Barbell Shrugged - Episode 9 - Lucas Ferreria

Episode Date: April 28, 2012

The Barbell Shrugged crew is joined by Brazilian swim coach Lucas Ferreria.  Highly entertaining episode!

I can't hear it. It's not working. Hey, try turning up his headphones. Oh, yeah, yeah. That works now. Holy fuck. Good. It totally works, bro. I didn't hear any bloodsuggestions. You gotta fix the problem.

Not that I'm much better than Doug. This chair has one problem. I'm, like, sweating as a pig already. This is a super hot chair. My technological expertise is very up and down. It's like, Excel, I can use can use and then microphones I can't use. It's cameras I can't use either. I describe Doug's skill set to people this way.

I can use. I say Doug's really good at three things. When I say really good, I mean like one of the best. And that's like training nutrition and Excel spreadsheets if it's not those three things he's probably gonna suck at it pretty bad it's like it's like his skills working by everything either happens I'm not concerned about it but that's nothing he's bad at it he's bad at it by choice he just doesn't give a shit that means it could be good at any technological thing he wanted to be good at.

Because for me, I'm good at most technological things. But it comes to say, plotting a fucking chart in Excel. I haven't done it in six months. I go, fuck. Okay, X and Y. How do you format that? Oh, shit. So you got to tinker with it for three hours.

Okay, I finally figured it out. I know Doug's messing with me because he's like, oh, this website stuff confuses me. And then I'm gone for a couple weeks and he's got this new website up and he's running a WordPress site and I'm like, looks really good. You're an asshole.

You know how to do this shit. Barbell Shrugged. The technology podcast. We all have no idea what we're talking about let's talk about lifting heavy stuff we're way better at that i find if you want a website just start a facebook page and put your pictures and locate friends and share ideas on your wall that's what i would do yeah um i had some guys uh asking for business advice they were selling some apparel and uh they were talking about just doing a facebook store i'm like does anyone go to facebook to shop like nope i go okay don't use a facebook store all right this is bar

bell shrug i'm mike bletzo here with doug larson ch, Chris Moore, and our guest, Lucas Ferreira. Ferreira. Ferreira. Lucas Ferrari. Ferrari. Lucas, whatever you want to say the last name. How do you spell your last name, please? F-E-R-R-E-I-R-A.

And for you people at home that can't understand anything that Lucas says, it's because he's from Brazil. That's correct. So tell us a little bit about... He's a world champion UFC fighter. As is everyone from Brazil. That's correct. He's a world champion UFC fighter. As is everyone from Brazil. That's correct. Just like fighting the monkeys.

You're not allowed into Brazil to have children if you're not. And you're from the same town as Silva. Vanderlei Silva. Or Vanderlei Silva. And you used to fight with him growing up? Actually, Anderson Silva is from the same place. Curitiba?

Kiratiba, yeah. It's the place from where Shuta Box is from, which is the gym that's really famous, actually. You told me a funny story a long time ago that was really good. You were coaching, or you were personal training in the same gym that Vanderlei Silva was training in? That was a friend of mine actually yeah a friend of mine yeah okay and was it vanderlei was like punking people oh yeah yeah well no he he had this uh uh he would walk up to people and say hey you want to fight me you want to fight me kind of intimidating then people would obviously like shit their pants and all and then

and then he's joking or he's he would he would then go like it's a hundred thousand dollars if you want to fight me i don't have it bro i really don't have it it's uh so yeah he was obviously joking apparently he's uh i actually never met him but everybody that has said the guy is like just really really like super nice guy and like with everybody around so that's the kind of things that he would do he would like be joking around and everybody good joke yeah good joke lucas is a uh a swim coach now and you grew up being a swimmer yeah well actually tell us a

little bit about your background the back my background that actually led me to swimming is a little different i grew up doing uh a little bit of everything obviously being in brazil soccer was was a big thing uh even though i for brazilian standards suck at it for american standards i'm a pro but um i actually got really into swimming when i was in college already um and college swimming in Brazil is not college sports in general it's just not nearly as developed as it is in the U.S. so I did swim like I actually had one meet that I swam for my college but it's it's not anywhere close to swimming like as swimming for a college here so I wouldn't I wouldn't go to go as far as saying I swam for a college I was essentially doing master's swimming already,

but just swimming because I wanted to. And then I got really into training and really into swimming at that part. So I was actually a lot older. I always knew how to swim, but I got into training swimming when I was in college already. But you should put it on your resume that, oh, I was a college swimmer, Division I in Brazil. Yeah, obviously, yeah.

I could essentially put that, and people that don't know better would say, oh, go, whoa, wow, Division I in Brazil. Yeah, obviously, yeah. I could essentially put that, and people that don't know better would say, oh, go, whoa, wow, that was pretty good. But like I said, it doesn't mean nearly as much as being a Division I college swimmer. It's not about what's true. It's about what people believe. Here's my advice to you.

It's about opening the doors. Yeah. So anyway, I worked with swimming for a little bit. I actually worked with swimming, and I taught at a high school and coached other sports, soccer and volleyball, for a couple of years after I graduated college and then moved to the U.S. to do my grad school here in Memphis.

And then I still really wanted to train. And then the only way that I found that I could continue training swimming was to join a club team because there was no master swimming going around. I actually wanted to be a little bit more serious about my training. And so I joined a club team here in Memphis and swam with them for the two years that I was going through grad school. And then after that, I decided that, well, you know what, I really want to continue with swimming because I was essentially, I was looking for jobs and I was okay going back to like, okay, I'm going to go teach, but I really want to be able to coach as part of my job.

I was essentially looking for a teaching job, but making, I only want to teach at a school that has swimming until it was like, why am I looking for teaching then? It's like teaching a secondary. So it just really, and plus my, my background in terms of school is like my undergrad is, even though in Brazil it would be called PE, phys ed, it's actually a mix between physical education, teaching education, and physiology or human performance or whatever you would call in the US. I had physiology, had biomechanchanics had all that in my undergrad and

then my graduate uh was uh health and human performance at the ufm so again i was i had everything like going away from teaching and finally just like you know what i'm gonna give it a shot to just go ahead and coach full time and that's what i did after that so what was your strength and conditioning like in brazil during your undergraduate relative to your graduate school swimming in america besides the ape fighting you have to do day-to-day survival well what do you mean what did what did i do yeah well yeah what did you do specifically for strength and conditioning for swimming when you were younger and in brazil versus when you were in graduate school here in the u.s well what i uh they were very similar actually actually, I'd say, until I started hanging out with you guys a little more.

So what I did back home was... So it was similar until it wasn't similar. It was similar until we changed. What are we talking about? It was very general. It was, essentially if you looked at the training plan right now for strength and conditioning, it would look

a lot like a general I'd say You did knee extensions and dumbbell, chest presses and hip thrusts. And bench presses and all all that no squatting at all um i essentially this was back then that was back then that was back then essentially so in

brazil it was more traditional using a lot of machines bench press yes lat pull down yeah okay there was there was there were some exercises that some exercises that we felt like they were more sport specific. So essentially we use pulleys and we adapt it like you move away from the pulley and you like lean forward so that you're using two pulleys at the same time, which kind of mimics the swimming. Oh, what a dangerous idea. A little bit. So why wouldn't you just swim instead? That's a good point. It's probably a better way to develop a specific strength,

to just swim with some resistance. You just swim in a mud pit. Essentially, what I feel like... Because it's much harder. It's much harder than a pool, bro. What I feel like... You're welcome, swim coaches. Find you a swampy-ass mud pit

and get in it and swim through it as fast as you can. And then if you can hold your breath under there and not freak out, the pool is like the easiest scenario under any kind of pressure. You know, there is a, there was this myth apparently that swimming, I think in gel,

people say that you would swim faster because you... In jello? In jello. I think it's jello. No, I don't know. In jail? No, gel. Jell or jello jello? In jello. I think it's jello. No, I don't know if it's jello. In jail? No, jail. Jell or jello. G-E-L. I think it's... J-E-L-L-O. No, G-E-L.

It's gel. Gel. Yeah. Like K-Y? K-Y. Like the stuff you would use in your hair. Not you. Jell. Jell, yeah. Has anybody ever actually filled a swimming pool

with some kind of gel substance? Now I'm thinking about this shit. Mythbusters did. Really? The test like drag and stuff? Yes, yeah. So apparently it was slower. We should call Brad.

He's got this supplement called heavy water. We should come up with something you can sell to swim coaches add it to your pool it makes your water heavy and you swim through it there's a little package

charge like a hundred bucks for it edit that out we don't want our idea getting to the master it'll just be mercury put that in there and we'll put an FDA stamp

on it there's no problem with this just don't drink the water and don't get in it really don't breathe don't breathe the air of don't get in it, really. Don't breathe the air of the facility.

I do know about swim mechanics. I took a swim class in college like we all had to do. Did you take that? No. You didn't take swim class? No, not swim mechanics, but a swimming class. You didn't have to take fucking swim. We had to take swimming class. You had to go and

swim, actually. I took it during summer school. My Navy credit may have allowed me to skip that. This may have been like 2001 when I took mine. Did anyone else have to take it? I'm getting kind of old. Did you take it as an undergrad or grad? Undergrad. No, hell no.

Did you take it? I had to take... Well, again, my undergrad was back when. Well, he was in Brazil, not in Memphis. I actually had. So I had to take, to graduate, I had to take swimming. And it was... I feel like Memphis of all cities

should have it. I took it as a swimming course in the summer. But one of the things we did was go over mechanics. The swimming test at the end was you had to swim for 30 minutes nonstop.

Theoretically, without touching the sides or bottom. I was like, shit, no, I can't do that. That's not going to happen if you're not conditioned to swim.

The strokes were reasonably complicated. You had to move in a very specific pattern in order to move efficiently through the water and grab water and propel yourself through the shit. So what I know of it, grabbing a band or a pulley and just yanking on it is silly. It'd be like swinging a heavy golf club. It's going to fuck your mechanics up. Is this right, Lucas? Would you agree?

That is, yeah. I think, yeah. That mimicking a movement is generally not a good idea. Strapping a band around a barbell and trying to snatch it. Yeah, it's generally a bad idea when it's a complicated movement. That would be the number one thing that people don't understand about swimming. It kind of goes along why... Sprinting with a band around you too is another one why i think swimming gets a lot of flack because um it's the sport that people uh actually have overused injuries because again if you

compare the amount of distance you swim versus the longest swimming race uh the amount of distance you swim for practice the volume of training is really really high like if you were to uh do that comparison in terms of running it's like you for training for swimming you would uh run a couple marathons every practice that's that's kind of i think the assumption is because it's low impact and that's and they're like oh you're not you're not just you know that's that yeah you can get away with it but here's here's the thing that actually uh i guess only if you're if you've done done it for a while you start to realize uh um well essentially okay so here's backing off from it a little bit there's two school of thoughts in swimming swimming training uh one of them is this high volume training that essentially you have to be swimming 60k 70k a week uh to be uh just to be training for

for anything and sometimes and you would have like uh college kids doing around that or or college kids doing more than that and high school kids doing around 60K and 70K a week. So let's break that down real quick. In a single session, what does that look like? Like if you have a regular regulation length pool, what is that, 25 meters? In the U.S., 25 yards would be the most common one. Okay, so 25 yards. So per practice, how many times down and back in the pool is that

so we can get some better perspective on it? I would have to do the math, but it would be about 8,000 yards of practice 8,000 yards per practice it's over it's over three miles for training hundreds of times down and back yes yes yes I, yes. I'd say, okay, so. It's like all day swimming. 50 would be two times. So 500 is 20. 200 is 5,000.

So you're looking about 800 times. Jesus. Okay. Yeah. This sounds even more extreme than what a marathoner thinks they must do typically to prepare for a marathon. Well, again, if you look at, I think generally, when you look at race times, let's say a swimming race, 100 meter freestyle, for example, it's done in about, world class guys are now going around 47 seconds. The world record is 46.9. If you go 100 meter running, the world record is 9.6, 9.5?

9.59. For a 100 meter dash? Yeah. Yeah, I think it's into the nine sixes, like nine six nine or something like that now. I want to say. Yeah. I'm the wrong person. I want to say it used to be like 972 and now it's

like i know it's i know you're saying both lowered it down for a couple of times really fast somebody who can't move very quickly or water so anyway you're looking at people in the world have ever broken 10 something you're looking at around roughly four four and a half four and a half times uh uh running in terms of swimming. So again, like the time it takes for you to complete a hundred meters swimming versus a hundred meters running, it's roughly four, four and a half times. So when you're talking about running 8,000 or swimming 8,000 yards of practice, you're essentially talking about running...

Like an hour and a half. Yes. Well, two hours. Two hours is the length of a practice. You guys are taking breaks in between. You'll do 400 and then rest. Yeah, there's a lot of interval training. It's usually not just,

oh yeah, let's just swim 8,000. There's some people that do like 10,000 for time, stuff like that. It's like four and a half miles. Yes. Something like that. And again, actually what I'm talking about here,

what I'm talking, when I talk about like 8,000 miles, this is, or 8,000 yards, 8,000 miles would be a little extreme. 8,000 yards, it's not the extreme actually. This is,

the extreme would be people doing like 15,000. Is that what Phelps does, do you think? So wait, so we're talking about. Depends on part of the season, depends.

He's done that before. I don't think he's been doing anything like that anymore because he's kind of tailoring towards shorter. And then he fuels his recovery with nacho cheese and pancakes. I don't think he's been doing anything like that anymore because he's kind of tailoring towards shorter. And then he fuels his recovery with nacho cheese and pancakes and McDonald's and Subway sandwiches. 10,000 calories.

Subway, the fuel of champions. Whatever the hell they say in these stupid commercials. Where all these professional high-level athletes supposedly are fueling their bodies with Subway sandwiches. It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in my life. I don't know, though. We had. Don't forget Wheaties. We had. It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in my life. I don't know though. We had... Don't forget Wheaties. We had... It's the new Wheaties. We had Gil Stovall, which was in the 2008 Olympic team, developed with the team here in Memphis, Memphis Tigers swimming.

And then he was swimming for Georgia by the time he made the team. But right after the Olympic games, he came back and he talked to the team. And that was the team that I was swimming with at that time. And he told us a bunch of stories about the Olympic Games. It was super cool to hear. One of the things he actually mentioned is that Michael Phelps' nutrition during the Olympic Games was atrocious. And it looks like this is actually a guy

that has not tapped his potential yet. You're talking about the greatest Olympic athlete of all time, but he hasn't tapped his potential. People talk about what Michael Ph greatest Olympic athlete of all time but he hasn't tapped his potential. People talk about what Michael Phelps ate during that period of time

and you know they reference pancakes and what not and I'm like well if he did it then why can't I? And then I tell him well he's obviously

if he would have eaten better he probably could have done even better. It's one of those guys it doesn't matter what he does he's got those giant hands. there's all the biomechanical

advantages but there's also the fact that for i think it's six years he uh didn't miss practice for any one day really six years straight uh he and they interviewed his coach for i think 60 minutes or something like that and they were like really i was like really so christmas like yeah absolutely like christmas afternoon uh christmas eve morning new year's all that and his birthday is like well his birthday was doubles always it's like yeah that's that's that's life of a somebody that's essentially it was definitely no no athlete gets it or rarely does an athlete get it based on freaky genetics alone i mean yeah he's perfectly built to swim i imagine he could swim pretty good if he didn't train so hard but no he also works really hard so that somebody wrote

something about like uh if you walk around on a pool deck like in a national level meet you will see plenty of guys that have uh body types very similar to his uh but again how many of those have done six years where they really went uninterrupted he was he was really uh picked apart by swimming community uh after the olympic games because he really dropped off and he was there were times like he was he was he was signed up to be at a meet and then he dropped off the meet and and tmz had pictures of him in Vegas that weekend. But, but again,

it's like, if you can't win like eight Olympic medals and have a little fucking fun afterwards and party a bit and smoke a joint and hook up with some models, why are you doing it? What is the payoff? Like people go, well, I'm like,

I got to keep on training every day to London. I mean, honestly, I don't, I don't know why he has to... I guess he's going to do well at those games and probably hang it up, right? Yeah, he says that London is going to be his last appearance.

So what do you try to do now? Do you go out and say, I'm going to just win one? No, well, it depends. Some people say that he should just go for the ones that are absolute certainty of wins because that way he just sort of protects his legacy.

He goes out. Even if he wins, I think he's got to win like two or three medals to actually have the most amount of medals. He already has the most amount of golds,

but I think somebody won more medals overall. So it's like two or three medals of any kind. So he could do anything and he's going to have more medals than anybody.

Oh, absolutely. Because it's not like he's going to place fifth. No, no, no. No way. Well, first of all, America has the relays. America's going to place at least top three on all three relays.

And he will be part of the relays. That's for sure. He's way ahead of the world in, I'd say at least the 200 fly. He's like slum dunk. He's going to win it. And then there's a couple other events where he's a very safe bet.

Michael Phelps goes out there, does whatever, who cares. Hangs it up. Does a bunch of blows, starts partying, starts hooking up with all these strippers and stuff. It gets really fast. And I have this big, tall, weirdly shaped, anthropometrically guy, Big feet, big gut, weird features.

I can't wait for the reality to hit. Michael Phelps of the future. Hey, I've got like 15 gold medals, okay? And these big gut and hairy chest and big ass feet. Sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit. So I want to get back to, oh, there's two things

you were talking about. There are two schools of thought and then you got the long and you got the short yeah so yeah the other one the not so long

yeah actually yeah so one of them is actually some people talk about the like really really high volume training

and that was that was very prominent I'd say around the 70s and 80s so even guys that were training for say the 50 and 100 freestyle, which are the shortest events on swimming,

were doing 70,000 meters a week. And how is that structured though? They just show up and they just do 70,000 meters? No, no, it's essentially, you would have like a warmup period where you do, obviously, like an example would be 400 loosened swim and then some kicking, some pulling, and then you do sets. So swimming is very much about interval training.

The difference is how you structure that interval training. So in the long volume school of thought, it would be slower swimming with short amount of rests. So essentially you're moving for a greater portion of your practice. And then there's a very lower volume, much lower volume school of thought that is a lot more intensity, much lower volume. Really about, we're talking then some top athletes training 25, 30,000 meters a week, which is half of it really, but much, much more intense. And so a lot more rest in between sets. So they're swimming 25 yards at a time, 50 yards at a time,

maybe 100 yards at a time at the absolute most? Who are you talking about? For the guys that swim the shortest ones, like the 50s. Yes, yes, yes. And so you would think that okay so distance guys have to go for one and sprint guys have to go for all for others but there's been successful people successful sprinters that have trained 70 000 uh meters a week and and constantly done sets like uh six eight hundreds uh descend uh as part of their training

and these are guys that again their race is the 100 and they have been successful somehow that makes almost no sense yes

especially if you look at runners and the same type of running guys that are training for you know say you're training

for a 5k you run you know 200s to prepare for that exactly and so that's that's what i mean that they're now the thing is the the i'd say the short distance uh school of thought is a lot newer so a lot less a lot less people have gone through it and have actually given it a try um but but yeah i mean there's there's now distance guys

that came through the school of thought and so these guys are the longest race you have in the pool is the 1500 meters or

they call it the mile in yards but it's 1650 which is not a mile but anyway they call it

the mile in yards and it's not a mile 1500 meters either but anyway what kind of sport are we even talking about we're not very accurate making up names and shit we just call it I mean and it's not a mile, 1,500 meters either. But anyway. What kind of sport are we even talking about? We're not very accurate. Making up names and shit.

We just call it. I mean, as long as you speak from the heart, it doesn't have to be true. Like Rick Santorum. We listed an interview with the guy's publicist who said, well, he misspeaks frequently, but he believes in what he's saying. So I don't feel he needs to apologize.

Maybe he shouldn't get Joe Biden to run with him. Yeah. That's a couple. So anyway, what was I talking about? Some swimming show. Oh, yeah. So the mile. Okay.

So there's guys that race the mile. They have trained, and according to them and their coaches, they have not gone over 400 in the same repeating practice for the last year. So all they're doing is like a little – It seems like they wouldn't do much – I mean, if I was a 100-meter swimmer, I'd do a whole lot of intense 100-meter swims.

Maybe some shorter or longer, but... Have you looked at some of the training on the CrossFit Endurance site for swimming? I actually have not. No? No. They're more of the... They're very short distance and more intensity-based. Okay.

So they're kind of on the side of, like... CrossFit Endurance came in as a whole to the endurance community and for running cycling rowing and and uh swimming and they said hey let's do way more intervals longer rest shorter shorter distances higher intensity so yeah well i think that's even and that's more focused on guys that are like triathletes, not so much guys that are swimming races like the 50. 50 and up. Or the 400.

How much space is there in your coaching day to day to try new things? How many novel ideas in the swimming world are there for training? Are there those kooky ass coaches out there who are trying completely different things that no one's ever seen? Yes. Is there some latitude to, if you're doing lots of short duration stuff, are you, it's like, oh, here's this asshole who's trying to go against the grain. I think a lot of people would be looking at you actually like, well, you don't know

what you're doing because this is, here's the thing, like obviously because the high volume school has been successful successful has been around for a longer time it's it's it's actually pretty hard to to try something different because part of it is also getting the trust of the community to some extent and of your swimmers i think regardless of what you're doing you got to realize that swimmers will recognize that they're doing something different yes and and and a big part of being successful in anything that you're doing when you're working training wise is. And a big part of being successful in anything that you're doing when you're working training-wise

is having the trust of whoever you're working with. It's maybe the most important. Yeah. Believing that what you're going to do is going to work. So if the swimmers don't believe in what they're doing, then you're in trouble. Do you think part of it is they need to feel just absolutely frigging crushed at the end of the workout?

Okay, no. So here's... Like I didn't get a good workout unless I'm laying on the floor convulsing? No.ing like a lot of crossfitters probably it's actually uh like i was doing saturday obviously if you i'll tell you we can go into this all later yeah we'll touch on that yeah if you if you talk to the kids about i have the magic pill and you're not gonna have to be swimming as much and you're still going to be just as good. That sounds really great. So everybody would be willing to try that, I think. Here's the thing, though. The one thing that. OK, so let me let me kind of sidetrack before before I explain why I think it might be counterintuitive and why the long volume school might be more right than than

we would think it is uh just just by looking at general uh exercise science research um i was actually reading just this the other day uh there's this two opposing schools and there's actually if you look at swimming forums and swim there's a lot of discussion about them and and each school swears by itself and and says that the other one is wrong uh obviously they tried uh clan mentality man yeah it extends to everything absolutely yeah absolutely yes swimming uh not any different uh now um i i feel like more and more people are finding the like the sort of middle ground and and going like you know what i think you might need one of you like a little bit of both and and like i said in swimming you might need more volume than uh you would think of by by looking at any other sport.

And the rationale behind that, and the rationale that I... It was the first explanation. So when I started coaching swimming, I was very much like... My background was more sports science. I was thinking just like you guys. You're like, why are these guys doing like...

This is just retarded. They don't need this. So let's not do it. And to be quite honest, I feel like the group i worked with uh actually had a lot of success doing a lot of shorter stuff and very rarely going uh overboard with with over distance and stuff like that but is it is all the practice necessary because it's a mechanical thing i gotta keep reinforcing and polishing off the effective strokes because it

doesn't seem like you need really all that sort of aerobic capacity just to fucking swim 100 meters that seems totally unnecessary the the one like i said is it a learning thing the one explanation that i heard from from a coach that sort of uh is really into the the higher volume training is uh swimming is very unique in itself and and the first thing that makes unique is the fact that I really think it's the only sport that gravity is not

the main force you're trying to overcome. What about water polo? Most of your body is out of the water in water polo. That would be... That looks like a crazy-ass sport. That looks... Kicking your legs for like three hours

in a fucking 20-foot pool. Not to mention the punching that you get underneath the water. Yeah, it sounds really nasty. It's really nasty underwater. Yeah. People don't clip their nails. I feel like with swimming, though, anything where you're racing, the point is to train yourself to move faster. So at some point, you have to train yourself moving faster, which means almost automatically

you have to go shorter distance where you have the capacity to move faster because you can't pick a longer distance and move faster. Right. Yeah. The point is you don't win by moving the furthest. You win by covering a distance in the shortest amount of time. Sure. Yeah.

And the requirements to do that really fast repeatedly. So was that his only argument? Was that gravity was not a factor? Well, no, actually his argument was not that. The argument is that... We're rewriting the swimming training rule book right now, bro. The argument is that because swimming is that unique, the human body has gone through adaptations

to learn how to swim, how to move efficiently through the water. So even though you're not moving at the same speed that you want to race, you're adapting to that environment where you're actually trying to overcome water resistance. Which is something that you don't do out of the water at all. I think anybody can make the same argument for any other sport. I don't think so doing a snatch is very unique I promise have you guys ever heard

the aquatic ape theory I'm all ears no no no obviously not I think it was I can't remember who proposed Science Shut up and let me say science

I'm trying to be scientifically sounding here I think Stephen Jay Gould I think that's his name He's passed away He was a famous human evolutionary specialist But there's some evidence for it But the idea is you know why

did humans shed fur and uh grow longer limbs and and this that and the other and the thought was that it could be that some species ventured close to water so like prehistoric um whales who got in the water to hunt already got this squashed if watch Planet Earth, there's a group of monkeys near India that they drop out of the trees and they swim quite a bit. And they're monkeys. Yeah. Well, can I finish my statement? They still got fur. You silly asshole.

They still got fur. They swim for fun. The idea and the theory was, again, I'm not saying it's a correct one, but the idea was that humans got pretty well adapted to moving through water to hunt for clams and, you know, bay wildlife in order to support their lifestyle. So just throwing it out there. So it could be that humans have an extended experience in water hunting and foraging in water and marine environments. For those of you at home, go rent Planet Earth and watch the monkeys dive.

And by the way, just because some animals retain certain characteristics doesn't mean that others in the same situation wouldn't lose them. If the monkeys there can keep their fur and hunt for their food, there's no reason to lose the fur. Study up on your biology, asshole. Seems really confusing. Really, really confusing. It's confusing to your shallow mind.

Anyway, I hijacked i hijacked lucas's explanation well i guess the point is and i i agree with what blood cell was saying actually i feel like everybody anybody that's involved in a sport like that would probably say mma is really specific to itself and it's very unique it's very unique it's a sport unlike any other yes we're the exception to the rule really yeah and i wouldn't say like yeah it's probably very unique in the sense that you're you feel like you're fighting for your own life uh so there's a lot of other things that come but which is why all sound training principles don't apply to us but again i think we punch against rubber bands 8 000 times which is the worst idea ever by the

way that's what makes me think you're think so I'm pulling through the water relaxed or pretty relaxed for long duration versus pulling in the water very hard for 100 meters they're two radically different things it's like punching a bag for an hour or punching a guy 10 times trying to knock him out not the same thing at all

yeah who would ever train for endurance on a bag like for an hour gotta get my endurance up. Aerobic kickboxing classes, dude. You would certainly get your ass whooped. I get that. That's pretty much what you would. Yeah, but aerobic kickboxing classes wouldn't be winning gold medals.

That's very true. They wouldn't be winning UFC fights or something like that. So why does it work with swimming? Again, so. Because they're the exception. They are the exception. I'm not going to. Okay, so my explanation. exception. They are the exception. I'm not getting in. No, okay.

So my explanation... Let's talk over each other. No, I'm just kidding. All right, Lucas. Oh, wow. That totally worked, man. He just gave up. Everyone let Lucas go.

Go. You've got the mic. Go. Now I don't want it. Fail. Go ahead, dude. Anyway, I...'t want it. Fail. Go ahead, dude. Anyway, I understand that. I understand that concept.

And to some extent, every sport is unique. I guess, again, the thought process there behind the school or that some people have with that school of long volume is that because we are not aquatic animals and swimming is the only sport that you are actually in the water uh this is the sport you need to adapt to the environment you're doing it unlike any other sport gills water world yeah you would not water yeah you would not develop okay so basically you're saying that you're getting more zoom in on this

chris you're getting more practice yes essentially that's zoom in on these bad boys these are web toes you want to see adaptation okay that's true

Jesus Christ there's two of us in the room that have web toes you're the minority of the room right now both Chris and I I am actually in the room with two guys

do you think we're are we related we were met we were meant to swim Chris and for some reason we began lifting weights if you look at my if you... Are we really... We were meant to swim, Chris. And for some reason we began lifting weights. If you look at my... If you look at my physiology,

I was clearly meant to swim. Buoyancy and web feet. I'm actually not... I'm actually not buoyant at all. I can lay down on the bottom of the pool or walk across the bottom of the pool.

Well, that's because you have the bone density of a boxer. Like a... A boxer? Like a dog? Like a... My bone density is very high. you have the bone density of a boxer like a boxer like a dog like my bone density is very high you have a bone density of somebody that's been under a thousand pounds several times like 1.7 you have the highest out of all of us that's for sure we were like 1.4

that's why i look so thin but i'm so heavy really you're just big bone but yeah i mean i'm obviously larger but it's just thick bone everybody in my whole life is always surprised when i tell them what my weight is because i guess i never quite look as big as i actually weigh all right so let's get back on topic please so you're you gave the argument for we i think we all understand like short duration, high intensity argument. That seems really obvious to anyone who has programmed for any other sport. And then you're talking about why swimmers feel like it's different. Is there any examples of coaches that have almost done just the high intensity? Low volume. The problem is there's plenty of examples of

coaches now that are being really successful with the low volume uh training and high intensity uh the but those coaches work mostly with college athletes which by the time they get to those coaches they've already had high volume they are ready or the the argument is that they they did now there are club teams which means teams that uh have youth programs that that also walk away from it and some of these have been successful too okay um so it's like i said i think this is just a newer school of thought and and something that needs uh it just will need some sort of a greater period of time before people are comfortable doing it. But to be honest, I think you have athletes that will succeed more on one or the other, depending on the type of athlete you're talking about.

I had a conversation a while back with a cyclist who had been brought up in the high-volume school training. Any given Saturday, they'd ride their bike for 150 miles or what have you. And I was explaining to him that anytime in the fitness or strength and conditioning community, someone comes in with this new idea and it kind of conflicts with the standard of the last 20 years. They're not necessarily saying that all the people that were raised on the old idea um you know they're not saying that their training isn't good or doesn't work at all and it's totally meaningless or worthless they're saying that this new idea they think is a little bit better for a small number of reasons so for this the high volume training in the running world

for example if you run a marathon every single day when you turn 40 you're gonna need two knee replacements right right and not like running a marathon every day for a while wouldn't make it so you could run a marathon whenever you wanted to because it certainly could but if you did lower volume training then you might get roughly the same benefit without the knee replacements right and so for people that are training for general health and general fitness, maybe the low volume training gets them to that fitness benefit without some of these other problems

that come along with it, like chronic pain. Right. If you're doing that much time in a pool, do you have time to do anything else? Even it comes to lifting weights and stuff, can you do that effectively when you're so tired from doing 80,000 meters

or 70,000 meters a week in a pool? Can you even go see a concert? Do you have any life outside of the pool? It's pool all the time. Do you get sick and tired of being there? Does your pool play music underwater? No. I've actually swam laps.

I went to swim laps in a pool that had underwater music. I actually, I'm a little bit of a music Nazi when I coach. I don't like music around. I was in the middle of the same time. We're going to edit that into you saying, I'm a little bit of a Nazi. No, it's essentially like a lot of people like music and I feel like music bumps people up and all that.

But like pools are generally a loud environment already. So whenever you're trying to communicate and there's music on the background it just like i already have a hard time even underwater music well underwater no but we don't have the system to play it underwater uh plus i think the water music is dangerous because it's just one step away to adding like a mic to the coach and then the coach is in your head the whole time and that would that would just suck i guess that's that's a bad the good part of the swimmers that as soon as they dip their hand on the water they can't they can't hear the coach screaming at them anymore because we are screaming at them from back so i know this is certainly true in the running world if you're

doing um high volume training you're running super long distances um your gait or the range of motion that you run through is not going to be near the same as if you were sprinting. If you're sprinting, then your legs, you know, getting whipped way behind you in extension, you're pulling your knee way far forward, you have a much bigger step when you're sprinting. So you're going through a greater range of motion. And if you want to move faster, because you are a sprinter, then you need to train that greater range of motion, which you would not get almost at all, if you were doing only distance training is that true too in the in the world of uh i think to a lesser degree i think a little bit uh the the people definitely

talk about even the same swimmer that that races like let's say uh 200 a 400 or 400 and 800 they talk actually about having different strokes for for different races uh but i think they change a lot less than than the stride changes for running um the the general idea is still i mean there's definitely a change in the the amount of glide you get uh you probably would try to get more glide you pull obviously much harder during a sprint you think there's range of motion is about the same it's just more effort i think when the hand comes out of the water too it's a little bit different also it's a little bit for a longer distance they're a little bit lazier out of out of the water and not as aggressive to get back in the water well yeah because you're because you're essentially

gliding for a longer period so So you're not necessarily trying. Yeah, I mean, your stroke rate changes a lot, I'd say. I mean, generally speaking, the stroke rate would be a lot higher for shorter races than long races. Yeah. And that's exactly the point that the high-intensity school of thought or the lower-volume school of thought talks about when when they make their cases like well it's or that's one of their points it's what you're training when you're when

you're doing these long swims you're training a different stroke than the one you're going to use in a race and and so that's not as effective uh and i i mean like i said i think i agree to some extent uh but i think when you're talking about developing athletes i think there is something to be said about them just learning to deal with a different environment which is just sort of again just learning to deal with the fact that you're submerged in water versus being on land like so if you did low volume training for 15 years of your life wouldn't you be used to being in this different environment? You're still in the pool every single day for decades.

Probably. I think the other thing, too, is – and that's why I say that different athletes probably can't succeed with more or less depending on the school of thought that they're into. More than likely, you're right, I'd say. Good job, Doug. I won. More than likely, you're right.

Doug's going to start coaching swimming now. That's right. You would have to make sure you're working with an athlete that's actually giving you the effort that you're expecting. That's the other thing, too. All this is said on the assumption that everything they do is 100 exactly if they're swimming 100 meters they're swimming at 100 as fast as they possibly can if they're swimming 8 000 meters they're still swimming at 100 as fast as they can but by you know kind of by default they're going to have to do it slower than the hundred meters experience with this and uh would you say just just about every MMA fighter

you know probably trains in a way that you perceive as being pretty shitty? Yeah, the traditional model for wrestling and boxing and then now MMA is you go to practice and you do all of your either wrestling or pad work or sparring and stuff and then

for your strength and conditioning, you go for a jog, you know, or you, or you just do pushups. We take like five pound dumbbells and punch, punch, punch for 15 minutes or something. Yeah.

Pushups and sit-ups and whatever's perceived to be tough. They think we'll give them the most benefit. And that's not necessarily the case. That kind of mentality in the boxing world and the wrestling world, how long has that been pervasive for the whole duration of those like how many boxing training sessions have you seen the guys doing long miles on the road and doing long training sessions with lots of rope touches i know rocky went swimming and he won rocky also did like hardcore training in the snow and with a lumber he was yeah he was he

but that was after the swimming he beat the r Russian. Was it before? He beat the Russian who had the isokinetic machines and everything. And the drugs. And the steroids. One of the greatest scenes in movie history. Well, that's true.

doing like isokinetic ab twists. Like, oh, hardcore training methodology. Going back and watching that. We make fun of it. That's totally like what's in the public's eye. And then it's copied.

Like, oh, I got to do that. It looks really hard. If you're a fighter and somebody tells you don't go out and run 10 miles, you're like, wait, I have to. Why? Who doesn't do that? It's assumed that we should be doing all these miles. Doug's had success by not doing it.

When was the last time you went out and did road work, Doug? In Africa, I ran. I ran on the beach because it was nice out and i was in zanzibar but that's more like i just want to wake up and move before not with your gale bits of your exotic lifestyle but when you're training for a fight that when's the last time you did like road work to prep for a fight have you ever done that um more more or less never really yeah i mean maybe high school i don't know if you know audience but doug has kicked the asses of lots of men

kick just kick their asses in the ring so actually i talked to lucas uh the other day and we were talking about uh your training specifically right and you don't run you don't do the typical MMA or the boxing strength training. You're more into... What are you into? What are you perceiving as traditional MMA or boxing training? The push-ups. Let's see if you know what the hell you're even talking about, Michael Bledsoe. Well, this is a question that Lucas had. He was wanting to know, since Doug doesn't do CrossFit, per se,

as CrossFitters do CrossFit, but he uses his own strength training program. The Doug Method. Something that's very different from CrossFit and the traditional MMA strength training. The e-book's coming out right now. What is he doing? The Doug Method. That's right. So what was your question exactly?

Well, actually, like I said, it was actually watching one of the earliest podcasts. I think somebody mentioned, yeah, Doug doesn't do CrossFit because he's a fighter. He does his own thing. And it just really, like, kind of, I was instantly, I was like, well, I was interested in knowing what he does. And obviously, part of that comes from the, you guys being around the CrossFit community know that part of the flack that CrossFit gets from some people is that CrossFit is not for athletes. I don't know if you ever heard that. Well, it depends. Constantly, yes.

Oh, yeah. Never heard that. Well, I mean, that's for people that don't like CrossFit. Yeah, people talk about it all the time. Yeah. Depending on what you're competing in. Right. If you're competing in CrossFit, CrossFit's perfect.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that's exactly how I view it. CrossFit is a sport. And some people choose to use that sport to make huge leaps in their fitness. And that's totally fine. If you want to do ultimate Frisbee five days a week and that's how you want to improve your fitness, you will get more fit. But if you think that choosing a different sport to get in shape for your other sport is the way to go that's probably not the case if you try to use

CrossFit to get in shape for MMA you probably will get more fit and you will get very fit but it might not be the 100% best thing it might be the only like the 98% best thing and so I choose to do something that I perceive to be just a little bit better kind of based on based on my um my injury status at the time rather than just following some random blog online if i happen to be particularly beat up in some in some way or you know you're not doing kipping pull-ups anytime soon right yeah you know i had a shoulder surgery a while back and and if i ever tried to kipping pull-ups then my shoulder hurts like hell and so i just i just don't do it anymore that doesn't mean that i don't you know train my upper body or train pulling in any way but my goal is to get stronger

and to stay injury free specifically for fighting so um i have a lot more conservative training a lot of times than crossfit offers so choosing one sport to get in shape for another sport in my opinion is not the best way to go but designing a training program specifically specifically for you that addresses all all aspects of of movement and conditioning needed for that very specific sport i think is a much more intelligent idea right yeah and i think we need to say this is that when we start talking about crossfit like there's a lot of gyms that program really well and they program training for crossfit they're not programming they're not programming testing every day so if you follow crossfit.com that's pretty much testing every day like you're competing not just to give you guys a pat on the back but that's what has

been said about faction strength and condition and it's that uh we saw there's crossfit no there's crossfit gyms and you guys are head and shoulders above general crossfit gyms because it's that uh we saw there's cross no that there's crossfit gyms and you guys are head and shoulders above general crossfit gyms because it's not just a crossfit gym it's it's like you said it's you're actually planning training and planning strength and conditioning for everybody in in a much more much much broader way and and taking a much broader approach to towards well we do things a little bit differently than most gyms have ever been to. If you were to look at Doug's training program, technically you could call it a

CrossFit program. Because CrossFit is everything. Yeah. I'm doing anything. Technically, CrossFit is preparing for any situation possible. Depending on whose opinion,

depending on the opinion of the coach like if i say wow doug's program looks really good for praying for anything i could technically call it crossfit you know what i mean so it gets really it's really interesting because people will talk about like crossfit type style programming like you have crossfit football the only thing that makes crossfit football and the programming on there i think is pretty good the only thing that makes crossfit football and the programming on there i think is pretty good the only thing that makes it crossfit ish is that it has some metcons like two or three times a week it has short duration heavy metcon that's what i consider crossfit to be as a sport it's competing in metcons for time against other people right and i and i generally don't do that i still i still do cleaning jerks and snatches and front squats and deadlifts and interval training for conditioning.

And I push the prowler and all these things that crossfitters also do. But for me, I'm really doing all that to get in better shape for fighting and for MMA. And my conditioning in the weight room is very limited. It's not super high volume. That was actually the question I had. I did a thousand med ball cleaning jerks. You're so much of a better athlete.

By the way, that won't make you a better crossfitter either, I don't think. I'd like to state publicly that I do not like med ball cleaning jerks. I think they're a total waste of time you could do med ball cleaning jerks for 10 years and if I handed you a barbell

you still would have no idea what was going on I think the transfer overs here's the thing it's it's own separate movement the way it's been explained to me is people that were trying to do cleans at one time, once they were exposed to med ball cleans, something clicked for them. So I think in the absence of really good coaching, med ball cleans might be the best thing for a not-so-experienced coach

or for someone to learn how the movement's supposed to happen. But if you have a coach that knows how to coach the Olympic lifts, then, yeah, you're right. Because if someone learns how to do a med ball clean, I have to change their starting position when we start doing cleans. Well, I think, yeah. It's like the very first thing you do has to change. If you want to learn to clean, you take two people. One person has a med ball, and they start practicing cleaning.

The other person takes a barbell, and they start practicing cleaning. The other person takes a barbell and they start practicing cleaning. The person with the barbell is going to learn a lot quicker than the person with the med ball even if after two weeks the person with the med ball switches to the barbell.

And once you learn how to do cleans with a barbell, is there any reason to do a med ball clean? No. We're programming med ball cleans into our next faction games. It'd be two hours to do a thousand med ball cleans and everybody will go home. No one will watch it.

The silliest thing ever. I want to get back. So, Doug, you don't train to get better at CrossFit. And your view of CrossFit is fast-paced, skill-based, med ball conditioning or circuit training. Competing in Metcons for Metcons for time and that's competition that's what's happening my my specific question That I think you kind of did say that so what one of things to say is like so you you would not do

high volume My cleaning jerks or high volume snatches or stuff like that that's i i generally don't know i i do a lot of i do a lot of cleans and in front squats and a lot of strength based stuff but for the most part i don't do super high volumes of those types of movements my strength training is exactly that it's training for strength is training to increase speed and power and then most of my conditioning is all my MMA specific work. It's actually wrestling, actually sparring, pad work, heavy bag work for boxing. And occasionally, like once a week, I'll do some type of, you know, 30 second, maybe a minute at the longest, maybe like run a 400 meter sprint as fast as I possibly can.

But like pretty low volume, max effort interval type training. I'll, I'll aerodyne sprint a hundred percent effort for 30 seconds. I'll do like four of them. I'll lay on the ground for like 45 minutes, not trying to throw up and then I'll go home. And that's about all it takes. Right. It reminds me of, here comes my allegory. Get ready, everybody.

What, what makes a good chef? What do, what do good chefs do better than really shitty chefs or average chefs? Drugs. Makes them super creative. Well, a good chef. The chefs I know that are good are on drugs. Okay, focus. A good chef recognizes quality ingredients.

When they present them to you on a dish, a dish is a, that's the plate that carries the food it's the total package when you're presented with the dish really you don't mess with the ingredients too much you preserve what's so great about fresh awesome meat and fresh awesome produce and stuff so it's like you got to respect the ingredients so i think what what's really good about training is that you pick the exercises and you stay true to what that exercise is supposed to do and it's supposed to represent so you know why would you do a box jump a box jumps to make you more explosive and faster and why would you do a snatch just to be more explosive and fast

i guess if you take those ingredients and you make them something they're not i mean maybe there's a use to them i mean you could take a steak and cover it up with curry powder i guess it still tastes good to somebody but if you just fucking left it alone it'd be 10 times better so i mean you could take a steak and cover it up with curry powder i guess it still tastes good to somebody but if you just fucking left it alone it'd be 10 times better so i mean there's better ways there's there's exercises that do a better job of doing what you're going after than a certain exercise that's been manipulated and abused essentially well i'm gonna twist this on you so oh oh just so so we like to eat. We maybe want to like roast carrots and, you know, we eat them like that. But what did you have today? We had carrots that were pureed.

And? It was delicious. That's your. For the audience. Somebody made carrots. They pureed them with ginger and it was delicious, right? Yeah. And that's your high rep box jumps.

Here's where you lose, asshole. You don't cover up the carrot with too much stuff. You just present it in a different way. Same thing with the box jumps. Oh, shut up. Well, I carried the point. My point is being that if you want to get faster, more explosive, should you do 100 reps of snatching or should you do less reps with better execution and better form and higher power?

I'm all for using snatches for any athletic goal. As long as you know why you're doing it, it's okay with me. If you're trying to train explosive power and you want to do eight sets of doubles, that's fine with me. But if you're trying to increase your 15-minute Metcon domain and you want to do 150 snatches with 75 pounds per time, that's totally fine with me as long as you know why you're doing it. And you don't think you're doing something you're not. What if you're trying to be fit, bro? Then you're supposed to do all of it all the time with no rationale

by following the website from somebody you don't know. Because I'm looking to be really fit. So follow our website at Faction Strength. That's right. So as long as you know why you're doing it and the person that's writing your workouts has some rationale that makes sense, then it's okay. But again, if you're following one sports training program for another sport, that's not a good idea. Take Louis Simmons. program for another sport that's not a good idea take louis simmons like louis simmons took took from what i know he took the the training protocols from um from people that were really good at training i don't know he he maybe you know better than i do he took some of the old

russian training manuals and he altered he altered their training methods to fit his sport and then everyone takes his sport and they try to use his sport of powerlifting to make them better at their sport, which again, it probably works in some respects because it makes people way stronger, but you shouldn't use someone's sport to train for your sport. You can take some of his methods and then alter that program to fit your sport instead of just copying it straight over. I've found this. I've PR'd on some Olympic lifts and on just standard lifts like back squat or something, doing a lot of Metcons. I got away from as much lifting, I did more Metcons, and I got more strength out of it.

And it kind of goes against logic, really. It's like, well, if you want to get stronger, lift a lot, don't do as much conditioning don't move as slowly stuff like that did you say that you're but i i would say that maybe i was lifting a little on the heavy side all the time i wasn't getting a lot of speed work and it kind of may have filled in some gaps that i wasn't was your volume high were you doing a lot of the lifts is it a practice oh yeah i was doing a weight weight lifting type programming and then going to crossfit type programming yeah i heard i heard Mike Boyle say one time that he took, I'm assuming since he's a big hockey guy, that he took his hockey team at, I want to say it's, he lives in Boston, maybe University of Boston. I'm sorry if that's wrong.

But he took his team, and over the summer um the whole team was doing circuits and they do i'll say split squats for sets 10 and then bench press for set 10 and then pull-ups for sets 10 and every minute on the minute they would switch exercises and it's all you know quote unquote out of order for um for optimal program design if you're uh you know if you have that kind of mindset where you're supposed to go from the you know the most powerful movements first and and the heaviest movements first and then you do your your assistance or auxiliary movements last it's all out of order because it's in a big circle and the whole team's doing it together and he's thinking there's no way these guys are going to get stronger doing it doing it this way but he found out in the end they all got

stronger it didn't make any sense and so i think he went and talked to Alan Cosgrove and he was like, what happened? How could these guys get stronger? It makes no sense at all. And then as Alan Cosgrove always says, psychology trumps physiology every single time. They were training as a team. They were all super motivated. And so thus they were putting forth way more effort than they may have normally done. And they were getting stronger.

And I think in a lot of cases, when people say crossfit doesn't make any sense but people are getting stronger that's exactly why because at most crossfit gyms what they have over almost all other gyms is they have a group of super motivated people all training crazy hard together and even if it's not quote unquote the best program and it doesn't make any sense, effort and the psychology behind the training and their motivation will beat out the, quote, unquote, bad programming almost every single time. They're all wearing knee socks and matching shoes, too. So dedicated. The unity of the team and all that effort will go a long way. My high school football coach used to say the best training program is the one that you believe in.

And that's total bullshit, but it's not bullshit at all. It really is true. Yeah, it really goes along with what I was, I mean, going all the way back to when I was talking about swimming, like about having the trust of the athlete, and the athlete actually believing in the program that he or she is going through, volume versus high intensity. I feel like it's actually, we just came full circle with the discussion here.

But I absolutely agree. Actually, one of the most famous swim coaches of all times, which was Doc Kanselman, he said that all the time. He said if you – well, actually, the way he said it, probably you guys will not agree with it for the words. But what he said was... I already think he's dumb. Yeah, I know.

No, fuck that. What he said is if you give a team, if you have a team that's trained by a sports physiologist and a team that's trained by a nutritionist and a team that's trained by a psychologist, the team that's trained by the psychologist will win all the time. Now, don't think only about like, well, psychologists are just crazy, lunatic people that just have problems. That's why they go. Every single one of them. If you think about, instead of just using the words, if you have a team that's trained by somebody that knows sports science a lot, and you have another team that's trained by somebody that knows sports nutrition very well. A lot of people who are masters of sports science have like zero real-world coaching experience. Exactly.

A lot of their opinions are fucking worthless. And then you have a team that's trained by somebody that maybe doesn't know physiology, doesn't know nutrition, but knows how to get athletes to get motivated and inspired. That team is going to win all the time. There's all kinds of shit that looks good on paper that when you get in the gym and you try it, you're like, this just doesn't work at all. It seems like it makes complete sense. When you get under the bar,

things are just much different than when you're thinking abstractly in a lab or in the office. There's a lot of things that end up on my whiteboard in my office at home and I start implementing it into my program and two days later I'm erasing it. There's a lot of things that end up on my whiteboard in my office at home, and I start implementing it into my program. Two days later, I'm erasing it. Who knows what you were doing when you were making those notes? God.

There's usually scotch involved. You wake up the next morning, what in the hell is this stuff? Fevered ramblings of an incoherent mind. I want to go over one more thing, and then we're going to take a break. I want to get back to swimming in jail oh we never we never finished that well so strength strength strength training for swimmers instead of like pulling on cables and pulleys you know trying to mimic the same biomechanics you're just gonna throw them in a pool full of gel that was that was i i that there's not that was essentially a myth

and and i think somebody said something that got my attention. Because I remember watching a Mythbusters episode. It was a myth that swimming in gel is faster because there's more buoyancy. How often do you base your decisions in life by what you saw on Mythbusters? You should probably do it all the time. It's a great show. Well, I now know that if someone tries to shoot a lock out of my door, more than likely it's not going to work.

So I can just stand at my door and not worry about it. And they need rifles, right? I think a.30-06. How come I've seen that episode? I've only seen like two episodes of Mythbusters ever. You cannot blow up a car by shooting it either. You can't. They tested that.

Yeah. No, you can't. You need a really big here's here's what i think about myth busters though there was one we're so off topic that was one just so we can wrap this up we'll tie it back into swimming no big deal jesus okay speaking of swimming i was at a i was at an nsca conference in idaho maybe four or five years ago and uh maybe you know who this guy is he was a multiple time olympic gold medalist maybe 15 20 years ago in swimming and he was talking about how spits back i don't know but he's talking about back in the day how uh they used to try to make themselves more buoyant by giving themselves like an air enema oh oh god i never heard of that you ever tried that that that might not for sure that might have been one of those things that you need a straw up your you need a straw and a partner

that might be one of them i mean dude you definitely need a great idea yeah i got a great idea bro Or you just need a long hose. I mean, there's obviously things that I think every sport also has that. I mean, people start... Every sport does not have that. Essentially, it's... Hey, buddy, can you blow in this? Swimming is very unique. I actually believe in that.

We'll fill up each other's assholes with air you go first I hope we added that out no no no James was like no that's part of the show that's the best part

yeah no I mean I think that's I mean that's essentially probably people thought about I mean

obviously if you can be more buoyant, it would help you. But the leap you make out of the next step was how do we get to be more buoyant? Get really fat. By getting – There you go. Which, again, yeah, that would make you more buoyant, but it would also make you more resistant.

How come all these swimmers are so lean and sexy? Because it turns out that... Training really hard makes it hard to be... Isn't it better for them to have a little bit of soft chubbiness to them so they can stay more buoyant for those longer swims? No, I think essentially... The English Channel swimmers are all chubby and fat because if you get in the water, you're going to fucking die.

Did anyone ever swim that's that's something bad you can't say that about the uk people asshole what's the what's the distance between uh alaska and russia right there is that is that the bearing straight bang straight then we ever swim that i have no idea you can walk i'm actually i mean i'm very uh very into uh pool swimming and I follow some open water swimming but like this channel swims are essentially

I mean that is a different sport because then we're talking about several mile swims and all that it's not time to get there

without dying in that case you're not talking about covering the distance in the least amount of time you're talking about making it there how do you train Lucas

so we talked about the endurance crew and the, you know, high intensity. Like what is your choice of methodology? If I were to train myself, well, I think there's also... If you could go back and do it all over again, what would you do? Okay, number one, I think there's... It really depends on like where you were at, like in life or in terms of your training. Like if I had the opportunity to train now as i would like to i i don't because turns out coaching

swimming is uh quite life-consuming uh but um i would i would in my case i would go for uh less distance more intensity and but that's just because that's also who I am. I mean, I'd much rather just give it all out while I can and then just be done with it. I was never able to... The thing is, myself, I was never able to hold intensities for like 600, 800, 1,000 meters.

But with that being... So you're just a better sprinter. Yeah. For English. 800, 1000, 1000 meters. But with that being... So you're just a better sprinter. Yeah, I mean, yeah. For English. But with that being said, there have been workouts that I've done that were essentially coaches made me do when I was still training.

That was like, I remember going with things like 10 500s that when you listen, it just makes you want to leave the water and go home. But I remember going through workouts like that and like halfway through start to feel like you know what this is actually making me feel better right now and i'm and i'm i'm finding things that that i can work with during this workout that i make so i think mentally it's a lot harder but again i if i were to do it myself i would probably probably go for intensity and lower volume. But I really cannot say that I never got anything out of doing some over distance.

Like all the fatigue allowed you to discover new ways of... Yeah, essentially you have to also change your stroke from time to time just to keep going through the set. And you learn new ways to be efficient in the water as well. What do you think, curveball, what do you think the key strength training exercises for a swimmer are? If you could go back and you're going to start training in an optimal way, how would you approach your strength training? Would you do a lot of lat pull-downs?

No. What would you do a lot of lat pull downs no what would you do no i well i think uh very uh a lot of multi-joint exercises and i think that's i think like anybody should do like yeah i think for for that's generally true for for every sport but i think i i'd say thrusters would be would be one of the main exercises that it would incorporate. I just think there's a big element of legs, core work, and upper body as well. You like that because you think

it mimics the metabolic demands of swimming as well as it being full body? What's the reasoning behind that? I'm not thinking about it. I think metabolic demands are going to be trained more in the pool.

So I'm thinking more about full, i think doing a heavy full body doing it as a heavy exercise yeah so if you were to do i mean essentially a very similar movement would be a full like squat clean and jerk but you can do more weight with a clean and jerk don't you think do you think maybe a cleaning jerk might be a better choice than a thruster uh i think i mean essentially we're obviously not talking about having one or the other i would i would have both right i i like the reason i like the thruster better is because you have the uh overhead uh portion of the exercise which i think for swimming is like a lot of the time

you're in this position or this position, which again, I just think getting that range of motion is also important actually. Yeah. I wouldn't know if a swimmer came to me and said, I'd like a strength program for me as a swimmer. I mean, I could write them a strength program, but I think there's probably other people that are much more qualified for that. You think you'd do a lot of overhead work because I wouldn't know about my strength program, but I think there's probably other people that are much more qualified for that. You think you'd do a lot of overhead work?

I wouldn't do any. Do you think you'd do any back work whatsoever? Would you do any sort of pull-ups or anything? Isn't all that tissue just inflamed and always tired anyway? It's kind of like why baseball players shouldn't go overhead too much. I mean, Doug, he's talked about that quite a bit. Yeah, well, with baseball players specifically, if you look at like major league baseball players,

I think the research shows like 100% of them have torn labrums. Oh. So, I mean, should you be doing a whole lot of overhead pressing with a major league baseball player? No, probably not. Because their shoulders are jacked all the time. Yeah, with almost every single professional professional sport the strength coach's job is to keep the best players playing right it's not necessarily to make them

bigger stronger faster is to keep them healthy throughout a long season and keep them on the field doing what they do best right so should you be overhead pressing a major league baseball player with a torn labrum no you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna mess that three million dollar arm up and then you're gonna get fired that comes from yeah that comes from throwing all the time these injuries uh yeah throwing a baseball is not healthy for you at all so would you say that would be it's not good for you as much as as much range of motion as you get say you're your freestyle guy, do you think that that would be very similar? As far as the range of motion is similar in the shoulder? I haven't looked at any MRI studies from Olympic swimmers specifically,

but I would imagine they don't have the healthiest shoulders. I know shoulder injuries are a big problem with swimmers, but I have no idea what they are. I think it's more shoulder impingement just for being much more developed in terms of... Yeah, I see a lot of kyphotic swimmers too. That's actually what's more common.

And I think my... So maybe they get a lot of rowing. A hell of a lot of rowing. They probably need to get some scapular retraction. Yes, that's actually... What is kyphosis, Mike? It's where the T-spine is. A super round upper back.

And what's your T-spine? So with regard to like the baseball person, and I don't know if this is similar with the swimmers or not, but if you look at even pitchers relative to other position players in Major League Baseball, they can't upwardly rotate their scapula as much as the position players or as much as the general population, which means they have weaker lower traps, which means that since they can't upwardly rotate,

they're much more likely to impinge. And they also, with each throwing motion, they get so much external rotation and so much deceleration into internal rotation that they tend to, over time, lose internal rotation, which, as they go across their body body decelerating after they release the ball if they since they can't internally rotate they destabilize their scapula and they roll it forward and then they get in addition to slap tears they get which is one way to tear your labrum but they get many labrum tears like as i just discussed. But along with that, they get rotator cuff tears because they're constantly putting their scapula out of position,

and then the head of the humerus is running into their acromion, which is the top part of the bone on your scapula. So I don't know if that's the same with swimmers or not, where they get... I think the biggest difference is that uh throwing is a ballistic movement and swimming is not uh yeah that's a big part of it because not there's not heavy deceleration right and you think there's impingement just because of it's just overused generally i think they're they're lacking mobility they're overuse yeah maybe their pecs are tight i i think chris actually did make a good point. I think part of

developing... Every once in a while. In order to avoid that impingement, rowing is actually a big part. So really... I don't see CrossFitters doing nearly enough rowing either, man. They do not do a whole lot of horizontal pulling.

Oh, yeah. You're right. We do a lot more than most gyms. We do a lot of ring rows of horizontal pulling. Oh, yeah. You're right. We do a lot more than most gyms. We do a lot of ring rows at our place. You will not. You won't. If you look at our competition cycle, guys, I'm doing weighted rows probably once a week. But I also am doing pull-ups once or twice a week leading up into the open and stuff just because that's what they're going to be doing.

And now none of them are doing any pull-ups. Like, they're not hanging from a bar at all. Unless they're going to be doing. And now none of them are doing any pull-ups. Like they're not hanging from a bar at all. Unless they're going to regionals. It's dangerous. People think. If they're going to regionals, they're pulling up. They're doing pull-ups. But if they're not competing anytime soon, they're doing nothing but rows.

I mean, it's a bit of fallacy in how people approach their exercise selection because they think, well, a pull-up's more natural, and I'm going to be doing it in competition, and it's more of a functional thing. I'm pulling my body weight up. And when are you ever going to really do a rowing thing out in the real world blah blah blah blah blah fit fart whatever uh but just sort of missing the what the basic exercises can contribute to and sort of overlooking essential balance like you should need to be able

to bend over maintain posture pick up a heavy weight and bring it to your chest i don't know if i don't know if people are assuming when they're programming CrossFit programs, if they're assuming that rowing on an erg, they're getting their rowing in. I don't know if they're assuming that they're getting their rowing in that way. But really, if you're doing that right, you're not really rowing, are you?

It's a big leg drive in the beginning and then you sort of finish with your arms. But you should still be getting that same, the motion is the same for the arms, really. I mean, your hands are closer, whatever. I mean, it's very, very similar, but I think you should still be doing – But they may assume that's the range of motion. I think you should be doing, like, real barbell rows, real dumbbell rows,

and single arm rows, too, because – That reminds me of a friend of mine who said he used to make excuses for why he shouldn't squat in his training. He has a typical meathead approach where he's like, well, you know, I'm going to bench because benching is awesome. I'm going to do my curls. I don't really squat because I'm walking back and forth to class all day and I'm using my legs a bunch.

This is not an exaggerated story. This shit is 100% true. Yeah, I walk back and forth all morning, so I don't really know why I need to use my legs more. And so, like, well, it's quite different, isn't it? Squatting and walking. So yeah, I mean, a heavy barbell row executed well is really different than a 500 meter row or whatever, yeah. Oh yeah, my shoulder's been injured to the degree

where I could not hang from a bar. So I did nothing but rows, waited rows for four months, got back doing pull-ups. And first week of back on pull-ups, I PR'd on my max reps. You don't have to do pull-ups to be good at it. You don't have to necessarily do something over and over and over again to get good at it.

There's other things that can build and contribute to performance in a given test without you having to constantly beat it to death. Sometimes you do. Sometimes you get better at doing stuff by doing stuff. You can get really good at squatting by squatting more and more and more. But other times you can get really, really good at something by almost never doing it, like a deadlift. Some people who deadlift all the time are good at it,

but other people who, like me, if I deadlift, if I deadlift more than once every two to three weeks heavy, my back is going to pay consequences for it. And if I don't get injured, I'm definitely going to get a lot slower in a pull. So that's something to pay very close attention to. Very, very close. Good point. When I did come off of just doing Rosano pull-ups, my shoulders felt snug or tight.

Like, they felt good. Like, if I do a lot of pull-ups, my shoulders feel loose. I don't know. There's probably a more scientific answer for loose or tight or anything like that. But let's go ahead and wrap this up real quick. We're going to take a quick break, and then we'll be back. Because I got to pee. Me too.

Between me and you. All right, guys. It's because I hit the record button. You know that, right? Probably. If you had come over here. I know. I hit the record button you know that right if you would come over here alright I guess we both hit record that was the problem don't look at the computer asshole

I'm Mike Bledsoe here Barbell Shrugged Doug Larson Chris Moore and Lucas Ferreira Ferrari I'm going to stop correct you don't correct people anymore Doug, Doug Larson, Chris Moore, and Lucas Ferreira. Ferreira. Ferrari. Ferrari. I'm going to stop. I'm going to stop correcting.

I don't. You don't correct people anymore. When you first got to America. No, no, no. I remember meeting you and you were like, Ferreira, man. So. Actually. When you first got off the banana boat on the shores of the United States, how did people

greet you? I was in Miami. I was in Miami to greet him, in fact. Lucas Ferreira. I just held a sign up essentially it's pretty funny because uh somebody comes to me and say hey i'm i'm mike budsell and i say i'm lucas that's it i i don't try like why would i give it an effort to say happy what about what about ladies say i'm lucas i think you should say they call me Lucas. Okay. Do you know?

I would suggest, and maybe you already do this, that if you're at a bar and you meet a good-looking lady, you should pronounce your last name. Say it slow. You definitely should. Yeah. Say it slow and sexy right now. Yeah, say it. No. Take your shirt off and then do it. Lucas.

Damn. Jesus Christ. All right. so where were we when we left off anyway so yeah what I was mentioning to Mike in the break is that you guys asked me what I would do in terms of strength training for swimmers and even though I have somewhat of a background training and all that I think that also makes me

bias towards swimming. So I would like to hear you guys, your unbiased opinion, not having that swimming background. Let's say you have a swimmer come to you, a faction strength and condition, and say, I'm a swimmer, but I'm also looking to do some strength training on the side with you guys. What would you have that person do?

I would have them call Lucas. Like, I know a guy. If you want to direct that kind of business to me. He lives in Illinois. I'm just kidding. Or Iowa. Oh, you live in Atlanta? You didn't tell me?

Lucas is like, I told you that so many times. I told you that. I was here. I drove by the gym on my way down there. That's right. To me and my friends moved to two different cities. I was here. I drove by the gym on my way down there. That's right. To me and my friends moved to two different cities. So, Doug, you had an answer for that, I think.

You told them CrossFit.com, right? Yeah, go to CrossFit.com. And then don't do what it says. Okay, so specifically what I was going to get at earlier when we were talking off camera, if you have the opportunity to get your own individualized training program, that's almost always going to beat something that's very generic. So if you're a high-level athlete in any sport, then that's really what you need to focus on. So in the case of swimming or actually I say this a lot of times in my MMA strength and conditioning seminars which we're hopefully going to post on in the fitter store here in the near future strength

conditioning programs are not necessarily there to make you a better swimmer they're there to make you a better athlete so you need to focus on on all the components of any good strength conditioning program which in my opinion focuses at least somewhat on some type of speed and agility work. And that doesn't necessarily have to be like running ladders and whatnot. But you need to focus on some type of speed development, power development, whether that's weighted jumps or Olympic-type weightlifting, if that's something that you want to get good at. If it's not something that you care about getting good at,

then you don't necessarily have to put it into your program. But something where you are pushing on the ground as hard as you possibly can, trying to move at max speed. It's got to be in there. Some type of strength training, five reps max or less, a one rep max or a five rep max. Somewhere in there where you're working on max strength for all of the major movement patterns so that'd be squatting bending lunging and then

pressing and pulling both horizontally and vertically it's got to have all these key components you got to address all of your mobility needs so having some type of comprehensive mobility assessment on the front end that way you know if you have any severe limitations is, I think, super important. And if you're a person that has a big limitation, say you can't go through a full range of motion shoulder flexion, which for a swimmer, which would be devastating. If you can only go to here, then maybe you shouldn't be doing heavy jerks because you can't put your arm over your head at all so maybe you shouldn't try to catch 200 pounds over your head because you're going to end up you know leaning back and you're going to compensate somewhere and as a result you're probably going to probably going to hurt is the end result there you know not to like totally take the stage you guys can throw in your thoughts on this too but individualizing your strength program to your specific needs and deficiencies and injury status,

I think is super important. My thought was there's a couple of things that are likely to be the case, right? The first glaring thing is there's probably some things that aren't very well developed in swimmers, right? Like they probably can't get off the ground or move quickly worth of shit using their legs. They probably never even considered the need for it. The only time they're really using their legs and what he was talking about is like – They kick off the start. Yeah, is – you know, they don't ever press hard against anything with their feet

unless they're jumping off the blocks. Yeah, jumping off in turns. But jumping off the blocks and turns are pretty important, especially, you know, in, well, when you race. Especially when you're racing. So there's this huge untapped physiological response that will be tapped once you just do the most simplest progression of deadlifts and squats? Just some basic light attempts at squatting and deadlifting,

just working form for modestly heavy sets of five reps or three reps or whatever is going to trigger a whole lot of very favorable adaptations. You're going to put on some muscle mass. You're going to be more athletic. You're going to be more comfortable using your legs. I guess that's sort of the first easiest apple to pick from the lowest branch that i'm thinking any kind of jumping activities to teach your body to move a little quicker and then also the first thing i thought of uh well the second thing i thought of i guess was avoiding the things that

are probably overworked like you probably need to do a whole bunch of like sets of 10 and shit and especially not doing it on any kind of pulling exercise like a pull down or something a lot of guys probably do a bunch of curls and pull downs first things first you know and and they probably do a lot of benching like any young athlete's gonna do and of course those are the things that have their place but are probably the most likely things to be overworked in any novice uh when i say novice i mean people with weight training experience people who don't have a lot are going to hit those things first they don't pay a lot of attention to the jumping and using the legs and pulling with good form and all this stuff just like you were saying i find that a lot of find that a lot of endurance athletes

kind of put swimmers in that category a little bit even the short duration guys a lot of those guys tend to want to do a lot of reps. They like to do high rep stuff because like, oh, that's just like I do when I run. I run a lot of steps or I swim high volume, so I need to do high rep exercise. And just as he was saying, do the opposite thing. Do the exact opposite, yeah.

You've got that shit covered, bro. Essentially, don't do the same work you do in the water outside of the water. Yeah, I would make it as different as possible. I find that with runners and triathletes that are already runners and triathletes, you put them under a squat bar, you have them squat five sets of five a couple times a week. Profound changes. Their whole world changes. You know, they're constantly and especially the

swimmer with their feet very if they're flutter kicking very small range of motion i mean anything other than the butterfly or the breaststroke really is a really small range of motion so i would i would i would really like to see most swimmers doing deep squats well you were in the lab when we were doing those tests on, towards the end of my tenure at Memphis, we did a study on muscle physiology between experienced high-power athletes, like weightlifters and powerlifters, untrained, lazy people. We sat on the couch all day.

We found a couple, did biopsies on them. And then local highly trained endurance athletes. We did like vertical jump tests, for instance, on the endurance athletes. And some guys were jumping like one or three inches off the ground. Had no ability to maximally contract and produce force against the ground. And a high rate of force development. It was shocking. And those same people, you take a clip of muscle out of the thigh and stain it to determine different types of muscle that their whole muscles are comprised of,

and they are very slow twitch. It's like 90% slow twitch muscle tissue versus, even me, I'm huge and not the best athlete, but I can easily outjump probably any endurance athlete. So there's a huge potential from just working the things that you haven't ever even touched really yeah i mean there's i mean balance is important for anybody and not if you're the thing that you compete at is always going to take the priority but having a a terribly underdeveloped uh component of like doug was saying there's these basic plates that need to always spin they don't all spin at the same speed but if you don't all spin at the same speed,

but if you don't even have one spinning, that's a huge problem. So if your force production capabilities or your mobility or your endurance, if one of these things is terrible, same goes for a powerlifter. If you can squat 900 pounds, but you can't drag a sled 100 feet without getting out of breath, or you can't do 100 jumping jacks without getting out of breath terribly or you know whatever uh that's a huge liability for you i mean it shows a a basic underdevelopment of your physiology right it's just not a good thing right yeah i mean i i

definitely uh i guess again it i i think it all wraps around and and I agree with all you guys are saying. I think Doug, I guess he spoke first, so he had the deeps on what to say, I guess. He's a smart one. The main point that I had heard before, and I absolutely agree, is that the goal of the strength training for somebody that's doing it, it's not to make you a better swimmer, it's to make you a better athlete. And I definitely heard that before, and i think that's that's the way that's the incredible thing to focus on because people are always looking for a way to mimic what they do in their sport and it's just never a good idea right like a football player who wants to do the

jammer exercise because it looks just the way you look when you fire off the line of scrimmage what mimicking is never a good place to start your training. Never mimic anything. If you need more of that, just go ahead. Yeah, you need to get your ass outside and fire off the line of scrimmage if you need to get better at firing off the line of scrimmage. Especially if you're firing off into another 300-pound guy. That's a very unique thing.

And you're not going to reproduce that by doing a fucking hammer strength jammer machine. Sorry to say. One thing we were talking about earlier was bone density. And you being a big guy and a power lifter have extremely um good bone density your your bones are super dense you had uh i don't know is it standard deviations that they measure when they're doing those bonus you guys have like 3 or 1.4 or whatever the unit measure was and mine was like 1.7 uh i want to say zero to one is normal and and then above one is athletic, we'll say. I think one was normal.

Below one, you need your osteopenia. I thought negative one to zero was osteopenia, and below negative one was osteoporosis. And zero to one was normal. Yeah, it doesn't matter. If you're below one, you might want to work on your bones. You're fucked if you're below one. So anyway, you were 1.7, which is super high, probably the highest i've seen out of any anyone in real life at least and then with swimmers being in a completely unloaded environment for the most part that's a good point tend not to have very high

bone density so one thing that i've seen happen in the past is that swimmers who want to work on their endurance they they swim their their entire youth and then they think, well, out of season, I'm going to do cross country. And they go do cross country, and then they put in a huge amount of road work, and that's exactly right. They get shin splints almost immediately. Their work capacity is ridiculous. Yeah, their lungs can do it. They feel like they can do anything. Yeah, so that's one thing you don't want to do.

This is what most people who want to get in shape do. They think, well, I see people run, I'm going to run. anything and then yeah so that's one thing you don't want to get in shape do they think well i'm just gonna i see people run i'm gonna run they don't realize that just like anything not understanding it before you do it is is folly yeah adaptation is specific to a degree i think uh rachel cosgrove read a great article a while back about how you don't want to run to get in shape you want to get in shape to run right and if you think about what running is running is actually a fairly high skill activity. You're hopping from one leg to the other.

You're on one leg at a time for hours on end. You're doing a series of thousands of plyometrics, essentially. I believe the same thing about lifting weights. I believe in basically two approaches, which we'll talk about in an event coming up. Wink, wink, wink, wink. So when I got through playing football friends i had a really bad lower back injury i wasn't fit to squat i could maybe squat 300 pounds after i got done with college football because i was so train wrecked underdeveloped physiology and an injury that kept me from holding anything my back so my first step was to get in shape to

lift again the proper way so that's when i think assistance exercise had such a huge benefit for me like if i could if i went from being sucky to being a master of glute ham raises and reverse hypers and ab work and light good mornings and stiff like deadlifts and all this stuff dumbbell pressing building up a basic foundation and then moving into a second step which was pursuing the thing i wanted to get good at which was the power lifting at that point doing three sets of ten glute ham raises is not the not really going to even affect your training you do it because it's a little icing on the cake but what matters then is doing heavy frequent training so people want to rush to the second part because that's what they think they need to do but they're not patient enough to lay

a foundation so you before you do anything it's jogging it's lifting weights either for power thing or for fitness or for weightlifting or whatever even if it's uh swimming or triathlon anything you're going to do you have to remember that no matter what your experience is you're going to be a beginner at this thing if you don't take the time to lay the foundation through learning the technique and building up the muscles in a way they're going to be used, you're probably going to either not succeed, you won't succeed, and you're going to maybe get hurt really bad. You were talking about runners getting – or swimmers getting shits.

Oh, you need to have a comment for any of this shit I say. Here's a transition right over here. I thought it was brilliant in itself. He just goes, no comment. Doug, you're saying some shit. Well, I wanted to respond to what Doug said earlier, and so I was like, don't forget, don't forget. Chris said something pretty good.

Let's move on to Doug. No, I'm just kidding. So, not really. Can you repeat that? I completely forgot what you said now that we've had this discussion. Well, I think, yeah, I think even though Mike was more interested in his turn to speak versus actually listening to you, I feel like you did make the whole point across. I mean, yeah, you've got to lay a foundation. I think another term that I've – one guy that I've been following his blog now and reading a lot about what he has to say in terms of – he calls it –

he wants to call it athletic development. You guys definitely heard of him. He's a Virgambeta. I've never heard of that motherfucker in my life. Me neither. Are you joking? Are you serious? No, I haven't.

Oh, really? I mean, I'm sure Doug has. This is all news to me now. I was waiting to see what everyone else said. I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah. I read all his stuff. There's a couple things that he says frequently, and one of them is um simplicity yields complex complexity which is i

think is something that uh we i mean we we didn't say it but we we tapped on on how you don't have to think about fancy methods of training you can make it simple and and and again that simplicity yields complexity me and this guy i agree 100 percent um and and and well i mean on everything one thing yeah everything one thing that dawns on me the longer i'm in this deal they're the real genius and art of it is taking something complicated it was like einstein or anybody said that if you if you grab something well enough you can explain it in a simple terms that anybody can understand. The training is no different.

So if you read how many articles I've read where people talk about complicated periodization methods, buzzwords, templates that are so carefully crafted and you can tell they sat in a room and thought about it a really long time and combined all these exercises and laid out this 8, 10, 12-week thing or longer. I go, this is all complete bullshit. Because one, you can explain all this in words that are completely straightforward and simple to anybody. And that's what I want to do at an event coming up in the near future. He's talking about the strength seminar people. Yeah, but so if you read an exercise science book even uh stuff

that we saw in school for most people most of that stuff is just gibberish bullshit and for me reading it's all gibberish bullshit because it's written by people who haven't actually done it they just theorized it but big words complicated training and things that are made to seem too complicated that you chase because well surely it's complicated must be better than the other thing i'm considering you're being misled so simplicity is the way to go at the upcoming strength seminar you're going to try to more or less simplify strength training and really kind of break it down where it's easy for anybody to understand yeah i mean you have to start with understanding exactly what you're after and where you're at you have to approach it in the

right way you need a basic set of tools to to guide you in your pursuit of it and your pursuit will be very individual you'll try some things you'll succeed you'll try some things and fail but if you have a solid understanding of some basic concepts you can always keep yourself back on the path towards where you'd like to be and learn more and more as you go and become sort of the master of your own fate as it were. But if you start off with this overcomplication, there's a time in my life where I was devoted to finding the perfect program and all the complicated things. What are the top three basic concepts?

Like what's an example of that? That was all very philosophical, but if someone's listening to this, like give them an example of what you would call like a foundation of strength training a foundational like i think that a good one is knowing what you want out of it like what what is a goal you have and second uh determining honestly where you are a lot of people probably aren't prepared to answer the second question honestly and most people are not prepared to answer the first one yeah i mean what do you want out of this well i want to get

really fucking huge bro huge bitch bitch four plates bro what what yeah i don't think you understand what you really want bro i think too it's like a lot of people a lot of people aren't honest with themselves and say, hey, I squat four plates. When you watch them, they don't get depth. They can't get their knees tracking properly. Well, it's because you know what they're doing. They don't even have the hip mobility to squat to the proper depth. They want to impress or they want what other people have.

They're not thinking about what they need. The honesty part is to say okay i'm starting off from this level and i can do these things and maybe you need help to determine that like i can honestly squat 200 pounds i would like to honestly squat 300 well all that should matter to you is executing that goal incrementally uh with a good honest approach and not doing things because you want to get there too quick or you want to do it because you think other people want you to hit that or some silly goal.

In most gyms, people are chasing some goal because that number means something to them, but they're not going after it in the right way. I want to finish 400 pounds, so I'll do anything it fucking takes to have 400 pounds in my hand and execute it in some way. When really what they're doing is going to cause them great physical injury and harm. It gets tough in a CrossFit gym too where a big component of the training is competition.

And, you know, their buddy, you know, they're matching this, this, and this. But you really shouldn't be doing this much weight on this particular exercise because you have this kind of limitation. And strength is like any other goal. People think, I want to change the way I look. I've got to reach an ideal. I mean, every female client in their gym, I say females because this is probably an area they pay very close attention to.

What are you holding up the number three for, asshole? I know what you mean. You mean hurry up. But basically, people think, I need to look like something in my mind, so I'm going to chase that until I get there. And they forget the very real progress they are making every day. And they forget what they used to look like and what they look like now.

They lose sight of what's really happening in a profound way in their life because they got their eye on some bullshit goal that they think other people expect or they think they should be living up to. So you forget the very real awesome things that are happening in your life because you're not paying attention to it. I feel like that happens with guys and girls. That is profound. I think that speaks to just about everybody.

Yeah. So a big part of it is you have to keep this constant state of calibration around you where you've got to keep your eyes set on what really matters to you and keep these incremental goals in mind because in a year or two years' time, you've radically changed your entire life. But it takes the proper perspective to go about it the right way. Because I've gone about it the wrong way and it cost me progress and I had injuries because of it and I had unfulfilled goals that never really were a real goal to begin with so i mean a big thing i would want to achieve and what i do from here on out in this strength training stuff is to help people set out on the right way to begin with i think you said it well yeah let's uh so you you learn from your mistakes

and you think other people should learn you don't learn from success yeah well that's true but i think uh the the lesson is like if you fuck up your back really bad and rebuild it to start again that's where you've learned some lessons about how to train your back and that's what I had to do

but I think I can't remember what I heard I think making mistakes is very human learning from your mistakes means you're not stupid

but if you're really smart you learn from other people's mistakes so you don't need to be making the mistakes if you can learn from other people's mistakes I always like the expression need to be making the mistakes if you can learn from other people's mistakes. I always like the expression that. If you're wise enough to take advice, sure.

We're about to wrap up. We have to wrap up. We can wrap up on my quote. I was like the quote that experience is what you got when you didn't get what you wanted. Deep. We'll end on a deep note. Okay. All right, guys. Don't forget to check out fitter.tv

fitr.tv uh we're hosting technique wad there now and barbell shrugged check out the chris moore blog.com that's where chris moore write some blogs about some stuff there i put this podcast up there too because this is so awesome, bro. Yeah. Lucas, you have anything you want to promote? Yes, I do. Well, I mean,

obviously, if you are in Atlanta by any chance, which is where I live now and you like to get involved in swimming, I actually work with youth swimming.

I do not wear Guinness t-shirts when I go to practice or because as much as we did in this one. But anyway, if you have anybody that wants to get involved with you swimming,

Gwinnett Aquatics is the name of the... Can you spell that? Because of your accent, totally. Yeah. Gwinnett is G-W-I-N-N-E-T-T. Gwinnett. Yeah. It's a county.

Exactly. It's a county. Yeah, Gwinnett County. And so we are Gwinnett Aquatics. GwinnettAquatics.com is the blog. Come out and be a master of your swimming destiny. Also, I actually do have a blog, but I mean, I must disclose that there's times of the year where I write like every week. And then there's times of the year where I don't write for like four months, which usually coinc with like, okay, swimming season got really heavy now.

And I have a bunch of ideas, but I just never have time to develop them. So anyway, but I try to post stuff there and we talk the whole blog about my last name being very hard to pronounce it. So my blog is actually, has to do with my middle name, which is Kuroto. So the blog, the blog address is L Kuroto, which is L-C-U-R-O-T-T-O.blogspot.com. All right, cool. Well, we can probably post that as a caption. So real quick, I want to maybe throw you some business possibly,

but they're starting to throw swimming into CrossFit competitions. Would you be able to help out CrossFitters? There's a shitload of CrossFters in the atlanta area that compete um i'd be i'd be able to able to help them out in terms of giving them ideas i probably i actually wouldn't have the time to to work with them because like yeah because i what if they were gonna pay you a hundred dollars an hour uh i i'd still i mean i essentially spend six hours on deck every day it's pretty i mean i could try to make time and but it would be like on a weekend and eventually not,

it wouldn't be something that I honestly. What number would they have to pay you for you to be like, I all of a sudden have so much time. Everyone's got a price. I can't think of it in my head now, which means it's a pretty big one. No, I mean, essentially if they can get me.

I recommend that we post your email address and they contact you with inquiries because you are a man who's got great ideas most crossfitters don't want swim coaching three days a week they just want like an hour once a week or once every two weeks yeah i mean like so they don't suck when they get in the water i could probably help out with that i mean yeah and i and you get our barbell shrug stamp of approval if anything else i could also, if I don't have the time, I actually can direct them to other people that could help. There you go. Perfect.

All right, guys. And as always, definitely sign up for the fitter newsletter off to the right side of the screen that will keep you up to date with everything that we are changing about the site, which is actually happening at a pretty quick place right now. Yay. All right, guys. Peace out. Thanks for having me. site which is actually happening at a pretty quick place right now yay alright guys thanks for having me you've been scared

very good Lucas Ferrari that was awesome is it is it