Barbell Shrugged - Brooks Meadows: Honoring Chris Moore and The Power Of Recess - The Bledsoe Show #140

Episode Date: June 28, 2019

Brooks Meadows is the host of Barbell Buddha Rediscovered where he shines light on Chris Moore who, before his passing, left a treasure trove of knowledge and wisdom about strength, family, philosophy, science, vice, and how to live an exuberant, self realized existence. He also owns Recess 901, a gym located in Memphis where they put the fun back in fitness bound by the same tenets that makes a school recess special: Community, Autonomy, and Simplicity. In this final episode of The Bledsoe Show with Shrugged Collective, Brooks and I talked about his early trials and tribulations when starting out his gym Recess 901, what makes the gym different, and we celebrated Chris' life by taking sharing some memories with him and how Brooks is honoring Chris' legacy through his Barbell Buddha Rediscovered podcast. --------------------------------------------------- Show notes: https://shruggedcollective.com/tbs-meadows ---------------------------------------------------   ► Travel thru Europe with us on the  Shrugged Voyage, more info here: https://www.theshruggedvoyage.com/ ► What is the Shrugged Collective?  Click below for more info: https://youtu.be/iUELlwmn57o ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

Welcome to the last Bledsoe Show on the Shrug Collective Network. Even though it's the last show on this channel, I'm still posting this show on my own channel. So make sure you're subscribed wherever you're listening to the Bledsoe Show. I'm posting new shows on Mondays. So I've been posting on Fridays to the Collective. I'll be posting on Mondays. So if you're listening to this on Monday, there's already another show up there. So go check it out.

And today we have quite the conversation with Brooks Meadows. He's a another show up there, so go check it out. And today, we have quite the conversation with Brooks Meadows. He's a man I've become good friends with recently and has started and is running the Barbell Buddha Rediscovered podcast and Instagram. His passion for getting more of Chris Moore's work into the world has inspired me. And today, we get to recap all the things shrrugged, Chris Moore, and the future of fitness. It's really cool to sit down with somebody who has been a fan of the show and only shook Chris Moore's hand one time. We didn't meet face-to-face until a month or a couple months ago now.

Being able to sit down with him and talk about all the things that Shrugged and the history and everything was a lot of fun. I think you're really going to enjoy it. And so on Monday, this Monday, the new show that's coming out is with Laurie King and Brian Borstein of Paragon Performance Training. So we're going to be talking about coaching. We're going to be talking about trading. So make sure you tune into that show as well. If you want to keep up and stay connected with everything I'm doing, which I know you do, go to MikeIsLeaving.com and we can stay connected there. All right, for all the coaches out there,

the very first Strong Coach Summit is set for August 14 through 16 here in San Diego. If you're looking to take your coaching to the next level, improve your business, and connect with other world-class coaches, this is the place for you. Go to thestrongcoach.com and click the summit button to apply today. Whether you've been through the 90-day program or not, this is open to you. So I imagine there'll be about half the people in the crowd will have already done the Strong Coach 90-day program and about half will have not. It won't matter. I'm bringing in the top business and marketing experts in health and fitness to teach you the next thing you get

to focus on to build your ideal coaching business. We're also going to be doing a lot of community building, novel movement sessions, breath work, and a little bit of partying because you know how I do. So get your application in today at thestrongcoach.com. Click the Strong Coach Summit button to get registered. Have you tried the tastiest healthy green drink on the market yet? Organifi delivers. They've been a longtime sponsor of the show, and I've been very pleased to be able to align with a company that shares my values.

It's always nice to start my day on a healthy foot, getting my green drink in before all the other options come flowing in. You know what options I'm talking about. Now, Beyond the Greens, they also have adaptogens that help reduce stress and recover from workouts faster. You also get to recover from that workload faster too.

I think my work stresses me more than my workouts do. It's good. It's good for any type of stress. The fact that it has ashwagandha and some other things in there is amazing. Go over to Organifi.com slash shrug to save 20% on your order today. If you don't like the green drink and you like it a bit sweeter, go check out the red juice. Perfect for an afternoon energy boost and I prefer it over any other pre-workout on the market. So I use the red juice perfect for an afternoon energy boost and i prefer it over any other pre-workout on the market so i use the red juice as a pre-workout it's got rhodiola and

some other stuff that is loaded with nutrients to deliver energy without the jitters so if you want more energy want to be able to recover in between sets and things like that faster i highly recommend the red juice so hit up organifi.com slash shrugged to get yours today. And now for our show with Brooks Meadows. Enjoy. All right, today we have Brooks Meadows on the show. And Brooks has been interesting to me on many different levels. You reached out to me years ago, a few years ago,

uh, wanting to move from, was it South Korea? That's right. To the United States, back to Memphis. And I forget exactly what we were talking about. I think you guys had a marketing position at Barbell Shrugged Open at the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I really wanted to coach and I was like, I'm not going to do marketing. I want to coach. Yeah. So, and we didn't need any more coaches at the time. And, uh, so that was that you, you definitely popped up on a radar then. And I was familiar with you. And then, uh, in January you started, uh, the barbell Buddha rediscovered. That's right. Barbell Buddha rediscovered and, andiscovered and really dove into everything Chris Moore started because he's got books out and he had done, how many podcasts did he do?

He had, this is one of my favorite things. He had exactly a hundred episodes, but it starts at two and ends at one-on-one. It's like a perfect set of a hundred, but it's just like slightly askew. Yeah. And, uh, so, uh, I was, I was really happy that you had taken that on and because, you know, more people being introduced to his work is a, is a really great thing. Um, and in addition to that, I've been talking to Janie Moore, Chris's wife, and she had talked about you opening up the gym in Memphis, Tennessee called Recess 901. Yeah. And that you had a strength area called Moore Strength.

Yes. You had a strength area called Moore Strength for Chris Moore and had a library where all of his books are at now. Man, it was very serendipitous for sure on the library because when we had designed Recess from the beginning, we wanted to value education. So we wanted to put a library in there where people could learn and start to find things that they really were going to fall in love with. So, uh, some of the people that helped me open the gym, John, friends, close friends, Lisa with Chris, they, uh, they were like, have you met Janie? I was like, I've, you know, I've, I've never met Janie. And they're like, well, you, you have to meet her. And you had never met Chris Moore. He and I met. Diane Fu was in town for a weightlifting seminar just outside of Memphis in a gym in Mississippi.

And Chris was in town. Y'all were in town for some reason. And so he came all the way to Mississippi to meet, to hang out with Diane. And I had this 10 to hang out with Diane. And, uh, and I had this 10 minute conversation with him. And so it was so funny because I hadn't actually discovered his individual work at this time. So I was talking to him, like I wanted to find anything that I could relate to. And he had, y'all just been recently talking about kettlebells and I had, I had something to say about kettlebells and I wanted to talk to Chris about it.

So I went over and I had like a 10 minute conversation with him. Um, fun, but not a whole lot of depth to it. Yeah. Uh, and I don't have a whole lot of regrets, but it would have been interesting to know Chris a little bit more and be able to have that conversation over. Yeah. Um, but at the same time, the way that I came across his work was after he had passed away. And so I remember, well, here we go, Mike.

Now you got me. Now you got me in my storytelling mode. We're going to go from the beginning, okay? Can we do that? Yeah, go for it. Can't wait. So you guys started Barbell Shrugged. A family member of mine was on episode, I believe it was like episode 31, Dr. Brad Cole.

So I got peeped into the Barbell Shrugged thing fairly early on episode 31. And so of course, uh, I didn't actually live in Memphis at the time. so I was looking at you guys like a fan. Then flash forward a little bit longer, I'm the coach at a gym called Reebok CrossFit Sentinel 1 in Seoul, South Korea. I knew something was changing for you guys when I saw one of my members who was from New Zealand walk in with a faction t-shirt. I was like, where did you get that? He said, oh, my mate was driving around and he went to do a box tour in the United States and he went out of his way to make sure that he went to faction. And so I knew you guys as a fan, 2013, and y'all were exploding. And one of the things that really connected with me was that it always felt like we were hanging out in the room with you guys. And I know you've probably gotten that a lot, but we always felt like we were hanging out in the room with you guys. It was a

bunch of dudes that were talking shop and we felt like we were a part of the conversation. But also you guys were all from Memphis, or at least you went to the University of Memphis. And it was so cool because I wasn't part of the Memphis CrossFit community, but I was a Memphian. And so it was amazing to see people from my hometown, like doing something that ended up becoming the cultural center of the CrossFit world, or at least it felt like that. So I was, I was all in on barbell shrug. Anything that you guys put out, you know, I was, I was eating it up. And so I was a fan. And then we had this opportunity that first time we connected, you guys had that job opening. I decided not to take it. I ended up partnering with somebody and we opened a CrossFit gym in Memphis, Tennessee. And then I

laterally shifted into education and I was working at a school called KIPP Memphis Academy Middle. And I was a middle school teacher. And I didn't realize at the time that I was working at a school called KIPP Memphis Academy Middle. And I was a middle school teacher. And I didn't realize at the time that I was actually changing professions. I was, I'd been a coach a really long time. Being an educator and being a coach are not the same thing. And so I was getting my ass kicked like you wouldn't believe. I'd plan for two hours, sometimes five minutes into the first, first class, it would explode. And I am a, it was really bad. And I was a first year teacher and a second year teacher. And anybody that's an educator knows exactly what that means. But I had this desire to do something different in the fitness space

because I realized when I was teaching these kids that I was speaking to them in the language that I had, which was work. And I wanted them to work really hard and to do a lot of work. But when you're in fifth grade and you're working all day, you don't want to do that. You want to play. And so there was this, that was this first little thing that kind of popped into my brain because that'll come that'll that'll play into this conversation I'm sure but essentially I was really down I was getting my tail kicked day in and day out and I almost quit I almost quit my job and then my principal walked me off the ledge thank goodness and he said look just let's work together through the end of the semester and we'll get you set up. And so I made the decision, and this would have been in 2017, that I was going to find something to do at the beginning of my day that was going to set me up.

And I was like, oh, I'll drink some coffee. I'll make a good coffee and I'll just put a podcast in my ears. And the first one that I happened to put in my ears was the first episode of Barbell Buddha. And I got the day and I was like, Oh, that went really well. I was just, let's do that again. And then I did it again and I made it all the way through the week. And we're at the weekend where I'd normally like get off my routine and I didn't want to, I just kept going. And for a hundred straight days, I sat with Chris and something about taking three years of his life and compressing it into that short of a time frame. And also knowing that at the end of the story, he passes away. That every time he would discuss his fears or every time he would be vulnerable and tell you what was going on in

his life, all of those things took on so much more weight to me because it became so obvious how important it was to act on those things that we really wanted to do. Because in a second, it can just be gone. Now, I will say that what I also realized is that it wasn't the end of the story. It was just part of the story. And, you know, if you were to look out at his Instagram page or other avenues like that, people you could just see going like, I just, I really, I miss his words. I miss, you know, it's like, obviously you know this, but big, bold, brash, loud. And it was just so cool to see somebody

that was willing to express that openly and be unapologetically themselves because I myself was not unapologetically myself. In fact, I, I wasn't a hundred percent myself. So, uh, uh, Chris was able to give me like a North star to kind of make sure that I was taking action behind the things that I said that I wanted to do. And that was recess. Yeah. What, um, so what was, what was it like the first, when you opened Recess, what was it like for you then? Uh, uh, a long series of mistaking knowledge for experience. Um, believing that I knew what needed to be done, but not having the, uh, uh, yeah, the, the experience to actually execute the things that I wanted to do. And what I did was I made things way too confusing and complicated at the outset, which

the funny thing is that that was one of Chris's biggest cardinal sins. It was complexity and making things complicated. And he taught me in strength to like make it and keep it really simple. Uh, but that lesson hadn't yet integrated and translated by the time I opened the gym. Yeah. One thing I want to point out is, um, one of the things that we've tried to do over the years, I know Chris did this really well, which was, and I like to separate out complex from complicated. Because complicated is, when you get into something and it's complicated, it's confusing. It creates confusion. But you can take something, it takes real genius to take something that's complex and make it simple. Yes.

So there's a difference between complexity and complicated. I just read a quote from Charlie Mingus that Chris put in one of his episodes and it says, uh, making the simple complicated is commonplace, but making the complicated simple, awesomely simple. That's creativity. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it's, it's really cool. Um, having you out here, um, having you out here. Having you out here. You've been out here for two days now.

We've got to spend some time together. We didn't meet. We had met at, I'm going to get back to Recess 901. Yeah. But we met, give people a little more context. We had that phone call, maybe one or two phone calls. And uh i knew that you had started the rediscovered barbell buddha and i knew that you were coming to paleo effects and so we met at paleo effects for the first time face to face and we got to talking and i go oh man i want to interview you and Paleo FX was just crazy. It was just a madhouse, and I was spent.

I was tired. So inviting you out here and having you out here in SoCal for the last couple of days has been really cool. So getting to connect, and we've gotten in a lot of conversations about Barbell Shrugged and that era of time where it was me, Doug, Chris, CTP. And it's been really cool for me. Even a couple weeks ago, I put together a webinar where I'm teaching coaches how to build their coaching business. And I wanted to tell the story in the first 15 minutes of that webinar of where I came from, because I imagine that a lot of people have discovered me over the last few years

and discovered the work and assume that, you know, things have always been good. Because if you look into my Instagram, or if you've only been following the last few years, you may not realize that, uh, my life is, uh, was not always unicorns and rainbows, even though like, it's, it's pretty, it actually is pretty nice now. I definitely hit my trials and tribulations now. And I like to point out, there was a point in time where, you know, when we opened the gym in 2007, you know, I was sleeping in the gym. Yeah, I've heard quite a few stories about you and Doug in that crawl space. Yeah. We were sleeping in a crawl space, not in a room at the gym, in a crawl space.

Yeah, not a room, a crawl space. And then learning about how to run a facility appropriately and learning about business and then, you know, taking it from this place that if zone or code enforcement had showed up, we would have been shut down. And then, you know, in I think it was 2010, moving into a 7,200 square foot facility that was really nice and making a lot of progress there. And then a few years later, starting Barbell Shrug. Man, CrossFit was Wild West in 2007, man. Wild West. The reason I opened the gym is because I was looking for one and there wasn't one. No. And I go, oh, well, somebody needs to do this.

I guess I'll do it. And that's a common thing for me is, why is anyone doing this? Oh, it's because I'm supposed to do it. Got it. Got it. Somebody's got to take the lead, man. Yeah. Someone's got to take the arrows. Yeah, that's it. Like you, I think that that was something that we talked about, like being first to do stuff, you take the arrows. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's no one's, no one's taken

the machete and carved the the way yet so it's like okay well i guess we're gonna do it and being the first to i used to believe that being the first to something was the best but after studying uh how things shape up in uh society and and in business and in culture it's the first person there usually gets the shit beat out of them. And then someone comes up behind them and cleans house and really, you know, I wouldn't say gets it easy, but it's already cleared out of the way. And so I don't always believe it's being the first is the best, but if it's in your nature, it's in your nature. So Chris had a quote in one of his chapters of his book from a woman named Peace Pilgrim, and she said there was 15 years between the knowing and the doing. She knew that this was something that she should have been doing, but it took her 15 years to get there. And that right

there resonates with me so hard. So the reason I say that is because in graduate school, I studied business strategy. And that lesson that you said, being first and all of the things that come with being first, that was a lesson that I knew back then, the challenges of being first to do something. And yet, here I am living in a time where I'm trying to do something that nobody in my area is really doing. And I'm essentially trying to be the first, even though I know all of the lessons that I haven't integrated from back then. So it has been challenging to take the arrows and, but at the same time, somebody's got to do it, man. Yeah. Somebody's got to do it. Yeah. Yeah. So tell us about what makes Recess 901 different than other gyms. Yeah.

Hmm. Well. And what inspired you to do it? Yeah. I would say that inspiration came from this. It was like a nexus point of all of the things that I had really experienced, uh, being that I started as a martial artist. I moved into strength and conditioning. I found my way to CrossFit, CrossFit, like competing and training to like go to the

region, you know, go to regionals and stuff like that. And then I moved into middle school education. And there was a quote from Greg Glassman that re-popped up into my mind, and I thought about rearranging it slightly. And the quote was essentially, athletes' needs vary in degree but not in kind. So he argued that all athletes have the same ten kinds of needs. The degree that we need them differs based on the sport. And I was like, no, human needs vary in degree, but not in kind. I was watching these kids play

and how much they needed to play. Cause I'd spend 45 minutes trying to get them to do the work. And then I'd package together five to 10 minutes of free play time. And these kids would run themselves into the dirt. And it took no effort for me other than to just like give them the parameters. And I was like, nobody's doing this in the adult space. Human needs vary small bits, 20 to 40 minutes. And I figured, well, if we need to play,

and we also, you know, essentially need to move and exercise and to find ourselves physically, there was no better place to do that than recess as a kid. Because you had the kids that like to play on the monkey bars, but you had the kids that like to like keep to themselves, swing on the swings. You had kids that like to play organized sports. So instead of me creating a gym with a culture that was based on a methodology, I decided my role as a coach could be to help people discover the thing that they're going to fall in love with and that they'll continue to go deeper in because if they love it, then they'll practice. And if they practice, they'll get better and it doesn't have to be much, much more like complicated than that. Yeah. I think that, uh, well, one of the big pieces of advice I give people now, and, uh, I, I surprise people a lot

and they go, you know, what's training program or this or that. And I always tell them, you know, do the one that is going to be the easiest for you to do for a long time. The one that's the most fun, the one that excites you the most. And it's rarely the fixed program to, you know, this or that. Hey, if you want to be a competitive athlete, you want to compete in a sport specifically. Yeah. You got to do that. But if you're somebody who really just wants to be in shape, wants to be happier, wants to improve your overall lifestyle and standard of living, more play. Oh, my gosh. I have a client.

I have a one-on-one client that I coach right now. now and it's it's really it's really funny because uh this guy pays me a lot of money to basically coach him and we're talking about business strategy and he's talking about like different physical practices that could be that could improve his ability as a businessman to have better strategy and he's thinking maybe i should do jujitsu or something like that and i'm like nope how much do you play and he goes uh what you know and i was like dude you gotta play if you want to be good at strategy because the issue is is especially as someone who's a gym owner or an entrepreneur or someone who's running their own business they don't have the nine to five you're working 24 7 like the mind is always there. You're taking a shower, you're thinking about this or that. Some of the best ideas pop up in those open spaces.

And so that's what I found for myself to be true is the more that I played, the better I got at strategy. And it wasn't because I was getting better at the skill of strategy. It was that I was creating space so that thoughts could flow, so that thoughts and feelings could flow. And then all of a sudden, the revelations roll in. You're like, ah, ah. And I mean, I still have caught myself, even in the last year year has caught myself in strategy sessions where I'm locked in a room with a few people and we're talking about business and hitting points of frustration. And like, usually I'm so good at this, what's going on. And then, and then getting out and for an afternoon and playing with some friends, like swinging a mace, throwing a freeze

Frisbee or or or doing something like that or or putting together some flows or just being outdoors and all of a sudden a flood of information comes flowing in and i go oh yeah anything where you need to be able to if you need to be able to think if you want to think about things from a different perspective and and get a bird's eye view you have to create space and you can't create space by thinking more or thinking harder or talking more. A lot of times it is simply doing something so different that you create, you get space from that thing and nothing creates space like play. And just to achieve the state of play, you have to be in a position where you feel safe.

Yeah. If you don't feel safe, then you can't remove that part of yourself that you need to, to be able to enter into that state. So if you're learning a new skill and you want to play in learning a new skill, it's got to be challenging, but not too hard. So if I wanted to like play around with some rail walking, right, I would start on a really, really low setting. I wouldn't start with a slack line, 10 feet in the air, right? That's not play. That's fear. That's not play. That's scary,

right? And so we need to remove fear essentially by putting ourselves in a position where we feel safe. So, and the other thing that we need to get to that state of play is that we need to be engrossed in the activity that we're going to be doing. So when you say you're going to go swing mace, or you're going to go play Frisbee, like you are engrossed into the act of swinging that mace or engrossed into the act of playing frisbee and you feel safe because it's something that you can do physically so you find that play state you remove that part of your critical thinking and then bang yeah i'm not what i'm not doing is going out to play for the purpose of coming up with a good idea or solving a problem i'm going out to play for the purpose of playing

yes that's the other thing it doesn't have to a purpose. The idea that comes in is a complete and total surprise. Yes. Yes, if you're going out to play with the purpose of creating the space, you're losing. Yep. So play becomes a practice. And I watch – I get adults in the room, and I've been part of crews where we're gonna do some type of structured play

you know it's like all right you're gonna we're gonna you know just do whatever you want and people look around like what the fuck we have literally forgotten how to play i say this at recess all the time people go oh wow how do you how do you teach people how to do all these things and i go i'm not actually teaching them i'm just helping them remember how to do all these things? And I go, I'm not actually teaching them. I'm just helping them remember how to do all this stuff. That which was so natural to us as a kid has become very unnatural to us as adults. And it's because essentially we're conditioned out of it, right? Like they sit you down, kindergarten, you know, five years old, and they're like, sit here and do this stuff and keep sitting here and doing this stuff forever. Because it's not just school. Because when you're done with school, they want to, you know, send you

off to college so you can sit and learn some more. And then they want to send you off to a job where you can sit and do some more work. And not to say that there's anything wrong with being in a job where you need to be stationary, sitting, and attentive. It's just that now we're in a position, we understand the ramifications for removing these things from the human experience. And the evidence is becoming more compelling and more obvious by the year. But essentially, we're seeing the byproducts of an overworked culture in the types of diseases that we encounter and the types of movement dysfunctions that we see. I mean, it's very rare to see an adult these days that can like squat, ass to heels. It's very rare to see adults these days that unless they have had a rich history of movement in their life, you grow up playing sports, it's different than someone who had parents that had them focus on academics or making sure that they were reading.

If they don't have that, like literally decades of movement, solving movement problems, because that's what we do, right? When we move through space, we solve problems. And because that's what, that's what we do, right? When we move through space, we solve problems. Easy ones are the ones that we do all the time, walking, reaching for things, pulling them off the shelves. Those are the easy movement problems that we can solve. But a lot of the other things that used to be so natural and ingrained, we stopped working on those problems. And how much math do you remember from like high school? Barely any. Barely any, right? much math do you remember from like high school barely any barely any i um was i was prepping to take uh i think it was the gre it's like oh you're gonna have to do math without a calculator for

that like why and i'm a senior in college and i'm going this is a problem uh because i don't really remember how to do long division by hand yeah we stopped solving those problems and we forgot how to solve them. I went on Khan Academy and took a course there to help get me back on track. Yeah. So, yeah. That's cool, man. I mean, you know, the way that we do things and the reason that we do them is this reason. We set people up on a path to try to like re-pattern their bodies.

And I'm not – there are people so much more knowledgeable and advanced on re-patterning than me. But at a base level, that's what I'm trying to help people do. And so we put people – we show them – we teach them a couple of important lessons in the beginning. The first one is just how your body develops and why that's important. And, uh, the thing that if we're sitting the majority of the time, the one thing that we're not doing is moving our spine very much. And so, uh, if we spend the majority of our time sitting, we're not moving our spine very much. Our ability to twist is going to degrade pretty heavily. And that's the first major like gross motor pattern that we

learn in the womb. It's prenatal, right? So we, we have to twist in the womb to be able to move around. So moving at the spine, so essential that we do it first. And because that's where people spend the least amount of their time, it seems. And even in the fitness modalities that are really good at producing high-end athletes, they're still only moving in so many planes. It's usually up and down or straight forward. Sometimes you'll get some lateral stuff, but very rarely do you get twisting. Maybe some Turkish get-ups, which are fantastic, obviously, but besides the Turkish get-up, there aren't a whole lot of twisting movements that are being taught in gyms. And so we just set people on a path of development that goes

from twisting to rolling over, being able to go from your back to your belly without the use of your arms and legs. Then from there, um, we start to teach them a crawl. And then, uh, I'm actually a coach with an organization called GMB fitness. So I teach a lot of their elements material to a lot of our clients. So bear movements, monkey movements, frog movements, getting them in hinge positions and squat positions. So we get them crawling around. And from there, we get them up and down off the floor a lot. So that's climbing, right? That's how we go from the ability to crawl to walk is to climb up and down, right? You see these little kids, they're looking up. And it's about the time that they can crawl

that they start realizing, everybody's standing on their two freaking feet. You know, like, I want to be up there. And they just start climbing up and down, up and down. So we have lots of things for people to practice climbing on and feel safe and stuff. And then after that, we get them walking, teach them some basic running drills.

And then stage seven is learning to play in 360 degrees. Because when we start going from walking to running, the kids can only run in straight lines, right? And they bump into shit all the time and they fall down. And what happens? They hurt themselves and they have to crawl and they have to climb again and they just keep repeating the patterns. But it's about age seven that we can play in 360 degrees. And it's also interesting because that's about the same time that the human development starts being able to solve problems, like more complex problems. Yeah, that's when the brain develops well enough to use logic and reason. Yes, yes. And I just find it interesting that those two things tend to overlap.

We start solving more complex problems in our movement space, and we're able to logically solve problems in our mental space. And then afterwards, we condition, right? So if you learn how to play in 360 degrees and you learn how to throw or jump, like if you're playing a ball sport and you want to throw further, right? Or if you're running, you want to run faster. We condition those attributes. And then the highest peak of all of those things, stage nine is competition. So most people come to me and they go, Hey, I would love to do some conditioning and competition. And I go, cool. How long has it been since you've done one through seven? And usually it's a lot of like, Oh, well, sometimes I walk, I don't really run. I definitely don't twist and go, well, we're just going to start you here. Not because we don't want to condition you. Not because we don't want you to compete in stuff.

But we know that if you have a cracked foundation, if these things aren't strong, then you're just going to break at a certain point. That's pretty much the only byproduct of running hard, running a car with missing pieces. Eventually eventually something's going to break down. And as long as you're having fun, I don't really care after that. Even with advanced athletes, Chris would say that it doesn't matter if you have the best made program. If you don't like what you're doing and you don't like who you're doing it with, if you're not receiving like good energy and, and, and support, it'll never trump the, the program. Yeah. You have to have the environment. There's, um, well, I, I see a really common issue. This happens a lot with people I coach,

which is what do you want? What do you like? And they have no idea. They don't know what they like. They don't know what they want. And so there's another way of framing that question that really helps people out, which is, and this is in all aspects of life. Do you love who you're being when you do this? Like, how are you being when you're, and a lot of people are in a relationship that they don't want to be in or they're doing a job or they're um they're they're they've adopted some type of training methodology that actually they're not the best version of themselves when they're doing those things or in in those things and so that for me is a really good marker is do i love who i am when i'm doing this thing like if i get into for me when i really good marker is do I love who I am when I'm doing this thing? Like if I get into, for me, when I get into hyper competitive mode and I start wanting to beat people, I find that I don't like who I'm being, uh, in that place. So, um, it doesn't mean I don't

compete. I definitely, I'll go run a Spartan race and they're definitely timing it and they're going to put me, they're going to rank. And I'm going to look at it afterwards. And I'm going to be proud or whatever. And I wouldn't say disappointed. Because I now show up to a competition for the purpose of playing. And I may have a goal where I go, I'm going to finish this race in under seven hours or something like that. But the number one goal is to have a good time.

Yes. And if I add 20 minutes to my race because I want to have fun instead of try to beat somebody else, I'm going to do it. And that's something that's really shifted for me is I'm always tracking, do I like who I'm being?

Do I love who I'm being when I'm doing this thing? Because I may find myself in a scenario where I don't like who I'm being? Do I love who I'm being when I'm doing this thing? Because I may find myself in a scenario where I like, I don't like who I'm being when I'm doing these things. And, uh, so that's, that's, that's a really good reframe of that question. A lot of times it's like, what do you like to do? What do you love to do? It's like, well, do you love who you're being or are you, when you're doing this, are you, do you spend a lot of time being angry or upset or whatever? Yeah. Asking people why they're doing things is that it's funny that that should be the, it seems at face value that that should be the easiest question to answer. But usually I don't receive the answer, even if they've told me something.

So I tend to ask why a lot. I found that a lot of people who, uh, are in the gym comparing themselves to others or are getting like caught up in some like crazy inner dialogue that's keeping them that like gets them hurt or keeps them from performing the way they want to perform or feeling good. As a lot of those people don't have a really clear why, you know, when they show up, they're just like,

my why is my intention for training today is to do whatever's on the board and to beat everybody else. You know, that's the intention. A lot of times people forget why they started doing it in the first place. And maybe the reason they started doing it in the first place and maybe the reason they started doing in the first place wasn't a very good reason either but um i've watched people go from i my intention is to do well and to beat other people and things like that to oh wow my job requires me to be healthy so that i can if, I was talking to a guy recently who he works, uh, what was it called? Highline. Like he does dangerous work with like electrical wires and

and he was having an issue with what was happening in the gym. And he we i go well what if your why was to be the you know be the most capable person that it creates a safe environment at your job so that nobody gets hurt and he goes i just watch his whole demeanor change his posture changes his eyes light up and because he had a really solid why that wasn't beating other people in the gym, he ended up being able to walk back in the gym and really focus on himself and have really good technique. Before, he was like cheating technique to beat somebody else, or he was so worried about what other people were doing,

and now he's like, this is what I'm here to do. And now it's like, oh, I'm not paying attention to what anyone else is doing. I'm here for me. And I'm going to be the best version of me. Yeah, that resonates with me a lot because I used to have this belief that if I wasn't one of the best performing people

in the gym, then I wasn't valuable enough to be someone's coach. But then I realized that pursuing high performance took away from my ability to be a good coach for them. I'd train before I'd start a class, right? I've 90 minutes of training, lifting heavy, going hard and fast, and then slamming a shake and trying to turn it around and wondering why I'm having insane brain fog while I'm trying to lead a group of people. And not only is that not up to snuff for what it means to be a good coach in a class setting, it's potentially very dangerous. Because I'm not paying attention to things that normally I would have a clear, sharp eye for.

You can get lazy, all those things. So I used to experience that all the time. I felt like I had to be this super high-performing person. And then it clicked that it was like, this is actually making me to a degree worse at my job. Same thing when I was teaching the kids. I was teaching the kids and then I was also training hard and I was also coaching people at night

because I wanted to keep my toes into the fitness game. And what that did was I was just stressed out like all the time. Like why am I always so stressed out? I work out. I eat well. I drink well. Like I sleep well. And it's like, yeah, but I was just like – I was just always hitting the button.

Yeah. You know? You know the button. I do. I know the button well. Fuck. Just bang, bang, bang. My hairline knows the button. Dude, just give it – it was like the button. I do. I know the button well. Fuck. Just bang, bang, bang. My hairline knows the button.

Dude, just give it. It was like the rat. You get food or you get drugs. It's like once it hits the drugs one time, unless it's like LSD, I think the rat only hits that one time. But if it's that good, good, just bang, just bang. And that's what we were seeking. At least that was my

experience. I tend to recognize that in other people. We're searching for this feeling that we want. And my belief is that play is, it can get people into the state that they want without causing the damage that they're doing to get to that state. Yeah, this is really interesting. This is something we have. What we're looking at with Enlifted is we put the Enlifted program together because we're looking at the industry and I'm going, oh, fuck, we've cited and we we've got a we've got a laundry list of things that we find issue with in the fitness industry and one of the really big ones is people uh training stressed out so you're training to and you're doing something that's supposed to be healthy right going to the gym is supposed to be a healthy activity but people are putting so much pressure on themselves and sometimes showing up when they don't, when they really shouldn't even be there or, um, or they're just, yeah, they're being really demanding on themselves and push

dominating their bodies instead of being in tune with it. And, uh, people are practicing to be stressed when they're exercising. Yes. So they're practicing every time that you do a rep under stress, you're practicing to have short breath, which creates cortisol response, stress hormone response. And there's nothing wrong with stress hormones. I mean, there's a cycle. You want stress hormones to be present and this and that. But to learn a new physical skill when you're stressed, it doesn't work.

You don't retain it. Yeah. And so if you're playing or if you're in a really clear space where you're relaxed if you're relaxed and training then uh then you can learn skills faster you'll adapt more quickly you'll recover much more fast and when i look at i go wow people are before they even start the exercise are stressed and then they leave stressed and they leave disappointed in their performance and there there's really, there's this whole just, it's just stress on top of stress on top of stress. And I'm going, okay.

And emotional stress, psychological stress, physical stress all manifest similarly in the body. So one of the things we look at is go, okay, how do we teach people to train relaxed? You should be relaxed and enjoying. You should have a smile on your face for a lot of the training. You should be with your breath. You should be enjoying what you're feeling like this should, you should be feeling the entire experience. And I know for myself, I used to escape the feeling and the experience,

but I would put my mind somewhere else. Escapism is a serious problem. And I would hide, I would hide from the feelings I was having in the gym. And then I would, and then I would push so fucking hard that I had to listen to my body. But it was only when I was squatting 500 pounds that I could hear anything. And it was only for a few seconds. I would get that peace. And then it's like wow that's people that's another issue is people are using heavy loads to find a moment of peace yes quiet the mind that's when it gets quiet is when i push really really hard i'm like what if you could find

quiet without destroying your body what if you could find? And so the way I train is 80, 20. So 80% of the time I'm training relaxed. I'm feeling my body. I'm with it. And then 20% I push, push really, really hard. I hit that lactate wall. I hit, I lift a load so heavy that I can feel like, oh, mechanically I'm close to breaking down. And I'm really sore the next day. So I have that 80-20 rule. And since I'm at 37 now, I'm more athletic now than I've ever been in my life. I can move better.

I have better articulation at every vertebrae in my spine. I have better flexibility. I'm better at things like handstands. Um, I'm not squatting as much as I used to, but I, but I can actually squat safely better than I used to. Yeah. And so you're better, you're better all around, better all around. And when it comes to physical skills, like surfing, or if I want to go pick up a new sport, if I want to go hit a golf ball or whatever, people are commonly surprised at how quickly I pick up physical skills. And it's because

I'm not putting the pressure on myself that I used to. I'm relaxed now. And most people, as they get older, you know, picking up new physical skills, it's just not as easy. But a big part of it is, is learning to breathe and relax and accept failure as a lesson and all these things that put us there. And so, yeah, that's one of the really big things that we push is when you look, like, can you train relaxed? And when you look at the best in the world, I remember watching Rich Froning compete in CrossFit Games,

and the dude looked so fucking relaxed. He's just like a human metronome. Yeah. I mean, he almost never lost his shit. And so when you look at the top in the world, they're having a good time. Laird Hamilton is a great person I like to watch. This dude is like, you know, who's the... Something like, he said something along the lines of like,

the most successful surfer is the one that's having the best time. Yeah, dude. He's enjoying himself the most when he's out there. And this guy is probably the most skilled surfer on the planet in that niche of big waves and a lot of other things. Very innovative. He also moved the industry forward.

He created the foil. He didn't create the foil, but they took the foil concept and attached it to a board. They were the first ones to do that. People go, oh, he's a phenom. I'm like, this motherfucker has been playing his whole life. That's what's created so much success. That's why he can learn so quickly is because he's playing. He's the most well-known surfer on the planet that doesn't compete. Yes. He doesn't go to surf competitions. He doesn't do that. He just does. He does it for him. He does freakishly amazing things. I have, I haven't confirmed whether or not this story is a hundred percent true. So if I ever get to meet Laird Hamilton, I'm going to ask him this to be

true, but I have a family members and friends that lived in Hawaii. And he and his wife have a place out there. And she told me the most amazing story that they then created as like an inside joke. You remember like the, what would Jesus do? Yeah. Everybody remembers what would Jesus do? It was a, what would Laird Hamilton do? And the story that sparked this legend, there was a dude surfing, and he wiped out pretty hard, and he lacerated his leg on a rock. And Laird sees this going down, and he comes running down the beach out of nowhere, and he takes his shorts off, and he pulls this guy out of the water, and he uses his shorts to create a tourniquet for this guy's leg, and he just carries him off the beach butt-ass naked. Just butt-ass naked, huge, blonde, beautiful man carrying another man out of the water.

And it was kind of like from that point, what would Laird Hamilton do? If they were ever in a sticky spot, what would Laird Hamilton do? And all, of course, he'd take off his shorts. That's the final line is always like, he takes off his shorts, and then whatever he's going to do next. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I've thought about that. If someone's breaking into my house, am I going to put my pants on before I go greet them? Or, I mean, it's a lot scarier to be attacked by a naked man. I couldn't agree more. Think about that. You go busting into

somebody else's house and they come at you butt-ass naked. You're like, no, no, no. Mike's always probably hiding shit. You probably got a knife

or you keep your pistol tucked away. Freaky guy. It's a katana. A katana? Yeah, that's the weapon of choice if somebody comes in yeah comes in okay i this is you and i could get off the rails in no time you were talking about um training stressed and you were talking about the problem of learning to practice training stress i tell people all the time that stress cannot combat stress. Stress can only compound stress. So what we did at recess to try to help people understand this, a concept that we discuss at GMB a lot is the idea of auto-regulation, the ability to kind

of automatically regulate your training based on your need in the moment. And that is a skill that's hard to cultivate if you don't have a background and even knowing what your body feels like. Right. So, um, so that, that's one problem that we get at the gym all the time. People aren't a hundred percent sure where they should or how they should act. Right. Uh, and another thing that we discovered is that anytime that we asked people, we're like, cool, just ask them. And anytime we asked people how they were feeling, the typical answer was, I'm good. Yeah, I'm fine. I'm good. And so I realized that, okay, there's an opportunity here to help people understand this important concept of auto-regulation. There's also an opportunity to give them a language to be able to tell me how

they're feeling without actually having to tell me how they're feeling without actually having to tell me how they're feeling. And so what we do at recess is we use what we call like a three light system, a red, yellow, green, just like a stoplight. And essentially red, your red zone is depressed, sad, really stiff and sore. You name it really lethargic, hyper stressed out, all those things. That's what we call a red zone. Yellow zone is kind of that middle zone, right? It's kind of like the, I'm here, like I want to move around. I obviously didn't want to go home. I might be a little bit stiff or sore, but for the most part, I'm feeling okay. And then the green zone, exactly what you think it is. I'm really focused. I'm really motivated.

I'm ready to get after this shit. So based on how you're feeling, we can give you activities that are shown time and again to improve that zone. So if you're feeling stressed and you're in the red, playing a game, doing some mobility work, finding something that you like to read and get your mind in place, maybe do a little breath work and meditation, like that has been shown time and again to improve people's mood. So I didn't want to set a gym where people felt like they couldn't come if they weren't feeling their best. Because I want to create a community where people like seeing each other, but I also don't want them to be overworked. So we created a culture where it's okay to say that you're red, right? Do your red exercises. And we have classes where we follow us.

Like if you're feeling red, everybody does the red exercises first, because if, even if you're feeling green, these red exercises are prepping you for the thing that we're going to do in the end. So, uh, uh, the red zone essentially is, you know, the way to get people out of a stress state. Because like you said, if people are coming in stressed, and then I'm like, hey, we have heavy deadlifts today, it's a high, high stress movement, then I'm not actually serving them in the best capacity that I can. So we wanted to set a culture where people could say, I'm feeling red, and I know what that means as their coach, and then other people know what that means. So, you know, we got David, it comes in, and David's like, man, I'm kind of feeling red, and I know what that means as their coach. And then other people know what that means. So, you know, we got David. It comes in, and David's like, man, I'm kind of feeling red.

And somebody else hears that, and they're like, hey, man, you want to go play a game? Like, we have games that we can play. So it gets people, even though they don't have to know what the other person is feeling, they can go, oh, I understand what red means. Yeah. I understand what red things that we could do to help improve each other's mood. I'm getting ready because I'm feeling green, but I still want to play a game too. So classes would basically be red zone.

And then yellow zone is that middle zone, that like low intensity aerobic work, right? The long walks, like you mentioned, if you're not taking long walks, why are you coming to the gym, right? If you don't ever walk around just to walk around, like why go to the gym? Let's start there. Let's get you some walking. Let's get you some water. You should be doing that first.

And if you're training hard, you should also be going on walks. Exactly. I used to laugh when I heard that from older coaches. Yeah, man. It's hard to sell. And now I'm the guy saying it. It's like, all right, let's see how many of the youngsters listen to this. Yeah, and it'll be great because then they'll grow into their old creaky bodies and they're like, man, I should have been fucking walking around.

Mike was telling me that in 2019. And then, yeah, so the green zone is high intense work. If we're going to do any sort of like, you know, lactic work or if we're going to do any sort of like high intensity sled pushes, heavy lifts, we're going to do that towards the end of the group. And the whole point is, is every time we finish a set of activities, you recheck in on how you're feeling because you might've walked in green or thought you were green and you got moving around and you're like, I actually feel like shit. Yeah. Yeah. And so, but on the, on the, on the flip side of that, sometimes you come in and you're like, I don't really think I'm feeling that well. And then you step on the mat, you get moving around, and you go, actually, I feel pretty fucking good today.

Let's keep going with this. And so that's been our attempt to, and you asked me earlier what really separates the gym from other places. It's never going to be the stuff that we teach, the methods that we teach. We're not going to differentiate ourselves because we swing a lot of kettlebells or because even because we have monkey bars in there. But I do believe what we have done that I'm the most proud of is setting a culture where people can be honest with themselves and other and everybody around about how they're actually feeling. And there's no stigma or shame in not completing quote unquote, a workout, right? It's no, we know how we're feeling and we know what works to help us feel better. So let's do those things. Because the more often I try to do green exercises when

I'm actually feeling red, the more likely I am to show up red in the future. But the more often I honor that zone, I do my yellow, I do my red, if that's how I'm feeling, the more likely I am to show up green in the future. And if someone is honoring it in the gym and they're like, they come in and anytime they're feeling red, they do red. Anytime they're feeling yellow, they do yellow. But yet they're still showing up red or yellow. We get to have a conversation about what's going on outside the gym. And that's what I really love doing the most is helping people connect to what they're doing in the gym and how it is either making them better or how is it serving you outside of the gym? How is it serving you in the community? Because the founding principle of recess is we believe everyone has the ability to create change in their community. But the way that we create change

is through education. That's where we start. Yeah. I really like the red, yellow, green. A lot of people are using HRV now to have a device outside of themselves to notify them if they should dial it back or push it um and i played around with devices that measured that and really all it did was give me confirmation that i i'm good with how i feel like if i i can tell if i'm ready to push it i can tell if i need to pull. And so it was cool to have something like that as a calibration tool. But I think one of the most important things we can be doing in fitness right now is what you're doing, which is having people check in with themselves. People don't check in with themselves. They wake up.

They fucking run to the coffee pot and they run out the door to work and then they get off work and then they run in the gym and they come home and watch TV and then go to sleep. And not one time do they check in with themselves and go, how am I actually feeling? And that's a really great practice. And if for, for people, if they're only checking in one time per day, that's a huge win, but it's something you can check in with yourself as many times a day as you want. It can be 20 a day yes how am i how am i feeling right now that's something that i didn't do when i was younger that i do now that's allowed me to honor my body honor the cycles and go you know i need a nap now and what ends up happening is in any given week I can have way more impact with my work. My physicality is really strong. My health is really up there. Across the board, I'm doing really, really well. But that's because I've learned to check in with myself consistently. And when my body's telling

me something, I do it. Yeah. And exercise is a great way to start to help us cultivate these skills that can serve us in so many more areas of our life. Because exercise is physical and we can feel it. And it's immediate feedback. Now, that's really great, but it shouldn't stop there. I don't want to say shouldn't. It doesn't have to stop there. What you can do is like, okay, I have now gotten to the point where I check in once a day.

What would happen if I checked in twice a day? And then what would happen if I'm checking in six times a day? And then what would happen if I'm constantly in a state where I am able to be checking in with how I'm feeling at any given moment? And that's where it goes. Because once you bring the awareness to just that one moment, then you have found your way to a place and you know how to get there and you can continue to find your way back. I look at you and I see somebody that no longer seems to differentiate all that much whether or not you're in tune with how you're feeling. You used to not be in tune. Now you just live in a perpetual state of being in tune and it

becomes obvious when you've moved away from that awareness as opposed to, oh, now I get that I'm in the awareness. No, you're in the awareness and it becomes weird when you are not. Yeah, I actually, my experience now is when I get out of tune with my body, it's as if I can only feel things that are happening from like my shoulders up. And there's this hum in my chest and uncomfortable hum. Um, and a lot of it, I end up in a place where I feel like I need to be doing something all the time. So I'm always thinking,

I'm always thinking, always taking care of something. And then I go, Oh shit, there's that hum. Yeah. There's that. I'm actually not feeling my body.

And I take some breaths and I sink back down. I go, oh, I'm in a stressed state right now. I've been breathing short for the last few hours. And you said hours, right? Yeah. It only took you hours to notice that you had moved away. Some people are in decades. Yeah. Well, and recently I spent weeks in where i was primarily in that state and i chose it i go there we really need to push right now and i know what i'm doing i know that i'm disconnecting i know that i'm getting out of this and i pushed really hard, got tired, and then had to recover from it. Because when I'm in that state, it's like I go in an old pattern of work, work, work, work, work, work, which it's a gear. That's also something to honor, which is know when to push and know when to call it. And what I want to point out to people is living this way doesn't mean that I don't ever make the sacrifice.

There are times, but I'm very conscious of my sacrifice. I go, I know that there is a good three-week period where shit has to happen with work. I really got it. And I understand that my health is going to decline a little bit. I'm going to be a little bit more stressed and, but we also have a deadline. You chose to value performance over health. Yes. In the current climate that we live in, most people don't know that there's a difference between performance and health. And so I don't, I'm never going to, uh, I don't intend to ever

like tell someone not to push. I'm never trying to tell someone not to aspire to perform. I'm not anti-competition or anti-performance. What I hope to do is to help people understand that there is a difference and that you are making a trade-off in some capacity between your performance and your health. And if you're not doing that consciously, then I'm setting you up for failure and you are going to eventually break down, right? That athletes break. There's a reason that Ilya Ilyin takes an entire year off of training when he's done with the Olympics, right? He spends three years peaking. He breaks all the world records because he's incredible. And then he spends the next year walking and rowing his boat. Yeah. And not doing a whole lot. Well, I also like to point out like a lot of times when I

work with people all, uh, and I choose to go into that performance state, people will comment and go, I don't know how you do it. How like they can't, if they get in the same room with me, it's, you know, I can put in more hours. Um, I can, I can really push it. It's because I'm not pushing it all the time. 80, 20. Yeah, exactly. I get to show up when I, when it's really critical. And the trouble is most people think that it's critical all the time, which is a mistake. And, I mean, I would say 80-20 is probably not even really critical for me. A lot of it's choice. It's like, okay, I've got a little in the tank here.

I can push a little bit. I can get ahead. But as far as necessity, I like being truly critical, and it's not. Most of what I do is, is, uh, yeah, it, it, it can be done easily. It doesn't need to be done the hard way. Yes. I mean, I, um, I have an experience in a culture where, you know, there was a lot of pride in being able to be at like a workhorse, so to speak, being able to, being able to work long hours was a badge of honor. And I fully bought into that too. And I, I guess it worked, it worked for me when my job wasn't a physical job. I could, I could work those long hours. Cause even though it was draining, I wasn't also training and also teaching people how

to move. And so I brought that old mentality of like, man, I'm a fucking workhorse, dude. I can work all day, all night. I'm going to, I got my gym. I got my education thing. I'm studying to go to this master's program and I'm taking anatomy and physiology online at night, motherfucker, you know, like bring it. And then I'm wondering why my relationship's about to fall apart. And probably mediocre at all of it at that point too. Oh, God. At best. Not great at anything. At best mediocre. Yeah, not great at anything.

That's super common. Yeah, there's a point where you have to start making choices. I mean, there's a reason we have a limited amount of time on earth. It's to cause you to create priority. So start choosing. Yeah, be in choice, not start choosing. Yeah. Yeah. Be in choice, not in obligation. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. You have to hear that all the time. Yeah. So I, so I'm going to take a left turn here. What, um, what's happening with, uh, Barbell Buddha stuff right now? Awesome. Thank you for asking.

I just dropped episode 21. We are in week 21. We'll have 101 episodes because the first one was an introductory episode where I got to sit down with Janie and her sister Abby. And we got to talk. We ended up talking for 50 minutes and it was a very special moment. But my intention is to put out an episode every week for 100 straight weeks. And what I'm doing is I'm aspiring to recontextualize Chris's work in the current climate. Because like I mentioned before, if you listen to Barbell Buddha

while Chris was still alive, he was likely this person that you were a fan of that was doing this cool thing that you really liked. But like I mentioned, once he passed away and all of these things that he said became recontextualized, to me, it took on a new meaning of importance. I was like, wow, this is something to be shared. So I'm aspiring to drop an episode every week for 100 straight weeks. And what I do is I will pluck out those Chris Moore nugget and pearls from those episodes. And I will try to create more context and give a little bit of backstory on his life too. So where we are in the story is Chris just learned from Janie through a fortune cookie that thanks to you, baby number two is due. So we're now at the point in Chris's story where he knows that May is on the way.

And I'm sure that you remember that time really well because there was a Barbell Shrugged episode where he's making that decision to leave the job and he's got the other to leave the job and he's got the other child on the way do you remember that time yeah oh do i remember that time yeah that was a really interesting time um and that uh i'm a very uh i'm not risk averse. So I, I really like to make big leaps. And up until that point, um, I had, I had devoted my full time to barbell shrugged and I had, um, I was doing very little with the gym, uh, during that time. And I was looking to move to California. And Doug and I were working full-time, shrugged. CTP was pretty much, the three of us were full-time shrugged.

And Chris was still in the corporate gig four days a week. He did a good job, pulled a Tim Ferriss, and was able to get one day a week off in the middle of the week. Wednesdays, right? So he could work from home. Yeah. And he was wanting to leave the corporate gig, which paid well. And he also got to work with surgeons.

And he had a pretty cool gig in a lot of ways. But his heart had him wanting to do the show full time. And I remember pushing him pretty hard. That's something I used to do. I still will push people when the timing is right and they're ready. But I remember wanting him to be full-time, really wanting him to be full-time. And he was going to have to take a pay cut in order to be full-time really wanting him to be full-time and he was going to have to

take a pay cut yeah in order to be full-time with us uh because like i'm just not going to pay what some medical device company is going to be able to pay you yeah well you got to pay yourself that first right yeah yeah i made it yeah exactly not yet and i knew for me it was yeah I I had made the switch previously as a business owner where I where I dedicated myself fully to something and then it took off and so many times I've watched people I coach people too like okay I got my corporate gig and I'm doing this coaching on the side you know when should I switch over I go when you switch over and when you choose that that's the day there's no amount of money that's going to be coming in that's going to dictate when that's going to happen and and uh you know chris was in a slightly different position than me too having

family yeah and kid on the way yes and uh so he definitely had more to be concerned with than I did. And I'm aggressive. But I remember pushing him, pushing him, and it being a big back and forth. And he wanted it. It wasn't like I was pushing him towards something. He didn't want it. It was clear in his work too. I mean, the way he described it, the way that he described you and the way that he described Doug. I think it was Doug who ended up giving him the phrase that, that ended up becoming a chapter of his book. And essentially what Doug said was, man, you gotta, you gotta burn the boats. Yeah.

You know, like if you want to fucking swim and you want to make it, like you gotta burn the fucking boat, you know? And, and he did. Yeah. Which is, again, that, that's why I think it's recontextualizing the work, right? Like, had he not chose to do that, then he wouldn't have done that. after Chris passed, I felt very at peace with where he was at. I knew that he didn't have any regrets

and that made me happy. Yes. I was happy that he had, he had left the job that he didn't really want. He went after the job, you know, he went after the job you know he went after the work he really wanted to be doing in fact he he left working with us you know yeah I don't think it had been maybe a month he had left working with us and then he passed yes but what I was really

happy about and I when I was at peace with his passing was that this dude was following his heart. And I know that there'd be no regrets. Yes. You know, and I was really stoked that he had some time to do that. It wasn't just overnight that that happened. He had a couple years of doing that work before that happened. And I also thought about, he could have still been working his corporate gig and passed away and never had really gone after

what he really wanted to do. And he was so talented uh he's such a talented writer and researcher and uh speaker and it was just really really uh cool to be a part of that uh i remember this when you were talking about that it brought up a very specific memory we were were at Faction back in Memphis, and Chris was doing a seminar. He was... Was it Simple Strength? No. This was after that. We were...

I forget even what we were doing. I don't know if we were multiple people were presenting or if he was the only one presenting. I just remember him getting up to give a presentation. He had so much experience in speaking, so much experience in writing and being on the podcast. It was just completely out of character. He fucking

had a breakdown. Oh, wow. He gets up to give a talk to 20 people and he just breaks out in a sweat and his heart's beating fast and hard and I take him outside and we go for a walk. I was like, Hey, everybody just chill out. We're going to go for a walk. So we go out for 10,

20 minutes and he's just like, fuck, my heart's beating. It's hard to breathe. And this was, this was the time this was happening at the time where he was like, I'm leaving my job. Um, uh, I'm, uh, I got a kid on the way. Uh, I don't know what exactly the future holds. Um, he signed up to work with me, which I've been, I've been, uh, I've gotten better. Uh, but, uh, unpredictable is a common term thrown around inside the company. Predictably unpredictable. And so, yeah, for a lot of people,

I thrive in uncertainty, so I think it's thrilling. Whereas other people fucking hate it. The average person, most people, 99% of people hate uncertainty. Then there's a few freaks. I remember

talking with him and just helping him calm down and then getting back in the gym and just being really surprised. I'd seen him in so many... I'd seen him squat 1,000 pounds. I'd seen him talk in front of hundreds of people. We've traveled the world.

We'd been doing cool stuff. And then he – and I was like, wow, man, he really is stressed. I was like, oh, shit. This is a big deal. Yes. Big, big deal. And I also forgot the context. It was – I realized that he had always lived in Memphis, Tennessee.

He had never moved away. And I wasn't originally from there. I had moved there when I was a kid. So I had this change. I went in the Navy. I lived all over the world. Came back. And Doug's not from there.

And Doug's not from there. So I was like, oh, if I always live in the same place, this would be a much bigger deal for me too. And really realizing that. So yeah, I remember that, that phase really, really well because it was right before I left and I wanted to move the whole crew out to California. And, uh, one of the reasons was we were traveling like 20 days of the month. We were gone because there was nothing, even though we were operating out of Memphis, it was a cheap place to live. Um, I found myself hardly ever being there and I found myself being on the West coast

a lot. And I go, you know, if we move somewhere where there's a much more dense fitness community, we could be home more and still get, and get really high quality shows. And, uh, and so I started really pushing for that getting, and that was part of him quitting the corporate gig. Yeah. And he was missing, uh, you know, he's that guy, God, I just love, he wore his life and his heart on his sleeve yeah through his show um it was just so so it was raw barbara buddha was so raw you know there were no rules like we're sitting here we have microphones like the one it seems like the cardinal sin of radio is like listening

to someone drink something with ice in it near your microphone he would literally he would just like hold on you know like talk did you take a sip of scotch with a little bit of ice in it? You know, he just didn't give a fuck, but he wore his heart on his sleeve. So that's why, again, it's so important because he wasn't talking about stuff in an esoteric way. You know, he was talking about stuff because he was fucking living it. You know what I mean? And it was like, you were always hearing his struggle and experience before you got any sort of like push to be different yourself. He was always going, this is where I've learned. This is where I fucked up. This is where I'm seeing an opportunity for growth and change in my life. And I just want to share it with you

because it just seems like the next best thing that I can do. That was one huge theme of his work is the question, what's the next best thing you can do to step in the direction that you want? Don't worry about 10 years from now. Don't worry about five years from now. Don't even worry about a year from now. Set a direction, but don't worry about what you're going to have to do to get there in five years. Do the next best thing you could do. And for him at that time, the next best thing that he could do was leave that job. We actually have best thing you could do. And for him at that time, the next best thing that he could do was leave that job. We actually have a book in the library. It's called On Writing Well. I don't write a whole lot. It wouldn't have been a book. Janie gave us like 250 books

and he gave a lot of books away before he passed away. So we don't even have the whole library. We're going to do like a catalog of all of the books, and we'll try to put together something online where people can just see the types of books that he had in his library. But this particular book. Be careful, folks. Yeah, be careful. There's a lot of books.

A lot of books. But this one particular. I've read a lot of the books that he read. Yeah. And that's what I was telling you this last night what i realized after the fact because i i was i read a lot of the books he was reading when he was reading them and we would get together in the evenings and discuss them and uh there were a lot of books that i read after he passed that he had read. And some of them, one of them in particular

was one that he referenced quite a bit that I hadn't read when he was still alive that I read. And as I was reading it, I go, oh, and that book in particular has been the deepest book I've ever read in my life. It caused the most change in my own life. And when I, after reading a series of books from this particular author, I go, I was able to look back and go, that's what was happening. Yeah.

What I was witnessing was Chris Moore, the last year and a half before he died, was in a process that very few people go through. He was going through a metamorphosis of sorts to a really deep degree and it i don't think it's really good idea to compare people because everybody is so different and how their mind has been constructed uh but the level of deconstruction he had done with his own mind uh looking back on it with the knowledge i have now is extremely impressive extremely impressive i want to point that out as one of the things that you get with barbell buddha when you listen to it is you're actually getting witness to chris deconstructing uh a lot of stories and a lot of who Chris thought he was and then realized he was not and finding more of what his true nature was. And so the work is extremely deep in nature

if you can approach it that way. And so I like to point that out just because it was something I wasn't even able to understand until a year or two later. And I go, oh, that's the process he was in. Yes. Removing parts of himself, beliefs or otherwise that no longer served him,

as opposed to adding more knowledge. A lot of it was like removing old things. But this particular book on writing well, like I mentioned, not something that I would really pull off the shelf, but it is a key, a backdoor, so to speak, into like where he was at the time that we are in currently in the story. So if you go in, the greatest thing about these books, in my opinion, is that he didn't treat them, even though he loved them, he didn't treat them like they themselves were sacred. So he'd like let May just scribble all in a book or they'd still like have ash on the books.

They're sitting underneath his incense or something like that. And he would write in them. He would like make little notes in them all the time. But I was flipping through this book and there's lots of lines that he has and pages that he's creased. And then you get all the way to the back and there was like a paper clip that was like full of notes, handwritten notes. Now, if you could read Chris's writing, good on you. Like, good luck. It was chicken scratch. But the point is it was from the desk. It had a section because you work for Smith and Nephew, right? From the desk of Chris Moore. And there he was sitting at his desk at this job that he was ready to depart.

And he was planning his escape. And these notes are the proof. Yeah. You know, and they're all, these things are scattered through these library books. They're just like these personal little notes in there. And so all the time people like, hey, show me your gym. I take them into the library first. And it's just because like that, if you want to understand recess, the way that we approach strength, the reason that we

don't want to talk about just the physical, because you can't just talk about the physical. If you're talking about the physical, you're talking about everything. Chris had a way of finding the threads that weave everything together and then being able to show you in a way that you can understand and digest, which for most of us was strength, training, strength, but also family, science, philosophy, vice, you know, all of those things. Yeah, vice. Your favorite. It's up there. Yeah.

I like to balance all of them. Yeah. Yeah. One thing, having you out here has been really good for me in that I would say, yeah, I'll do super vulnerable share here. And this being the last show on the Shrug Collective, I think this is the most fitting. And I look back on Barbell Shrugged, and I made the decision several months ago

to leave the Shrug and you know start something new um and the that process was extremely difficult and it was really identity shifting because the majority of people who know who i am know me from barbell shrugged and for me to step away from the Shrugged Collective was like, yeah, it was strange. I really don't know how to put it into words other than it was really, really strange and emotionally difficult. And about six weeks ago, I was in Austin, Texas, and I went through this process. And I went in for six sessions to do, like, basically this psycho-emotional process. Everyone that listens to the show knows I just sign up for weird shit. And I'm just curious. I'm like, there's nothing to fix, but I want to see what, like, this new treatment is out

that is supposed to be, like like next level for people with PTSD, anxiety, whatever stress. I like, I don't really suffer from these things, but I still look in those things and find things. And what I found there was I had never, uh, like really, uh, uh, grieved Chris's death appropriately. And in one of my sessions, I just bawled like a baby. And it felt so good. It was a huge release. And I felt this big pressure lift off my chest afterwards.

And what was really cool about that experience is I had a good 30-minute cry. And during the cry, I had all these flashbacks of just an era. So it was grieving for Chris in the beginning, and then it evolved into, you know, basically the years of 2012 to 2016, 27. Like, I'd say about 2016, it was, me doug ctp chris and we were traveling the world doing cool stuff it was like we were a rock band we knew it yep we knew it you were and it was like we knew that you know it was like oh shit you know like I was like, oh shit, you know, like this probably won't last forever. And, um, and

man, we tried and as, as most big, great bands do. Yeah. Yeah. And I look back and yeah, during this nice little cry session I had, I, I got to have flashbacks of all that era and just like my relationships with CTP, my relationship with Doug, my relationship with Chris. And I went back and listened to one of the Barbell Buddha shows and when Chris died, it really pulled the wind out of my sails in a big way. When he left, he was in a process. And he and I didn't, we weren't talking the weeks before he died. It was one of those things where I thought, oh, I'll just catch up with him at the end of the summer. He's going to go to Amsterdam. He's going to write his book. And when he gets back, we'll, we'll, we'll hash it out. Like he wasn't happy with me. I wasn't happy with him. And, uh, and then he passes. And the funny thing is, is

it's like, I knew it before it happened. Like I was getting on a plane. I'd been in Canada doing a workshop and I was getting on the plane and I saw this text and I think it was from Janie. And as soon as I, before I read the text, I was like, Oh fuck, something's something's up. And I found out right before we took off on the flight.

And the plane takes off. And I just sit in silence the whole way home. And, yeah, it was the strangest thing. It was, I didn't, I didn't, it was it was like between us having disagreement and then him passing away suddenly. And then knowing that my business at the time was, we were, it was, we were in a tough spot. Actually, we were like trying to figure out how we were going to change things and all this stuff.

And I just didn't, I knew it too. I knew I was like, I'm not really able to grieve this right now. I'm not really processing this right now. And I have to work. There's shit that has to get done. This business needs to survive. And so time goes on and I just, and it's like, I forget, I forgot that I never grieved it. So it's years later and I'm sitting in this chair and then boom hits me and I go, Oh wow, this has been, this has really been impacting me for a long time. And, uh, and it was cool that I had had that experience. And then I meet you the week later. Yes. And I go, Oh wow. the guy who has really picked up Chris Moore's memory and helped

get it out there shows up right after I have this process. And I knew that it was perfect timing. Perfect, perfect timing. And I'm stoked that we get to have this show right now where we get to talk about that. We get to talk about his work. We get to talk about Barbell Shrugged a little bit. And also the evolution of where we both agree and what's happening in the fitness industry. And go, yeah, people need to play more.

And that's, yeah, I think it's really serendipitous in a lot of ways. But also not on accident. I've had a lot of people reach out to me, especially after Chris's death and over the years, and had people say comments like, I really didn't hear you guys talk about it much and all that. And it's like, you know, part of me, you know, I wrote, I wrote a couple emails, I wrote a blog post. I mentioned it on a couple of shows at different times, but like, I, I really didn't know what else to say. Yeah. And I didn't know what people wanted to hear. Like, I don't, I'm like, I don't know what you expect. Am I supposed to post every day about this?

I'm not really someone who uses social media as a medium of self-expression. And that I'm just sharing what... I don't feel like I need to share my deepest, darkest things all the time. I like to use it more for it being helpful for other people, but I was really unsure. I'm like, Oh, I just don't even know what, and part of it is not having processed it appropriately yet. So, um, I'm happy. I'm happy now to be able to have this conversation and be able to cap off the last show with this. Yeah. I mean, you can't talk about Mike Bledsoe in his current day without talking about Chris Moore.

Yeah. You can't talk about Barbell Shrugged in its current day without Chris Moore. And there are a lot of fans of Barbell Shrugged that would have found Barbell Shrugged after Chris had passed. And so to all those people, I encourage them, go back, dude. Go back and go watch those old videos on YouTube. Go get to meet that version. Because again, Barbell Shrug, Shrug Collective,

it's expanding, it's growing, it's evolving, it's impacting lots of people, and that's amazing. And it all started with a group of four dudes that just wanted to hang around and goof off. And we're told probably countless times by friends and family members, like, nobody's listening to you jokers. Why are you guys doing this every week? And like I told you before, you know, nobody was listening until everybody was listening. And, you know, to tell the story everybody was listening. Yeah. And, um, you know, to tell the story of Barbell Shrugged is to tell the story of Chris Moore and, and, and, and that group, I, like you mentioned the, the great rock band, you know, it felt like you

guys were fucking Zeppelin dude, you know? And, and that's part of the thing, man. Like when Chris passed away, um, it was fucking heavy and, and just like his immediate close friends and family were at a loss for what to do, I saw the industry come to a brief pause of reflection because it was clear that a bright star had just gone out suddenly and nobody saw it coming. And I remember just – I was just grateful that y'all had done what you had done. I went to his memorial just to pay respects, you know, and then to see people that, the people that came, people that Chris would have named in his life as like some of his idols were there in reverence of him. They're grateful that he gave them the set of tools that they had to see the world differently and to see themselves differently.

And you can't talk about Chris and not talk about not only the impact he had on people like me, but the people, you know, the impact that he had on people that he revered. And just to see how that was reciprocated was really special. So I'm really grateful to be able to do that. You know, what he put down was so heavy. It was so heavy. And for whatever reason, I was able to pick it back up. And it all just started with wanting to do something good for someone who had done something so important to me. And so, you know, I want to help people rediscover his body of work. So for people that know it, go back and listen to it. And if you want, listen to Barbell Buddha Rediscovered, and I'll try to help recontextualize

it in, in, in the current day. Um, but listen to him, um, go through that journey and, and see what happens. My guess is that they're going to, you know, they're going to see parts of themselves that they weren't expecting to see. So, um, and the other thing is the way that we can keep his legacy going is, is buying a book. My guess is that they're going to see parts of themselves that they weren't expecting to see. And the other thing is the way that we can keep his legacy going is buying a book. Give it as a gift. Go to barbabuda.com, buy a book, and give it as a gift to somebody, even if it's yourself.

And the other way is to actually put his message and his words into action. That's how we can carry the torch is not by just saying that was something that was important to me, but actively choosing to put it out on the line and to be authentic and to face fear and to see resistance as a friend and not as a foe and learn to dive into the wave and not run from it. That's how we can honor Chris. Um, and so, yeah, man, I'm, like I said, I'm grateful for all of you guys. Um, I also see that, you know, uh, everybody is open to be able to move in a new direction. And I think that it's beautiful that you guys were able to do that and be able to keep the essence of what you guys started. It's incredible. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Uh, where can people find out more about what you got going on? Oh, yeah. Okay. So if you want to follow Barbell Buddha Rediscovered, everything,

Facebook and Instagram at Barbell Buddha Rediscovered, that's its own channel podcast that you can find on iTunes. You can find it on Stitcher, SoundCloud, all that good stuff. So if you're interested in Barbell Buddha Rediscovered, you can go and check that out there. If you want to learn more about recess, you can go to recess901.com recess901 i'm about to launch my first uh mini course it's called three days to play and it helps people understand the processes of health how to create a good practice and then how to turn that practice into something that's more playful and fun so if you want you can go to recess901.com and check that out my instagram is brooks meadows b-r-o-o-k-s-m-e-a-d-o-w-s and facebook it's probably slash coach brooks meadows

so they can find me there yeah dude dude good job across the board with recess 901 with barbell buddha rediscovered this uh so in alignment with with where i'm at and especially with the barbell buddha rediscovered that like, I'm beyond stoked that you're doing that. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. All right. We know you love this show.

So make sure to go over to whatever channel you're listening or what app or whatever you're listening on and make sure to subscribe to the blood. So show, so you don't miss anything for the coaches out there. Go over to the strongcoach.com, check out what we got going on. We've got a summit coming up. We've got 90 days of coaching going on.

Lots and lots of cool stuff for you to check out. There's also, you get three days of free coaching delivered right to your email, which a lot of people have gotten a lot of value out of. Go check it out.