Barbell Shrugged - 863 - From Competitor to Recreational Athlete w/ Gini Grimsley

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

Former Division I and professional basketball player Gini Grimsley joins Doug Larson, Travis Mash, and Dr. Mike Lane to discuss one of the hardest transitions in fitness: going from competitive athlete to normal life without losing the identity, structure, and physical capability that sports provided. Gini explains why former athletes often struggle to stop comparing themselves to their younger selves—and how the desire to prove what they can still do can lead to unnecessary pain, injury, and frustration. The team explores how athletes can redirect their competitive drive, establish new performance goals, and build a training routine around who they are today. Gini also breaks down her current approach to lifelong athleticism, including strength training, conditioning, plyometrics, unilateral movements, rotational work, and reactive activities such as pickleball. She explains how modifying exercises can preserve intensity while reducing orthopedic stress, why adults should rebuild tissue tolerance before jumping into races or high-volume programs, and how smart assessments can prevent trainers from overwhelming unprepared clients. Whether you are a former athlete or simply want to remain strong, fast, and capable as you age, this episode offers a practical framework for training hard without allowing your ego to destroy your body.

Shrug family, Doug Larson here, and this week on Barb L Shrug, we welcome former Division 1 and professional basketball player turned strength and conditioning coach Jenny Grimsley to discuss the often difficult transition from being a competitive athlete into a recreational athlete. We get into the identity crisis that can happen when competitive sports end. Why chasing your younger self is a fast way to get injured, as well as how to redirect your competitive drive toward new goals in your new phase of life. So if you yourself are currently transitioning away from being a serious competitor and or you train athletes that are finishing up their careers and are transitioning to training for regular life.

This episode is for you. Enjoy the show. Welcome to Barbell Strug. I'm Doug Larsson here with Coach Travis Mash and Dr. Mike Lane. Our guest today, Jenny Grimsley, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, guys. I decided to be here. Literally one of the coolest girls ever.

That's right. We hung out in New Orleans a couple weeks back. I had a great time. I wanted to get you on the show. I know you work closely with John Russon, Dr. John Russon, and you played some D1 basketball back in the day. You played some professional basketball back in the day. Now you're a very good strength and conditioning coach. Give us your background.

How did you get into training? What's your sport background, basketball, and otherwise. How'd you get here? Yeah. So small town, North Carolina. So sort of similar to Travis. And there wasn't much to do other than play sports. my dad was the athletic director at the high school.

So I got plugged into any and everything at an early age. I think I was playing, you know, fifth through eighth grade rec basketball as a third grader, which totally against the rules, but you can kind of skirt that when you run the program. So played every single sport that. What small town? I'm just curious.

Fairmont. Oh, yeah. Okay. So if you've been to Myrtle Beach, this is like the highway through, well, the highway through the small, not dirt road.

to get down to the beach. So, yeah, so lots of tobacco fields, lots of cornfields, like, and then the little, little town area. So kind of came up through high school. Basketball was kind of the main sport, right? Like, so my dad was the athletic director. He was also the boys basketball coach. And so.

It's North Carolina, man. It's North Carolina through and through. Like two weekends ago, I was just up in Greensboro. He got inducted into the high school hall of sports hall. Yeah. So very much a legendary career in and of his own. And I'll come back to this later, but I think that's where my love of coaching started was I was constantly being coached,

coming up and through different sports and different ways of doing things. And so basketball was my main sport going into high school. I was all state in volleyball. I know people always say, oh, you're much taller in person. Apparently I look very short on video. You don't look short anywhere to me. but I'm a midget. Wow.

You like six foot? Yeah, right. A shade under six foot. I'm sure putting a barbell on my back over the years has compressed that a little bit more, but we'll take it. You know, track and field softball, the handful of sports that the school offered, I took advantage of all of them, played travel ball, and then was offered a couple schools, chose UNC Greensboro to do my undergrad. I had a pretty good career there. I think there's a handful of record. I don't even know if they're still standing.

But, you know, played for another legendary coach who was at that school for, you know, 35 plus years. She retired, renamed the court after. So I've had some really good coaches in my life. And then went over to Europe after I graduated to try up. I played a little bit in Germany, played a little bit in Spain and came back and was like, I just don't know that that's the lifestyle I want moving forward. And it was, you know, it worked out that. not too many deals came back for the next year.

And I was like, you know what? This is the perfect time to go to App State. I was still in touch with my head coach, and she connected me with the head coach at App State to be the GA for them. And so I spent two years in Boone doing any and everything, 80 plus hours a week, because not only was I the GA for the women's basketball team,

which means I was also the interim strength conditioning coach every time we turned someone over. I was also a graduate. would assistant in the exercise physiology program every semester and, you know, trying to manage that and run study hall and travel and do all the things, do the clinical rotation hours that that program required of us. And looking back, I'm like, shit, maybe I should have gone the strength conditioning route and not the clinical ex-fiz route. But it has worked out in my favor that that's where we are. And I like to tease Mike that we're the only two ex-physiologists who, you know,

lift. So, so yeah. The only two was out there too. I'm sorry, I'm not out of Appstead as well. Yeah, I mean, yeah, but I'm not like a PhD or an excess physiology that lifts. But yeah, I was at upstate. And there are a few excess physiologists that lives just not as well maybe as you guys. But hey, the MQia's just like powerlifting. You go for the most obscure category.

That way you can do the best. Left-hand is 40 plus year old, you know, with the receding hairline. and a mustache world record holding the double of it. So, boss. I mean,

I have so many, I have so many questions. I mean, should I guess keep going, though, but like, no, I mean,

and then we, you know, we moved to Colorado. I got involved in the NSA, got into personal training. You know, my, the folks that I ended up working with

were, you know, executives, their kids who were athletes. And then the, the folks that kind of came to me were folks who had played sports and now were,

for entrepreneurs, executives, you know, folks who had that competitive spirit and weren't just, you know, blobs hanging out. So that's... But now, are you still... Wait, you guys, I thought you guys moved to Charles. We did. We moved to Charleston two years ago. Right. Yep.

So fast forward now. I'm in Charleston working for John. I'm training in person some. You know, I've just, again, trying to stay busy. I don't get in a lot of trouble. So I try to... Yeah. No, no joke.

So, okay, where did we start? So, like, in, let's say, USC Greensboro, maybe. And so, like, wait, let's come back in high school. See, Dave, this legendary coach. I want to know, like, how did that relationship go? Because as a father with kids, I'm a coach, and I'm really trying to navigate this whole thing. Like, how did he do, you know, was he coaching you all the time?

Was he backing off? How to go? It was when we were in the gym, we were in the gym. We were doing the thing. I really only remember us getting into an argument one time. And it was as we were transitioning from the girls practice to the boys' practice, he had stepped in the last minute. It was like, hey, I'll rebound for you while I let the guys warm up.

And I don't know if I'd gotten yelled at by the girls coach. Like, I was in a shitty mood. And it's just like, I don't really want to shoot right now. and like I kind of slapped the ball away. He was like, all right, fine, I'm done. I'm not rebounding for you today. And so, but an hour and a half later, we're in the car going home and we're fine. Right?

So he kept. Good on him. Good on him. Yeah. Coach there. But then at home, it was a normal life. We watch TV. We watch games.

Like, it very much was a separation of church and state of like, we're going to focus on the sport when we're focusing on the sport, but we're also going to have a. somewhat normal home life. Not that we were there a lot because with me playing sports all the time, him coaching basketball and the athletic director. And oh, by the way, he was the volleyball coach and filled in as needed. This is what you do in a small town, small school. We were busy. And then the summers, you know, playing travel ball. It, you know, so. Going all the time. Yeah. So the relationship did rely very much on us being both mature enough. Well, he was always mature enough, but me being mature enough to know, like,

I can actually relax when I'm at home. What about the worst game? Like, when he would watch you play, would he like, would he like give you a breakdown of what he thought he saw or what? Yeah, usually that's what we would sit in the office after the game because he'd have to wait for the officials to get out. And so we'd sit in chat and it was like, hey, you know, when you get the ball top of the key, like, this is what you were doing. This is probably what you need to do next time you guys play them because he he tried to let the girls coach be the girls coach without stepping um and he was also dealing with his own set of guys and so it's like

hey here's the things that i saw while i was out watching the game before i went in to go you know get that's super cool just some like constructive thoughts yeah and move on and every sunday it was you know eat lunch hey you ready to go to the gym cool let's go to the gym or hey you want to go over to the fitness center. Yeah, like Mondays and Wednesdays. Soon as school got out, homework got done. We were over to the next town over that had a rec center. And we'd go play four and four and four and five pick up for you know till

seven 30 at night. And then go home and crash and wake up and do it again the next day. So a quick break in the action here to let you know that I've just recently chosen to get back into coaching. And I specifically am looking to coach Masters Jiu Jiu Jitsu athletes just like myself. I've been doing jujitsu for 22 years and strength and conditioning for 30 years. I'm a black belt, of course, and I live that life.

I understand exactly what goes into it. I understand what's like to run a family, do jiu-jitsu, try to tie strength and conditioning into it all and all of the ups and downs that come with it from joint pain to busy schedules to travel and all the things. So if you are a master's jujitsu athlete and you're looking for some support, I'm happy to give it. You can DM me on Instagram at Douglas E. Larson

or you can email me, Doug at barbell shrug.com. Happy to help. Back to the show. I had a super stud, step daddy played in like one game. I'm a point guard. And so, but I had three points in the first half, but I'm a point guard. Not a center? What?

Not the center. In the second half, I had 19, so I ended up with like 20, was it 22. And my stepfather, who was a great, he's a great man. All he said, I got in the car, decided to ride home with him. He said, if he could have had a good. first half you'd have really had a good game i'm like i just down i was like cool i'm just going to take the bus forever now like i'm a point guard i didn't i just scored because nobody else could so like anyway yeah i'm carrying that baggage i'm carrying that baggage that that's why you're so strong crap

but yeah like there was never that judgmental it was just like here it is objectively here's the stat line here's where you used screwed up like this is what you do right it was again what this would meet him such a good coach. And he coached at school for 43 years. Like, Jesus, you had to be doing something right. Yeah. So it was always like a calm, measured demeanor toward you. It wasn't like, it's easy with like, you know, players that aren't your own kid to be,

to be like kind of rational and objective. And then with your own kid, I see this all the time. Like I coach my, um, my nine year old now in like little kid baseball. And I remember there's been some seasons past where like the head coach has his son on the team. And he's like being like super kind to every. everybody and then his kid comes up and he's like what are you doing got cute got gah rah rar and it's like this totally separate demeanor comes out and it's like so obvious from the outside looking in but he's so patient with everybody but his kid he's so hard on

his kid or was any of that type of dynamic the only time i heard of him losing his cool about either how i was playing or whatever it wasn't actually until college now again i apparently i live in a very connected world in that the lady that i played for at unc greensboro was also at row note college when he was there as the women's coach. And then our associate head coach was the starting guard on the women's team. And again, I- Small world. Small world.

I probably need to get out more. But they had stayed in contact. And then when I started playing, they had ramped up their contact and whatever. And like after, I think it was either my sophomore or junior season, we weren't having a good year. And he managed to grab one of them before our practice started because we played Saturday. Monday. So this had to be a Sunday. And he had dropped me off. They were going to go shopping or whatever. And they stayed in Greensboro to do the double header and started talking basketball with them. Like, hey, why don't you put Jenny in this situation? Why aren't you doing that? So he never did it with me.

But it sounds like he was doing that with other people who were in charge of me. And so I'm sure that happened in the background a fair amount. But I think for him to keep me more level headed and, you know, not a not a big ego or anything like that. He managed it beautifully in that way. And the only reason I found out about it was because my teammates came in and said, he's out there talking to Coach Carroll and it's getting loud. I was like, so nothing came of it other than they actually did make a few.

He's like, you know, I just told him because I asked him about it later that day. And he's like, I just told him like as a basketball coach. This is me talking to you as a basketball coach. What the heck are you guys? doing here's here's here's some suggestions do with it what you will but you know

and these I mean they weren't just random they were call it former colleagues yeah so like he did have that opening to be able to say that you know it's not like you know some dads are crazy and they have no they shouldn't be talking and but your dad obviously has got all the cred so it's a little different when he talks about basketball people should probably at least listen you know yeah so that's a incredibly hard thing to navigate because you got the twofold you know we all had that coach's son syndrome the guy we played insert this sport with their gal that their dad's the coach so they're the starting whatever and they are not the person that should be in that role and we all just got to

suffer for it and then two the parents that were it's funny it's usually the parents were really good athletes or good coaches they can keep it quiet and just like let the kid play yeah the ones who are middle of the road they're the ones that are in their ear and like barking out Dude, it's T-ball. Like, calm down. Like, that kid's picking dandelions. Like, don't worry about whether or not they're getting set right. And if they're setting right defense.

Buddy, go look at your wife. Go look at the mirror. Your child has no chance. Chill. Like, make him a good student. Look at you. A good person. Yeah.

I mean, God, no. You guys look like the Grinch. I mean, there's no chance your kids playing. But just have a good time and smile. Yeah. And yeah, and my point, it's like, and I mean, this very much from my perspective of the kids should want it. And it sounds like you never had the whole thing where your dad was like, get up, we're going to practice. I'm sure there were some rough days.

But when you're the one who's running into practice every single time, I got a friend who's, his daughter specialized in gymnastics. And I had that conversation with like, dude, you're not like making her do this. He goes, dude, it's the only thing I don't have to force her to do. 6 a.m. Saturday practice, she gets up and she runs in there. she's doing that six days a week because gymnastics if you don't do it by the time you're 18, you're old. That's wild.

And so like, that's what they've lived. They've even moved cities just so that she can get better coaching so she can get to those levels. If they're about it, exactly. And never forced, which is, I mean, that's a hard damn road to hoe, I can imagine. We've had a new conversation in my house is I won't force my kids to do anything.

However, if they don't, if I don't see, like, say they want to play basketball, And I see, you know, between last year and now, which is over a month or two away from them playing again, if I don't, if I haven't watched them outside practicing, don't ask to play. It's like, because like you've had zero commitment, you know, so like, you know, so they, and they understood it. And they have. They've done their, they've done their work. And so, but we had a really good talk. I'm like, you're not just going to, I mean, like, it's a lot. You know, nowadays, I will do anything for my child. However, if they won't have no commitment to this thing where we're going to be traveling around the whole day world, then I'm not doing it. You know, like I'm not going to do. We'll stay home and play some kind of little church league thing.

But they've learned and they put in their time. So I'm all about it. Yeah. So let's kind of fast forward through the basketball career here. The North Star of the show really is about how to transition from being an athlete and having your athletic career playing on a team. And then at some point, it all stops. And you go, man, what am I going to do now? I just got like lift weights for fun and I'm kind of lost.

Like how do you manage that transition from professional athletes to kind of just regular fit person? Well, there's like two paths, right? You either go the fitness professional, strength conditioning coach route or you don't. Right? Right. Like for the folks who make the transition early and smoothly, it's like, oh, what? This is, I enjoy this.

This is what I want to do, which is the route that I took of like, oh, well, well, if I need to be able to coach others in this specific arena, I need to go and learn more, which is what took me in my master's program, and then ultimately, you know, coaching in the private sector. But for the folks that don't, you know, one of our good family friends, their new son-in-law, like he is working in finance.

He played every single sport he could growing up. Now, he didn't play in college, but he was playing every single rec sport that the University of South Carolina offered and was like, I'm running marathon. now, but now my knees hurt. You know, we're trying to have a family. We're trying to have a full-time job. Well, now this job I want, because we're trying to have a family move back closer to home. And

the train, he and I've had several conversations of like, all right, bro, well, you just going out and playing pickup basketball four nights a week and doing this, you know, group training class that's in the basement of some building in Chicago. Like all these different things that he's doing, which is good that he's active, but he's like, my stuff's starting to hurt again. And so it's like, all right, well, I say stuff because it's not just one thing. At one point, the conversation was like, hey, man,

my knees are really bugging me. Well, okay, let's talk about all the impact stuff you're doing. Right. So it's figuring out what the things are that, one, bring you joy and you enjoy doing it because that's going to create a threat of

sustainability. But the other thing is, like, understanding what inputs you need in addition to the thing that you enjoy for a minimal effective dose, if you will. It's like, how much of it do I actually need?

to be healthy for and the question that I always want people to ask folks that that I'm working with is hey what sport did you play hey you look like you played a sport what sport like that's that's the question I want clients that work with me to be asked not like oh well okay you work in finance cool oh you work in finance but it looks like you you played basketball right right I got that right to the volleyball, right? So you don't lose that competitive edge because you keep the physical practice up. And the transition piece on that is like, holy shit, what do I do? Because I've had structure. I've had 20 hours a week dedicated to training. I've had training table for my nutrition. I've had all these resources, and especially now, right? And now, by the way, I've got a little

bit of money to throw around. So what the hell do I do? And it's like, all right, well, let's talk about what your new normal schedule looks like and where do you have time and the energy to plug things in. And it's it's a lot harder. You know, changing the body is not hard. Changing the mindset is the harder thing because wanting to do more match, you probably know can speak to this as well. It was like you compete at a high level. And as soon as you step back in the gym to play pickup, You step back in the weight room to lift some weights. You want to go and do and be what you were versus maximizing who you are right now. And there's often that mismatch of what I'm able to do with what I think I can do.

And that is actually the hardest part to manage the transition of. Debilitating at times. I know like I could safely say that really 2006 was it. It was like the beginning of the end. I started getting all these injuries and just one one. That was it. I'd reach my peak and I was blowing up. It was so hard mentally. I mean, you know, that was the first time of my life I'd ever had therapy.

And so I something had to change. So I was like, I better do something. So, you know, I went to, you know, this local therapist and it was the best thing that ever happened. I mean, like, we talked through so many. It ended up being way more than I'd ever imagined. And like, and so it was, if I had not found this guy, it was bad. I mean, I don't even want to say, you know, my mom's still alive. I don't want to even know how bad it had gotten.

I'll say this. I had a friend that found me in a hotel room. It was a bad moment. And, but therapy, and we were able to talk through things. But man, when you go through being like, I am the world champion, I'm the strongest man in the world. You know, even then, I could say even pound for pound at the time. That's who I was. And, like, too, like, it's over, completely over.

And it was so short-lived for me. I'd worked so long to get to it. I stayed there maybe three years, done. And it was like, it was a mess. And I'm like, now what? I don't want to, I don't want to just going to be normal, you know? So, anyway, that's why. And so all of a sudden you have to, you have to, you,

live that identity for this amount of time. And I can only imagine folks who've been, like obviously you did, Jenny, where basketball was a part of who you were. And not everyone has that obvious, like, okay, it's time. Other folks keep trying to scrap too long, like the folks that are going to totally make it in acting right now in L.A. And by the way, you are. Don't give up on your dreams, even though you've been there for 40 years and it still

hasn't happened. That was incredibly cool and that was not the intention. But it's kind of like, when do you have that point where it's like, hey, it didn't work? other sports is just like if you're 25 young me and football you're done but powerlifting technically try it forever you know exactly until your body blows apart but that's the thing it's like there's no like straight up shelf life like it's like it's just like sprinting if you don't get it done by your late 20s you're not doing it you know you can meet masters but you're

never going to be the guy yeah yeah and then yeah you grow up and you hear louis simmons talking so terrible about doing mess it's like I can't bring myself to do that you know I'm like, he's dead. And I still don't want to go do that because I remember what he would say about that. He's like, ah, don't go beat up on those old guys. I'm like, okay. I mean, I just can't do it. You know, like, so.

Well, it's like a beer league softball. Do you want to be that guy that takes it way too seriously? Because you never made it to even like your varsity or your varsity team in high school at baseball. Like, just enjoy movement, enjoy sport, you know, have a true competitive arc. But how you transition. because I'll tell you what I still want to make number bigger for things I pick up off the floor. I mean, I can honestly say in the last two years, I've found this whole new thing of like, I really do enjoy overall fitness.

Like, you know, like running, which I can't even believe I'm saying that, but like a mile time is like important to me. And like watching my vertical leap go up again, which has been a secret on the download thing. And like, like, looking at my anaerobic fitness. and then VL2 Max watching it go up. Like I obsess over the VL2 Max like I used to obsess over my bench press max. So I'm still the same person. I had to find something else. Yeah.

And I've got to even be careful with that competitive drive of like, let me not embarrass myself. Like, Travis, you know you've seen me lift, but you didn't know who I was at the time. Like it's at Summerstrom. Like I'm going to step on that platform and I'm going to try to beat every single woman. that steps on the platform. Me too. Knowing that I probably should not even press my luck to go up one more time. So I've avoided some injuries here and there by just taking a step back, taking a breath.

But then there's other times, like I did CrossFit for probably five or six years. And that was probably the worst thing I could have done for my mental health, period. Now, did it teach me to work hard and redline things again? yes absolutely but as soon as that comparison game started with the leaderboard I'm six feet tall I'm competing against people who are 5 3 right like oh I should be doing Rx plus yeah why why do I suck at this because yeah because this sport is not built for me yeah it's not me playing basketball yeah yeah like I know I can be good I know but I'm at a different phase of my life I'm working you know 50 hours a week at an athletic club like and then

stepping away to go to crossfit workout like what what am i doing here so thank god covid came around i probably can't say that too too often but when that gym closed down that that was the shift that i needed to get back to more of a traditional approach to strength and conditioning because that's what my body and my brain at that point needed to not have to compete with people that were 10 years younger than me with all the time in the world to go train and also the anthropometrics to do so at a high So what does your training look like these days? Like what's like a normal week? So three to four lifts.

Right now we actually just, I'm working with my wife for her first high rocks partners rate or first high rocks period. She's not a runner. She's six too. And so she's like, oh, this is not, I don't want to do this, but my sister's making me do it. So I've been kind of training along with her the last few months, getting her ready for their race in November.

So three days a week of lifting, three days a week of lifting. three days a week of cardio. The lifts are typically strength-based. We do a touch of power, touch a rotation, balance on the upper and lower. And then the in-between days are like lower-level plyometric stuff, interval work. We're going to start incorporating some met cons

that kind of imitate some of the high-rocks-type movements. And then Saturdays are a nice day to go out for a longer run. So three to eight miles, depending on where I am. and I'm not competing against anyone, which is nice. Like I'm competing against myself in these odd lifts of like, I'm not going to do a bilateral deadlift because I know that I'm going to chase too big of a number. So I'm going to do a kickstand and see how much stronger I can get in a kickstand situation. And then chase the next weird obscure lift.

But it all works and my body feels good. And so no complaints there. I remember arguing with Mike Boyle about, you know, about doing so much unilateral work. I'm like, you know, I was like, do you really need to? And I will say this. She's like, I found that doing a lot, especially my upper body because I, my sad broke my neck. I mean, I did fracture to my cervical disc, but it sounds worse than it was. But it was pretty bad.

Anyway, it's always affected my left arm, my radial nervous, you know, has been damaged. damaged ever since. And so, and I thought things had gotten back because my bench breasts is starting to go up again. But then when I started using, we went on vacation and all I took was a kettlebell. And there was a major, major difference. So now I'm like, man, my body must be doing something crazy to be balancing out things. It's obviously like, you know, cutting things off and going as hard as the can almost. You know, So like my left side was so much weaker. So I started implementing more, you know,

left, you know, dumbbell, unilateral work. And now my bench press is starting to, you know, to creep back up even more. And so like, though, Boyle, like, you were kind of right on some things. Yeah, we won't tell him that. But also. Yeah. I still did better when we debated.

I won 100%. The simple reality, with the unilateral versus bilateral is, yeah, it's how big of any symmetry does the athlete have? Yeah. And at the same point, I also think the better argument to have is like, what's the limiting factor? So I see his logic of go unilateral because, like, your low back is rarely a limiter in, you know, hockey. It's how hard can you really push off those legs to sprint? Sure. But at a certain point, you need that core strength and stability.

So, like, it's one of those things. We're just arguing which tool to use in the toolbox. Sure. And my point, is it ever really unilateral the way they're doing it? They're still pushing with both legs. They just have to be in a split stance. Congratulations. Yeah.

I mean, if we put force plates on that rear leg elevated, there's going to be a lot of force happening. Unless you're doing a true pistol, absolutely, mash. My boy, I'm glad you said that exactly what I was arguing the other day. Unless you're doing a true pistol squat, don't tell me about your unilateral squat, you know. but you still work in the bilateral right you don't just take that baby and throw it out with the bathwater it's exactly the way that I look at it hey we're going to flip this on its head so one I'm being smarter with my training and pushing intensity where I have the ability to so the pseudo unilateral stuff gives me a deeper range of motion so if I do a kickstand safety bar squat I can get hamstring the calves pretty easily without any issue now you put me in a traditional bilateral, I fold up like a lawn chair. I've got longer limbs, poor ankle dors deflection. So unless I've got a heel lift, it becomes more of more of a challenge. But that doesn't mean I don't

bilateral squat. I've found that for me, putting that as an accessory piece with much higher volumes, I can get some sick ass pumps and still feel like I can do the thing, but I'm not chasing a number because everybody wants a big squad, a big bench, a big deadlift. But when you make it a little bit weird, it makes it a little bit. There's less of a comparison game for your heavy main lifts and then pump away on the heavy, on the bilateral stuff. And my hips feel great. My knees feel great. Like I've worked to a point that it's like, hey, when you flip the training order upside down for those things, it just works nicely.

And when I'm ready to go back for squats over, then I'm prepped and ready to go because I've built up some tolerance. deeper ranges of motion so i don't i don't get beat to shits nobody's ever going to ask you what do you walk in lunch ever you know they're not going to yeah so i love that okay i got to go that direction and remember no no woman is ever going to ask you how much you squat or deadlift and it's even matter how much you bench matters how much it looks like you can bench that i'm with and at the same time i think that's a very much so like it's all that context if i'm working with a young kid we'll put in some unilateral but a lot of it's biolitan lateral just so we can have that stability, we can load them up because everything's

factor original for the most part. Like, you know, like, let's put some systemic load. But where we're at, we're all got a lot of mileage on the different joints. Now it's a matter of like orthopedically, what's the thing that's sustainable, that still can allow us to have function and if not reclaim some that we've lost just from having that specialization and still have the joy of training. Because like, yeah, before the recording, we maybe had some inane conversations about facial error.

I'll send the video of me training. I might be putting them on Instagram. That's not one of these. You see me do the Mario. Whoa. But yeah. I mean, similar to your point,

Jennings, like with bilateral movements, as an older athlete who's pretty banged up at this point, like I got pain in all my joints at one point or another throughout any given week. Most of my bilateral barbell stuff is really more like kind of like velocity-based training these days. I'm not really truly going to like like true RM, through RM, RM, 1 at maxes. I'm not really doing like to failure and and doing forced reps. Like I'm doing I'm doing like submax reps as fast as possible,

clean, clean, clean reps. And then I do all my volume on everything else. And that makes my body feel great. Yeah. I mean, even, sorry, Travis, even the Olympic lifting, the little bit that I do is like, all right, I'm doing a snatch into a step up.

I'm not going even to into a power snatch position. It's just like, hey, how can I create some sort of forward velocity and vertical, you know, speed at the same time? I'm good with that, sir. Right.

So, but if I'm like, all right, well, my shoulder's a little achy, I don't want to do the barbell. I can always flip and use something like a kettlebell because I've built the skill to be able to do that. So there's also this idea of skill acquisition that you can progress from the basic kettlebell swing to clean snatches, stepping snatches, step up snatches, like all that stuff that gives you the feeling of athleticism, maybe without some of the orthopedic stress or the total systemic load that you would get from actually loading a barbell. and it actually allows you to move relatively faster without even needing to step on. If I wanted to go play pickup,

I feel like I probably could, but I have no desire in going and rolling an ankle and being laid up to then not be able to work. I know. I want to go play pickup basketball so bad, but like I just watched too many fifth-year-olds pop. You know, the Achilles, like, Bing, I'm like, man, I don't want to do that.

I do think there's some value, though, in having some part, once you're not an athlete anymore, You're not playing in a sport. If you're just lifting weights, it's all very proactive and intentional, and there's almost nothing that's reactive. Even if you're doing plios and jumps and skips and whatever else, like you can do agility.

But if you're not doing something that's reactive, I feel like you're over time, that will degrade. And so having something in your repertoire, so to speak, where you're reacting to another human being, I still think it's valuable. Like, what do you do to kind of fill that gap? Do you play basketball on occasion? I will play a mean game of horse or knockout on the basketball court.

So there's that. But also pickleball. I'm almost 40. So I've conceded. I said, you know what? You're basically required to play pickleball. At this point,

I'm going to let the 65-year-olds take it out on me. And this is what we're doing. And, you know, so we'll go play pickleball. And it's amazing. Now, granted, I'm playing against, you know, 65-plusers.

Like, the handspeer. is still kind of there, the foot speed, the ability to move laterally. And a lot of that I do credit to the unreactionary-based training that I do, that I can still be just a step quicker than some of those folks. I make up a lot of my athletic, or I make up a lot of my lack of skill on the pickleball court with, you know, just being a superior athlete. But I think that's a big thing that a lot of folks understand. I love her. It's both a specialization, you know, especially specificity for talking principles, but I think it's important that people understand the kind of the inherent flip side of generalize ability. If you're really strong in a single leg, you know,

lunge, strong in a hinge, strong a squat, you can do a carry. You've got a pretty good foundation. Now, the rotational, that could really screw you because you haven't done it. But, you know, what planes of motion have you experienced and that you are able to move competently through? So how many people are like us, they go, they lift weights all the time, but they don't even do a lunge, everything's, you know, and if they do, it's on a Smith rack, so there's no real balance aspect of it. And the last time they did a lateral lunge, much less than anything rotational, was maybe, you know, we'll simply say, you know, in the 2000s, God, it hurts me to say that's a long time ago. And then they go and they try pickleball, and they go and they

rotate hard once and like, oh, oh, oh, God, I'm stuck, I'm stuck, because they haven't done any rotary cord. They haven't had to go and do aggressive internal external rotation of the hips. And yeah, the pop goes the Achilles is also one of my fears. And since I have a, I am looking forward to the day that my daughter beats me in a foot race, but I'll be damned if that happens before she's well into her teenage years. So I'm doing like, I'm sitting there in between my sets of squats last night doing line drills in my garage. And I'm, I'm like, oh yeah, I'm going to make sure these Achilles don't pop. I'm going to be jumping back and forth side to side doing single leg because I don't, for the most part anymore.

I lift something heavy and I push a heavy sled. I don't think my body's going over 10 miles an hour outside of being in a car or on a bicycle in years unless I start going to those speeds. And if you haven't gone to those speeds, you haven't gone to those forces, tissue might not tolerate it. I mean, I mentioned at the beginning of the show, Ginny working with Dr. John. Russ and he has his, you know, squat, hinge, lunge, press pull, carry. Is that the right six? Yep. That he does, like, which basically just means, like, make sure you're doing all of the

movement patterns kind of consistently. That way you're checking all the boxes, but, you know, doing agility drills and plows and whatnot, even, you know, lower level plows and you probably would when you're 22, you're not doing depth jumps and whatever else. Just making sure that you are checking all of the boxes, so to speak, throughout your entire conditioning career is, is very important. Again, the methods will change over time, but you've got to hit those concepts, no matter what your age.

Yeah, the principles kind of guide the way, right? They like the path, and then the methods will change because who knows? Right now, everybody on Instagram is talking about intensive plios. Now, you know, the next kind of wave of things coming through are the deep tears. Jesus, whatever name they're going to put before plios, that will be the method when that time comes. Right. And I haven't heard this, the intensive and the extensive, are you talking about like drop versus depth dump? like the fast ones versus the more explosive?

What does that mean? Yeah, so a little bit longer ground contact times on the extensive. So think submaximal force production where intensive are, you're trying to do the damn thing. Yeah. Either whether it's from a drop or a repeater or anything like that. But yeah, and then you got your deep tier where that's the next step, I think after isometrics according to the world of Instagram.

Damn, Instagram, man. God damn. It's where the world goes to learn. Yeah. Not the smart ones. No, unfortunately. But Mike, I'm with you, man.

I don't play any field sports right now. Like, my reactive thing is jujitsu, but jujitsu is not a very like pliometric sport. I'm not really, I'm not doing, I'm not playing a soccer game, so to speak. So whenever I train,

you know, many training facilities now have like some type of like turf space where you can do any number of high knees and buck kickers and karaoke and whatever else. So like I try to still. incorporate those types of like field sport warmups even when I'm at the gym in indoors and I'm just going to lift waste just to just to make sure that I don't just stop doing that stuff just for cold stop yeah I mean it's again your body's adapting every day to the demands for placing upon it and so folks have not had to jump and land and they're going to go straight to trying a

depth jump like oh buddy how much you just jump rope and see how you're see how with your feet and ankles who's telling you the next day. And then, you know, or just good old-fashioned ladder drills. Like, there's a reason they gave it to kids because at that point they don't really have a much of a training base. Is it a great modality? No, but it's a good starting point. If you use it the way you're saying, you know, I used to be such a hater of the

ladder drills. But if you do it, like you're saying, then, yeah, you're starting to prepare the joints for something more, you know, more aggressive. And so if you're doing some, you know, single-leg hops or even double-leg hop, or even double leg on anything. As long as you're starting to get a little bit of that, you know, factor motion, then it's okay. It's preparing your body.

It's preparing people. And then I have to tell you, we watched the, it was the Chinese weight lifting team, warm up or is the Koreans. It doesn't matter. It was a really good one. And they were warming up with the ladder. And I'm like, all right, then dang it. It can't beat them during.

And I think there in lies the problem is people are trying to sell the ladder. As this is the end all, be all. this is how you're going to get top ends. That's not why they're winning. Let me go and say. It's like this is just something that's warming up tissues, helping engage the nervous system, but this is not actually creating a big stimulus.

Like I'm doing things like that at this point just to have some low-level pliometrics that I don't hate. That's it. Like, I'm sorry, go ahead, Jenny. Oh, no, I was just going to say, like if that's what we can get more adults to do, whether they play to sport or not,

like just some general tissue tolerance of, of that because guess what at some point these people i call them narps non-athletic regular people they're that's going to stick we're staying on the show perfect you don't have to bleep that one out so so these narps are going to decide hey you know what i'm going to have this whole transformation i'm going to go run a half marathon and instead of starting with something like a basic ladder drill just to get their feet but i think of it from a proprioceptive standpoint you watch people who have never run, go out for a jog. And it's like, well, that is a yard sale waiting to happen.

And so just even giving them a few constraints that, you know, keep the volume low, give them some opportunities to have their tissues adapt to some impact, and then start with the mileage. Like, that gets them set up for a better performance, even though the runway is a little bit longer to get to that performance. But, you know, with athletes, it's less of a push and more of a pull-back. of like, hey, let's go back to the basics really, really quick. You've done this before, so don't go expecting that this is what you're going to be able to do right now. You'll be able

to get there quicker because of muscle memory or whatever we want to call it now. But it's like, you know what it feels like and you'll be able to pick up the skill again. So we need to just make sure that we've built the tolerance. So either path is like, let's actually take another step back before we start blasting with volume or miles or anything like that because you've decided in your head that you need to go do this half marathon and it happens all the time like oh that is one of the biggest like when you talk about wrist factors for rabdo one of those is you have somebody who was in great shape they know how to push the body you know they were a formula one race car the problem is that things been sitting in a barn for 20 years and then like I'm just going to crank it

and then smash the gas but like you don't think that car's going to explode but you know they'll do that with their own body because again like I was the man I could do these things. And I know all of us have had to grapple with that same thing. Like, nope, not going to let the ego win this round because, yeah, I could do that. But that was a decade ago. Yes. And because they're so mentally strong, they're able to push to a place that can literally kill them.

Exactly. If anything, and this is an aside that now I'm showing all over age, but the fact that there was never like a class action lawsuit against P90X, just giving all these people like, hey, just do a bunch of jumping around and bounding inside of your apartment. and there weren't a bunch of people taking a visit of Snap City or at least owned up to it. Right. Like, I mean, but you can say the same for a lot of things, even CrossFit, you know,

like having a 40-year-old accountant, you started, you know, snatching for the first time. And come on, man. If you have a snatch by the time you're four years old, probably I would just let that go. I mean, I'm a Wednesday coach. It's that coach. Exactly. If you've got the coach that starts you off and like, hey, we're just going to see if you can overhead squad of PVC.

We're just going to see you can get a dollar confidently over your head. Right. And then we'll start layering on. But yeah. Right. Nope. Work out is RX, baby. Yeah.

I know you can't do a single pull-up, but you're just going to keep butterflying that thing up there because I got an orthopedic surgeon friend that needs to pay for his vacation home. And that mortgage ain't paying itself, baby, so get up there. Laborers be damned. But then there are those, I remember meeting who was CJ from Invictus, that guy. You know, like early on, I was such, you know, the typical hater of CrossFit. And I met that guy, C.J. Martin.

And I'm like, oh, there's, there's brilliant. And then I started to learn, wait, then I started looking around at some way-leading coaches who are absolutely horrible. And I'm like, wait, there's just horrible coaches in every sport. And so, and I've just been, and unfortunately on YouTube, it's, you get more views with those awful, you know, fail videos. And so you're seeing so much of that. But if you go to, you know, when I was with you, Doug, at watching Friday Night Life for the

first time with CJ. Invictus in Southern California. And I was like, this is beautiful. And this is a smart coach. And there's plenty. There's plenty of brilliant, you know, CrossFit coaches.

It's just, and there's plenty of ridiculous powerlifting and weight lifting and weight lifting coaches who can't spell their own names. So it's just depends on the sport. There's always good and bad, no matter what. It's a wide belt. Yeah.

I don't hear the name. And let's not forget the personal trainers. too, right? Like those guys, no, listen, I worked in commercial fitness for years. And so it's like, all right, I've seen a lot of weird and strange things. But one of the ones that, like, the biggest argument always was how we sell personal training, not to totally change directions. I have a point here. But it's like, all right, we can either take them through a set of assessments to see where they're actually starting and those have a much higher sell rate. Or you can do your own thing and blast these people with exercises that you don't even know if they can do.

And then are you going to sell them because you've shown them how unfit they are, right? Like it happens in all aspects, right? CrossFit gets the bad name because they're the, they were the popular ones. But it's still happening in, in Jim Pop, you know, private sector. Yeah, weightlifting, same thing. Jiu-Jitsu. I'm sure, Doug, you've run across a couple of idiots as well. Like, they're everywhere.

So sometimes you just have to help the cream rise. Yeah, we all watch Karate Kid. We saw the, what is it, the cobra Kai? Yeah. Don't be that guy. So it's, it's, it'd be Miyagi. I think it's slow. All right.

We got to wind it down here. Jenny, appreciate you coming on the show. Where can people find out more about you, what you're working on, social media, or anywhere else? Yeah. Hit me on social media at Jenny Grimsley. pretty straightforward. I post fitness stuff, again, mostly geared towards

athletes in their second season of life. And if you DM me, I don't have any automations because I'm not that special. I just, I'll respond to you. So if you want to have a conversation, hit me up. I'm happy to chat training or whatever else you got. Very cool. That's coming on the show. Coach T.mash.

Matthewlead.com. We're about the coolest day ever. We just closed this deal with the Winston-A and police department. So we're going to be working with those like 660 of these police officers. So I'm super excited. So probably in the next few weeks, you can see a lot of tactical stuff across, you know, and for sale. So that's what I've been working on for the last like two weeks until no sleep.

But I'm so pumped to work with these, you know, men and women. So go. What's the time of PD? That's awesome, dude. Yeah, we did that. That police officer show, maybe four or five weeks ago. And you mentioned it. So I wanted an update on that.

So very cool that finally went through. Yes. Awesome. Dr. Mike Lane. Yeah, so Mike Lane, PhD. Also, feel free to come reach out on Instagram. And also you should message Ginny for the hip terms that the youths are using because that is the one thing we talk about every year at NSA Nationals of

what's the terms we've learned that are not safe for work that I'm not. Putting on this recording. All right, very cool. I'm Doug Larson. You can find me on Instagram at Douglas E. Larson. We are Barbell Strugged at Barbell underscore Strug. And if you want to work with Coach Travis Mass, Dr. Mike Lane, Dr. Andy Galpin and the whole team at Biomolecular Athlete.

You can go to Biomolecularathlete.com. Friends, see you guys next week.