Barbell Shrugged - Community, Coaching & Competing w/ CrossFit Milford's Jason Leydon

Episode Date: May 25, 2016

Jason Leydon coached his team CrossFit Milford to second place at the games last year.  On this episode he talks about building a strong community in the gym, how to manage competitors and your regular class athletes, and more.

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we talk to CrossFit Games coach Jason Lyden about the aspects of coaching that are often overlooked, how to build a strong CrossFit community, and how he got his team to second place last year at the CrossFit Games. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Hey, I see you sitting there, lonely by your keyboard. If you want to, just whip your fingers out, put them on your keys. Type in http colon forward slash forward slash www.barbellshrug.com while you're there swing on over sign up for the newsletter we'll send you some cool free stuff and make sure to check out overtime it's a sweet place with a bunch of sweet stuff and last but not least i know you're trying to find a bitchin t-shirt to get your mom for a birthday, head on over to merch.barbellshrug.com.

I don't know. I don't think they know how well that we know each other. I know Michael very well. Y'all are like, what the fuck? You're insulting a guest. That's a good face. I once had to text Jason Lydon after knowing him for three years to ask him how to say his last name. Not for a wedding invite.

I appreciate that. How long have y'all known each other? That was not one of my proud moments. Four years? Four years. You know what? At least I manned up and asked you. You're right.

You did. I don't know why you're fucking staring at me like that. Fucking jump across a box. I'm sorry. Caveman coffee. You got me I don't know why you're fucking staring at me like that. Fucking jump across a box. I'm sorry. Caveman coffee. You got me. That's my fucking coffee. Which one?

That one. No. Yeah. Thanks. This one's mine. Yeah. All right. Are we ready?

No? Okay. What's up, guys? Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm your host, Mike McGoldrick, here with Alex Macklin. Yo. Kurt Mulliken. Hey.

And our special guest for today, Jason Lydon. Thanks, guys. From CrossFit Milford, Milford, Connecticut. We're here at the legendary Power Monkey Fitness Camp interviewing tons of really smart people and coaches and athletes and trying to give you a lot of really cool information that you can take and apply to your own training. So with that said, Jay, tell us who you are. Well, as you said, Jason Lydon.

I own CrossFit Milford in Milford, Connecticut. We've had that for about eight and a half, nine years. It's pretty cool. Greg Glassman actually did my level one. So my level one was myself, the Bergerons, Tiny Wagner, Greg Glassman, Pat Sherwood were there coaching. Joe Alexander was there. So in the CrossFit world, it was just kind of like pretty loaded.

That's the OGs. Yeah, it's pretty fun was that 1992 yeah I don't know what year that was but yeah like 85 or something um so yeah I've been around uh at CrossFit Milford itself we have about 500 members um I've helped spawn off another probably like I'm involved in another four or five gyms in Connecticut um another eight gyms in Connecticut another eight gyms have spawned from our facility we are involved with programming and directing for law enforcement for the city of New Haven we work with lots of kind of sports teams in our town as well fortunate enough to be in a position where we work a lot with games athletes as well power

lifters weight lifters we just signed on to work with the minor league baseball team, the Bridgeport Bluefish, so we do all their training and programming. So I guess that's a little bit of myself. That's a lot of stuff. So if I had to ask you, like, what do you consider yourself like a specialist at when it comes to coaching, like would you say CrossFit? Would you say – what sports?

I think just the – man. I like to think of myself as an understanding of just strength conditioning. Yeah. You know, and how that applies to all different fields of fitness, whether it is CrossFit, whether it is baseball, whether that's lacrosse, whether that's powerlifting, weightlifting, whether it's just being prepared for general physical preparedness, you know, and unknowable. So I like to kind of think of myself as just having a good understanding. Yeah, because I've been up to your gym, and you've got a lot of people there.

You've got a really big community, a lot of different sport athletes all training at the same place, doing a lot of different stuff. So I'd always thought it was pretty fascinating how you kind of layer it all together. Tell me about that. Like how, you know, did it start with CrossFit? Did it start with other sports? And then you found CrossFit and started adding that in. Like which came first?

Yeah, so I guess if I could do a little background, not to go too far off track. My background was in phys ed and health in college and then i played my goal is always play basketball so i went overseas played professional basketball for a little bit and my career ended with putting a lawnmower over my foot did you ever know that no i'm so glad you just told me now i mean it's not like it's not like you know i'm not laughing about it i'm sorry it sounds terrible so it wasn't like a story like i dunked on someone came down like tore my knee like it's fascinating I was like mowing my parents lawn and I tripped oh man oh yeah so so after that I was kind of like in that process of like where'd I go what I do you know so I'm kind of searching for myself you know whether that was like MMA or riding motorcycles it's kind of like I was a mess

um found my wife my now wife and then we got to the point where I went into a completely something that I never even knew about the financial industry right and i was in there for like two years and i wanted to literally just like pull my eyes out every single day and finally the finance you said yeah situation arose where i could take over the small personal training studio in milford connecticut and i had no money so i turned my wife one night and i'm like uh should i do it she said well if you're if you're going to do it, do it. Because we don't have kids. If we go in debt, we're going very far to fall out of it.

Yeah, we'll figure it out. I was like, all right, well, let's just do it. Okay. So I scrounged up money from my family and took out some loans and just bought the gym. So from there, it was just personal training studio. It was kind of like just boot camps, personal training, all stuff like that. And I think just like a lot of other people, how I found CrossFit is I went on a website, and someone showed me it, right, and kind of like I saw a workout.

I was like, I do this stuff anyways. Like, what is this? Like, what's this going to do? Right? And then I kind of like put my one foot – you kind of like put one foot in, you put one foot out, you do a workout. Like, oh, that was kind of cool. Yeah, you don't really quite trust it yet.

Yeah, you don't – and I think like my first workout was G.I. Jane, 100 Burpee Pull-Ups a time. I was like, oh, man, that was tough. You know, and then my next workout was Linda, right, which I think I had, like, I don't know how I had to herniate a disc. I rounded back for all the desks. It took me, like, 40 minutes to do. And then finally my buddy, who was with me, was like,

hey, let's just go down to L1 in Virginia. So we drove down to Virginia, and we did that. And like I said, Glassman was there. There was a bunch of people there. And I was like, just, you know, here, Greg is amazing at talking you know and him and pat shirt over there and i was just kind of wow like this is it so then i came back and completely changed my gym from it was called underground strength conditioning to uh crossing milford so we were in like a 2 000 square foot facility so i was there um and then we kind of grew out of that and then i opened up to cross the milford

which is went from like 6300 then it went up to 12,000. And then I brought it back down to 6,300. That's kind of how we got started. Right. Go ahead. I was going to say, and you do all the programming. Correct. So how do you train your athletes?

How do you program for, I guess, your athletes? Yeah, so from a general population or the competitors? Yeah, maybe just general population. Yeah, general population is a lot different than our competitors. So we have different categories of movements for general population. So let's say category three is like snatch, right? And category one is like a walk and lunge step. So when we program –

So what are those categories just basically? Like how do you define those categories? So it's just kind of like basic simple elements of hip hinge, squat, you know, shoulder to overhead movement. That's kind of low complexity. That can kind of get people moving better. And then high complexity, progressing into higher complexity movements, you know, snatch, clean jerk, let's just say, like muscle up.

So when programming for a general population, I look at the basic elements of just fitness and fun and health. So if I think about if I have 500 people, my main goal is to get these people to where they want to be in a healthy, fun way and have them stay there for a long time for longevity so they keep coming back. So I don't program for the 1%. I program for the 99%. So things that we look at from a general population standpoint is how many times they put their arms overhead. And putting arms overhead to me is everything from a pull-up to even a wall ball right so i may i have specific numbers like we're not going to do more than like 100 reps a week of

that and then how many times we blow going below parallel how many times we hinging what kind of intensity we're hinging like i usually never do deadlifts in a metcon with people in a gym because every time i do it just so i'll do that more from a power component. So we look at hip hinge, we look at squat, we look at arms overhead, we look at how much work we do from a mobility up and back standpoint with the main purpose of we want them to come in, we want to do right by them, have them warm up really well, improve some sort of level of mobility or stability work if we can, get them to sweat, get them to have fun, have some high fives,

put some music on and have them come back. Like, man, I feel great. You know, cause it's not about, I don't want them to leave feeling smashed. I want them to leave feeling better than when they first walked in.

Right. Yeah. And whatever fast that be, whether that's emotionally, whether that's physically, um, and then come back for the next day and be excited to go for the next day without it being like another kind of smash beat down.

Um, you know, we, we interviewed Dave Durante as well, and it sounds like any good coach that's been doing this for a while has like levels of phases. He talked about his phase one through four. You've got yours with movements when it comes to programming

for your group classes. Like what have you learned along the way? Like what are some things that you did in the beginning that you're like, shit, what was I thinking back then? Is there anything you could do to even avoid that? Yeah, I think anything – any good coach can look back and be like, man, what was I doing with that? I'll never do that again, right?

But I think one of the most implementable things that I've learned from a general population standpoint is keep it simple. It doesn't need to be intricate. It doesn't need to be detailed. You don't need to kind of reinvent the wheel, have some crazy periodization plan because from a general population standpoint, it's like people come three days, they come five days. Or they come two days. Or they don't come for like two weeks and they come back.

Or you have new people coming in, new people coming off training. So I've always learned that keep it simple, stick with the basics, and just have it be like just an easy progression for people, you know. And that way they stay healthy, they keep progressing, they have a great time, but they keep coming back. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You know, what, how would, what would you say? So a lot of, I hear a lot of times that people, um, you know, they say that their, their gym's programming, like, I want to do this and I'm not progressing in this. Like, what would you say to that person? Uh, who, who, you know, they're like, well, I'm not really getting and making any progress in here,

and they think it's the programming. What would you say to that person? We get a lot into more of the emotional connection of that at that point because then I'll ask them kind of like, well, what's your purpose? And a lot of people talk about kind of like what's your whys now, right? Yeah. And my philosophy is that comes from Dr. John Demartini, who started that a long time ago of understanding like what is your why, like why are you doing this?

So when we talk with competitive athletes, I want to know like why are you doing this you do this because you think it's cool to train for crossfit because you want to have like cool instagram posts you're doing it because this is truly like the last thing you think about the first thing you wake up and that's the purpose then you're not going to give me excuses of why you're not eating right why you're not sleeping why you're not recovering why you're not doing mobility because then your why is false and don't tell a lie to myself or tell a lie to you thinking that you want to do this just to be like, oh, well, I'm training for CrossFit because it's a professional sport.

So when people in general physical preparedness come up to me like, well, I'm not progressing. I'm like, well, what's your goal? What do you want to do? Do you want to come in here and you want to have a 400-pound back squat or do you want to come here and have fun, sweat, and progress? Because if you want to have a specificity, then let's do it, and we can program for that.

But if you just want to come in and have an hour and be safe and get a good workout in, really, what is your purpose with this question, and where do you want to go with it? Because then we can take you there but understand why you're asking me that. That's a great point. A lot of people don't ever consider why they're doing something. It's just like they see all this stuff on Instagram or whatever, Facebook, and they want to do everything. But are you really asking yourself, why do you want to do this? That's a great point.

Yeah, because people come in and be like, hey, I want to snatch heavier. I'm like, all right, well, let's make sure, obviously, A, you can get in a position to snatch, right, and do it correctly. And then we'll be like, all right, well, then let's put you on a specific program for that. And then, like, one month in, like, oh, I'm kind of bored with snatching and squatting every day. What do you want to do with it? I mean, what do you expect? Oh, go ahead. I was going to say, or maybe you need to ask them to define what progress is to them.

Like, so you know that maybe they figured out now, like, what the purpose is with it. Like, maybe you know why they want to snatch. But, like, when they say, I want to get better at it, like, what does that mean exactly? Does that mean five pounds? Does it mean move? Does it mean actually do the damn movement right? You run into that situation a lot too where they maybe don't know what good progress is. What do you say to that?

If they don't know what good progress is, I kind of backtrack and say, where were you three months ago? Where were you four months ago, five months ago? Where are you now? And then kind of get them to internally look at themselves and internally look at their journey and get them to realize, yeah, I have made progress. Sure. Like I'm moving around a lot more. I'm more active.

Or I'm eating better. I've gotten better habits outside the gym. I've gotten better habits with my spouse. I've gotten better, like, family habits. Whatever it may be. Like something has kind of led to some sort of emotional connection somewhere else Where they do have progress it might not be like yeah, they're not you know Squat clean in 315 or doing 20 muscle-ups and a workout, but now they can put their arms over the head

Yeah, not be hurt or now they think kind of like getting a better arm or a position or they can squat below parallel better Yeah, right so getting people to kind of like Disassociate from what they see all over the place of kind of what people really think progress is, which is like these crazy. PR every week. I know, right? It's like, yeah, it's like getting them to say like that's not real life. So let's kind of look at yourself a little bit more and getting them to kind of have just more of an emotional talk with them, you know, where they can kind of connect and understand what is a fitness journey? Like what is what we're doing here?

What's the purpose of it? Why are you here? So you mentioned earlier that you had a coach's development course. Is that something that you talk to those people that take that course about, kind of digging at people and getting them to kind of crack that shell? Yeah. So when people, when we develop coaches at our facility, it generally takes about a year.

So they start off, there's a three-month phase where they have to do a certain amount of hours each month. And after the first month, they get re-evaluated takes about a year so they start off this there's a three-month phase where they have to do certain hours each month and after like the first month they get reevaluated see if they're gonna go forward or not and a lot of that is I just kind of look at their personalities like can you communicate with different people do you understand how to connect with the grandmother versus a 22 year old kid who might kind of be an alpha male versus a female that might be super or even a male that might have kind of self-confidence issues, right?

So lots of the first month is human connection. Then the second month, it kind of leads to movements, and we have a whole intern packet of how I want stuff taught, what are some basic cues, what you should look for. And what I look for in the second month is kind of like, okay, well, can you even spot cues? And I don't need you to be like a superstar, but can you at least see movement and kind of have a good understanding of that, right? And then the third month, they have to do a certain amount of hours again, and now they start coaching the class. So they get through the three months, and they're like, okay,

well, now you can kind of get set on the path. So the first three months is almost like an introduction. Be like, all right, this is going to be a lot of work. It's not like, hey, you're going to get a couple certs, and I'm going to throw you a class. It's going to be work, you know? So I demand a lot from my coaches. So they go through that, and then they kind of get set on a path to become a coach at some point if some people take six months some people takes a year we haven't had too many people do it in under six months and those i did already came from kind of like that environment for a long time um and

then through that i mean we have a huge staff at our facility from a naturopath to a nutritionist to a weightlifting specialist to a gymnastics specialist to kind of everything. So we do lots of seminars. We almost do quarterly seminars for our coaches where we bring in all these people and just kind of have them talk about something new, teach them something new, and kind of do this whole progression to be professional coaches along the way. Let me ask you, so we talked about how you would handle conversations between, you know, like those who are just in gen pop

doing regular fitness, group classes. Let's talk about how the conversation might be different for high-level athletes because you've got several high-level athletes, like regional and games level, correct? Yeah, we have – well, this year – last year our team took second at the games, so I was very pumped about that. I've been fortunate enough to be in a position to work with games athletes every single year since I've been in here.

This year we have four teams in regionals, five masters who disqualified. You have four teams at regionals? Yeah, two from my gym. So we have a second-place team and a fifth-place team in the east regional from Cross and Milford. Then I was kind of helping the coaches develop their teams who also made it, so another 12th- team in East Regional and then another 14th place team in Mid-Atlantic. And then eight individuals.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you do all the programming for these teams, for these competitors too. How is that different or how do you train those types of athletes? That's not, yeah, I mean, that's not kind of like rainbows and handshakes, like Jero Pop, you know. So we do a lot of different things.

So with those, we do lots of meditation work, like I was telling you guys earlier. Like I'll come in and I think I learned this from one of my good friends told me this quote that kind of sticks with me is, the most contagious thing in the world isn't a positive action. It's a negative thought. So what we work on a lot with our athletes is the ability to kind of get rid of that negativity that's so easy to creep in, especially in your training. Meaning like, you know, I can't believe I got to be in here again all alone. Damn, this training session is so long.

Or why am I even doing this? You know, because, you know, like the most fired up time is once the season ends. Like games end or opens ends or regional ends and everyone's like, let's go. I need this and I need that and I'm going to do this. You know, and then like three months later, you know, they're like beat down, hurt or not doing it. So we do lots of stuff working on getting rid of the negativity

through different phases. And then, so let's say we started getting part of the phase. We work on proper balance, whether that's muscle loading, you know, eccentric, concentric, or symmetric. It's different planes of movement. It's different movement of self. Lots of strongman work. Lots of kind of rebalancing work.

And it's different energy system work from a balance standpoint. We want to make sure that in the beginning part of the year, that's in a complete balance. So if one's kind of like – because anytime you get to a top level in a sport, whether it's baseball, football, crossfit, there will be imbalances. It's impossible. You have to have imbalances. So during that accumulation phase, the beginning part, we want to kind of rebalance them and restructure them so that as we progress throughout the year, get to like that intensification phase,

get more into the competition phase, the balance standpoint is there. Now we can focus on stuff we have to focus on for the sport. Sorry, to dumb down some of the terms. I don't even want to say dumb down. To make it simpler to understand for someone who doesn't know what these phases are. So give me like an easier example of like what.

The beginning. So accumulation, I just think of that as the beginning part. Okay. You know, you just came off, whether it's the Opens or the Regionals or the Games, and now you're just kind of starting your next year. Sure. You know. So in that, we do lots of making sure that we're structured.

And we look at pretty much everything. you know, elbow flexion and extension, like, you know, curls and extensions. We put in arms a couple days a week. We do lots of kind of lateral sled work. We do make sure we're doing lots of neutral grip, prone movements, supinated movements, lateral transverse throws, you know, rotational throws, overhead throws, sled work, zurcher holds, stuff that's going to kind of, like I said, load the muscle differently,

whether it's kind of lengthening it, shortening it, or holding it in a bottom position. Different planes of movement, so whether it's up front to back, side to side, rotational work, and different movements itself. So this is in the earlier phases. Very general. Very general just to kind of maybe rebuild the body, get people. Because I know, like, after a long year of competing,

you're mentally just drained. You need a break from the intense training. Yeah, we talk about that all the time. Because if you look at any sport in the world, what do they do when the season ends? Rest. They do something different for a long time. And you take the sport of CrossFit,

and it's like you get done with the games and the regionals. It's like, oh, man, you're on this new squat cycle. It's a new snatch. You're on your way, right? Yeah. Because you look around. You get on Smolov for the summer.

Yeah, right? Because you turn around, you're like, oh, man, Noah Olsen did 30 muscle-ups in 60 seconds. Oh, I got to do it. Yeah, right? Well, not me, but, you know. Take a break. More people need to hear that.

Just take a break. So we actually try to have them take a break by tricking them. Yeah, you're still moving, but tons of sleds, tons of drags, tons of different work where you might not be squatting a ton, but you're still working and you're sweating and you're feeling it. And then from an energy system standpoint, we'll back off some of the lactate stuff. What's that mean?

I'm jumping all over the place. I'm sorry. You're all right. I know I'm kind of like blah, blah, blah. No, we're all right. I like this journey right now. So we're going from off-season training, and you're showing us how we get back to competition again. Yeah, so then we'll test them out.

And we had some people from our gym here, XFit Lab, who they do lots of VO2 max testing in our facility. So one thing that I look at with competitors as well is I say, okay, well, what's your peak VO2? Because we say, okay, generally I want that over 50. I don't care what number it is over 50, but I want that over 50 so I know that. Now, why over 50? Sorry to interrupt. That's just kind of like a number I like to utilize as far as I know that they can take in a good amount of oxygen and utilize it correctly. But what's more important that I look at from that is what's their anaerobic threshold?

So how well can they exercise at a high intensity for a long amount of time, which is, in essence, CrossFit? And what I see with the top CrossFitters in the world is if you take, like, who have really good breathing, whether that's Rich, whether that's Julie Foucher, whether that's Kalina, someone was actually just tested here from Canada, Alex, and their anaerobic threshold number versus their VO2 max number is, like, 90%. So if their VO2 is, like, 52, then their anaerobic threshold is like 48. How do you measure that on the machine? So you test the VO2 max the same way you do the anaerobic threshold?

Yeah. Sorry, what is exactly anaerobic threshold? So anaerobic threshold, and some people get confused, I think, between anaerobic threshold and pure lactate system. So what I look at anaerobic threshold is, okay, if your max heart rate, let's just say, is 180, at one point when your heart rate reaches a certain number, are you just going

to kind of like drop off and like blow up and die? You can't sustain that. You can't sustain it. So people with a low aneurysm threshold, their max heart rate might be like, let's just say, around 180, but if they're super low, that heart rate number might be 134. So you can look at it and be like, wow, you start breathing hard, the second you hit 134 for heart rate for the most part, you're going to kind of blow up and slow down.

That's when you're like, oh, man. I had a CTP yesterday. He said, man, we've only got 10 minutes left. We've got to hit the road. And I was like, hop on the bike real quick. Do one minute, call out, and he did it. Versus the pure lactate system, right, which is like, okay, you're going to go anywhere from 30 to 60 seconds at just 100% effort.

At that point, your body just can't regenerate the ATP quick enough, right, or facilitate the hydrogen ions. Oh, yeah. He was like, whoo. And you're going to shift the aerobics. Yeah. Yeah, it's crushed. Whoo.

So, and that's the name of the game for CrossFit, right, is getting the ability to exercise at a high intensity for a long amount of time. So, what I first want to see with these athletes is where that number is. So, I'll look at that in that beginning part of the year okay so i'll say okay we we have to spend some time with this athlete to start building that threshold because it doesn't take three months it's not going to take five months it's like a one to two year process for this right especially if it's one to two years really man that makes me feel really bad because i'm trying to dip into that that's crazy you you can still see progress though, right?

You still see progress. But I'm saying like, so my point with the one or two years, like let's say your VO2 disarray numbers is 50. Like when you get the sheet, it would say like 50, right? And let's say the anaerobic threshold number is like 30. So that's a pretty big discrepancy, right? You can still see progress where in like 12 weeks it might become 32, right? Or like two months, three months, four months, it might come up to 34 35 36 but it's not going to jump from like

30 to like 45 like you know a couple sounds like everything else everything else takes you know it takes amazing how that works right it's like you consistency and time to get results yeah i know yeah it's not just like an overnight thing well yeah so that that's the first part of the years is you're you're working on general movement balance and then testing the energy systems to find out where they are. What's the next part of the – So the length of time for that, in my opinion, varies depending on the athlete. I don't put a set kind of like hard fact number and be like, okay, like I know that at the end of these three months they have to be able to transition here. Because I've got to make sure that I do my due diligence

to make sure all the beginning pieces. It's like I said, you can't jump to the sexy before you do the necessary. So I've got to make sure I take care of all the necessary work on them, whether it's structural stability, stabilization, and movement prep, before I can kind of load them up through intensity and volume. Got it. So that's what I first look at for a lot of these athletes is, did I build the structural integrity?

Did I build their stabilization? Did I take care of all the proper movement preparation? So now, yeah, okay, as we shift to the next phase, which is pretty much increasing the intensity and volume, I can now have them lift heavier, I can do more volume, I can start progressing. Their scap where there's elevation of depression, their ability to go overhead, their ability to turn down like the traps so they're not trap dominant, the ability to utilize the rhomboids, teres major and minor, right? can do tons of muscle ups we can do the handstand push-ups we can do the deficit work we can put themselves in in movements and situations where they're not going to be

be compensating with other stuff because i haven't done my due diligence from stability stabilization standpoint so so in the beginning you're basically building a lot of volume and and basic movements to get a really strong base. So that way when the time does come later on, when it's time to start practicing more CrossFit with lots of high rep, high complex movements, they can train it better and they won't fall apart. Exactly. Got it. Yeah. So what's next?

So that part will take us. So then we get into that part where it's kind of more intense, more volume, as we discussed. And that will go into the competition phase. Generally between all – Ooh, sounds good. And you're only training for – in your mind, when you program and this is your whole entire year that you've planned out, you're really only training for one purpose. And that is open and regionals. In my opinion right now, it's kind of like opens, right?

Yeah. From what I see, like some people don't make it anymore through it. Like you have one bad workout or bad lift or you get sick. Like you can get chewed up. How many people would you say that there are right now that are competing in the CrossFit Games that really don't have to worry about the open? There's not many, right? Not many.

And three years ago it used to be like – You kind of walked through it. Yeah, the open was like, all right, just going to get through this safe. I'm going to do it once. I'm going to move on. Like the one and done crap, you know. But like now it's like you see the walk through it yeah the open was like all right just gonna get through this safe i'm gonna do it once i'm gonna move on like the one and done crap you know but like now it's like you see the people getting top 10 in the world redoing every workout like dude it's like every year it becomes more professional and with that comes sponsorships with that comes potential way to live life right doing what you want to do so with that draws in what more athletes yeah it's

crazy and then it's like so you can't take anything for granted like i think like five years ago i was crushing the opens right now i'm like i can't get under 200 right it's like the way it is do you encourage your athletes to compete while you're while you're building them up do you encourage them to do that not in the beginning okay not in the beginning but as we shift to the middle part of the year which is we're looking to increase some intensity and volume i'll look to get them to compete in some of the bigger competitions, right, whether that's like Waterpalooza, Granite Games, stuff like that. You've got to stay sharp. Yeah, you've got to stay sharp, and you've got to get the jitters out.

Because I also want to see their mental capacity. I want to see how big their testicular fortitude is. Can I swear? You can swear. Testicular fortitude. I was like, oh, my God. I want to see his testicular swear. Is that even a word? I don't even think I've ever heard of that term. You can fucking say that.

I want to see how big the dick is. We just lost all our sponsors. We don't have any sponsors. I want them to stand face-to face to face in a terrible bad situation where they're in pain there's nowhere to go and it's just like me and you we're going fucking head to head and i want to see what you have because i because that tells me a lot too like you know we look at this from any sport and basketball you can have the most talent in the world you can have 300 pounds snatch and all these muscle-ups and handstand push-ups but if you have self-doubt

and you don't know how to kind of switch that gear and be like the alpha male when you look at someone you just fuck with them in the head like rich is like rich that rich will personally fuck with people right before competition for the audience out there didn't you beat him one time maybe one time but um i want to see that and i want to see how like i want to see that inner essence of the person yeah i want to see that fire i want i want to see okay i know you're in pain i know you're hurt but you're not gonna put that fucking bar down no matter what you do right no okay, I know you're in pain, I know you're hurt, but you're not going to put that fucking bar down, no matter what you do, right, no matter what happens. Yeah, you're in pain, but you can still fucking do an air squat, right? You can still do a fucking burpee.

You can still jump on a box. Like, where are you from that standpoint? And that's why I want to see even those competitions. And then if you get your ass kicked, I want to see how well you come back. Because everyone gets their ass kicked. You can't be on top for your whole life. I want to see you get knocked down, get your ass kicked,

and then be like, all right, well, fuck it. Let's get back up and keep working. You don't want to save that for the one time of the year that you compete. Yeah. You don't want to save

that learning moment for the Open, right? Right. Yeah, so how often then would you recommend someone competing leading up? Does it depend on person? I think it depends on person.

For some of the people who have been in the game longer, I'll keep it generally one to two. Okay. like like timinsky doesn't do too many i'll keep them like one to two times um people who are younger i might go a little well i'll never go before because i also like to put them in situations with um other athletes almost every week right so they might not be in a competition with a judge but let's say like you got like you know nick and trevor and dan and yeah these are athletes at your gym yeah going head to head on a weekly basis right you know and that's pretty high stress environment yeah yeah now when you do program for them are

you taking those many little small competitions in between into account or you just say no we're just gonna keep with the plan and then our plan is is the open yeah i generally don't keep into account i know there's a few athletes who I think now is getting to the point where some people will actually train for those competitions. Right. You know, because you can still win some big cash there. So for those athletes who rely on that from a financial standpoint, yeah, I think it's my job by them to make sure they're prepared for that.

For people who are just using it as just kind of, hey, let me see where I am at this point in the year, then I don't – it's just we'll taper for it, but we don't program for it. Gotcha. Do you have something? No, I was just going to ask about the time leading up to the final phase or the open. Like what's kind of your – what do you do there?

Yeah, so that's like babysitting, emotional kind of psychiatry. Yeah, because, I mean, if you're at that level, it is definitely a mental thing. Because I've seen athletes, they're looking at the league board, they're sitting there hitting that refresh button just all day long on Monday. And it's just, how do you deal with that? Does that go back with the meditation stuff that you kind of incorporate? Yeah, you meditate yourself.

Mindset. That's something I wanted to dig into a little bit more. You talked about meditation and athletes, the mental capacity leading up to testicular fortitude. And so we talked about that. And, like, how – shit, I'm sorry. So, like, A, what brought you there as a coach, kind of leaning towards the mental side of things? I think it's just constant learning. I mean, I think that's one thing I always do is I just, I'm a student,

and I always try to seek out people from all different areas of strength and conditioning and coaches of all different fields. What do you guys do to be successful? And I think one thing that so many top athletes do, whether it's fighters, whether it's baseball players, basketball, everyone meditates in some fashion, right? Everyone kind of has that point where they can get it in their own head, they can visualize it, they have the mental preparation. And I think that's something that we don't take into account in our sport enough, you

know? And this is so, we started messing around with that because I see it a lot in workouts where it's like you're so quick, like if the game plan goes wrong or you get like knocked in the face, you're so quick to be like, oh, man, I'm fucked up now. Yeah, it's like panic button. You know, it's like, no, like that happens to everybody. How well can you relax, get your composure back? Huge.

You got to be resilient. Yeah. So that kind of brought me to that where I started seeing that a lot amongst our athletes during competitions and like the Opens where the mental side of it was just like it wasn't as strong as I wanted to be. And I was like, well, how do I get it stronger? It's almost like working back. Well, how to get someone better snatch, you know, how to get someone stronger mentally, you know? So I do a lot with it. And I think my philosophy as a coach is that I don't think athletes need to

adapt themselves to the coach. I think it's the coach's job to adapt to the athlete. And I know people are different, and I know plenty of coaches that are super successful the other way, you know, i.e., like Bobby Knight, right? But I came from a school where more kind of like a Dean Smith approach, where I always try to adapt the way I coach, the way I kind of communicate with my athletes, the amount of stress I put on them, whether it's from a barbell, whether it's from a metal box standpoint, whether it's just from an emotional standpoint, to what they can handle and who they are and how they tick. So I started doing that a lot with other athletes

because I'm saying, how can I talk to this person? Can I yell and curse at Mike? For Alex, I've got to kind of pat him and rub his head more. That's probably true. I don't take criticism very well. Whatever. Because I started seeing that because I can get myself, as an athlete, I was very fired up.

And when I was an athlete playing basketball, my coaches could yell at me. Like they could curse at me, and I would respond well to that. So a lot of me was growing up was that's how I would coach. And then I would see that I would do more harm to my athletes by doing that because they'd get anxious, they'd have anxiety. Also, now I'd get in their head because of that, and they'd be like, well, I can't do anything right. So I was like, well, that's my fault, right?

That's not their fault because then I'm coaching them wrong and I'm putting them through wrong preparation to be successful. So I started diving into that a lot more from the psychological standpoint of A, being an athlete, and B, being a coach and learning how to – it's almost like I treat it like a relationship, right? Like what the fuck is your love language, you know? Yeah. Have you read that book?

I have, yeah. Five Love Languages? My wife makes sure I read it a lot explain that real quick because I think that can really be applied to athletes what is the love languages summarize so it's pretty much like people feel love in different ways whether it's your touch whether it's through you know like gifts not gives me like diamonds but gives words of affirmation yeah words of affirmation yeah so um i think that applies to the coaching as well okay um and i started paying more attention to that and i think

that kind of led me down the path of the the meditation with athletes the mental preparation to paying close attention to how they respond to what i say you know because some things like like they hit a lift and i'll be sitting there watching them right and i think it's a great fucking lift but i don't say anything i'm like it's a great fucking lift but I don't say anything and I'm just like it's a good fucking lift and I walk around and then they're like waiting

just waiting for it what the fuck and then other people like crush a lift and I don't say anything and they'll be like yeah that's fucking good you know they pat themselves

on the back and then they hit it again they don't need that confirmation yeah I think kind of picking up on all those nuances amongst athletes I think this is a huge knowledge bomb for coaches yeah for sure learning to pick up on all those nuances amongst athletes. I think this is a huge knowledge bomb for coaches.

Yeah, for sure. Learning to pick up on that is really important. You know, when you need to say something, and not even if it is a good lift, sometimes you need to be like, you need to just encourage them through it, period. Just so they know, like, I'm doing good. I'm making progress.

I think the biggest thing with coaches, like, don't be afraid when you're wrong. To be like, you're wrong. Like, last year at the Games, before we took second place, I was coaching the fucking team wrong, middle of regionals, and I had to pull them into the hotel room, and I had to sit them down and be like, guys, I fucked up. I fucked up.

Yeah, I was like, I coached you guys completely. This was day one. I was like, I coached you guys completely wrong. I communicated you guys incorrectly, and I apologized for that. And I was like, tomorrow I'll change it, I'll fix it, and then, like, we won, we won, we won, you know? But it's like, too many times I think for that and I was like and I was like tomorrow I'll change it I'll fix it and then like we won we won we won you know but it's like too many times I think we caught up being like you feel you have to be a certain way you have to go like oh so and so does this like no like that because that's not fucking you like find out who you are as a coach

find out who you are as a person I've been through too where I've had coaches and I feel like I need I need feedback sometimes sometimes I do right yeah but I have coaches that was just like you know you'd be like, dude, can you fucking talk to me? Like, what the fuck's going on, right? And at the same point, and then I found myself doing that. I'm like, well, I didn't like that. So why am I doing that, you know?

Yeah. So I think just don't be afraid to admit you're wrong. And I think learn how to adjust yourself to your athletes. Don't always expect them to adjust to you because if it's your job to make them the best they possibly can, then you have to learn to coach them the way they need to be coached. Yeah. I think that adjust to you because if it's your job to make them the best they possibly can, then you have to learn to coach them the way they need to be coached. Yeah, I think that's a good point. That's a great point.

If your goal as a coach is just to have a lot of cookie-cutter clients that all act the exact same, then maybe that's fine. That's your one way of doing it. But not everyone wants to coach that way. You know, being adaptive to all your other clients is super helpful. Yeah. I've seen that, you know. That's important. That's a good point. And helpful. Yeah. I've seen that, you know. That's important.

That's a good point. And that builds great. I think that builds a great team dynamic. I'm sure you've seen that affect your team dynamic, you know, the way that you coach individuals. You know, you're not all coaching them the same because they are not the same people. Right.

Yeah. And I've also learned a lot that I got to, like, not talk, meaning, like, if someone would say something to me or an athlete athlete would react a certain way sometimes my initial because I'm still young right and I'm still an athlete so they react to the way and the inside of me sometimes wants to be like like you motherfucker or like you know you get an email so it's written a certain way you can't like look into shit or you can't take it a certain way. So I've also found I've had a lot of success. And Colin, who's our gymnastics specialist and a great coach as well, who's really good at this stuff too,

we'll just kind of, like, almost, like, say what we want to say, like, to each other. And then be like, all right, how can we make that better? And then I'll go back and talk. So I think don't be so quick to allow your emotions to speak for you sometimes. I think there's a time and place. Sometimes I do. But there's always a time and place for everything.

You need to control yourself, and you need to kind of be more reserved and be more stoic. Other times you can, you know. Why is that important to maintain that image? I think calmness. You've got to be the rock, man. That's it calmness and and so what we're gonna be the rock man yeah that's it you gotta be the rock whether you're running a gym and trying to have a huge awesome community or whether you're trying to run athletes and competitors everything stems from you yeah so if you want your athletes to be calm and reserved and confident but you're

fucking flying off the handle all the time and like making a scene and yelling this and that then that's exactly how they're going to be if you want to build a great gym and have a good community and you don't do anything for the community, you don't acknowledge people, you don't talk to people, you don't understand people's lives and what they're going through, you don't kind of do things for them, then you're not going to have a community. Don't blame it on them. Be like, oh, well, I just don't have a community. They just don't want to do that. No, because you're not setting the precedence.

Like, you're the rock. You're the leader. You're the controller. Lead by example. Yeah, yeah. Lead by example. Man, we went on a big programming talk, but I've got to ask you about it too while we're here right now.

With your gym, I've been up to your place, and you've got a lot of athletes, as I mentioned in the beginning, extremely diverse community, but everyone is really tight-knit. It's a family up there. While you were just going on that point, tell me about that. What have you learned in the past that didn't work? You've got different types of athletes. How do you make everyone in the gym that didn't work? You've got different types of athletes.

How do you make everyone in the gym kind of still stay cohesive as a family? That's tough, man. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of, you've got even more personalities. I'm sure you've got to deal with drama and bullshit and all that other stuff. A lot of help. A lot of help.

And I think my wife is really good to kind of reel me in and kick me in the dick when I need to be. She pulls me back in a lot. I have an assistant who's also really good at community stuff. So I'll have someone who's kind of in charge of our community. And it's cool because I don't have – I need people to kind of tell me what's up. Meaning like I send her an email like, hey, like they went through a time. Most of the time like leading into opens, I do feel the community kind of like shifting a bit.

And I'm like, hey, why is it shifting? And she's like, because you're not fucking here. I mean, like you're always with the competitors. And she's like, I get you have to do that. You have to be there. But you have to schedule it in just like anything else to continue to keep other people involved or else it will shift away. Yeah.

You know, and I was like, you're fucking right. Yeah, we've seen that at gyms. When the leader or the image leaves that gym, the community kind of crumbles. They crumble. So, like, we do coaching meetings twice gyms. When the leader or the image leaves that gym, the community kind of crumbles. They crumble. So we do coaching meetings twice a week, every week. And one day a week is on personal self-development, and the second day of the week is on the gym. And in the gym, we're like, listen, this is what we need to do this week

from a community standpoint, whether it's interviews, talks, be like, I want you guys here 15 minutes early. I want you to talk to five people in a class. I want you to figure out what's going on with their lives. I want you to try to send an email to your class after class to say, hey, great job. You know, we do, like, events, and I'd say coaches and myself, we need to be excited about the little stuff we do. It's not like, hey, yeah, we're going to do barbells for boobs,

put it on a whiteboard, all right, cool. Or it's like, yeah, we're going to do this. Like, no, we have to be excited. Yeah, be engaged. We have to drive that. So we do lots of stuff on just coaching and engagement with the community. And I think that's the one. Like you can engage.

Like you can be the best coach in the world. You can write the best shit in the world, right? But if no one likes you, if no one wants to sit down and have a beer with you, then they're not going to come to your gym. What a great point. That's so true. That goes with just individual coaching too. You can know all the tricks and all the magic words

and all the energy system training. But if you can't get your athlete to buy into it and stay on board with you it's not going to matter yeah because that was not to cut you guys off i'm sorry but the next point i had was like how dare you someone like this this one of my mentors came up to me and he was like what's the most important thing with coaching and programming you know so i'm trying to impress him right so i'm breaking down like you know general adaptation syndrome and periodization and all this shit and he's like no you're wrong i go fuck so guys i start breaking down something else right and he's like money so what's the most point about programming coaching he goes trust yeah trust they have

to trust you and you have to trust yourself and like if you don't have that then it doesn't matter what you write because it's not gonna be effective man yeah powerful that was a good point that was a bomb right there yeah man with that said um I learned a lot from you today right now. Thank you very much for coming on. This is awesome. Before we shut it down, though, where else can we find you? Anything you want to plug? Anything you want to talk about?

What you do? Jim? So, CrossFitMilford.com. We do a lot of stuff on Instagram. So, Instagram, we have our CrossFit Milford Competitors page, or my own page, Jason Lydon. And then I'm on that new Snapchat thing. Oh, yeah, Snapchat.

Snapchat's pretty good. Yeah, Snapchat's fun. Hey, listen, I listen to you guys a lot, so I was pumped to get the invite. So I appreciate you guys' time, and I appreciate you guys having me on here. This is really cool. Yeah, this is great. This is great stuff, man. Appreciate it.

Awesome. Hey, real quick, guys, too. If you haven't checked it out yet, go to shrugstrengtest.com. Excuse me. We'll rhyme for a second. Shrugstrengthscore.com. Shrugstrengthtest. If you haven't done the test.

Shit, I did it wrong twice. Oh, my God. If you haven't checked it out yet, go to shrugstrengtest.com. Sign up. See how strong you are. Let us know. Compare the results. We'll send you a lot of feedback.

Good job, Mike. Shrugstrengthscore.com. Shr know. Compare the results. We'll send you a lot of feedback. Good job, Mike. That was awesome. I really appreciate it. That was awesome.