ripto. I remember when I first met Rip, he kept talking about this linear progression. We talked about the physiology. There's some cool things that happen when people start learning to lift weights. There's something called intramuscular coordination and intramuscular coordination. You start talking about reprogramming the central nervous system and efficiency and that whole deal. And it takes about anywhere from four to six months to happen.

So Rip had this observation where when that was happening, you could almost just sneak weight into the body and sneak weight on the bar and people would do it. So he told me about it and I was like, you know what? That doesn't fucking work. There's no way. So we had a kid walk through the door who was 26 years old,

never lifted weights, saw the movie biggerger, Faster, Stronger, and wanted to lift weights. So he comes to our gym, and he's like, yeah, man, I want to get strong, but I'm in college. I don't have any money. I was like, can you sweep up? He's like, yeah. I was like, if you do exactly what I tell you, you can train here. If you ever fucking question anything, I'll throw you out.

I'll throw you so far and so long because I'm so huge so i can really pay for that so i hand them this program when john says that it's different than if i say that to somebody they're like okay whatever no you say something like oh man if you do what i say just to say you're gonna be huge and strong so this i mean literally this kid uh it's nate and his name is nate and he comes in starts the program in first day squatted five by or three by five at 165. First day, he squatted 3x5 at 165 pounds. 20 weeks later, he squatted 405. And I used to sit in my office and I had a glass window where I could see

where he was working out. And I'd sit in there and I'd be like, man, it still looks shitty. How much has he got on the bar? And I remember it looked the exact same at 165 as it did with 405. He just said, all of a sudden he was able to do it. Yeah, he just literally progressed. Add 10 pounds a week, 20 weeks later he added 200 pounds to his squat.

And, I mean, he'd squatted that 365 for five and went for a single and he got 405. That's actually one of the hard things we have. Like when we coach people, it's like, hey, just go for five pounds heavier than last week. They want to go, I feel good, I want to do 20 pounds. I'm like, no. There's no reason to be in a hurry. If I could add five pounds a week for the rest of my life, I'd be the strongest motherfucker on earth.

Exactly. I remember Dave Hoff out at Westside was like, I make my living on one to two pound PRs. He's like, if I can PR one to two pounds every day, I'll get where I need to go. And that dude's pretty strong. If you remember Travis Mash's episode, that's the guy who did the chain squat program. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Dave is Neutron. Dave's total is over 3,000 pounds. And he only needs three lifts to do that. So you put the math together. I tell people, you know, one kilo at a time. It's like, I don't even want to work in pounds anymore. You know, just a kilo at a time is 2.2 pounds. I'll be happy if I can do that once every three months, if I can add that to a lift.

You know, people don't realize training is about doing a little bit more tomorrow than you did today i mean that's all or even more today than you did yesterday i mean it's like this idea and we talk about it a lot whenever people kind of you know get run down i'm like it's like moving a big ass pile of dirt someday you get a shovel someday you get a spoon but as long as i get to move a little dirt every day i'm moving towards my goal and i think people get you know they're either impatient it's this whole iphone fucking internet thing which i'm firmly convinced is a fad the internet's like pockets and zippers they're totally going out of style so uh once we get rid of the internet everybody will go back to what used to happen where if you wanted to know something you had to call somebody on the phone

and spend time just talking with them go to where they are train with them for a little while live their life for a little while be a fucking human them for a little while, live their life for a little while, be a fucking human being for a little while. Well, I mean, I think the internet stuff for education is like five by five. If you ever want to get to the higher pro level shit, you got to go see them in person. Just spend some time with them.

And if you are that person who has not made this big improvement, you've gone from squatting 175 to 190, and you're like, I'm thinking about doing small love junior squats. I just did 531 for two weeks. I'm feeling pretty good and strong. Now I'm goingting 175 to 190. And you're like, I'm thinking about doing small love junior squats like this. I just did 531 for two weeks. I'm feeling pretty good and strong.

Now I'm going to switch to this. This is fucking so rampant. This shit is happening all the time right now. This is happening 100 times in this neighborhood. We call that the cafeteria CrossFitter. Where it's like, oh, I'm going to select one week of outlaw. And I'm going to hybrid it with gymnastics. And CrossFit endurance and CrossFit football. And I'm going to create this secret sauce that in three weeks i'll win the crossfit games and be rich running and you're like you realize that sounds like crazy

person or the other guy it's like oh i did smaller for a week i did five three one for a week i did this and this and this and they're like you know no consistency i'm like you you know you know the secret to life is consistency yeah i mean just Yeah. I mean, just showing up every day and doing the right things and fucking being consistent. Yeah, I think as a coach, when people go, oh, you want me to commit to six months

of just what you tell me to do? I'm like, yeah. That's part of the deal. In other words, you have to be here for six months or else you won't see the results. Because I know you want to jump to another program next month.

And then it'll be like that Mike Bledsoe doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. Yeah. You're like, you only came in twice. I did your program for three weeks and I didn't get stronger. I'm like, what the fuck? I'm like, you realize it's easy.

All I got was really tired and sore. The joys of working with people. That's what was nice about being a professional athlete. I never had to worry about any of this stuff. I was the selfish one. Coaches make me better. But, you know, I also had a deal

where I was fortunate to be able to go train with the world's best. And you show up and you're like, okay, this guy was the Romanian Olympic lifting coach. I'm pretty sure he knows

how to get me faster. Or Tom Shaw, who was, you know, trained Deion Sanders and every fast motherfucker ever run through the NFL trained with Tom Shaw. You go and run with that dude

and you're like, seeing dudes run fast, you're like, I'm going to run fast through osmosis. Yeah, you're and run with that dude and you're like seeing dudes run fast you're like I'm gonna run fast through osmosis yeah you're around it that's just

dude it does happen yeah you see what's possible and now you can do it first time I saw like uh I'd been weightlifting for six months

coach was like you gotta jerk faster faster on the you know under the bar I'm like it's as fast as I can go you know so I watch Kendrick Ferris jerk bar.

Oh Jesus. Oh, like that. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Yeah. So you got to see it in person too.

Like YouTube won't do it justice. Yeah. So that's the only reason I ever got worth of shit at anything. So you got to put down your ebook for a minute and go to the place where this knowledge is coming from. Go to a place like West side, go watch NFL linemen, jump over boxes and

realize oh wow and hang out with them for a little while that's where you're going to start absorbing the the lessons that really matter it's the energy it's the culture it's the attitude it's not the fact that somebody told you to do five sets of this as opposed to four and a half sets of that and that's somehow some big fucking magical difference between the two it's got nothing that's meaningless it's completely meaningless man no man. I remember when I got drafted to the Eagles. So day one, I show up and I'm at minicamp and I'm like third string right tackle or something. So I'm like, I'm so far down on the depth chart. I really didn't think anything of it. But I remember I get down to my stance and it's the first time going against NFL defensive linemen.

They hike the ball and the dude just goes shoots past me. I'm like, fuck. And I remember I walked back. I've had that moment. I was only in college when Marcus Bell kept running by me and I could even, I had to hold a fucking Nerf football in my hand as a center. Cause by the time I just, my brain said, you're going to hike that ball. You're going to put it in a quarterback's hand and you're going to get your hands back up and try to hold this motherfucker.

Right. Okay. And as soon as my brain would like send the signal, he just knew it. And my finger would twitch. This motherfucker was like, wow. Over my back. The brain would like send the signal, he just knew it and my finger would twitch and this motherfucker would be like, wow, over my back.

The quarterback had to go ahead and hold the football in his hands because I couldn't get the fucking thing back there in time. This guy would already be around me and my ass would be flat on the ground. I'd be like, fucking hell, man. Dude, so yeah, it happens

and then what did you do? I stood there like an asshole. With my ball in my hand going, what am I doing here? For me, as a guy ran by me, I went back to the, uh,

you know, ran back to the huddle and the coach looks at me and he's like, you have to move faster. I was like, okay, I was like, okay. And then he's like,

I need you to move faster. If you can't, you won't be here tomorrow. Whoa. And I remember being like, I need to move faster. So I ran back up the line. That's motivation.

I got down in my stance, and all I could think of is like, I'm going to anticipate the ball. I'm going to do whatever I can, and I got off the ball. And that was like the speed at which you play the whole time. My coach comes back. He's like, good. It didn't take our e-book. Ten steps to moving faster.

Captain John Dickhead. It was basically, you're going to get fired. You have this really cool job. We just drafted you, and you potentially could make some good money PS. We're not fucking around So I've said it okay because when I came back for the OTAs I walked in the locker room and I was looking around I Was like where all those old dudes Names that were up here before and I look up on the depth chart and my name was starting right tackle So they do they cut all the all the old guys in front of me.

And I remember saying to the coach, I'm like, I was a second pick in the fourth round. He's like, yeah, we drafted you to start. And I was like, oh, motherfucker. This is heavy.

And now you're seeing the wisdom behind this. We were testing you, John. And it turns out, you passed the test. Now get your fucking ass out there and we're going to let you beat your head in for 10 years. So it was a good deal. Most pro athletes don't always make the best coaches.

They don't understand strength programs. They don't get deep into training. I'm just saying, yes, sir. And they just lift the weights the coach tells them, and they go about their day not thinking much about it. Can't everybody do this shit like I can? How did you kind of obtain this knowledge? That's the same reason I don't coach football. So early on after I retired or

even fairly early in my NFL career there were a couple situations where they were like hey you know will you help this guy and I remember showing people things and being like I want you to do this and even the young guys coming in and then my coach being like saying to those guys don't do what John does so I had a certain ability which was and this is offensive lineman you know you don't lunge yeah right so as you set back as an offensive lineman you know uh you don't lunge yeah right so as you set back as an offensive lineman as you go to punch the last thing you ever want to do is lunge and use your head because the guy shoots yeah they just know when it happens so i was one of the only people that could lunge and shoot my head and never be off balance so as

a guy would be coming at me i could time my head in my hands and actually lunge at him and even if he shot me i could get back so it was one of those weird uh head in my hands and actually lunge at him. And even if he shot me, I could get back. So it was one of those weird, uh, something in my technique that I could uniquely do. And so when guys would see me do it, they'd be like, Oh, show me that. And my coach would be like, don't show anybody that you're the only person I've ever seen do that. And there were things that other guys could do like Will Shields, who I played with could do unbelievable shit that I couldn't do, but that was my deal. And so I had a certain skillset because of hand speed and all this other stuff that I could do. So when I went out to go work with other offensive linemen,

I'd be like, oh, I want you to do this and this. And they couldn't do it. I'd be like, why the fuck can't you do this? And it seemed natural to me, whereas the training stuff always made sense. I always was fortunate to train with some really sharp people, understood it, and always asked questions. And so when people asked me about getting strong

or getting fast or increasing performance, those were things that always made sense playing football there was no way i had the patience to teach that shit because i you know and even teaching basic footwork or hand stuff i mean putting guys through it and not having them be able to do it i just got frustrated and being like why can't you know just watch do it like this and then when they couldn't do it i just put my hands through this guy's chest boom do that do it like that well i i mean as a kid uh i had visions of being a professional boxer oh wow so you know speed bag fighting i mean that was what my deal was and i remember i was fairly young when i remember a bigger kid hit me and i was like oh fuck i'm gonna play football so all the hell so much easier so you have you have incredible hand

speeds that's what natural gift so the hand speed I mean, you know, you can talk to whoever you want. But, I mean, Strahan, all these guys were always like, dude, your hands were some of the fastest we'd ever seen. I mean, your ability to get from point A to point B and be able to strike those things, use your head. Michael Strahan was a fucking freak, right? Yeah, no, I mean, Strahan, I mean, all these guys. You know, my first start at guard, my second year was against Leon Lett.

Oh, shit, man. I played against a big cat and shut out, you know, had to shut out against him.. Oh, shit, man. I played against the Big Cat and had a shutout against him. You name it, I played against him. Who was the toughest, most fearsome fucking guy you ever faced? There was a guy named Keith Hamilton that was a defensive lineman for the New York Giants that you probably never heard of

but was probably one of the scariest individuals I played against. And he was so strong that he actually used to punch him as hard as you can. I'd lock him down like this and he would just give me his chest

and as he took the blow he would take these massive hands and he would forklift. That's what we called his move, the forklift. He would take your hands,

lift them off, lift them above your head and throw you back into the quarterback. And it was like the most fearsome move. We called it the forklift so we actually developed

drills to try to teach guys to counteract the forklift. It's like a real life WWF. This is his fucking finishing move. You know it's coming. You can't stop him. Let's think about it, man, because John's a guy. What did you bench? How strong were these arms when you were playing in the NFL?

No, I benched like five and a quarter. Yeah, not training the bench. I do some bench pressing during the week because this supports my ability to use my arms not trying to bench a lot this is just my default strength level and you're on edge fight or flight fucking millions of people watching millions of bucks on the line and this guy against your will just moves your arms off of him you know but he did this move to for years to people i mean doug brzezinski who was a guard for us uh he literally lifted doug clean i like grabbed his hands lifted doug and doug's feet were like like fluttering in the air

and threw him past the quarterback and like grabbed donovan was like yeah that's one of those things people people watch football and they look at a line and go those fat guys are gonna jump off i think you don't you don't understand what's going on down on that line of scrimmage when you these two forces of man meet on the ball, and everybody gets down and makes eye contact. And it's like a sumo moment. You're waiting for the first muscle to flinch. These defensive linemen are fucking on Twitch.

They're 300 pounds. And they're not very smart. Massively fast. And they're not smart. They're just like giant Wolverine creatures, right? Yeah, they're morons. And you're laid back trying to be all Zen. like, right, I know what I got to do. This motherfucker's going to fire like a cannon.

I'm just going to move my hands quick. And three, two, one, go. And this is massive violence. Oh, that calmness never existed. It was like the type of fucking focus where you're like, I'm going to fucking cut this dude in the throat. I'm going to kill him right now. You know, like we played with that type of intensity. I mean, dude, I played, I took a helmet to the leg.

Actually, yeah, from our running back, the open season opener, I think it was my third or fourth year against the Titans. So I break my leg clean in half, fibula broken. They casted me five days, and I played three weeks later because you don't need a broken – you don't need that bone to play football. It's only 12% weight bearing. So I played 17 weeks with this fucking broken leg and the first game back I go play

Sunday night or it was a Monday night game against Warren Sapp and ended up doing pretty good and ended up being on Madden's horse trailer and making player of the game for that. So I pitched a shutout with a broken leg against that fat ass. And the best is years later, it's still 10 years later, he'll still try to talk shit on me. Oh yeah, like out of nowhere I'll see something. When talk shit on me. That just never ends. Oh, yeah.

Like out of nowhere, like I'll see something like. When I got on Barbell Shrug, you get the last laugh. Yeah. Well, like something will come through ESPN. It'll be like my name where like Warren Sapp was like, yeah. I'm like, motherfuckers like John Wellborn. I'm like, I am so in his fat head. He's just driving around like that motherfucker.

If I see him, I'm going to hit him with my car. I couldn't beat him. Oh, shit, man. So man so no i always had a hard head and big punch and so i was uh had the ability to be able to use both of those like a weapon yeah and that's obviously the advanced level of sport we talked earlier about like how the first first thing is first to get to that you gotta just put in some repetitions with a barber to try to get strong and build a foundation somebody who wants to sort of transcend john and get to where you're at,

what are the key things to keep in mind as you progress sort of in this intermediate phase? A lot of people listening to the show will probably, they put in some time, they do want to get strong as shit. What should they keep in mind, man? What tricks should they start pulling off the shelf to help themselves get really strong? Final line for this break.

All right. Oh, it's a tease. Oh, I set the tease. Well, it's... We're taking a break. We'll come back in a second. Thanks a lot, CTV. This is Andrea Ager, and you're listening to Barbell Shrug.

For the video version, go to barbellshrug.com. Barbell Shrug is brought to you by you. To learn more about how you can support the show, go to barbellshrug.com and sign up for the newsletter. And we're back. That was a brief studio break. The magic of radio. So the way we were talking about it is how do you know you're in that intermediate phase

and what's the deal with it? The problem that people get fucked up with is they want to do the same thing they did before when it was easy. So when you first start lifting weights, it's easy. Add weight to the bar, you come in, everything's easy. Then all of a sudden that shit stops and things get hard. And they're like, but can I just go back to when it was easy? And you're like, no, it has to get harder.

So you either have an option, you know, when you get past that intermediate or that beginner phase, either create more central nervous system efficiency or you put on some hypertrophy. And I know for you guys, the word hypertrophy is kind of a dirty word. No, no, we're all about that was sarcasm. Yeah, but you're not good at the sarcasm thing let's go no john no we're with you we agree with you everything's just totally same deal i'm like yeah this hypertrophy thing's a fucking waste of time but i mean for years we've taught so many seminars where i get up and we start talking basic physiology and hypertrophy and people are like you know like hypertrophy is this dirty word and cross i don't want to be a bodybuilder. And you're like, no, it's increased. I guess it is.

Well, yeah. I mean, nobody wants to, actually, nobody wants to admit that they want to increase the cross-sectional size of a muscle, but they all secretly fucking want to. Yeah. Like, that's one of the concepts. I just want to get huge, bro. Yeah, they're just like, I just want to be jacked. I mean, Rich Froning weighs, what, like 400 pounds?

No, he's like 185. So we talk about, you know, you get in that intermediate phase, you either increase central nervous efficiency or you fucking increase that intermediate phase you either increase central nervous efficiency or you fucking increase hypertrophy or you do both and I think they don't always understand

where hypertrophy is found and how you get there and there's different types and you know you also got to lift some heavy weights Dr. Romanoff who teaches the post stuff

is a you know Russian sports scientist you know University of Moscow Eastern Bloc so whenever I get to see Doc I'm always like awesome Russian accent

oh yeah he's like John great to see you i'm like doc how's it going and we always get to wrap i mean we've gone to lunch and he always gives me these little tidbit stories and um the my most favorite one we tell at the seminar all the time is they took like 20 years of every program that every one of their sports scientists had ever written for any of their professional olympic uh high level athletes they took every program and they submitted it to this research group and for like five or six years they had all these like you know researchers going over pouring over every periodization every micro cycle rep count volume tonnage all these different matrix and they hoped by the end that there'd be like this master program would be like soviet union crush competition yeah basically this is the pinnacle

of training and uh out of nowhere and the crazy thing is that all the information spit out they looked at it and they were like that is probably the truth so all the information spits out they look at it and they're like, fuck. The only thing that they could deduce from all this is the strongest people in the world lifted the heaviest weights in training and the fastest people in the world ran the fastest in training. There was no consistent set rep.

There was no consistent tonnage, volume, training frequency, nothing. It's just the fastest people ran the fastest in training and the strongest people lifted the heaviest weights. So he tells me this story and he sits back and we're like drinking coffee. I was like, yeah, well, that fucking makes sense. I'm driving home in the car and all of a sudden I almost crashed from like the brain bomb going off. I was like the strongest people lift the heaviest weights and the fastest people run the fastest.

No fucking way. And that was like at the end of the day you know and then you you know and then you look at all these programs they're like oh you know i work out at 60 and i do dynamic and you're like the fastest people run the fastest strongest people lift the heaviest weights if i don't see you lifting heavy weights i don't give a fuck how you ramp up the volume the tonnage dynamic take off 10 do this no if i can lift heavy weights I guess that in that context and that lens when you go why does something this is one example

why does something like Westside work you go into a room one day you're going to try to lift as much as you can against other guys who are viciously strong you guys have all been to Westside right yeah I spent years training there too yeah just soaking it up I went out to Westside and was out there for a month and ate three meals a day for 17 straight days with louis it's the best thing ever bob evans and some

terrible of course bob evans chinese place is bar mongolian barbecue and then we went to some dinner place and i remember by the end of it like you know louis is just fucking completely louis you and just gives you louis and by the end of 17 days, I was like, I speak Louie. And you know, and the other one that was huge after he told me, he's like, well, the only reason we went to the dynamic method was because we couldn't handle two max efforts a week.

Yeah. And I remember this is skills and we can try as hard as we can at something, but it need not be heavy. Well, yeah. And he's like, you know, if we could do four max efforts a week,

that's the best way to get strong. If you go read Zeta Skorsky stuff, it's all, that's what it says. Max efforts. The best. We just couldn't handle the tonnage because the one, the tonnage was so big

and they figured out accommodating resistance. He basically figured out that program because they were imploding people. Yeah. And I remember being like, so if you did two max efforts, you'd be stronger.

He's like, of course. I actually have a guy come up to me last week at a USA weightlifting nationals. And he's like, he's like, what's with the dynamic effort?

Whatever. And I was like, I was like, what's with the dynamic effort? Whatever. And I was like, I was like, I don't know. And he's talking about people are going to get hurt doing that stuff. I'm like, actually dynamic effort day is really fucking easy. Well,

if you think like as far as like, have you realized Olympic lifting is all dynamic effort? Well, yeah, yeah. When you snatch and clean and jerk, it's dynamic. And those guys are training.

But yeah, forget about Louie. To your point, if we could train five times a week, max effort, we would. Louie actually doesn't have the world's best talent these just fucking dudes who grew up most most of the years that west side barbell has been existence he just took normal fucking truck driver dudes and dudes working fucking yeah there were security guards and clubs and there are prison guards chuck vocal pools like a prison guard well you don't want to

fuck with that guy he's a particularly intense prison guard but these are normal guys who aren't genetically blessed yeah but the west side um culture and really when you go into there you just instantly fucking get competitive like you walk in and you see these dudes all tatted up with west side the fucking gangster rap going loud and you walk in and you're like oh this reminds me of an nfl team or prison yeah and you're like i'm probably gonna get shanked in the bathroom and i'm going to definitely have to fight my way out, so I better get underneath this fucking bar. Yeah. I mean, I was a good example.

So I was not just, I was okay. Better than a lot of that guy just sitting around doing nothing genetically. I was like, yes, but I had no particular skill set that would make me somehow able to withstand that training. I didn't take drugs.

I wasn't particularly fast. My mechanics weren't great and all that, but I squatted 975 pounds and I trained Westside and I just listened to what he had to say and kind of tweaked it for me. I said, you're right. I probably shouldn't try to squat heavy too often. I should probably work on my speed. I should probably start doing sets of five and a

deadlift over and over again and aggravating my old lumbar disc injuries from football. Maybe I should try speed and then build up the rest of my body with back raises and glute hand raises. That formula, guess what? It fucking worked. It worked. And it comes down to that deal.

You gotta lift heavy weights. You gotta try to move as fast as you can. We've seen this real big, it's almost a little depressing, this huge cross section of people when we watch them train, they just move so slow. And then people are like,

oh, why am I really struggling with my strength? I'm like, you lift like old people fuck. Slow and careful. This is going to be on a quote. This is going to be a tweet pic quote right here. You lift like slow people fuck. Barbellstrug.com.

Like old people. I mean, and you guys watch it. I mean, you see people, you know, we have people within our system sending videos

and they're like, what do you think? I'm like, it looks real slow. They're like, how do I speed that up? I'm like, you like you have to move faster do you want to call my old offensive line you know and then you start talking about like compensatory acceleration and dr hatfield and you get into this whole deal and i'm like you you know when you get to a point

where the bar is in a mechanical advantage you need to accelerate that bar and try to drive that thing off you watch uh you know like uh eric lillibridge you know when he's warming up that guy you know squats 900 like it's nothing iidge you know when he's warming up that guy you know squats 900 like it's nothing i mean shooting the bar off his back i mean those guys all are so good with acceleration and i think that's really what separates people and i think that's where they really start to struggle to understand that you have to be just not lifting the weights you have to try to accelerate those things and really that was huge i mean the old power lifter i trained with in uh as a young kid when i was 14, he and Hatfield were good friends.

So George Zangis, who trained me in high school, invented knee wraps and the super suit. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so he had marathon suit wraps and suits. So he had the patent on all those. And so he was the only one that could make them. So all these old power lifters would show up. I had a marathon suit one time. I squeezed myself into that like 300 pounds of warm temperature sausage.

It was really a messy scene, man. So yeah, we trained in Zangis garage and all these old power lifters like Kaz and these guys would show up and you'd be like, these guys are so fucking big. I mean, they're just massive people. They'd have like a trunk full of food in their car and throw it up at blenders. And their whole deal was like, everything you do has to be max acceleration. When you pull that bar off, if it's 225, you can deadlift a thousand. You pull that sucker like you deadlifted 1,000.

Yeah, that's why speed pulling is such. I can say the most potent way to get strong I ever found for me was that I was going to load a bar with 400 to 500 pounds. At the time, I was pulling like seven. I would say, okay, I'm primed. I'm ready. I'm going to rip that off the ground as fast as possible. 10 to 20 pounds, rapid fire. I'm going to rip it. I'm going to drop it. I'm going to walk back. I'm going to lightly chuck my hands. I'm going to walk back up. I'm going to rip that off the ground as fast as possible. 10 to 20 pounds, rapid fire.

I'm going to rip it. I'm going to drop it. I'm going to walk back. I'm going to lightly chuck my hands. I'm going to walk back up. I'm going to fucking rip it. 30 seconds on, off. Everything I've got.

Sounds like a football play. Yeah. Turn up the west side connection as loud as I can fucking get this shit right now. I'm going to rip that fucking ball off the ground. And then I'll see other people going, yeah, my dad won't move. Well, you're doing the slowest fucking set of five. Fives are good, but you're training yourself to move 70% you're doing the slowest fucking set of five fives are good but you're you're training yourself to move you know 70 of your max as slow as possible what the fuck

is that gonna do for you man you're gonna that's what's gonna do is make your back really tired and you slower you know i mean it's a deal too and we were saying that sounds just like football i remember when i went out there to train with louis like oh these will be like football plays we're gonna do some doubles and bands and we went through the whole deal he's like 45 seconds we're just gonna keep shotgunning them i don't want you to go out and do this and this and he's like it's how we train our football players i'm like it sounds a lot like football he's like yeah and it really works for power lifters too i'm like so what you're saying is basic capacity the ability to suffer through some stuff really helps he's like yeah oh my god and people always

will talk shit i mean i get i get really defensive uh just to defend west side only because i'm seeing people not think shit through like that shit doesn't work for raw lifters or for crossers well yeah no everything these guys are these guys so just bring your stance in a little bit and don't sit back as far if you and don't use quite as much band tension if you're just a crossfitter or your guy who wants to squat without suit on but you can still do speed squats what the fuck is wrong with speed squats like speed squats won't magically work for you for some fucking reason. Like moving a sub max weight as fast as possible

won't make you a better squatter. No, you just don't have to do everything that Dave Hoff might be doing but understand that he's been paddling for fucking 15 years. Well, I think he squatted 800 when he was 15. Yeah. And I remember his, when I talked to Louis.

Don't argue with these fucking results, man. Well, I remember telling him. Well, it doesn't matter what he did. If you're squatting that, that's a genetic thing. Yeah, dude. But something is in there that works. You can bring your stance

in and tone back but still get the benefit of an idea. No, I mean, the system works. I mean, but there's other systems. I mean,

I was reading Sam Bird who's generally accepted to be the best squatter ever. Yeah. He holds world records in five different weight classes. We train him a little bit in Memphis, Sam.

Yeah, he trained with us for a while. Yeah, that guy's a beast. Yeah. And that guy's never done dynamic work. Yeah. And uses no chains, no bands, no boxes. I was actually shocked to hear that.

I was like, he's like, no, just a barbell. It's like, you use specialty bars a lot? He's like, no. No? No. I'm like, so you just squat weights? Yeah. And you're like the best squatter in the world.

Okay. And he uses like Prillipin's Table, and he's like, yeah, you know, I squatted a grand, but I only use 60% of my war or of my one RM. So I'll squat it like base everything off of 600 pounds and I'll squat over 450 pounds. And I remember like hearing that and being like, so wait a minute, you just do all your, you know, he does, you know, threes, fours, fives, within his percentage, everything's, you know, this dynamic compensatory acceleration.

And then you load up your suit and you squat a grand fucking amazing yeah he did not squat heavy that i mean because his thing was he was so strong that he tried to squat heavy every week he would just wear himself down too much well i think now that he's doing more raw stuff i know he's doing more heavier you know heavy high-end stuff but i think you know as you know dude the suits and the bands and uh you and the raps and all that shit just destroys you. It beats you up. That's why Louie and them went to one max effort

and that's why they rotate the deadlift, the good morning and the squat. They only squat max effort once every three weeks because that shit will fucking implode you. I remember the first time I put on a set of briefs and we were working up on stuff. I took a free squat with like 800 pounds and I got to the bottom and the pressure got so tight

that I stood up and I almost threw the bar off my back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was literally the guys were like, that was the fastest fucking squat. I'm like, and I broke all the blood vessels in my face and my neck and my eyes. Yeah, it happens. And I remember my training partners almost shit themselves because they were like, what if you get to the bottom, we can't help you.

I'm like, don't worry, it's not going to happen. So I get under the weight and I stood up and the bar shot off my back and they were like oh and they all kind of and uh where is this at this is at my gym okay so you're not like a west side with a bunch okay no no i was with my uh with my training partners who i think uh the strongest one squatted 400 pounds so they're not okay yeah i remember just trying to get some context about this whole scenario so i remember we were like one time we were benching and uh i think i had like five something Okay. Yeah. Just trying to get some context about this whole scenario. So I remember one time we were benching, and I think I had like five-something on the bar, and I remember my trainer at heart and her being like,

I don't deadlift 500 pounds, so you better get this shit. I'm like, don't worry about it. I'll be fine. Yeah, don't worry about it, dude. I mean, do you have a hard time finding people that are – I mean, I like to train with people that are stronger than me. That's got to be really fucking tough for you. Yeah, that's why it was so much fun to go out to Westside and and when you find people but uh you know as you guys know i mean you have such a crazy schedule and you guys are pretty good so i either have to bring my guys in and get them to

that position but we you know we travel so much for seminars and there's tougher consistency so i got a pretty good group of guys that want to train hard but in terms of like monster lifters i need to find those guys and bring them out yeah so i mean we uh i sold my gym just because uh owning a crossFit was just, just way too time consuming for what I needed to do. And now I have my own little private place and it's great. And I show up and my stuff's exactly where I put it when I left it. Nobody breaks anything. No one's constantly going to ask you questions and ask you like, what am I doing? What is this? This is the net. Yeah. That's just on the internet. You can turn

that shit off. Yeah. But it's, uh, no, it's been great. I mean, we really, you know, my training is really cyclical, and it was really great, and then I had kids, and that fucked it up. So, yeah. That's what everybody says. I have twin little girls, and I don't know if anybody out there has twins, but it was like, you know, they're almost three now, and it completely wrecked shit. Like, I'll be able to get like three or four good months in, and then something will fucking happen, and then it's like training goes.

Yeah, man, I've got a two-and-a-half-year-old, and my daughter, who was just born in April, she get like three or four good months in and then something will fucking happen. And then it's like, yeah, I've got I've got a two and a half year old and my my daughter who's just born in April. She's like three months old now. Congratulations. Yeah. Thanks, man. She's with us out here. But yeah, it's hard to communicate what how much things change all over the place when that happens. Just and just the fact that how can you like zero in and really give all your training when you're the scope of what you want in a life changes?

I mean, it's hard to give the energy to it, too. When I played, I was not married, had no kids, and I didn't want to get married or have kids because I was way too selfish. I just wanted to be really good at football, and all I wanted to do was train, and I didn't want to have any other constraints other than to be able to do my job the best I can. Do you think that's necessary?

Yeah. I think we're guys who fuck themselves up, and I know there's guys that can do it, that can have kids and wives. I just knew I couldn't. And I was like, you know what? There's no way that I'll be able to fuck themselves up and I know there's guys that can do it. They can have kids and wives. I just knew I couldn't. And I was like, you know what? There's no way that I'll be able to be this selfish and individual, you know? Cause I mean,

it's true. I would wake up in the morning. I'd eat, I go train, I would come home and take a nap. I'd go back to the gym, I'd eat again and I would go to bed. And then on the weekends I like go to Vegas or go fucking party my ass off.

And then, you know, I can imagine like having that life, uh, you know, with a wife and kids and being like, Oh, we got to pick the kids up at three i'll be like three o'clock that's my fourth meal and then i got to train at five it's not gonna work like yeah this isn't gonna work it's not working yeah or you know and so i i think um that's what i needed to do to be good at my job

and i realized that so whenever i thought about it i was like you know i don't think i can conducively or you know have a conducive youive relationship and not end up divorced in like a week and still do my job. So when I retired, thank God I met my wife and we got married and had kids. And I also laughed that in the NFL you don't always get to meet. You meet the girls you want to, not the girls you should. So I met some really, really killer girls, but they weren't girls technically you would want to marry. So my wife's got an MBA.

She's super smart, had a great job, and was a really nice girl. And I would have never met her when I was playing the NFL. Is she capable of keeping you in your place? She crack a whip and make you do what she wants you to do? I don't really need much whip cracking, but yeah, I'm kind of a dumbass too sometimes. But you know, every guy is. And that's why there's women that are way smarter than us that attach to us and then she's like oh hey you gotta remember to pick that shit up i'm like pick up what you

know but uh no i mean as you know you know playing professional sports that's a interesting breed of woman that you kind of run into yeah this is a professional sport we're playing right now this podcast thing i'm sure i'm sure we can't keep them away dude i'm sure the barbell shrug groupies are dense and thick. Yeah. Let's not let our wives hear this conversation. No, but it's, it's amazing.

I was just thinking what you're saying. I'd hate to be the poor son of a bitch that comes down to the well-born house to ask your 15 year old daughter. One of them, like you open the door, like, holy shit. I hope by that time I got like born to kill somewhere tattooed on me. You know, show up and then God be like, is your dad in prison?

No, he played in the NFL. He's totally fucking crazy. I think you're still pretty big. Just giant, like this grizzly Adams gray masculine beard. We're just fucking intensely shaped. And you're like, hey, welcome to my home. Why are you here? Oh, can I make you offer on some land?

I'm not here to date your daughter. Anything but that, sir. I'm backing away. Slowly. Yeah, you know what, though? You would hope a kid would be that respectful, but they're not. A little fucking shithead probably trying to sneak in the back door or something. Our next-door neighbor, he and his wife obviously have, I think she's a 14 or 15-year-old daughter. And so I was sitting in my office, and I can see at the front of their house and I see her like get dropped off

and her friend and then I see this like car drive around the park and I can see this boy coming back and he's like hops the fence I'm like texting my neighbor I'm like dude I just spotted your daughter

sneaking some dude in the back of your house literally like two minutes later I see the kid jump the fence and I remember he was like thank you so much I'm like dude we gotta look out because it was probably

gonna happen to me so I'm gonna put in good karma with you reciprocation homie keeping out from my backyard and then he was funny he's like oh you know if shit ever gets down can i come get you i'm like please if some fucking asshole kid is rude to you and like gets into trouble just come knock on my door i will gladly straighten that shit out oh god you haven't bulldozed anybody in a while no you gotta hit somebody every once in a while to keep yourself straight, right? Yeah, the problem is then you got to give them money, and money's too hard to give. It's tough to work. As gratifying as it would be to be able to lay into somebody, then you got to write them

a check, and you're like, motherfucker. I'm sorry I train wrecked you. Here's $1,000. Okay, 10. What does it take to make this problem go away? Yeah, I mean, you got to give somebody like 100 grand if your dog bites them, let alone if you punch them. Or throw them through a fucking wall with a chest thump.

But I mean, back in the day, that was kind of, you know, more acceptable. Now people are like, oh, I'm going to sue the internet. You know? Did you ever have a moment? I found you on the internet. I mean, like you guys go out to a bar, you cause trouble. Next thing you know, they're like fucking Google you and find you on the internet. You're like, God damn it.

Did you have a great moment where you just totally like Patrick Swayze roadhouse some asshole and just threw him out of the fucking room? Like when you're playing? Yeah, you've had to be involved in some epic fight, bar fight or something. Sure enough, time has gone by, John. Legally, you can talk about it. Yeah, I was going to say I cannot confirm or deny anything, but I did hear a story once that we were at a concert. One of my good friends who shall not be named was at a concert and we were there and uh he wanted to see the show from the ground and from the the deal and i remember being like dude we stand here the

pit's gonna open up here and he's like no no dude everybody told me the pit's gonna open up in the front i'm like oh no i fucking promise you it's gonna open right here he's like no no no i'm like all right so all of a sudden dude if i saw you across from me in the pit. The lights drop, and it gets real silent, and all of a sudden the curtains drop, and I take this kid and literally threw this kid across, and the pit opened up right in front of us. And he was like, oh, you might. I'm like, yeah, I told you it was going to open up

because I was going to start it. So, yeah, but we had a, yeah, there was a good time. But for the most part, man, people always know who you are unless you want to do is go ahead and hit somebody. I mean, it'd be obviously bad to hurt them, but also you end up getting sued for that stuff. With MMA guys, I guess you never quite know. You're talking to a guy in a bar. He's really nice. He looks

like, you know, just your average 30-year-old guy sipping a beer. Meanwhile, you never know. He's the dangerous motherfucker in the world. But fortunately for you, if I walk up to you in a bar go something tells me i shouldn't fuck with this guy you know though it's uh i always get like more of the smart ass dudes and you're always like man i really don't want to shake this dude's hand for the 50th time you know that one i'm sure you guys get like dude stop shaking my fucking hand they're like blacked out drunk like uh they tell you the same thing five times.

Oh, did you play football, man? We were in Vegas. I've probably been that guy before. That's the thing. You can't blame him. We were in Vegas and we walked in. This guy's like, hey, you're a big guy. And the guy slapped me like square on the back, like between my shoulder blades.

And I was like, like knocked me out or kind of turned around. And at the time, my buddy had given me these rings. And I went, oh, yeah, wham. I hit the guy on both of his shoulders and the guy literally crumbled. He just hit the ground and I was like, oh, and walked away real fast. I don't know what happened to that guy. Hopefully he was okay. Was it a cartoon or something?

A guy takes his fist, hits the guy, and the guy's neck disappears. And he has to take it and stretch it back out dramatically. It's probably when he slapped a guy on the fucking shoulders. Dude, that was a great thing about playing football is any anger or bad day or anything that you wanted to take out, you could totally just strap it up and be like, you know what? I'm going to go out and fuck somebody up today. And then the great part is they'd be like, that was a great practice. You played amazing.

Here, you get a pay raise. And you're like, oh, this is fucking great. I can go out and fucking hit people. And then you retire. And you're like, man, I don't get to beat people up anymore for a living. Have you found that transition really tough? Yeah, for a couple years. It's been three years?

No, this will be my fifth year. Fifth year. So I retired in 09. We're talking about how impressive, it's a different kind of word, but how impressive a guy like Mark Devine is, because he can come out of that world and now be kind and open,

and all he wants to do is help people. But a lot of times, these individuals struggle just to get back to reality like i think that's his battle i think that's his disguise because i think he's just a raving yeah crazy dangerous man underneath there i work as a contractor for naval special warfare and a lot of our friends my friends do that stuff and uh yeah they're they remind me a lot of professional athletes a lot of pro football players that same mentality and you know they get out and it's kind of, I'm sure, tough to flip the switch and kind of change. But you never really lose who you are.

You can pretend. Then you have a couple beers, and all of a sudden you come ramping out, you know? I just want to see John walk around Kroger shopping for diapers for his twin girls. And, like, all of a sudden the energy, like the dander stands up. Testosterone starts serving. He feels the need to punch something. No, no. You're buying diapers right now, dude's cool everything's cool you need my little girls are almost potty trained and that's ironic because i'm not there yet my little

girl shit in her pants this morning and my wife was like you're gonna go to diapers she's like i'm not going back to diapers you know as we throw that underwear away you know because the underwear is a good nickel i mean the number where it's actually cheaper than the diaper i'm like don't go back to diapers that That shit's expensive. I'm still trying to get mine out of that phase into, I can train a lot better once they can wipe their own asses. I'm waiting for that day. I'm still a couple years away, man.

My one little girl was, as soon as we showed her big kid underwear, she's like, I'm in. And she was potty trained from that day forward. She just wanted to wear big kid underwear. She didn't want to wear diapers. She wanted to have cool cool girly underwear. My other daughter was like, no way, I'm not doing it. So how are you going to handle it?

There might already be a sign that they're driven. And they have a little bit of the Wilburn fire. Competitive, they're going to be athletic. My little girl, my youngest one, I say the youngest, she's like a minute younger. She came out second. She is so focused. We go to gymnastics. And she's got her little like leotard

on she's like the demo girl she comes home and practices everything she works on her like uh you know skin the cats and she can do all these movements and then uh we work on um this is so crazy we actually run sprints in the hall so every night before dinner they start down the hall and they run back and forth and when they run i have to like pick them up and throw them up patrick swayze uh dirty dancing style so they run and they jump and I throw them up I catch them and they go back and so we do this and it's like sprints and they'll do like 10 or 20 sprints it's a very interesting their normal is very different than other kids is normal yeah daddy is just well this is just our

daddy he's yeah he's big but that's dad and they're gonna look to you and mimic what you've done in your path they're gonna want to get serious about sport but how you gonna approach raising them? Like what, what, how would you maybe knowing what you know and coaching as much as you coach, how would you guide them? Um,

when I went back in, uh, so when I found out I was, or my wife was pregnant, so my wife can not only compete in the games. Uh, she also, uh,

was a, you know, all American soccer player. And so she's came from a, came from a real solid background. So when we found out we were having kids, I actually called up Dr. Romanoff and a couple of other Russian sports scientists that I knew.

Angel Spaslov wrote a bunch of stuff, and I got all this great information about what you have to get doing. So day one, most people keep the baby swaddled, the idea of getting him to crawl. So this is so crazy. We actually made these crawling tracks so those so they were actually pieces of wood with sides that were all kind of like foamed up and the kids would crawl for when they were like a few days old

in these crawling tracks so we got them already fucked up we've been swaddling our baby yeah and then uh like like just some really like kind of heady stuff and uh i also this is also kind of just random but when i was in phil, I got invited to be the keynote speaker. Are you guys sweating too? It's fucking hot out here. Yeah. Okay, cool. I don't sweat.

You don't sweat? No. You just formed out sweat glands. Like a dog. I was invited. I'm a dog. You know, I sweat on his nose. I was invited to be the keynote speaker for this school in Philadelphia.

It was out in Westchester and it was for special kids. And these kids were obviously, you know, had severe learning disabilities and, you know, many mental handicapped and they would come to this school and the school would actually take them as wards and the parents would sign over custody of the school and the parents wouldn't come back for years and the school would raise the children and they worked with these kids i mean severely severely messed up kid i mean a problem children in terms of like mental illness and what i mean so i get to go be the keynote speaker for their graduation and i get up and i listen to these like harrowing tales of these parents dropping their kids off and now here they

are like this school was so advanced like 10 years later they're you know can live in society and they're normal so the guy who developed the program gets up and he starts talking about me as a professional athlete he's reading my whole bio and I all of a sudden became like so uh insecure almost that he would talk about my achievements in the face of what these people achieved yeah like it was one of those things where I was just like shrinking in my chair and I got up I'm like I've never been so embarrassed that this guy would make you you know, something cool after what I listened to. So they had a whole deal about working with, um, children that had severe brain injuries, like a kid drowns in the pool and he comes out and he's like brain dead. So they send them to the school and these people have this whole protocol about

helping the kid develop consciousness. So I called these people and got all their books and they talked about like movement and uh you know but before the age of six physical intelligence is the same as mental intelligence so parents what do they do they put the kid in front and let them watch you know uh educational shows well you got to develop their physical at the same level so things like getting them to move i mean we just started this whole movement deal we uh got rid of our uh dining room table and we put a jungle gym in our family room so the kids behind the jungle gym and you know last night or we're rebuilding our backyard to do more stuff

with it and just trying to build these uh you know rock climbing walls and just give them every opportunity but they go to gymnastics swim dance anything i can put them in and when i looked at all the russian stuff that's what they did it was dance it was gymnastics it was movement things that taught rhythm and uh flexibility just make them be as human as possible for a little while, I guess. Everything else takes care of itself. We do that. Yeah. And I figure I can fool them into anything at this age.

So they'd be eating the most perfect diet you could ever imagine. So we've completely fooled them. The only thing my wife is kind of- They don't know that McDonald's exists. No. No. No. No.

The only thing they've had is they have this coconut ice cream that my wife's convinced them is real ice cream. It's like coconut milk ice cream. I've heard parents say, they go, you know, just wait until you put them in school, then they're going to have to have the McDonald's. You're not going to be able to protect them forever and all that. So what's your opinion on people who make those statements? Maybe when they get a little older.

I don't have kids, so I can sound like a real asshole sometimes when I talk about other people's kids, because I honestly, on the front end, I have no idea so I can sound like a real asshole sometimes when I talk about other people's kids. Honestly, on the front end, I have no idea what I'm talking about. So our kids go to a Montessori school, which is kind of like a special advanced school, I guess you could say. But my wife makes their lunch, and then the teachers know that they have to eat their lunch, that they can't share lunches. So that's a big deal. So we make their lunch, and my wife, she'll post pictures on Instagram of her lunch and I'm like, damn it. Can I get a lunch?

She's like, no, the kids get lunches. What if they see a commercial with McDonald's and they got the toy? They would never. I mean, they've never eaten anything like, I think they had In-N-Out burger once, which isn't really. These are all the arguments that get thrown at me. I'm glad to hear you say that. Cause I was crushed a double animal, two double animal style burgers last night at three o'clock in the morning.

So yeah, my dog loves In-N-Out. Like we'll go to In-N-Out and he's in the back seat and the lady always get meat patties and like he pulls up and I let him like the lady will hand, I like put the back window down and he's trying to jump in the, uh, the, you know, the, the, the takeout window and he kills In-N-Out. So like, that's like the favorite food of the pit bull is the In-N-Out. Oh, damn. I feed my lab paleo. Maybe I'm messing up here. No, I mean. In-N-Out's where it's at, huh?

I'm big on the paleo stuff. But like the raw food, he doesn't dig on the raw food so much. So I got to at least heat it up a little. Oh, really? Yeah. For some reason, those of you listeners out there that have pit bulls, my pit bull is extremely. And I've had three of them. They're all picky eaters.

Yeah. And I've tried everything with them. They knock over. I think they're like super smart dogs. So they're like, eaters. Yeah. And I've tried everything with them. They like knock over. I think they're like super smart dogs. So they're like, I'm not eating the same thing two days in a row. There has to be something else on there. I did the raw thing for a while,

but it just got to be a pain in the ass. Especially when I'm traveling all the time. Because now I got to get someone else to do it. Yeah. It's like, oh, the wife. I don't want to do that. I just want kibble. I'm like, all right.

So we went back to like the grain-free kibble and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, I think the dog, I had a couple of dogs, and we were feeding them the raw diet. And I think they looked a lot better. You think they did? They stayed lean. They started looking wild. Yeah. They were getting enough food. It wasn't like they were thin, but it was like, your dogs look kind of wild.

Something was happening with their fur. The look on their face was a little more aggressive. I was like, I really liked it. I was like, your dogs look kind of wild. Something's happening with their fur. The look on their face was a little more aggressive. I was like, I really liked it. I was like, yeah, fuck yeah. And that's a lab. That lab looks wild. But yeah, I think dogs look different. They've been on raw for a few months.

Yeah, I will still give my dog raw bones. But for the most part, whatever we of, you know, whatever we eat, we just kind of cut up the meat and I give him leftovers and a little bit of the dry food and try to bury his stuff up. Yeah. But yeah, he'll get some raw bones. He's pretty hilarious.

We've covered football. Kids don't go paleo. We have a whole fucking weapon. Paleo cars. We got to talk about cars. Guns and cars is all that's left. Guns, cars,

and paleo. American fucking dream, baby. Next thing, it'd be like beards and bacon. If I saw one more shirt that had to do with beards, it was like beards, bacon, and badass. It was like, dude, you can't make that many connections with beards and bacon. I mean, unless it's beer, beards, and bacon,

but I didn't see that yesterday. That's it. It'll pop up tomorrow. Blue Peril Company, go for it. I fucking love it's beer, beer's in bacon, but I didn't see that yesterday. That's it. It'll pop up tomorrow. New Peril Company. Go for it. I fucking love it. Beer. Paleo beer.

If we could come up with paleo beer, that would work out perfect. All right. I'm going to wrap this up. John, if people want to find you, if they want to check out CrossFit Football, where should they go? CrossFitFootball.com. And then also, you can find me at PowerAthleteHQ.com and we're JohnWellborn.com. Perfect. Yeah, dude. Make sure to find me at PowerAthleteHQ.com and we're at JohnWilborn.com. Perfect.

Yeah, dude, and make sure to check out Power Athlete Radio, man. We were on that for about 50. Yeah, a little back and forth. It was a good time, man. We take the whole fucking Power Athlete crew and CrossFit football crowd. I think CrossFit football is one of the better things. If you want to get big and strong, and CrossFit is not just quite your cup of tea, and you want to make sure that whoever is giving you the advice

knows what the fuck they're talking about, you can't go wrong. Dude, I'm serious. You can't go wrong with checking out CrossFit is not just quite your cup of tea. And you want to make sure that whoever's giving you the advice knows what the fuck they're talking about. You can't go wrong, dude. I'm serious. You can't go wrong with checking out CrossFit. Just do the one thing you should not do. That's the game I'm on. Do the one thing you can't overlook. And just make sure you do the training that's right for you, man.

If you're a fucking beginner, just accept it and embrace it. And you're going to be strong as shit before you know it. Yeah. Now everybody comes and they see professional. Well, that's where I should start. And you're like, no, no, no. Start at the beginning. That's a tough start. Yeah. Just ask yourself what you they see professional. Well, that's where I should start. And you're like, no, no, no. Start at the beginning. That's a tough thing.

Just ask yourself what you are, bro. What are you, man? Really? Try beginner. And when the progress stops, then bump. Yeah. And the other one too

is people always ask me, how will I know? I'm like, you'll fucking know because you won't ask me. They were asking me. So I remember T Nation asked me to write an article about how I know I'm a beginner.

And I basically sent him back because you're reading fucking T Nation. And the guy was like uh could you make it longer i'm like well you want me to say it twice so needless to say i didn't write the article for them and i remember looking at their demographics and it was the same demographics as crossfit so i remember being like wait a minute you guys bash crossfit and now you see they're fucking sucking crossfit's dick like like that christian tibideau just posted a whole thing about he's been this closet crossfitter the whole time and really he invented i mean i'm just like oh my god dude here we go because they got the same demographics and they're

realizing crossfit's kicking their ass yeah and he's like oh the best the best supplement for crossfit is surge and power and purge and all these other and i'm like come on dude i, you know, I realize T Nation's a big front for biotest and that's great. But I mean, come on, dude, you've got to make it like a little less obvious. Yeah. I always, you remind me of like the one thing. I got this question and I want to know if something's right for me. Is it like where there is doubt? There's no doubt.

It's probably not right for you. Go back when it's obvious to you, then you'll know. You are so wise. It's a little bit of a Zen thing. It was you have doubt about it should i use bands for squats probably not probably not if you're asking go back and just do more regular well my big deal is can you use bands people always like oh should i i'm like well can you like well i don't have bands like well then you can't like we had a big one this guy wanted to know all about this chains and do this and the chains i'm like well can you use chains he's like well i could but i don't have them i'm like are you

gonna buy chains he's like well i i don't know where to get them i'm like well then why the fuck are we talking about you know it's like you know let's start with the fundamentals of human dialogue what can you do yes things you can't do don't do well i mean things you can do you know like i had a guy be like oh you know i could squat a thousand pounds if I had a belt squat machine. No, I'm like, are you going to get a belt squat machine? He's like, well,

no, I'm like, well, then why are we having this fucking conversation? I think I'm taking crazy pills sometimes. All right, we're going to wrap this up. I'll make sure you head over to barbellstruck.com

for the newsletter. Don't throw anything else his way or we'll keep talking. I know, I know, I think this is going on forever, but we're going to have to have a second show later on it'll come most evidently episode two is coming well i'm not a talker and you guys aren't either so it's you know it's like pulling teeth which is

you know no bullshit here bullshit free zone that's the next shirt we need this is a bullshit free zone barbell shr. I heard the sarcasm in that one. Oh, good. I finally connected. Goodbye, everybody. See you next time.