Barbell Shrugged - 5/3/1 Strength Training System w/ Jim Wendler: Part 2 - The Barbell Life

Episode Date: August 18, 2019

Jim Wendler is the creator and author of the 5/3/1 Training Program. This program has been used by millions of athletes and lifters of all ages and abilities. Jim played football and graduated from the University of Arizona where he was a three-time letter winner. He went on to squat 1000 pounds in competition and is an accomplished Elite Lifter with a 2,375 pound total. He has coached high school athletes, collegiate athletes, trained general populations and spoken globally on the topics of strength training, conditioning, fat-loss, performance and program design. However, his greatest success is his ability to simplify the complexities of strength training into program variations so that anyone can apply them and achieve their goals.   Jim Wendler on Instagram   Travis Mash on Instagram ------------------------------------------ Please Support Our Sponsors Savage Barbell Apparel - Save 25% on your first order using the code “BARLIFE” Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged -------------------------------------------- Join the One Ton Challenge    Registration is LIVE   12 Month Strength training program to increase your snatch, clean, jerk, squat, dead, bench.    Add them up to find your One Ton Total.    The goal is 2,000 pounds for men and 1,200 for women.    http://onetonchallenge.com/join   “What is the One Ton Challenge”   “How Strong is Strong Enough”   “How do I Start the One Ton Challenge”   --------------------------------------------------- Show notes: https://shruggedcollective.com/tbl-wendler2 ---------------------------------------------------   ► Travel thru Europe with us on the  Shrugged Voyage, more info here: https://www.theshruggedvoyage.com/ ► What is the Shrugged Collective?  Click below for more info: https://youtu.be/iUELlwmn57o ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

An absolutely epic group of humans, ready to get super strong. Strug family, the One Ton Challenge Program launch number two is in the books. We get to hang out with all the strong people again starting the eight-week squat program. Last time, 100% of the humans that went through the eight-week program PR'd the squat between 20 and 100 pounds. All those strong kids, now they're moving on to the eight-week snatch block. I'm so stoked for the results that we got in the first eight weeks of the program. Now we have group number two getting ready to go through the exact same eight weeks, see their PRs, and if any of the very first week of group one on snatch eight weeks is an indication of

where we're going over the next eight weeks we're going to see some massive PRs in the snatch as well just techniques getting better people are getting strong we're still squatting life is so good loving the program loving the live events and next week we're going to be announcing live event number two with our good friends over at fit eight so life is moving up one ton challenge people are getting strong my life is so happy we are back with jim windler on this week's the barbell life of coach travis mash jim windler is like man i feel like i feel like that guy invented strength training he didn't really but five through one program's been around so long.

Such an epic program. And if you've been in the strength game for any amount of time, you have probably heard of 531, done the 531 at some point. I really think it's one of the best entry-level programs. Not even entry, probably entry to intermediate and even advanced lifters. But really in that intermediate space, the 531 program just really suits you to help structure programming.

Such an awesome thing that he created. Of course, we want to thank our sponsors over at Organifi. Get over to Organifi.com forward slash shrugged and get your greens, get your reds, get your gold juices. They've also got some protein. They've got some gut bacteria.

But you're going to save 20% using our code, Organifi.com forward slash shrug. And always Savage Barbell. Savage Barbell, the one-ton challenge official apparel sponsor. I'm wearing a shirt right now. It says Savage. Who doesn't wear a shirt that says Savage? And you get to save 25%. You know what else is cool

every time you walk into the grocery store the way i judge like a good shirt can i wear it in the grocery store and one not feel like a total tool bag because i have some like ridiculous saying on it but also i want people to know that i'm super jacked right this is just like meathead problems so if you just put a nice shirt on that says Savage, like Savage Barbell does all the time, accomplish all the goals, you need that. You're going to take 25%. So get over to savagebarbell.com

and use the code TRUG to take 25%. We're talking to Jim Wendler today. Coach Travis Mash. What a guy. Love that guy. Enjoy the show. You're listening to The Barbell Life. on this episode we get to part two of our interview with jim windler now while last week we talked about his popular 531 system and his time at westside barbell and elite fds

on this podcast we're going to get to what he's doing right now. And Jim is out there doing what he loves. He is coaching a high school football team. Now, Jim's approach is really simple. He doesn't beat the kids down, and he doesn't really go heavy with the kids. But he is producing amazing results and has pretty much turned the football team from mediocre into a true force on the field. And if you're interested in coaching, particularly if you're a coach for high school or middle school, then you definitely want to check out our new video seminar that we now have on pre-order. We are building something that will truly be amazing for coaches. We're going to go into assessment, progressions, regressions, movement standards, programming, technique, mobility,

and all sorts of information on dealing with the common challenges that coaches have, assessment progressions regressions movement standards programming technique mobility and all sorts of information on dealing with the common challenges that coaches have like like dealing with large groups or having a short amount of time to train so you can learn more about this video seminar at mashelite.com slash video seminar it is perfect for athletes it is perfect for coaches right now we've got it open for pre-, so you can go on there as this podcast is released and pre-order it to save a bunch of money. And you get to help us mold this video seminar into something that you want to see, something that is truly helpful.

And if you're listening to this podcast a long time in the future, you can go over to the website right now and grab the finished resource. So either way, head on over to to mash elite.com slash video seminar that's mash elite.com slash video seminar and now i'm lauren penniless joined by crystal mccullough and travis mash as we dive into the next part of our interview with Jim Wendland. So, Travis, you know, I'd spent 10, 11 years, whatever it was, working on the internet and helping people, right? Right.

And I had a young guy that I used to train at Elite, a local kid from London, and I helped him out through his high school career. And it was just, you come in when we lift, we'll help you out. It wasn't like anything very formal. To make a long story short, he went to college, played football, and then he ended up getting in a horrible car accident. Caleb Sexton is his name. And he was in a coma. He was in a hospital. And to make a long story short, months later, he got out and he called me and said, dude, can you help me? You know, I'm like, yeah, you, if you come Monday and Wednesdays or whatever days we, you know, it was twice a week. I said, you come on, you come on time to train in my garage

and we'll, you know, it'll be just like old times. Well, he was so beaten and withered, he couldn't even press a barbell. It was horrid. He went through the car windshield kind of thing. He was supposed to die. And within a year, he benched like 300, squatted 400, deadlift, 405 for 10. And I was like, man, I made more. I did more in one year than I did in 10 years on the Internet. I did more in person. Does that make sense?

Yeah, totally. That's amazing. You know, I'm not discounting helping people on the Internet, but it's just not the same. And, you know, he's turned his life. You know, he can now physically do things. So to make a long story short, Matt Goodwin, who is at Elite FTS now, approached me, I had done an interview with Dave, and then I'm driving on the way out of the Elite FTS, and Matt stops me, he's like, hey, you know, London football is looking for some coaches, would you want to help out? And I was like, yeah, you know, I'll think about it. So I got the number of the head coach and I wrestled with it for about a week, you know, back and forth about doing it. And then I started helping out at the local high

school here. And at first I was, you know, on the field coach. I'm like, you know, the coach is already doing the lifting, you know? And so about three weeks or so, I told the coach, just let me do the lifting, dude, please. And so, you know, about, you know, two or three weeks in, I started handling all the training. So that year I got, you know, I came there during two days, you know, halfway through two-a-days. And that year we won three games. And at one point we had, as you can probably imagine, it's a fairly small school. We had seven starters out and everyone went both ways. So we had seven starters out in offense and seven starters out in defense

by the end of the year. We had won three games. Our last game we didn't even cross the 50-yard line. If we did, it was like a fumble. And so throughout the season, I had been training everyone. And I won't bore you with all the details, but everything I had a plan in place from the get-go. Like I knew where I wanted to be,

and I knew I had to get certain kids there now whatever so we started to these kids credit one week after the season was over 100 turnout in offseason so even after a three-win season everyone shows up and uh you know i sat down i talked to him real quick about what we were going to do uh So fast forward, entire offseason, we end up going to the playoffs for the first time in one year – or in 20 years. 20 years we got to the playoffs. So then we have another entire offseason that was this prior year, the 2018 year, and we went three games deep in the playoffs

and lost to the state champions okay who won the state uh game 42 to 14 or something we lost we lost to the eventual state champs you know we didn't pass we passed maybe once every two games we ran the ball we played stout defense everything we did was downhill and uh so from you know just one one or two years of off-season work we went from being you know not a very good team at all to being team no one wants to play yeah and now i'm like you know so i'm in charge about 50 or so kids and uh handle you know every part of their training and it's been the i've learned more in a you know two years and i didn't you know the last 10 that's awesome and the thing is you know i tell people all the time they always

ask me what are you guys doing you know and i'm like listen guys i'm not keeping some secret and i said you guys have to understand and i wrote about this the other day and i've talked about this uh and a few of the things i've done. I said coaching is about 85, 15% programming and knowledge and about 85% human interaction and communication and understanding. That's absolutely. And because when I was a kid, I'm not going to name names.

I had read as much as I could. This is remember before the internet. So I get my hands on any book or magazine that had to do with training. And there was a specific author that I read a lot and he know his stuff travis and then i got to meet him he was the worst coach i've ever seen in my life man fast forward you know 20 years 30 years later i'm talking to a friend of mine and he

trains an mma fighter the mma fighter went to a very big internet guy uh for a couple weeks to help with some stuff comes back he said he was the worst coach he goes I didn't know what he was saying I had no idea how to do anything now on paper the guy knew everything and then you realize man you have to be personable enough and confident enough and kind of you try and bring in because there's one coach for 50 kids where i'm at you know that's the reality of most strength coaches at schools you have a lot of kids in one room at one time like you have to be able to manage all that and uh no i will give the kids a lot of credit because if you tell the kid to do something here that gets done that's just the expectation here, no matter what it is. And

so a lot of it, you know, we have good kids here, but yeah, so that's, I don't, I do this as volunteer work. I don't get to take a paycheck or anything. Not like they're going to pay me, you know, 50 grand a year or anything like that. But, you know, I, it's been the best experience of my life and i'm exactly where i want to be and travis and i'm sure you probably kind of know this i know you did some olympic lifting uh right after powerlifting stuff i don't know what you're still doing but right now for the first time in my life someone else's training is more important than mine that's cool yeah and uh man like i'm more you know i want you kids to have, uh,

more success. So, but we, I guess, I mean, the individual accolades that we got, you know, the kids, uh, all state, all this, all that. We had one kid one year rushed for 3000 yards. The next year he rushed for 2,500 and the other kid on our team rushed for 1200. Good guess. Like, uh, you know, averaging 13 yards of carry you know something like 25 pancake blocks a week it was unbelievable and if i showed you the actual numbers there's no one you know maybe a couple guys are pretty strong but when you work with a especially a football team when there's 11 guys out there like i told one strength coach who came up to me after the game for high school i I said, listen, my only goal is to make my average guy be your average guy. That's it.

Right. Because the freaks will always be the freaks. You know, uh, you can have the war, you know, Warren Sapp is an amazing football player. It doesn't really, and I don't mean to say this in a negative way. It doesn't really matter what Warren Sapp does. Yeah. Okay. It matters what Warren Sapp's, you know the guy three guys below warren sap if you can make him into a good player uh just you know in a variety of different ways that's where you're going to have your biggest impact is on the average players and we have a lot of average players here and i tell the kids that all the time like we're not going to beat anyone on our athleticism guys we're going to do everything right and we're just going to be in

better shape and be stronger than everyone that's it i love it what is can you give me an idea like what you guys do like what is that do you do five three one uh it's ridiculously simple can you believe that travis yeah i'm with you uh every single workout starts off with you do like movement and mobility work so and i make once we introduce it occasionally i'll add in some wrinkles here and there, but I make the kids run that. So we designate seniors at the beginning of the offseason, and it's their job to get everyone doing everything perfect. That's their job. So that's one of the ways you extend the leadership role to the seniors.

And when kids don't show up, it's their fault. They have to get hold of them. They are accountable for the attendance and stuff like that. Um, after that, we always do some kind of jump training. That's not ridiculously crazy. Uh, box jumps, we do some low level bounds. Occasionally we do box bounding between boxes, stuff like that. I do about maybe an average 20 to 25 contacts so not a lot but i we experiment with higher stuff and the shin splints just get too much absolutely yeah i don't think you know

so again mobility and movement work and then we do some kind of jump training uh number three is we do we lift and again this is done three times a week. So we lift Monday, Wednesday, Friday. We do one major lift per day. So my goal, I learned this when I was in 1990, you can't have, you can have a great session on one lift or some really average sessions on more lifts, if that makes sense. Agreed. So on Monday we squat, but we do a boatload of dumbbell pressing and dumbbell rowing okay uh and kind of how we sequence the workout between every single squat lift and there's about maybe 12 sets of squats you do including warm warm-ups. They'll alternate that with an assistance lift.

They're always moving. There's no standing around. They'll do squat, and then they'll go over and do some dumbbell incline pressing. Then they'll get up and squat again, then do some dumbbell rowing. Stuff like that. That's awesome. Sounds like Coach Ken's tier system almost.

I developed this. This took two years to figure out, but whatever. We call it the Cryptea program after the Spartan Special Forces because I figured they have to be strong and in incredible shape. We'll get back to the podcast in just a minute, but I did want to take this opportunity

to say thank you. We want to thank our sponsors who are supporting our nonprofit weightlifting team, and we want to thank you for supporting those sponsors. Be sure to go pay them a visit and let them know that you appreciate them supporting a nonprofit weightlifting team. If you're in the market for barbells, plates, all sorts of equipment, go check out Intek at www.intekstrength.com. That's www.intekstrength.com. And for the best pre-workout and post-workout supplements, give Hack Nutrition a visit. They can be found at www.haknutrition.com. And if you want to enjoy the recovery benefits of transdermal magnesium, it is amazing. Make sure that you get some MG12.

You can find out more about them at mg12.com. That's MG, the number 12, dot com. Well, thanks for your support of these great companies. And now back to the podcast. Yeah, I developed this. This took two years to figure out but i whatever it's we call it the cryptea program after the uh spartan uh special forces because i figured you know they have to be strong and in incredible shape right wednesday we we bench press that's our main bench press day. But again, remember we did some pressing on Monday too. So,

but our main lift is the bench press and we alternate dumbbells and the goblet squats. Yeah. Which has been the biggest difference in our team, I think.

Our traps and arms and hips, hip mobility is out of the world. We have kids able to do six to seven sets of 10 to 15 reps

with a 150 pound dumbbell now and if you want to know how tired your arms get when you bench and then hold a dumbbell yeah and we also do the dumbbell straight leg deadlift so once again we're doing kind of a total body workout but with one only one major lift i love it And then on Fridays, it's our trap bar day. And again, just like Monday, we do some kind of dumbbell pressing and dumbbell rowing. Now there's a couple of things you need to understand everything just so you guys can, maybe listeners can figure this out. Our, our major barbell work is always done for what I call power. So we use very lightweights and the kids never miss reps.

That's the goal. I don't want slow reps. I want everything perfect. And if that means we're using weights that you can, you know, for sets of five, you can do 15 with, that's fine. I don't care. We have found that you don't need to train horribly heavy in the basic lifts for young kids to them to make insane progress. I mean insane progress, okay? As long as they're given, you know, if 100% intent, then absolutely right. Obviously, if they're doing 40% of their max slowly, then nothing's happening.

But if they're, it doesn't really matter the weight. And you know, the other thing too is from, if Travis, you and I have a squat in our back and it starts to get ugly we can get ourselves out of it uh either uh by dumping the bar which but we we would know how to manipulate our body right okay uh and uh you know it could be something like listen man next set i'm gonna have to bring my hands in because of this and that the kids don't have that knowledge so i'm already you put a limiter on that because it's going to get ugly if the kids don't have that knowledge so i'm already you put a limiter on

that because it's going to get ugly if the kids start fatiguing so we do a lot of low reps you know we always do sets of five just a lot of sets um number two is we do very few lifts okay and the reason why we do this is i learned this from a rugby coach and i wish i would have figured out where i learned you know who this guy's name was to give him proper credit, but it's not me. He did very few lifts, even in the off season, very few, meaning we do seven lifts. Now, occasionally the kids will do pushups and dips and chin-ups and stuff like that, but for the most part, we do seven lifts.

The reason why we do that is i don't i want my kids stronger in october than they are in august okay because that's during the season right and what happens is we kids our kids never get sore and because once their body adapts to these seven movements they're fine and they can train them very hard so once once the season starts, we've completely changed our entire off-season or in-season practice schedule, everything. It's based on recovery and getting strong. So by the end of the season, our kids are lifting the heaviest weights

they ever have in their life because we don't peak or periodize or anything. We just go right through. So by the time the sixth or seventh game rolls around, most people are beat up. Our practice schedule, everything is geared towards maximum speed and strength and power, however you want to say it. So our kids can now train hard during the season,

albeit it's lower volume, as you can imagine. We don't train the same way. But the kids can train right through. As brilliant as it should be. We condition all the time. We don't condition only parts of the year, stuff like that.

However, our condition is never that hard. Very rarely are the kids puking or doing anything. That's not my goal. My goal is to get 51 pretty good weeks of training. That's it. We train 51 weeks out of the year. We give the kids one week off. We allow them to vote

when they want to come in. For example, we get 100% turnout Christmas Eve this year. And New Year's Eve, the kids, or what is it? New Year's Day. One of those. New Year's Eve, the kids all showed up and they trained. Basically, we do a lot of consistent, pretty good work

over a long period of time is what it comes down to. Absolutely, man. You know, gosh, the people who will be listening to this, they'll just listen. If, you know, if there's a high school coach out there listening, like if you can get by like this, not only not only are you going to create good football players and a good teams and all that, which is awesome. You can teach these kids how to, how to work hard, persevere, how to, you know, learn better teamwork than you've ever, you know, and like that will lead to them having more successful lives. You know, the other thing that's fairly interesting is in football, there is a, you know, most of the old football coaches were from the,

you know, armed forces, and they trained like they would, you know, got to build mental toughness and all that stuff. And we have found that giving the kids – everything I do is to give the kids success. Generally speaking, if the kids aren't running very well, it's my fault. So even then, I will – instead of, like, yelling at the kids and getting on them to push it's my fault. So even then I will, instead of like yelling at the kids and get it on them to push harder, we just, I just fake times, you know,

oh, you guys made it in time, you know, because that's because I can, you can tell when the kids are not training hard and you can tell the kids when they're training, when they're actually working very hard and they're just not getting it because they're just not, it's my fault that they're not ready. So everything I do, even with with the weights i choose i gear them so the kids have success every single day and what ends up happening whether or not this is a generational thing i don't know but continued success and having a great attitude like our kids know when we run it's never going to be like you know puking in a bucket and like yeah we're gonna run it's gonna be okay guys you know and uh so they they're excited to come out you know uh then and

i always tell them that training for the football season or really for anything is like climbing a ladder and every day we climb a rung just one now if i get you up to 20 rungs then one day they're not ready you're back down to rung three now we have to you know because let's say we do a horrible workout on monday travis like one of the We call them social media workouts, which is what I tell the kids. Then Wednesday's workout, people are beat up. And then Friday. Friday's is probably going to be just as bad. What's that?

Friday's is going to be bad too. Yeah. So now we've lost a whole week. That's why I don't test the kids. We don't do any max out testing. In fact, when our seniors go to camps during the summer, everyone, this is very funny, kids are always like, yeah, they came back, they asked me what my max bench press was. I'm like, I have no idea.

Everyone knows their max bench except for me. It took about a year for the kids to really understand that we're not going to be maxing out going crazy. And now the kids kind of trust it more. And we have found that we can lift for the trap bar deadlift, for example, we can lift at a very, very low training max and still make insane progress. So we never have to really push that. I mean, that's exactly what Louie Simmons has been saying. Yeah. And, you know, so for whatever reason, that lift over the bench and the squat i mean we can train that i'll give you an example we had uh one day we i had the kids go for a rep

max on their final lift okay our team average on the trap bar was 415 okay with when you calculate the rep max and stuff okay we had i think eight kids who had a training max of 300 or higher everything else was in the 200s the majority of our team can deadlift you know approximately 400 pounds by using you know 250 and 275 that's awesome now because of that now our our running is not compromised. Our legs are never exhausted. Our backs are never strained. And that's kind of the difference between training powerlifting and Olympic lifting, really, or any kind of that sport to actual sports is you have to take into account a lot of different stuff. You can't just train balls to the wall in the weight room and expect them to run very well

or do their skill work very well. It's a balancing act, really, is how it comes down to. I'm definitely going to even look... I coach... I have a weightlifting team. We have the best, I would say.

We're the best in the country. We have the most team usa athletes but you know also coach the you know football players like you're not as many because you know it's just it's the ones who want to come here and pay but um but yeah i'm definitely going to reconsider the way maybe i even do it just because um just i just wish you'd get a whole school on board because yeah that's that you know, just from my experience, just like everything else, everything revolves around whoever the head dude is, okay?

So the head coach, and I give him a ton of credit. I tell this story all the time. I didn't know the head coach prior to going there. And now the head coach and I are very good friends. And not just because we coach together. Like, we genuinely have the same interests and we laugh. It's like a big, it's really like a family as much as you're going to get in a sport atmosphere. And his background is in strength and conditioning.

That's where he cut his teeth. So once, it took him a little bit of time to give me the team, but he's also the head coach. He's got more than he can handle. So I said, dude, I'll take this off your plate just let me do this I know what I'm doing so early on in the first offseason he was kind of like well maybe can we do some of this can we do some of this I might do it we can do it but it's pointless everything is pointless no that's my answer it's like you don't have to do anything and so about two or three weeks into the off season,

I come up to the weight room, walk up the stairs. And there's Kyle, the head coach with his head in his hands, just sweating sick. And he's like, I just did the kid's workout. And I'm like, well, he's like, I'll never question anything you do again. So he took it upon himself to put himself through the fire. Now fast forward an entire year when I give my last talk at Elite FTS. Or no, whatever.

I don't remember. But we were at a Elite FTS seminar thing at Ohio State. And me and Kyle are sitting there together. And he looks at me after listening to you know, to all the stuff that I, we had been doing. And then some of the guys like buddy Morris and he's like, I got cheated. My strength coaches cheated me. And, uh, because, you know, we had more success, more strength in two months of training submaximally and just doing the right things and doing the right things. Well, not doing a lot of things and uh then we had

in a year and uh we did it in less time our kids are in and out in an hour and 15 minutes hour and 30 minutes of everything that we do everything is everything has to have meaning when you play when you're in sports so what ended up happening is once he saw that success then we started talking more and more about like like we don't have a days anymore because the reason why they had two a days is because no one would come in. No one trained back in the day. Right. So the kids were out of shape. They need to get the kids in shape. Well, these days, everyone's in shape. Why would you do two a days? Now you're questioning all these old ideas, you know, the ones that people hold up just because they've been doing them forever. So we cut out two a days and then I started and then famous line was, and Travis, I think you can understand this,

regarding practice is if, Travis, you and I had a bench press competition on Friday, would you bench crazy heavy volume Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday? No way. I've got to deload. Yeah, you've got to make sure the kids are. So we cut out all conditioning during the season. We don't condition at all during the season. Everything is done so the kids are mentally fresh

and ready to bite someone's head off. That's awesome. So conditioning happens like prior to the season, and then I guess you just let practice be the conditioning. Yeah, you let practice take care of it, and the kids are playing on Friday. Then we have to recover those kids because everyone plays both ways. So then recovery becomes paramount. And thankfully because we don't beat the kids up in practice

and we have such a strong thought I don't know how to say it, strong library or whatever of training for the last year the kids are going to be okay. So like I said, everything, the problem is I think one, I don't chase numbers.

I don't have a record board. I don't care what you lift. It has means nothing to me. Yeah. And that's when your own ego comes in. Like, you know, we have X amount of kids squatting 400. I'm like, I don't care. And you probably don't. But yeah. so uh so everything started you know from uh the head coach and he's the one that you know believed in me and gave me a chance and he also i give him a ton of credit because once we sat down and we you know i had played football before we're like man some of these ideas are dumb that we're doing they really are and then at one point during our first off season right right after our really bad season, I did the whole George Costanza thing.

Like, what if we just do everything the opposite? It can't get any worse, you know? Yeah. So everything we did was just like, you know what? Let's just do things the way we think, you know, the common sense would prevail. And it's gotten to the point. God, dude, every coach in America needs to listen to this podcast. Yeah, they won't, though.

You know? And I'm fine with that. Even Kyle, because we had a huge turnaround here. And so Kyle's always invited these coaches are calling him. He's like, we just train balls to the wall all the time. Yeah. He's playing the whole saboteur. Yeah. So,

but yeah, it's, and to, to bring this back, it's, you know, for years and years I had been on the internet and I had been doing all this stuff, but I've never made a greater impact in,

in, on someone's life. Other than being a father, then being a coach. I can hear your voice. Like you definitely put them more talking about this than you did any of the other stuff. Yeah, I love it, man. It's fun.

You know, and I give most – you know, I always tell coaches too, you get a lot more credit. If you're not getting concussions on the field, don't take as much credit for it, you know. Let's just be honest, dude. If you're out – you can only control so much. And – but it was funny during the season. I don't know what game it was but it was you know we it got to the point where our guys would we put in our second stringers in the second

quarter it'd be you know we've 53 to nothing in the first quarter and uh you know we never passed the ball and i remember one time it was you know like 65 to nothing at half and the head coach looks at me and goes this is what happens when you run in the snow. Because we run year round here. Unless it's horrible conditions, we find a way to get something done. And like I said, it's not horrible. But once there's an expectation. And this is also funny.

I think you kind of understand this. After one of the other games, one of their strength coach came up to me. He's like, yeah, I heard you were doing this. And I asked him some questions and we have a very nice facility here at London. It's a very small, it's like 400 kids in our school, 415 or something like that. But we have 12 full power racks. I arranged the weight room just how I want it. Like, so we, I threw out a bunch of equipment because as you can probably imagine, Travis, if you have 50 kids, having one machine is pointless. Okay.

Yes. As opposed to pushups and lunges or something. Yeah. Yeah. So you're, you know, so I threw out probably, you know, eight pieces of equipment. So we have a huge area in the middle where we can do all our assistance work and all our jumping and all and all that stuff. But I so it's, you know, 12 full power racks, whatever.

So I talked to a coach after a game and I'm like, well, this is a very, very rich school, private school. And he's like, well, we only have three power apps. I'm like, why don't you just throw them away and just buy new ones? He's like, well, we can't because the school won't allow us to call this a training center. It has to be the so-and-so fitness center. And it's like, you talk about just being handcuffed right away. Your football teams and your any sports not going to be good if you don't prioritize this, this kind of stuff. And that, you know,

the level of cooperation that we get from the administration and especially the community, the kids and the families is amazing. That's one of the great things about living in a small town. You know, there's a lot of support as long as, you know, you're doing the right things. Yeah. If you're in their trust, it's a wrap then. Yeah. And so, and the other thing is, you know, as much as we don't go balls to ball and training and practice incredibly

tough on the kids, as far as discipline. And I, we played one team this year in the playoffs that was just lacking any kind of discipline. And I'm talking, and it sounds funny, but when I say toe behind the line, the toe has to be behind the line. When I say this, we have to do it like if you go you cannot go if you're running around the field you can't cut corners you will be called out hard by the team so it's just an expectation of doing every little thing possibly right right and it's always funny when we get like a new kid in there and as soon as he cuts one corner kids get on them so there's

an expectation of discipline as it adds up yeah man that's the way they're going to play the game then you know they're not going to cut the way they're gonna play the game then you know they're not gonna cut the corners they're gonna run their routes right you know they're gonna they're gonna block correctly yeah so uh so it's just you know and that's it you know it's been a real big uh it's it's just even in a town as you can imagine everyone's in a better mood in here you know all the mcdonald's and stuff they always you know go red raiders you know big you know they change their signs and stuff like that so that's cool really neat to be part of and you know got kids going to getting some pretty you know not they're not going to ohio state or anything but they get some pretty big numbers uh you know or

not i mean scholarship offers kids that probably wouldn't get a scholarship offer otherwise and uh you know they get to get a scholarship offer otherwise and you know they get to get out of the town and do something great so or this awesome brother opportunity to do something great I should say so I'm proud of you just cool that you know like because I found my place Travis I see that all right so I'm a little jealous you know you got your soldier book you got a little freedom you know exactly what you want well about uh six or seven years ago my dad and i were driving and my dad asked me he's like what's the best thing that this book has done for you or something

like that you know i said i got freedom dad and that's all i want i don't want to be held down i don't want to have to do something uh that i don't you know not saying that we don't want to be held down. I don't want to have to do something that I don't know. Not saying that we don't live like kings. I should probably mention that we live very frugally because I don't want to have to sell my soul to everything. I'd rather we have one car between my wife and I for five years, I think, you know, and I just walked everywhere. I'm the guy, the creepy dude who walks the weight vest everywhere in town. That's awesome. walked everywhere i'm the guy the creepy dude who watched the weight vest everywhere in town but it allows you to have you know i what's more important you know having a fancy car or being able to call your own shots so i'm with you i am with you and that's uh the thing about the internet has done the most you know for me is like i can be with my i can be with my kids i was

with my my kids all morning you, playing and jumping on my neck. Yeah. How many kids you got now? I'm about to have four any minute. Oh, my God. Are you Irish, Travis? I am Irish, yeah. So, yeah.

So, yeah, I'm on my fourth right now, bro. This is it, though. I'm getting clipped. This is a wrap. He said it online. I'm saying it online. Yeah. I'm going to be 80 when they graduate high school.

I mean, are they all like all three years old, two years old? I've got, I have a, one in the belly, one that's two, one that's four.

And I have a 18 year old daughter. So, okay. Oh, wow. Oh, well, how's,

is the, uh, do you get along with the 18 year old daughter? Oh yeah. Yeah. You know, we've had a rough badges cause you know, well, how's, is the, uh, do you get along with the 18 year old daughter? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we've had a rough badges cause you know, um, I had her when I was young and crazy and like when you knew, you know, and so, but now much better.

And so I'm a much better dad nowadays. Yeah. It's, uh, it's insane. Like my oldest kid is 14 and he just just started. He wears a size 13 shoe. He's just growing and growing. Did you say a size 13? 13, yeah. Oh, my God.

Is he huge? He's taller than I am now. He's like 5'11", now, I bet. Wow. He's about an inch taller. Yeah, it's unbelievable, man. That's cool. I have one other kid who is how old james is

seven yeah he's a force of nature if a child was ever a tornado in a hurricane it would be him so yeah the way that i just describe him is uh if he played linebacker he would blitz every play and then tell the coach i saw something man there was an opening yeah i get it bro like crystal knows my two boys oh they're awesome rock and bear my two boys well i mean you have to live up to the names rock and bear i'm sorry that's exactly why i named him that so yeah well i i i'm i'm partial to boys anyway i have a 15 year old that just finished driver's school so her son is like my i don't know if you've heard of her son but he's probably the strongest kid i mean it's gonna sound crazy but he's probably the strongest kid that's ever lived in maybe in the world like he uh

sounds weird but it's true like he uh clean and jerk now he's clean and jerked uh 396 pounds i mean and he's 15 15 yeah so he's squatted 550 you know 572 oh yeah my bad just just got a pr so holy cow oh no he's phenomenal bro and he just he just does weightlifting he loves olympic weightlifting and it's a good time to do that in america because there's scholarships and they pay them. Which I'm very thankful for. Yeah, they pay them. He went down to Guatemala. No, I'm sorry. He went to Columbia in South America last year. No, this year.

At 14, he won gold at the Youth Pet American Championships. About to go to the World Championships coming up. We're looking for a world record at 15. The most impressive thing is not his numbers. It's his ability to stick with something and do it. It's unbelievable.

He's an unbelievable kid. I'm so spoiled. I got two of them. Two young ones. I got more than two. But anyway, the two that have been with me the longest, him and this kid Ryan, and they're just, yeah, I'm spoiled. Because they just, I don't have to make them come they love

I have to make them get out of the gym you know like get out of here oh yeah well Morgan started when he was like what six because as soon as I was in the gym he was with me I have yeah so it's cool man they're Morgan is the 15 year old strong

kid so what Morgan is the 15 year old strong kid Ryan is the 15-year-old strong kid. So what? Is Morgan the 15-year-old? Morgan is the 15-year-old strong kid. Ryan is the 16-year-old. Ryan is ranked the number one youth in the country. He's a year older, though, than Morgan. And he's a lighter weight class. They're both just unbelievable. Two future Olympians, guaranteed.

Not only Olympians, but I think it's a big statement, but they'll both medal in the Olympics. They're unbelievable. That's unbelievable. Oh, my God. Well, we could use some help there. is but i think and it's broad it's a big statement but they'll both medal in the olympics they're unbelievable that's unbelievable oh my god well we could use some help there that's the whole point of like you know we've um i got a girl who got uh fifth right was that what meredith got like six six i got a girl got six in the world championships and she's just a junior so it's coming like um you know you were a year or two away from the whole world of weightlifting changing so yeah yeah america

will no longer be getting butt kicked so yeah it's uh it's funny because uh you know for years we were awesome you know back in the york days yeah uh and you know i don in the York days. Yeah. And, you know, I don't know what, obviously I think having football, basketball, baseball, it made a big difference in America. Right. But there's got to be other things that, you know, and I don't want to say drugs because we took drugs back then too. Right. But, yeah, it's unbelievable how far we dropped off.

Yeah. Only these last four years if things change like we start to you know people are meddling like we had a girl medal at the world this past year and uh we had a boy medal at this at this uh past world championships the world before that we had we had we had a gold medal we had a gold medal. We had a gold medal female, bronze medal male. So, like, it's happened already. Now, in the junior and youth, it's unbelievable. Like, we're winning. Not only we're setting world records. So, that's what I'm saying.

Like, it's coming. It's just when these dudes age up, it's the whole, it'll be around. I think the USA Weightlifting is doing a lot more to keep them. Because, you know, football, those sports that can give scholarships have pulled people away. But now that USA Weightlifting is being more involved in the youth, I think it's going to help these kids end up seniors. Yeah. So. Yeah.

Do any of these kids come out of the Colorado Springs, the training center? They don't go there anymore. They shut that down because now they're starting to fund where they can go wherever they want to to school so they can stay with their coaches. Morgan and Ryan will be able to stay with me and go to college wherever they want to around

me and stay with me. It works better because you're with me and then obviously you go to the training center. Maybe it will and maybe it won't work, you know. So, you know, something's working. Why change it? You've gotten them this far.

At least give yourself a chance. Yeah. Yeah. And, like, we're going to do good. We have – my team had 20% of the entire team that went to the World – the Senior World Championships this year. So, like, yeah, I think bringing the mentality from powerlifting to weightlifting has been good for our team.

I learned a lot from you guys and Louie and how to get people strong and special, not just strong, but strong where you need to be strong, and it's really helped. Yep. I look at a guy like james harrison who plays football he just retired okay yeah i played for the steelers yeah for most of his career and you know he's a training fanatic and james harrison probably weighs at least when he was playing like 280 or something and i remember watching something and i was like you know james

harrison would probably not place in a powerlifting meet, like with all the big dudes. But who would you rather get hit by? Oh, yeah. Like any big powerlifter besides him. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah.

James Harrison, knock your head off. That's what I'm saying. I would rather get hit by any big powerlifter. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. I don't want to get hit by James Harrison. Yeah. And, I mean, the other thing that I've noticed with football is, you know,

being bigger and stronger and looking a certain way is great. But if you can't do the sport in your head, you have that mentality, no matter what sport it is, it doesn't matter what your physical attributes are. We had a kid who – probably our smartest kid in our team. Like, you know, he can easily go to Yale or Stanford or something like that. Very, not a lot of athletic ability. You can hear him run. Let's put it that way.

Yeah. You know, runs all goofy. But he's the kind of kid that as you can expect he does everything you ask him to and does everything right everything is methodical uh and he started on offensive line and he's he had more pancake blocks than anyone i've ever seen in my life probably knew the right angles you know i mean yeah he just figured out and i remember after uh one it was two years ago when he got in they put him in and, and he hadn't really played much, and he was pancaking dudes.

And he ran back and said, Coach, you see that? I'm like, yeah, yeah. He's like, it's so easy when you only got one thing to do. And, you know, just don't let the guy cross your face and then put him on his back. That's what he does. And, you know, there other kids uh who may be physically more gifted i mean a lot of kids are physically more gifted than him but he just has the mentality

to you know hurt someone not hurt someone you know what i'm saying i know what you mean man it's okay you have to be politically correct yeah yeah uh so even with whatever attributes mentally have to go into Olympic lifting, that's as much a part of the game, especially as you progress. Because, you know, I played with a guy who was all Pac-10 safety. I guess it's Pac-12 now. He was maybe 160 pounds at Arizona. And, you know, part of the best defense to ever play the game.

We had the Desert Swarm defense. They gave up 18 inches of rush one year. So basically hold the ball and then fall down at the line of scrimmage. Does that make sense to you? Yeah, I'm totally with you. 160 pounds, you take your head off. I would not want to at any time get hit by that guy. On paper, he doesn't look great. 5'10", 5'9", 160 pounds, you take your head off. I would not want to at any time get hit by that guy. And, you know, on paper, he doesn't look great, right?

5'10", 5'9", 160 pounds. But, you know, he'd knock people out of the game all the time. Yeah. I played at Appalachian with some dudes who would cut your head off, and they didn't look like anything. They looked skinny, and then they'd cut your head off. Yeah. But, yeah, so it's, I don't know. It's just been a real awesome learning experience.

This, this entire thing, man, look, I'm about to go train before I train your son, Crystal. And so where can people find out more about what you're doing and what, you know, what you got going on? We have a website. It's Jim Wendler.com. We have a, maybe a blog post once or twice a week or something. We don't – my wife handles all the – what do you call those things,

the things that get sent to your email? Oh, yeah. Newsletter? Newsletters, yes. We send out maybe – we don't bomb people. Three a month. Three a month maybe. We try to have training knowledge and not just bombard you with products.

Cool. Obviously, there's Facebook and Instagram just under my name. I don't do a ton of updating, but occasionally I'll do a Q&A on Instagram. So one day I made it like I'll do a Q&A, but it would be held to only three word responses. That was my goal. Because, dude, it's hard to type with you. Even now, even though I'm not only 240 pounds, my fingers are fat. Yeah.

Yeah. Mine too, man. I'm with you. I know I get so frustrated. I want to just – someday I would like to throw my phone away. I think that would be my goal. I know I've made it when I take my phone and go to the toilet and drop it in

yeah well I don't answer my phone that's my big thing I refuse to answer my phone so no one and then even when my buddies need to get contact me they just call my wife that's good to know yeah it's pretty weird cause you had to answer the phone when you were at Elite FTS

when I would call you and annoy you yeah it's like the uh the uh super uh restrictive mormon family and then the girl goes away to college and is not that she does what she wants exactly exactly so i remember i really appreciate what you used to do for, you know, for taking those. Yeah, I do. It was awesome. You guys made it made a boring day. Good. You know, all you guys. It did me too. Like, you know, I just am so obsessed as you know, you well know.

But yeah, I just had to have an outlet. You know, I would lose my mind and have to talk to someone about power thing. Draw me crazy. I'm glad that air is over god for heaven's sake yeah well it's it's very selfish man yeah uh and uh it was especially now you got kids and you're more settled down uh i still i assume you still train oh yeah yeah i still train yeah so i mean I still train. but your kids, your family, and the kids I coach will take on the attitude that you have. So if you're just a slob and don't take things seriously, that's what's going to happen.

I'm with you. I'm with you. So, you know, during the season or whenever we do stuff, I do something along with it. Not with the kids, but in my own time, I train kind of what they do so that, you know, I know how they feel. And I can earn that. You know, what's funny, I'll tell the story real quick is when I was introduced to the team when I first got there, it's like this is Jim Wendler. You know, he's coached this and this. He played at, you know, Arizona and all this stuff. And no one better than I.

Right. And then like two months later, someone's like, man, you have a lot of followers on Instagram. You must be. I know, man. I'm with you, man.

Yeah. Then now you're famous. Not the fact that you played football, Division I football. Not the fact that you were a strength coach at Kentucky. None of that. That's the era we live in.

I guess you just got to embrace that. So, all right, brother. Thanks for being on, man. Thank you. Yes, sir. I appreciate you guys having me on. Thank you, Travis, and good luck today, Trent. All right, brother.

Well, again, thanks to Jim for sitting down on this podcast with us. It was awesome to have this two-part episode. If you didn't listen to week one, go back and check that one out. Jim is a fountain of wisdom. Now, if you want to listen to more podcasts like this or read our free articles, and of course, we've got our eBooks and coaching for you as well. To see all of that, head on over to mashelite.com. That's mashelite.com. Well, thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time. See? Part two, just as epic as part one. A little bit more learning. Life is so good. I want to thank our friends over at Savage Barbell.

Savagebarbell.com. Use the coupon code SHRUG to save 25%. And, of course, Organifi. Organifi.com. Forward slash shrug to save 20%. Get your greens, get your reds, get your golds. Get strong. We'll see you guys next week.