Barbell Shrugged - 867 - Elite Athletes and Special Ops w/ Robb Rogers

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

In this episode, veteran strength coach Robb Rogers joins Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, and Dr. Mike Lane to explore what decades of coaching collegiate athletes, professional teams, and military operators can teach us about building lasting performance. From the St. Louis Blues to special warfare, Robb explains what elite performers share, how tactical demands change the training equation, and why trust and personal accountability are essential to effective coaching. He shares how he builds programs with experienced athletes and chooses exercises around the person, their goals, and the demands they need to meet. The conversation turns to getting stronger while keeping the ability to move well. The crew discusses the trade-offs of training to failure, using jumps to assess readiness, and maintaining mobility, elasticity, and movement skills alongside heavy lifting. Robb explains why the movement pattern matters more than the implement, while Travis and Mike share how a narrow focus on powerlifting affected their own athleticism. Whether you coach high performers or want to stay capable as you age, this episode offers practical ways to make your training carry over beyond the weight room.

Strugge family. Doug Larson here. And this week on Barb Bell Strug, we're talking training elite athletes and military special operations personnel with veteran strength coached Robb's Robb's resume is incredible. He was at USC and Baylor. He was with the St. Louis Blues. He coached NBA and NFL athletes. He was on Richard Petty's NASCAR pit crew. And he spent 12 years working with military personnel, including special operations units such as Air Force Special Warfare. He's coached high performers across an extraordinary range of sports. He's spent 12 years. He's been working with military personnel. He's and missions. And today, he shares with us what it takes to coach athletes and military personnel at the highest level, as well as the many similarities and differences between the two and how to apply all of that to your own coaching and your own training. So if you want to know what it's like to coach the best of the best, this episode is for you. Enjoy the show. Welcome to Barbara L. Strug.

I'm Doug Larson here with Coach Travis Mass and Dr. Mike Lane. We have longtime strength coach Rob Rogers on the show. Rob, welcome to Barbell Strugge. Gentlemen, thank you so much for the invite. longtime worker fan and it's an honor to be part of this program now. So very, very cool. Thank you guys. It's great to be here. I got a feeling this is going to be very easy. I think so. I think so. You made a joke earlier about the only running you've done lately is running your mouth. You're a good talker. That's a good trait for a podcast guest here. So give us your background. Where have you been and what have you done in your life? And how'd you get here?

Well, I started out as a baby. And then after that, I was going to be in the NFL, but there's no 5'4-inch 5-2-40 guys that ever played in the NFL. That's right. Come to find that out. That was hard to accept. So I was going to be a college football coach. Instead, I made the decision to be a strength conditioning coach, which was awesome. You know, it's not as, when I was doing it, it wasn't as lucrative as today.

You know, we were just there because maybe some other college had one or something. But now it's very lucrative to be college strength conditioning coach. And then the industry is expanded to spectral warfare, big army, big air force, those kinds of things. And it keeps growing. So I started out as a strength coach. I was a student strength coach at Missouri State University. The first guy there, I think me and Mike Murphy, Mike was there for the summer as a linebacker for the orlers to get paid to finish school. And then I stayed on as the student strength coach.

But as soon as Mike left, all the money dried up. He's funny how that works. So I was a volunteer head strength coach at Missouri State as a student because they had a new weight room. They just didn't want anybody tear it up. So I did that for two years. Went to Missouri with Roughball. He's with the Packers now. It's their pack guy.

He's the contract guy. He's the third guy there. So I worked with Russ for eight or nine years. Then with Mike Clark, who just retired from the Lions last year. So I was with Mike at SC. He left to go to A&M. And then I stayed on at Southern Cow as the head strength coach. They had a coaching change.

I could have stayed under Coach Robinson, but our philosophies weren't the same. He didn't care if they lifted. He didn't care if they went to class. I did. So I went to Baylor. Coach Taff hired me, and Chuck Reedy was our head football coach at the time. And I agreed with Coach Riedie's philosophy, and it was very honored to be part of his course and his class and stuff. And so his course of progress throughout as a head coach.

And so helping him learn and stuff. I wasn't very old, but I'd had a lot of experience by then. And then from Baylor, I went to St. Louis Blues. From the Blues, I went to Middle Tennessee State from Middle Tennessee. I was there with some great coaches. I mean, Larry Fedora, Joe Wickline, Casey Rogers, Todd Bradford, all these guys that went on and just bigger and better places. So it was really fortunate to be part of Andy's staff.

And that's when I felt I finally was mature enough to be to call myself a really good guy. coach finally. And then after that, I worked in a private place for four years where we trained indie race car drivers, draft picks. One year I had Greg Oden, Mike Connolly, Daycorn Cook, and Carl Landry for the first 32 picks. Where was that? That was St. Vincent's Sports Performance. Sounds awesome. So I got to work with all those guys and they just great guys to work with. And it was really fun. I got to work with a lot of Colts and that's back when it was Peyton and Dallas and and all those guys. And, you know, I had a lot of blind guys like Tripp and Larry Triplett and some of those guys.

So that was fun to work with those guys. Gary Brackett, the linebacker, had him for a while. So that was really cool to be around championship football, even though I wasn't in the locker room. I was working with them and work with their strength coach. I wasn't an outside guy. I knew the strength staff and tried to work with them. After that, went and did some other stuff like was at a high school, was at another high school, ended up going to NASCAR with Richard Petty.

I worked there as Pitrucote Coast. Nice. Because we had Andretti Green. And so it's not like I had one year experience, 13 years. I've had 13 years of experience. Wow, man, you've done. I feel like you've had this. A lot.

The last 12 years was military, 101st, 10th Special Forces Group, 38th Rescue, 160th night stalkers. uh, yeah, and then Air Force Special Warfare and now I work for customs and border protection on a fantastic team and, uh, of professionals that have been, one guy's been with the seals. One guy's been with 160th. One guy is currently military. He's a major as a reserve guy. Another guy that was in professional baseball. So we have a really neat team to kind of bring our academy here for the field operations or our, the academy. and Artisia that Philip works with with the green suitors, the actual border patrol agent. So we're kind of a team of teams that put together the curriculum that are the instructors. So obviously, I have to ask, you know, you've coached all the athletes and now the tactical athletes. What do you think is the biggest difference in coaching like, you know, these tactical seals and guys that are going to go out and save the world versus like, you know, the cults? Okay.

So if you've ever been around pro athletes, you have pro athletes, and then you have all pro athletes. And the difference between an all pro, tier one, all pro athletes and a tier one military person is the mission. The mindset is exactly the same. Nothing's too hard. The day's not too long. The challenge isn't too big.

Give it to me. And I'm going to figure out a way to win it. and I'm going to be very prepared when I go out there. That part is the exact same. The mission's different in tactical, no timeouts, no schedule, no schedule. Nobody knows when it's going to kick off. Nobody knows exactly what the rules of engagement may come to be. So all that stuff, there's a lot more variables, whereas in sport, you've got that the time and the timeouts and all that kind of stuff.

You've got trainers right there. You may not have to wait, you know, an hour for a Kazivac. So those kinds of things are different. But the mindset is exactly the same for Tier 1 on both. Well said. Yeah, I had a, I've never said this on the show, but one of my favorite athletes of all time, Michael Waters, he wrestled at Penn State. But now he's Delta Force. And so, like, what a perfect transition.

A guy who is probably as far as the toughest guy I've ever coached who now, God, I would hate to think that I had. him coming after me. I would just shoot myself because it's a rap. Like he's getting you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's an honor to coach either one of those individuals because they're the apex of their profession and they know it. And all the tier one and both tend to be low ego guys. They may have an ego. They may have an ego with somebody outside the fence. But for anybody that's inside the fence they don't really have an ego no they're going to trust you they're going to listen to you as long as they get the results that they're after you know they're never going to question you that's what i found same thing it's all the best of the best they hire you because

they trust you already someone said that you're good and they listen until you give them reason not to listen as long as you don't it's good yes yes extremely intelligent and yes high work ethic the best. I would totally agree with everything you said. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What drew you to coaching in the first place? Of course, coaching the tier one guys and, you know, pro athletes is super cool. Who doesn't want to do that, so to speak. But, you know, back in the day, it wasn't always like that. You had to build your way up and build your way into that. Like, do you just love coaching from day one and just stuck with it? Or what was the draw? I come from a long family of teachers and coaches, a long history of that. Preachers and teachers running our family. So, and the truth be told, they're both callings.

You don't do either one for the money. I would agree. Do it because that's who you are. So I always wanted to coach, and it didn't matter who you were. Are you a walk-on that can't play dead? I don't care. You want to get better and you want to get after it? Let's go.

Let's go. Women athletes, men athletes, the money sport, the Olympic sport, I didn't care. When we come in the weight room, we're all athletes, We're all trying to achieve our goals. What's your goal? I just want to be on Travis Squad, coach. Let's go. Let's go.

I want to be all conference this year, and I want to be drafted at the end of the year. So, okay, that's your standard. I'm going to hold you to your standard. So that was always the thing that you, you know, I didn't have to be, I'm not a guy that's going to yell and scream in the middle of weight room. Now, I may yell to get your attention. But I'm going to do my coaching one-on-one, rep after rep, set after set, athlete after athlete because I'm going to preach your standard back to you. I'm going to preach the promises I made to you and your mama when you got here

that I'm going to treat you like my own kids and we're going to work at a certain level every day. And your goal is my goal now. And if you skip sets on the squat, I'm going to be like, did you all your sets on squat and be careful? Don't lie to me because you lie once. You're always a liar. 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-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, from joint pain to busy schedules, to travel, and all the things. So if you are a master's jiu-jitsu athlete and you're looking for some support, I'm happy to give it.

You can DM me on Instagram at Douglas E-Ly. Larson or you can email me, Doug at barbell shrug.com. Happy to help. Back to the show. You do all your sets on your squat. You said you wanted to be this, that, and the other this year. I agree. And now you're not doing it.

So don't make me lie to your mom. I told your mom I'd hold you accountable and help you achieve. And I'm not going to lie to your mom. You're not going to allow me to lie your mom, are you? They just throw up their hands and walk away because the logic was like, come on, dude. I totally agree with you. I mean, I feel like, you know, like trying to make an athlete do what you want. is senseless. Like, it's not your job. It's, you know, they tell you what they want. You make a plan.

And if they, and if they start to like not listen, I mean, it only hurts them. You just, you absolutely turn it right back on them. You told me this. Do you want to change this? You know, maybe you don't want to be all Congress. Maybe you just want to make the thing. So like, everybody wants the ring. Who wants to prepare? Oh, man, everybody comes. I want to make, I want to go to Olympics. I want to be a gold medalist. do you really? I mean, have you really thought what that entails? Oh, yeah. They just want the glory.

All they see is the end result. You got to be able to see that. But it's in the middle is where it goes down, though. How many times you're watching MMA, my youngest is the MMA guy? How many times you're watching MMA and it's like, man, I'd go in there for PINMil. I'd pick my shot. You wouldn't do all the work to prepare to get the shot.

That's right. Right. Yeah, man. And everybody's tough until they get in the face, dude. That's right. Yeah. That's right. Well, and I like the adage of they like the idea of it.

You know, it's kind of the same thing. Like the idea of being a champion, but the reality is a very different thing. Oh, it's fine. Yeah. And I say something similar. He says a lot of people like punching other people in the face. You like beating people up, but you don't like being in a fight. Oh, yeah.

It's different to be in a fight than just beat somebody up. It's like writing an article or writing a book. I like having written. I don't like the writing part. When it's editing and rewrites. That's the hard part. One of the things that's interesting is that when you coach a tier one, you know, operator versus an all-pro, all-conference, big-time athlete, it's kind of the same in that I'm not going to tell Gary Brackett what to do. I'm not going to tell Mike Connolly what to do.

I'm going to suggest some things on what I see and how I see it and how we can attack it and then see how that feels and fits to him, which is the same way with an operator. I'm not just going to go in there and tell him what to do. And the other difference is that I noticed real quick with both, but especially with the military side, in college, I could tell you what to do and stand there and watch you do it. The other guys, I'll kind of suggest something and walk away. Now, I may be watching them in the mirrors, but I'm not overtly walking them, watching them. And then I'll walk around, I'll come back by and like, hey, on your deadlift, when you flattened your back a little bit and push your feet, got that in your head, push your feet, that help? Yeah, oh, good, good. Walk away again.

I'm suggesting things to garner trust. I'm not coaching you yet. I'm trying to build rapport. And that was a little bit better. Yes. And I think that's a good subtlety. The other thing with it is your creation. that growth mindset, you're helping them learn how to learn.

If you just keep spoon feeding them and then leading that horse to water, you can talk about getting your own ownership of the program, but also just learning to help them think about their own training and their body and space and everything else. That I don't know. I should say maybe mindfulness is a big piece of that puzzle as well. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's like one of the tools that I was, because I was lucky to be on. Yeah, I was a tool too. I agree.

still am. One of the big tools I used was being able to use corrective exercise and being able to discern some things. So being around the FMS guy, great guys, Gray and Lee, being around Greg Rose, being around all those different people for perform better. I'm sitting around listening to them for free and then also getting a talk to them one-on-one when we're in the speaker thing. Next thing you know is that, you know, you come in, your back hurts.

I can a lot of times make it not hurt. I'm not saying I fix it, but I can intervene with some release stuff, some stretches, some different things like that. And all of a sudden you're like, oh, yeah, that's a lot better.

I can't adjust anybody, and I can't move anybody. That's against the law. I can pin and stretch you. That's legal as a strength conditioning coach. A lot of times the technique is very similar. So all of a sudden, one of my big trust builders was,

You know, we, Colonel Morgan's was our 30th rescue. He was our commander. And he couldn't deadlift over 205 because every time his back would start flaring up. So I used this method called the HESH method where you reset the tailbone because the tailbone resets the hips. And he's like, he worked up three plates for a couple sets of triples with 315 on the trap bar. And he's like, I haven't gone over 225 in three years. So immediately another guy goes, hey, I think I got. the same thing and I fixed him. Well, all of a sudden now the kernel is pushing people in,

you guys need to get in there. Not to work out just to make sure that you're moving good and you're not broke. Get in there. So all of a sudden, I had lots of business. You never know when it's going to happen, but that was taking those kinds of courses, like an RPR course and those things and becoming proficient in how to impact just movement mechanics. Because if I have a dysfunctional joint, the dysfunctional joint is going to become a lot of discomfort. And then over time, it's going to become painful and then it's going to lead to injury. But if I can get that dysfunctional joint to function, it's going to take away any chance of discomfort or lower the level of discomfort in it. So moving people down that course is very important. I love to perform

better because you had so many of those great practitioners in the same room. Yes, Stuart McGill, Dowdee's. You know, Dan, John, my favorite. Just because he's so cool. He's so many amazing humans. Oh, Dr. McGill was one of my favorites and became a guy that kind of, again, changed how I look at movement and changed high and did some exercise just because of his expertise and knowledge. Sure. I mean, I always find it funny when people attack him. I'm like, if you think about how many hours he spent in a laboratory looking at as spines,

and the fact that people would attack him. I'm like, eh, like, calm down. You read one study and now you're going to text through McGill.

I'm like, in today's world than this dude, you know, can ever remember, you know, I'm like, come on.

Yeah. In today's world, you can't, you can't be an, maybe I can't be an expert, but I'll tell you what, I'll tear anybody else around me. Yeah.

That's not insane with people to make a living. I'm talking junk about other people. I'm like, is that helpful? Yeah. No, no, not when I know. Stuart McGill is like, he prolong my own powerlifting career. At least two more years long enough to break several world records.

Without the guy, never would have, you know. Okay, so my first coach, I'm 15 years old, my first coach in Houston, Missouri. Missouri. Oh, that is Missouri. That's not Missouri. Yeah. Yeah, Leonard Wood. So he's the military guys.

So in Houston, Missouri, my first coach is Wilbur Miller. Wilbur had been ranked third in the world or third in the states in powerlifting and Olympic lifting and never took a drug, nothing. And he was my coach from 15 through 18, 19 years old, just teaching me how to live. So I got a great foundation in powerlifting. I have no strength. But I had a great, I picked. I was really good.

You're as good as, you know, every year you know, as only as good as what they have. you know, like as long as you do it well, move well. That's all, that's why I love weightlifting and powerlifting is because you can only do as good as you can do it to you versus you. It's never always wondered why people would like look at me like we're going to fight because we're not. We're lifting a barbell, you know, like we're not fist fighting. I mean, we can do that. But right now we're just living a barbell. And that's where all our language comes up.

Where does our language come from? You know, what do you do? I do chest and. tries and back and buys and then shoulders and legs and then repeat that you come from bodybuilding okay what about what do you do i snatch and i clean and i jerk well you come from power lifting or excuse me Olympic lifting wait and then i squat and dead and bitch oh you come from this well what about a RDL okay where does that go it just goes to the knees because that's actually an Olympic lift movement. What about a good morning or a straight leg?

Or a stiff leg deadlift. Yes. That comes from powerlifting or bodybuilding. So all of a sudden, the language kind of depends on, you know, did you learn from Joe Weeder or did you learn from the essentials of strength conditioning in a CA copy? I mean, who knows? But yeah, exactly. But all of a sudden, that's where we have a lot of trouble because we don't have a common language in our profession. That's too bad. It needs to be more crossover. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm wondering with the with your tier one guys and the kind of the the highest, most experienced crew that you have ever been around. Like to what degree are you just kind of like advising them as opposed to like rioting every detail

of their programming and whatnot? You're kind of just giving them a general direction, but they're true professionals and they can just go execute on their own versus like a high school kid where you go to go to front squats and he goes supposed to front squat. And go just get one of the barbells and you hold like this. And it's like is that the long one or the ones you put in each hands? If someone does know anything, they're much more difficult to coach in my experience. And the more experienced people, you can give them like general guidelines and just give them like little nuggets. And then they're kind of off on their own. To what degree is that true in your case?

And to what degree do you like really do the details with the tier one guys? 100%. And it depends again on request. Because some guys want to be, you know, write me a program. Okay. How do you want the program? Do you want Olympic lifting included? Do you want power lifting included?

do you want a lot of running and rucking? Would you rather be off your feet other than just occasional running and rucking? How do you want to do the – so they would set up strategically how we're going to look at this. And then I would do a template and then how does this look? Wouldn't have all the percentages and all that kind of stuff. And it's just a template. And they'd be like, I like this. I don't like this.

And between us, we would create a program no different than if you're working with Mahomes and Kelsey and all those guys. You're not going to tell them what to do. We're going to work together as a mentor to help you further prolong your career and stay doing what you want to do and achieve your goals. So that's where it was with the tier one guys. Other guys, they're like, I don't like lifting. Okay, how do you keep your strengths? I just rock and run.

That's all I do. Well, how about some body weight stuff, just a little bit? Because we had a 10th group guy that he became a. a pretty high level operator. And he was like, he broke his hip. So helped him get back and everything. And I said, dude, you need to do some more strength training. He goes, I hate weights.

And I said, well, let's do some body weight stuff, which is very similar that Al Vermeel and Vern Gambetta had to do with Michael Jordan when he started with the bolts. He's like, I'm not touching weights. I didn't lift in college. I'm not touching weights. And they said, who's saying them about weights? We just said strength training.

What do you mean? Yeah, all they are. medicine ball body weight yeah meet them where they are get them where they're going to go same thing that we do at we did at our our academy at special warfare and same thing we're doing here at the academy with custom board patrol the field operation agents meet them where they are who knows what gets off the bus and then get them out the other end and everyone that wants to graduate graduates if they don't want to graduate they don't but everyone that really wants to can right i think i think it's uh it was uh coach joe can who told me when uh What's the great quarterback that was at the Panthers forever? Damn Newton.

When he came, he was not big into lifting weights. So, and coach was like, he was like, how do I get through to the guy? So at first, he started like you. He started using a few med balls. Then he started using a few bands. Then he bought Built Trust. And then he started doing more and more weights. You know, he just wanted to kind of do it his own way.

All right, we'll use dumbbell now. Now we'll use a kettle. Next thing you know, he's doing the program. And so you just, and with someone is as good as Cam Newton, you can't make him do anything. Because if you disagree with him, you're getting fired, not him. You know, so like, yeah. He has more commas in his check. You're out of here.

Way more commas than his check. And so, but it was like, of all the things I've learned, I feel like that was one of the biggest, like, I guess ideas he ever gave me is like some people, you got to simply meet them where they are. I remember hearing the stories of Michael Jordan. So, yeah, one of my mentors, Mike Gatone, is head of USA waylifting. He was there with Alvar Mill. And he tells me a lot of the Michael Jordan, you know. He also tells me about what horse grant who could clean 315, 6 foot 9.

Horse move. Nice. Beast. Yeah. Imagine the power producing when a 6 foot 9 cleans 315. The distance. Yeah. Some of those guys are very explosive. And we always had that, excuse me, we always had that disconnect.

We knew that it wasn't muscle. So we thought maybe it's the nervous system. That's what makes you expose to it. And it's like, well, it's not just the nervous system. Well, it's the tendon. And like you go to gymnastics and gymnastics is two-hour practice. but they do like 20 minutes worth of work. Track and field

to our practice. They do 30 minutes worth of work. And you're like, dude, what is the deal? Well, it's this, we finally cracked a nut that if the fascia is that missing link that is like that

dual-role skeletal, also movement tissue that kind of connects between muscle tendon nervous system technique and you put all start putting all that together and that's where you get this thing so like um Sean Wendell was the patient strength coach for like 15 years and now he's been doing individual guys for the last little bit and so Sean asked every one of his players when's your best dunk first period second period third period or fourth period and they're like

fourth quarter of the game that's my best dunk that's when I'm like yeah I can I'm gonna throw it down Well, you go to an NBA game or you go to an NFL game. Those guys are out there an hour before warm up doing 30 to 45 minutes worth of stuff. And you're looking. You're looking around going. And it's not the offensive linemen. It's the edge rushers and all the speed guys. And you're like, what do they do?

I'd be worse flat out. They're fascial athletes. It takes a long time for that fascial groove to get oiled. up and get explosive and get the movement stuff so that it's it can handle the deformity and then come back to what its normal shape is. So all of a sudden it connected that link between fascia, muscle, neural, tendon. Ah, it was fascia all along. We just didn't know it.

We couldn't figure out what the missing link was. And so now that explains the reason why you never miss reps, why lots of low, stuff is really important. We train like special warfare. You got to be able to run and ruck, okay? Like 70% of our movement was running and slow or excuse me, like formation run tempo running and rucking. 30% 20% was like interval runs and and 10% was high speed runs, short, short feet. Sounds a lot like Andy. You know, Doug, he talks about

Main Street with those, like at least 10% of those like gear 5 or whatever or what is the red plus something horrible. Like, I've done this crazy V-O-2 math stuff. I don't have my own language.

I just try and get the concept across and then let somebody else market it. But all of a sudden now, if you never miss reps and you do a lot of, we've lost jump rope. We don't jump rope anymore. We do the high speed performance change the direction, 510, 5 vertical jump, depth drop, jump on it. And we got all these Achilles coming. We're missing that 70% of elasticity training. Yeah. Ead all the time. You watch me run. I'm 67 years old,

and I run like I got no elasticity. Yeah, no kidding. I didn't train for elasticity forever. You go watch Jimmy Radcliffe jump and you're like, Jimmy's 71 maybe. He's got elasticity. He's always trained for elasticity. You're going to be a product of how you train. But if you don't get those, that elastic part, you just power lift. You're going to move and be stiff like a powerlifter. And all of a sudden, you're a dancer.

You're going to have a bad back, but you're going to be real flexible. So there's all those different things that come into play. And our goal as wellness and health coaches is to make sure that the optimal amount of each piece goes to each one of our athletes or each corner of our clients. I 100% agree. In like, in assessment, we make sure that we're looking at, you know, we're going to look at the elasticity component. We're going to look at like what I call the dynamic strength index. We're looking at should we work on explosiveness? to we work on strength.

You know, I love nowadays how we're dialing those things in to what, you know, we should focus on. I just have this amazing basketball team now here that I'm so thankful for this like this prep crew. I don't even know how they got here, but they're incredible. So I spent all day Saturday assessing them. And I had a kid, and this is crazy, on a force plate. I let him use his arms.

He did a 360 and landed and hit 41-inch vertically. I've never seen anything like this guy. I just like it's so much fun. But yeah, but some of them needed still, some of them needed to work more or less. That guy did not, but like a lot of them did. When I was coaching, when I was coaching back at middle, okay,

Pete Martinelli, who was Barry Switzer's head strength coach. So when I was at C, my first year's head strength coach, we had an athletic director no summer school so i didn't have anybody around the summer and then it was like we no no supplements we're supposed to get bigger faster stronger and show up to the season in shape and and i've got one leg and one arm tied behind my bat he didn't want to hear about all about that so we get upset by memphis in the first game at home Memphis beats ufc at home this is like 90, I think. And it's like, what the hell is going on? Well, come to find out, we were missing reps. And so when you get into doing all this stuff that we're trying to do, you've got to have

that year-round training. Yeah. What we're trying to do so that we never miss those reps as those athletes come to us. And so I'm at middle, and it's like, okay, Pete told me, 10 days for the first game, stop all you're running. Okay. I didn't know that before. And I think the last time we ran was seven days before. Well, we weren't very fit to begin with. And then we're running seven days before.

That's why we got upset. So now I'm at Middle Tennessee, and we were the fifth ranked offense in the nation that year in D1. Who? Yeah, Middle Tennessee. Not even east or north. We were middle. So we had some great players.

They weren't like all pros or anything like that, but they were great players for our level, and they played great together. So we're on Thursday before we travel for the first game. There's no sports science. It's 2005. I vertical jumped. Anybody that wanted a vertical jump. Everybody on the travel squad was in a half inch or were equal to their all-time best.

on Thursday before we traveled. That's all the sports science I needed right there. So I could tell the coaches, we got our legs back. I could tell the players, your legs are back, you're ready to go. And they're like, yeah, yeah, I feel good. Okay. Yeah. Wait, so what are your thoughts on training to failure?

You're talking about speed, power, plios, performance, athletics, not specifically hypertrophy and bodybuilding, that type of thing. Like, what are your thoughts on training to failure and missing reps? Yeah, what are you? Yeah, I'm curious. what does he mean by like, don't miss reps? Why? Yeah, I'm agreeing with you.

Why miss reps? Why do we max to failure? Okay. What did you get? Oh, I miss this. Now you're focused on something you missed. And something you're saying, that's your goal next time, son. You got to get in there.

You missed it. Come on. Let's go. Let's get on the next thing. That's what you missed it. What are you thinking? You got. No, I'm like, I'm like, you improved.

What's the benefit to risk ratio? you're going to look better for your coach. You feel great. Next is spring ball or next is fall ball. We're going to go play. So why go to failure? Why risk it? Why do all that?

Backing up, 10,000 foot view. When we power lifted, we use power lifting reps. Two to five. One to four. One to three. Okay. Olympic lifting, one to three. That's all we use.

Olympic lifting ramps. When we wanted volume, circuits, body weight circuits, leg circuit from the bowls, from Alan Byrne, and then the dumbbell circuits from Gevorik.

You want to make a team tough on a Friday? Let's do 400 reps with 10 to 15% of body weight in each hand, hang snatch, squat, jumps, lunges, split jumps, push up rows. Yeah. Go on 400 reps of that kind of thing.

And take a five-minute break and go run 16-1-tenths. Got it. Right. 300-pound guys with 22 and a half, any chand, just setting them down and going while their partner works and then stepping up again and hitting 10 hang snatches, setting them down, hitting 10 squat presses, setting them down, getting to 10 exercises. take a two-minute break. All Steve Javarv-Ith,

it's Von Javoric stuff. That's just his stuff. How do you get bigger? Reps. Yeah. I don't want to use a knife as a screwdriver. I don't want to use squats for reps.

I want to use body weight stuff for reps. That's where we use Burns' leg circuit. 20 squats, 20 lunges, 20 step-ups, which is a split-jump step-up, alternating feet, 10 squat jumps. You have to do that,

in 90 seconds. That's 70 reps. You get two and a half minutes rest in football because of the mass, two and a half minutes rest. You got to do five of those before the season starts and run 16 to one-tenths. I say you're in shape. That's 350 reps in about 15 minutes and an interval sprinting a mile in about another 15 minutes, all within an hour. So do you do you test, I mean like, let's say like if you're coaching football, do you like do you do testing that you, you might report to the sport coach. And if so, like, what would you test? We would test bench like four or five times a year.

Would you max out or no? Yeah. Yeah, guys like, hey, what are you bench? You know, if you can't bench, you can't play football, right? You don't bench 405, son. What the hell are you doing on to put the helmet on? You know, and you're like, you know, it's like, dude, we had a first-round draft picked by the Raiders.

It was an offensive tackle bench 315 was his best bench. I know. I was a world record holder, and I think it's the most worth this, you know, Test of spent in all sport. Yeah, exactly. People love it. You play in handball. Yeah.

He'll whip your in. He was so quick. He was so technically sound that he didn't have to be super strong up top. Anyway. But when you're reporting reporting those things, I always looked at it as the benefit to risk ratio and what we're working on. So cleans, if you're not athletic enough to get away from a clean, you probably shouldn't be playing a sport in college. So we would test clean three or four times a year.

We would test all-out squat one time, one time. And then all of our lists came off that. So our snatch max was 80% of our clean. That's just what we worked off of. So our single-leg squatting max was 50% of our squat max. And we used the safety bar to squat with. so with the handles. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Because it's safer. It keeps you upright and doesn't put the sheer force on the back. Then we would use the back squat like we use the front squat if you're into powerlifting. Right. Then we would do pulls for the clean, not the deadlift. And the reason we used pulls for the clean was because we added the speed into it. Because we didn't, you know, it wasn't until I was like my last place, Texaninam king. though the first time we ever used tendos very much but but we would we would we use chains a lot

because if you rattled the chain you were moving fast enough and you can see guys if they were moving it fast enough or not you couldn't see the nuance but you could see see what was going on so that yeah you got to take what you have i love velocity uh velocity based training like my thing so that's i rarely ever if ever test a back squat but i know like if if an athlete you can squat 400 at 0.4 and then three weeks from now they can do 420 at point four they're getting stronger and that's all I need to know is it working all you do when you test is test nothing really good nothing good happen you put them at risk that happens but like so I totally agree with everything yeah and clean cleans it do you did you go to failure on cleans or did you kind of

stop right when you thought they might miss um Yeah, guys would, you'd end up failing on the clean because guys keep on to try it. I know, yeah. You're like, dude, you're strong enough to pull it. You're not strong enough to get under and squat it out. It's a fear factor kicking in. Yeah. That's what it is.

And that's why we front squatted. Even though front squat for most speed athletes is contraindicated because their forearms and shins are so long, they can't hold the bar like this. They got to hold the bar here. And it's on for them. So, yeah, it's like, it's like, dude, we're doing it. We're kind of using the wrong tool. for our client here.

It's a personal trainer. But, you know, the scouts wanted to know their numbers. So, and the players wanted to have good numbers for the scouts and for the coaches, because those were the metrics at the time. So that's just kind of what you, you know, you go. As a friend of mine said the other day, don't let your progress get in the way of tradition now. Seriously. Let's be careful.

You know, for your military guys, especially the guys that are older, like they're, you know, say they're in their 30s, 40s, maybe even maybe in 50s in some cases, like, risk reward ratio you've mentioned a couple times like for the older athletes there are there's some movements that you just tend to just shy away from in general like there's there's benefits but you're just going to be hurting your shoulders more than you need to et cetera and you you tend to adopt other exercises that are are more likely to keep someone healthy as man rich he said there's no bad there's no bad exercises there's just bad coaches and bad teaching so don't really shy away from any exercise it's that if an exercise bothers a person or that don't like it okay let's do

movement pattern, I don't care what you use. I agree. I have to say, yes. Do the movement pattern. So everybody's got it. There's only like seven buckets. There's squat, there's laying. And squat runs and step, multi-directional.

There's hinging. There's pushing. There's pulling. There's total body. And then there's sprinting, jumping, and running. That's it. That's all you got. You can say, well, what about rucking?

Rucking's walking. Everybody can walk. So, you know, where does it fit for you? Are you doing enough of this? And then you always get this. How flexible are you? I'm not flexible at all.

Do you stretch? No, well, no, no. Do you think those two are related? So we want people to learn the importance of recovery and the importance of mobility, optimal mobility, and optimal stability in how those two work together. because if I'm mobile where I'm stable, I'm going to be in trouble. And if I'm stable where I'm mobile, I'm going to be in trouble.

So, you know, here are some self-tests that you can do, really easy to do. Check yourself. If not, if you can't do them, work on these stretches. Oh, okay. That's pretty easy. How long does it take? Five minutes. Well, I don't know if I have five minutes.

Well, do you have an hour to have surgery when you have to have shoulder replacement? No, what do you do at nighttime? Oh, I'm on the phone for an hour. Okay. There's just five minutes. Exactly. Exactly. Almost, it's, you take your car into maintenance.

We've got to change the oil. We've got to rotate the tires, you know, unless you want to buy tires early. You got to keep your tires inflated so they don't wear out early. You know, I've got to get my brakes checked there once in a while. You know, that's helpful to be able to stop. So we don't think anything about paying money and taking time to do that. But ourselves, I don't need that. I don't need that stuff.

You know, and you're like, you don't. You don't need it and you don't want it, but you're going to have to do it someday. And I would recommend doing it earlier. It was only maybe the last three years. I've even cared about mobility. I mean, by the way, I did weight lifting as well. I was at the Olympic Training Center when I was younger. So then I cared about mobility because you had to get into position.

But then in power lifting, I just cared could I squat below parallel? That's about it. But now in these last few years caring about mobility and seeing those changes. changes and seeing the way I feel so much better, the way I can, like, bend over and pick up something without worrying about it. I mean, I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. There was a time where I'm like, oh, God, I got to pick the pencil off before. Oh, yeah.

You know, but just to know that, like, that's not the case anymore and seeing changes and knowing that, yes, even at 53, you can change your mobility. So I'm a big proponent of the isometrics. That's what's helped me the most, just sitting in a position, you know, for a long time. And it just really seems to help the most. Adam Archiletta and Jay Strader. Oh, yeah. That's what he was doing.

He was doing very similar stuff to what Bill Porese's doing today. And we took just the deep squat, you know, where you get into that deep squat and you sit there for a minute and then you rock under your toes for a minute and then you sit back onto your heels for a minute and then you stand up. We did that. Active audience again. We did that before we squatted and before we cleaned. So twice a week, we do that. Okay. And then what happened was we went to play A&M at A&M, and we're in the locker room,

and guys are doing this before they got dressed. Yeah. I'm looking around. It feels better, man. That stuff must work because nobody's making them do it. Yes. It feels good. It's my daily routine.

I do the exact same thing. thing one minute but I do it with the kettlebell now so just load it it helps me push into a deep position even more so like mobility is a good thing so don't avoid that don't wait too 50 and when Kelly Stras started his whole mobility wall thing so many years ago that was his very first video was just like hanging out in his squaw for 10 minutes if I'm out yeah I remember that sure I haven't done 10 minutes that scares me but like I'll work towards it Kelly well at one I like the idea that we build up two of it but too it's it's a really interesting thing of how many people kind of hollow out their fitness they go

only into the bodybuilding for the muscle mass but they're forgetting about the elastic component you know they go and they do you know cardio in one direction and they wonder why the first time it's a change direction something falls off yeah and it's just it it keeps coming back to that gp are you training all of those aspects but emphasizing what you're interested in but you know i know i know i hollowed out my own training when i went harder in powerlifting and started pulling out the Olympic lifts and then go figure it's like why does my vertical jump suck it's like you are really good at grinding slow right fortunately most of life is fast right right i was always a great jumper until power lifting it took me forever to get that to come back after power the thing i couldn't

believe i almost cried because i wanted to do bobsledin again so i went and got tested at a uh velocity sports and i could not believe the amount of athleticism i lost i just wanted to hide under a paper bag Oh yeah. It came back. It came back. You look on those, you look on the internet and you see the skip challenge and you realize that every motor skill is perishable. Every motor skill is perishable.

If you don't integrate it into your training and movement patterns, you will lose it. And all of a sudden now your grandkids are going, hey, grandpa, get on there and play cars and dolls with me. And you're like, I can get down there. I don't know if I can get back up. I will say shout out to the guys at USAW. They've really, in the last couple of years, they've done a great job of implementing things outside of, you know, used to do is very pure. We just squat in a snatch, cleaning jerk squat, pulls.

But now they're doing even some speed drills, plyometrics, like, you know, moving laterally. And like, things are, obviously, we're starting to win. And so I don't know that that's not it. But, like, it's definitely helping prevent injuries because if you just move in one plane, that's not good. prevent injuries and when that lifts off like you hit bottom of the snatch and you're like trying to get it in line just you're off a little bit now of a sudden everything's able to adjust real quick and you're able to get that seems to be working yeah yeah yeah all that stuff we're gonna we got to shut down fellas I got to move on to my next appointment here apologies to cut it off early Rob I appreciate coming on the show man we've covered a lot of ground here working find more about you and what you're working on these days. Eventually, I have a YouTube channel and all that once I retire and have more time to actually devote teaching.

Right now, I'm, you know, Rob Rogers on Facebook, pretty simple. And then coaching reps is on YouTube or coach Rob Rogers. Excuse me. Coaching reps or Coach Rob Rogers on Instagram. Rob Rogers on Facebook. And eventually I've got a YouTube channel. I know what that is. But yeah.

Anytime you guys like to have me back, I'd love to come back. Big fan of the show. Really enjoyed the opportunity to finally get to be on the show and maybe contribute and maybe move the ball forward a little bit. It was fun. Very much. Yes. Absolutely.

I enjoyed it. Coach Travis Mash. Mashlead.com. So we've got a lot of new stuff coming here in just the last, in the next two weeks. I'm pretty excited. Very cool. Dr. Mike Lane. Mike Lane, PhD on Instagram.

And definitely got my face for radio because the camera's not working. right on i'm dog larsson on instagram i'm douglasie larsen we are barbell shrug to barbell underscore shrug and if you want to work with co-travis mask dr mike lane dr annie galpin and the whole team at biomolecular athlete you can go to bowel molecular athlete dot com friends we'll see you guys next week