Barbell Shrugged - High Performance Strength and Hypertrophy w/ Dr. John Rusin, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash - Barbell Shrugged #527

Episode Date: December 2, 2020

Dr. John Rusin is one of the fitness and sports performance industry’s leading experts in the pain-free performance training model that blends the world of strength and conditioning with clinical movement based diagnostic medicine to provide the ultimate results based methods, programming and practice for an impressively diverse demographic of elite athletes and general fitness clients.   His innovative vision for the future of elite level sports performance physical therapy and injury prevention based training protocols are highlighted by the synergy of high-performance strength and hypertrophy programming with a cutting-edge, pain-free training methodologies, are revolutionizing the way his athletes and clients look, feel, function and perform.   In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged:   The fitness world in a post Covid 19 era Why our government needs to be focused on health Why gyms are essential businesses Integrating the clinical and performance world of strength  High performance and hypertrophy   Dr. John Rusin on Instagram Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram ———————————————— Training Programs to Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/34zcGVw   Nutrition Programs to Lose Fat and Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/3eiW8FF   Nutrition and Training Bundles to Save 67%: https://bit.ly/2yaxQxa   Please Support Our Sponsors   PowerDot - Save 20% using code BBS at http://PowerDot.com/BBS    Inside Tracker: insidetracker.com/earlyaccess to be the first to hear about InsideTracker’s BEST DEAL of the year    Fittogether - Fitness ONLY Social Media App   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   www.masszymes.com/shruggedfree  - for FREE bottle of BiOptimizers Masszymes   Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://bit.ly/3b6GZFj Save 5% using the coupon code “Shrugged”

Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrug, Dr. John Rusin is in the house. We are talking to him about blending the worlds of physical therapy, strength, hypertrophy, and how it all goes together for high performance. And before we get rolling on today's show, we are going to thank our sponsors over at PowerDot. Let me tell you something, this thing is saving my life right now. This is no joke, friends. It is saving my life right now. This is no joke, friends. It is saving my life. I use this thing two to three times a day. My shoulder is healing

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DNA, everything tested and get science-backed results, get over to InsideTracker.com and you can save 25% off with the code Shrugged25. That's I-N-S-I-D-E-T-R-A-C-K-E-R.com. And use the code shrugged25 to save 25%. That's insidetracker.com. Use the code shrugged25 to save 25%. Friends, we're going to get into the show. Let's rage. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Wagner. Doug Larson. Dr. John. Russin. Is it Russin or Rusin? You said it correctly, and you are one of the most intelligent human beings because nobody gets it correctly. If you actually look at it, it's Rusin, but Russin because it's an old Polish cutoff name.

I went against the gut telling me that it's Rusyn, but Russyn, because it's an old Polish cutoff name. I went against the gut telling me that it was Rusyn and went Russyn. I was actually just on a walk thinking about this awesome conversation. I was like, I wonder if it's Russyn or Rusyn, but we made it. Dude,

before we started doing this, we were talking off air just about how you have a little bit of a history with the CrossFit Games, but how you've steered your career in a different direction and all the opportunities that have come. When did you start to meet? We have a big CrossFit audience. When did you start working with the CrossFit athletes and kind of get drawn into that direction? I never did like primary CrossFit coaching.

So I just want to put that one out there and preface this, but I kind of got thrown headfirst into the industry around 2011, 2012. I was living out in San Diego, California. And at the time there were a metric fuck ton of CrossFit gyms out there. I think it was the Mecca of CrossFit at the time. Where were you? CrossFit affiliates. I worked out a Scripps ranch at the performance center out there do you know crossfit pacific beach i've never been there no i know that was my gym that was mine cross paths damn it i used to surf over there all the time but not for crossfit that just means reasons yeah that means you got in trouble. That's exactly right.

You either have a lot of tattoos or you had a lot of fun. Yes. Yeah, man. But, I mean, 17 gyms within a five-mile radius. You know, people tend to come in for your expertise at that point in time. And was working really on a lot of different athletes. Not a whole lot of competitors at the time, but people who were super passionate about fitness, about wellness,

but tended to be a little bit more banged up than the average person just because of training volumes and intensities. You know, that's the way it kind of goes with that. So kind of pushed my nose into that side of the industry in 2012 and then stayed in little by little for the last like six or seven years. Yeah. What was your background before that? Like, why were they choosing to come to you because they were banged up? So I have a doctorate in physical therapy. I was practicing a little bit of physical therapy at the time, but really sat in sports performance. So started off my career

as a collegiate strength and conditioning coach up in my hometown in Buffalo, New York at the university there, and then moved out to Southern California to work at a sports performance center that I did a little bit more of hybrid in-person coaching and therapy. So I have maybe 25 athletes, 95% of them were baseball or football players, and we did a little bit of everything. So we did a tiny bit of therapy, kind of like the hands-on stuff that you get a license to do. And then we took it into prehab, rehab, into training, recovery, the whole nine yards. So I wasn't managing a whole lot of people at the time, but we were going really deep in on people on all aspects of what the health and performance industry could offer somebody. So this was right at about the time that I started to really be eclectic with my own training. So I'd go in and train a little bit across, but I train a little bit at the bodybuilding gyms in Southern

California. I train at the sports performance center. And you know how it is when you get to talking to people that are super passionate about what you are, which is lifting, which is physicality, health and wellness, then you tend to drive a little bit of your clientele off of those personal connections. Yeah. Why did you go back to PT school? Sometimes the sports performance world, they look very similar. I love it. I love good stories. So I was at University of Buffalo and I had the fucking best job in the world. I was like, man, I'm coaching division one athletes. This is my alma mater best job in the world. I was like, man, I'm coaching division one athletes. This is my alma mater. This is my hometown. I grew up at this university.

My dad was actually a professor at that university. And I got about a year in and I loved it. You know, I love the 4am. I love the Saturday and Sundays. I loved at the time making $32,000 a year or whatever the hell it was next to nothing. And my dad who who is a PhD, and my mom, who is a PhD was like, I think there may be a better path for you. And it's not it's almost like they discounted being a strength conditioning coach, like, oh, this wasn't good enough. Whereas I thought it was the best fucking thing in the world. And my mom happened to be a professor at Damon College, which was a small liberal art school that had health and human services programs. And she was the dean of this school. And she's like, you know what, let's see if you can get into this new thing

called doctor of physical therapy. And I'm like, well, well, fuck that I'm doing what I love to do. I love to train. I love to have the sweat dollar on my athlete's face. I love the music bumping, the energy, the dynamic environments. Why the hell did I do this? And she was like, oh, well, your grades are really good. And we get tuition exchange. So you could actually go through this three and a half year doctorate program for free. So I was like, all right, sign me up. And I rolled in and I tried to do coaching 40 hours a week, the same time as I was doing another 40 hours a week as a full time DPT student. And my first semester over there, I almost failed out. But the interesting thing about it was the determining factor of me being like, yo, I'm going to try this thing out. I'm going to go back into school and get a doctorate degree of

all things was that at the time in front of this university out on the main street, there's this massive billboard and the massive billboard had Damon College, doctor of physical therapy program. And then the person who they were featuring was Sue Falzoni. Sue Falzoni had a Dodgers cap on. She was the first female athletic trainer or physical therapist in professional sports. So I'm sitting there like, God damn, this is five minutes away from where I live. My mom's the dean of this fucking school. This woman who is who I want to be is literally looking me in the face every time I drive by. How can I not do this? Because I was so closed minded at the time. I was like, hey, this must be the ticket. This woman got to where I want to be. This may be the road or the path to my success. And it was as

simple as that. It was free. It was in my hometown. I had peer pressures. I had parent pressures. And there was an awesome, awesome professional on a billboard in front of the school. Yeah. Did you feel it? Since then, have you connected with that woman ever and told her any of the story? Are you friends with her now? I have. And I have an extraordinary opportunity

to meet a lot of great people like you guys, you know, just with being more public in the industry now. And she actually came through and gave a lecture my second year in DPT school. And the lecture was like 45 minutes and it was the most influential thing that I ever had. Because at the time, you know, I was working hard, you have to work hard in school to get by, especially at a doctoral level program. You know, it's no bullshit. But

she said something like, hey, you know what, it's not going to be the person with the four row that goes out and changes the world changes the industry, it's going to be the person that has a true passion for helping people. And then she gave some story about like curing a rotator cuff issue on a pitcher at the professional level by like working on great toe extension. I was like, holy shit, this is the thing right now. And since then, you know, I've been able to connect with her many times. We're both from Buffalo, New York, which is go bills country. And it has been really crazy to see that she now comes in, starts reading the things that I put out, doing the programs that we have and kind of almost paying it forward in a full circle. And it's weird how it works out that

way. Yeah. Did you find it difficult or maybe even more beneficial coming into your physical therapy and getting your doctorate, but having like a background in movement and coaching and seeing actual people kind of like in the trenches before, you know, I feel like there's a lot of people that just go to school without any reason. They just go because that's what they're supposed to do and that's the path. But there has to be a lot of benefit to actually coaching and being in the room before you get to school. Well, it's a great debate, education versus experience. And I would say that there were unique advantages for me being a professional that works with other human beings that has been a real-time problem solver in the gym with a lot on the line, which were division one athletes. But at the same extent, I don't think a whole lot of people at my university or any other universities out there

doing physical therapy programs. They're not strength people. They're not performance people. They're rehab people. And this is a totally different set. And today in 2020, we have big walls up between performance and the rehab industries. We tend to compete for the same clientele or patient load, which really makes no sense. But more so there seems to be this big pissing contest between the high performance sport people and the rehab pros. When in all actuality, it's all human movement system. We're all trying to optimize, we're all trying to make people stronger, more resilient, more capable human beings. But at the time, I went through a very traditional

program in physical therapy. And I almost had to like take it with a grain of salt. You know, fuck, I've seen this, this and this, you know, I'm a certified strength and conditioning specialist. And that didn't matter. It was almost like a deterrent away from credibility, because it's like, oh, you've seen the gym, but you haven't seen the clinic. And it's almost like the experience that I brought in, it was two different career paths kind of moving together simultaneously. And I was lucky that I got opportunities later on after getting out of school that I could merge those two things together because very rarely does that happen. Yeah. What is that? Students come in and they don't get that opportunity. What is that process of kind of merging the two together? I have a, I actually have a really funny

story. Well, the first time I met Travis mash. So when I owned my gym in San Diego, we were like, we were all in CrossFit, uh, competing. We did it. We did the whole thing. Um, but along the way you like, there's going to be injuries. There's going to be people getting beat up. Like it just, it's part of training like that on a daily basis with populations that should or should not that that's an interesting one but you know may not have the background and a very athletic background to to draw off of and now all of a sudden they're they're trying to do a kipping pull-up like things are going to happen so you get pretty good without being a pt kind of addressing shoulder issues addressing back

issues um and when i sold the gym I actually went and partnered with a physical therapist. And I met Travis at Worlds in Anaheim for the first time. And he was talking to Doug and he goes, I don't know why anybody would want to go from being a strength coach to being in the rehab world. Like, I just want people to be strong as hell. I don't want to teach them bird dogs. That sounds ridiculous. And I was like, I'm standing right next to him. He had met me for the first time. He had no idea that I had just gone from this like high performance CrossFit regionals games level people to trying to move. And like, it was really interesting to me how we can like get people to move better and wire their bodies and all this stuff. And like, I was in there, like in his comment,

I literally looked at myself, I was like, yeah, I don't really want to do this anymore. Like I'm just kind of like have this business now. And, but did you find it difficult kind of merging the two together and having people from the strength world seeing like they need to have kind of the PT side of it and then the PT side of things

like actually being able to draw from the strength side I think the hardest thing for me personally was that it was such a process of swimming upstream yeah because it takes a special crazy to go through this big amount of time in school. You know, you spend six, seven, eight years in school and all of a sudden you have all the influences throughout that entire time saying that, hey, now that you have this degree, now that you have this license, this is the only way to move forward.

You're going to go to the clinic. You're going to go take insurance. You're going to put ice packs on people. And it all sucks. I was like, that never excited me. That fucking never excited me. One second. But Coach Mash is not wrong.

There's nothing sexy about physical therapy. There's nothing sexy about rehab. The way I look at it is that it is a need. It is a pure need. I'm not discounting the profession here. But you are seriously working with somebody on a day-to-day basis on the worst day of their fucking life if you guys have ever been to pt before it's that's man i really fuck my shit up to the point where this is bad this is some bad stuff and i better get somebody

to look at this shit to make sure i don't die what you're saying right now with all these negative connotations what you're saying right now is exactly why i stopped enjoying it because when you deal with athletes on the performance side they show up and they're always happy they're always trying to get after it and crush you got you have to almost tell them all the time like yo tone it down we can't solve all the problems today like i know you want to lift all the weight but you can't we got to slow it down and I know you want to lift all the weight, but you can't, we got to slow it down. And then you get into the PT side of things and you're dealing with rehab and everyone is depressed because they can't do anything. And it's, it's difficult. But it is so important though. It is so important to have professionals that wake up every single

morning and they want to empower somebody to move again. They want to empower somebody to get back to daily living, get back to training, maybe empower some exercise, live a different healthy lifestyle. That just was never my thing. Like my thing was training. I'd love to train. I love to train today. I love training so much that I block off 75 minutes, seven days a week, and have not missed a session in eight years. And it is a non-negotiable because it feeds my entire lifestyle. And it makes me a better husband, a better father, a better coach, better human. And I want to share that with other people in a positive lens.

But I also utilize many different networks. I'll utilize chiropractic with my clients. I'll utilize physical therapy, massage therapy, all these different allied healthcare professions because they all do have a place. But I think sometimes, you know, people will see like Dr. So-and-so up there. He's working in strength and conditioning as a physical therapist. I cannot tell you the amount of direct messages, emails, and just notes that I get, or even at the certification course of like, hey, I want to do what you do. Do I need to go to school for another six years? And I'm like, fuck, no, you don't. What you need to do is be a great coach and know very

well that there is a place in the world for coaching. Because as we see it today, we are seeing it now more than ever before with the pandemic that we're currently dealing with. Obesity is up. Chronic pain and injuries are up. Systemic health and disease are up. Physical therapy is not fixing that. Chiropractic is not fixing that. Physicians aren't fixing that. Orthopedic surgeons aren't fixing that. Who is the profession that is going to battle back against these otherwise preventable health issues? Fitness, personal trainers, strength coaches, people who empower via physicality. This is a very underserved profession right now. And it's like, that's my career goal right now,

to try to get more momentum behind what we do and the importance of it. You've actually been really vocal about that. And it's been awesome because I feel like in the middle of all this and, you know, are all of our friends back in California just got shut down again. And there's all these studies coming out about why gyms aren't the problem. And, you know, they start running the numbers and in a way the governor doesn't care.

And to be honest with you, it's hard even as somebody that loves training so much, and I'm very lucky that I have a fully decked out garage gym. You know, when you really think about it, it's hard to call fitness. It's not fitness that's essential. The gym being essential. Like, why can't I just go do lunges down my street and back and leg hypertrophy? Awesome. Done. And the governor looks at that. He's like, go run, work on your cardio. But that's, that's not kind of the full picture.

You've been really vocal about how we, how we need to be addressing health and fitness. If you wanted to kind of, I would love to hear just in person, you kind of dig on like where, where your viewpoint is on that right now. It's really tough because right now we are dealing with some serious issues, not only from a health perspective, but also from a fiscal and a business perspective. And our profession has always been a bunch of bootstrappers, a bunch of grinders, a bunch of people that had to be the outliers and go above and beyond to help other people. In large, we're a service-based profession, but we really depend on the culture that we

surround somebody with, the environment that invites behavior change, and really the camaraderie and the human connection that a coach-client relationship can make, but also a client-to-client and a member-to-member. So I look at fitness as not being gym essential, but let's call it what it is. Many people that are ready for invoking that first step of psychological behavior change and trying to do well for themselves now that they know that being healthy will keep you healthy, they want to enter somewhere that can motivate them, that can keep them accountable, that makes them feel good. I say that going into the gym, the right gym, the right fitness center,

the right CrossFit box should be the best hour of your day. It should invigorate you again. It should not only make you feel good because you're training, but you should be around people who make you a better human being. That coach should be an integral part of your behavior change. And without gyms, all this stuff goes right out the window. Because it's really hard to get somebody from the couch up onto their living room rug and have them do burpees and have them do body weight training and have them go out for a run. Who's motivating that? Who's keeping people accountable? Who's making sure they don't kill themselves on day one so they can actually sustain it to day two, into month two, and into year two. There's a big reason why personal training

and coaching in person will continue to be a big thing moving into 2020 and beyond. Because this is a tried and true way to invoke deep levels of behavior change. And it always will be. Yeah. I actually- For all your clients that have chosen not to come back to the gym, they can't for whatever reason, they got kids at home, the kids aren't in school anymore, or they just can't make it in, or they don't want to get sick, and so they're not risking it. Have you been able to keep contact with those people and still, rather than have them do burpees in their living room or going for runs,

like what do you do for those people to keep their fitness until they can come back? I'm lucky because my clients, I coach 73% of other coaches in the industry, meaning that they've had their own gyms to work out personally in this entire time. Another 20% are super into this shit to the point where they have a home gym that looks like Doug's garage or looks like under his job garage right now. And those are the serious people, you know, out of all the people that I'm coaching right now, we only have four or five that are currently working out at home. But you know what, if you're serious about your health and fitness, like I hated the point where

it's like, Oh, you can only do body weight, you can only run. It's like, man, go spend $20 and get a super band, you know, get a dumbbell set for $150 from Walmart and three different weights. Get a kettlebell because all of a sudden you have a lot of different variety from there. And a lot of my clients have really chosen to invest in their health. Health is not an expense. It is an investment. It's not only an investment in a coach or a gym. It's an investment in what you a coach or a gym, it's an investment in what

you can use on a daily basis. You know, when shit hits the fan, even for people that do go to a gym, they need to have the base minimum of things that they can use for 20, 40, 60 minutes a day in order to make sure that they can habituate and stay consistent on a physical practice. Because with my clients, they see a huge difference in all aspects of their life, because of what they do in the gym because of what they do with physicality. And when you depend on that as a human being a high performing human being, you're going to make you're going to really make sure that you do that. And, you know, I know there's a lot of personal trainers out there that don't have that kind of clientele. I know a lot of coaches have clients that don't want to come back into the gym. That's not specifically my clientele. So it's really hard

to speak to. But I think we've done an extraordinary job in really targeting the right type of person and not only getting people in on changing the way that they look at health and physicality, but also growing them from there on out, really from a dependency model of themselves, not of the coaching or the programming or the gym, but knowing very well that they have a way to move their body this day. They have a way to fuel themselves up that makes them the best version of themselves. You don't need a gym for that. Yeah. I actually feel many times when I'm in my garage that I'm like on this, I'm like this super grinder that I'm no matter what the causes,

what's going on in the world, like this is my happy place and I can just train by myself forever. And this week personally has just been kind of tough, like some like just stuff with friends and whatnot. And like, I sit in my garage, I'm in a gym. I, you know, like I have all this stuff here and it's kind of depressing because I'm by myself. And yesterday like broke, I didn't break down. I tried to go to the CrossFit gym and just, because that's where my people are and be around my friends. And I, I rolled in and like five people that I've been friends with for the last year or there, everyone's got a smile on their face. The fans are blowing like every, it was, it was like, ah, this is like a gym. Like as much as I like force my garage to be a gym, it's, it's still my house.

It's not separating from what's going on. And, um, that's the part that I feel like I'm more dedicated than all of us together. We're all more dedicated than everybody. There's no way that we're going to not train, but there's something about people that is so integral to the way that we are healthy as humans and the communities that we need and the like-mindedness and that energy that needs to be shared. Man, it hit me so hard yesterday when I left. I was like, I can train all I want, but these people like genuinely love me and I love them back. And if I don't have that in a gym, I'm not as fit as you want, whatever word you want to call it.

But that's a massive part that people need. And they get it from their trainers or their gyms or the people that they work out with. I don't know how – I don't see people on Zoom getting the benefit that they should be getting from what they're signing up for and paying for. And unfortunately, I feel like that may be kind of the route that everybody has to move forward. I got to disagree with that statement, man. I do not think that Zoom is the route that people should be going right now. We saw the influx of Zoom the first two, three weeks after we got put into lockdown. We saw every personal trainer putting out videos on Facebook, tagging people in their clients on Instagram. And all of a sudden that

dropped off the fucking cliff because it wasn't sustainable for anybody. It wasn't sustainable for the clients. It really sucked for the trainers. I totally agree with you. A household, man, my wife does 20 hours of Zoom strengthening and conditioning for children over quarantine. And by the end of week two, she was like this. Like it was done. They couldn't wait to get back into that gym.

And it's a thing that now we have such muddied waters because everyone went into desperation mode. Everyone went into, oh, this is online training now. Online training is me signing on Facebook and doing a live session with a bunch of other people. And you come 10 a.m. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Or, no, I'm going to give somebody a call and I'm going to do FaceTime with them, and I'm going to get them through the session. All that shit is still in-person training to me. It's not online training. And everyone's trying to talk about the future is going to be virtual.

The future is going to be online training. I own two online training businesses, and I will tell you definitively that the future will continue to be private in-person training. It will be small group training, smaller, I should say. It will also be the rise again of personal training one-on-one because that is what's going to start getting some cash back into the system. And this is how people from a consumer confidence perspective are going to feel great about returning into the gym from a health, from a security and from a sanitary standpoint. You want to control as many factors as you can. And I think that one-on-one training and two to five small group training, that is going to be a big thing. What's not going to be a big thing is packing 80 motherfuckers into a bike studio, sweating on each other and hitting each other in the face with dumbbells because you don't have social distance. I think that that kind of group training is going to be really hard to sustain. It's going to be hard to re emerge back into the markets. And I think it's going to actually weed itself out.

Those are the gyms that are able to be open though, right now, for the most part, like all of the boutique gyms around us that run group classes, the CrossFit gyms, they're open in North Carolina. Well, they are where I am. I don't know about the whole state, but they're open with social distancing stuff in place to keep it clean and keep people apart and taping off squares for people to stand but none of the i think one of the one of the larger issues that i'm very interested to see how it plays out is the like the corporate gym and and having a gym that has a price point where people can actually show up to it and be healthy without paying for personal training because there's a lot of people that can't afford, you know, $600 a month for personal training to go two, three times a week.

It's a double-edged sword though. So everyone's going to have their challenges and everyone's going to have their advantage between boutique and between corporate large big box gyms. You know, just speaking to my expertise on the topic. So we run the pain free performance specialist certification, two day course all across the world, hundreds of events a year. And we're lucky enough to have corporate contracts with gyms like Equinox, anytime fitness across the world fitness first, we're in lifetime fitnesses. So like the big players in corporate wellness and fitness. Equinox last year made $1.9 billion. Lifetime made $2.2 billion. So you don't think that they're going to have the resources to go above and beyond and being able to get people into a safe and

effective environment to train again, other than, you know, looking at the other side of the spectrum, which is going to be maybe your CrossFit box, which is 2000 square feet, which has one owner slash head coach, and they make $12,000 a month, and they only net $150. So what kind of resources do both of these places have? Yes, there are going to be different challenges, but I think that it comes down to how they are going to take care of people in person once somebody actually enters the gym, because that is going to be a totally different scenario. I think that's going to be the big equalizer. It may be the advantage of a personal training studio or boutique as opposed to somebody trying to do personal training, trying to do personal training,

trying to do group training, or just coming in on their own on an appointment with some of the big commercial centers. But we've kind of seen this shake out a bit. We saw a lot of bankruptcy filings in the last month and a half. We saw 24 hour, we saw goals, and there are more to come here. But I think that when you make $2 billion a year, you're pretty fucking smart business people. And they're going to figure out a way to actually optimize around this, as opposed to, hey, a lot of our coaches that own gyms, they're not great business people. They're there because they're passionate about health and fitness. They're really about the community, the culture that they bring.

But they're working on maybe two weeks, four weeks of float money. And when they're closed for two or four weeks or four months, it becomes very hard to sustain or even keep the doors open or reopen them back up. So I think everyone has their challenges. But what we need to be focusing on, I've seen some negative bullshit online the last two months. If you are a private gym owner, fuck the big box gym. If you're a big box gym owner, fuck the little guys. Everyone's fighting with each other. Whereas I'm thinking if we're going to get out of this from a fitness industry perspective, we need to be rooting for everyone. We need as many gyms of all kinds open because most likely people are

going to be that first line into a health fitness exercise regimen is going to be a planet fitness. It's going to be an anytime fitness for $49 a month. And then once they get through there and they're like, okay, now I'm active. Then those are the people that most likely show up to pay you $150 an hour personal training. They don't come in from off the streets. I have a smile on my face because there's a Facebook group that I've been invited to like many times that I just can't accept the invite. And it's called Open NC North Carolina Gyms and Health Clubs. And there's one focus of a group like that to open gyms and health clubs and if you go in there and read the comments there isn't a single person that can agree to anything inside the group and all i can think is i just want to get in the top and like pin the comment like this is the problem there is no unified voice for anybody

in fitness that can actually decide on how we go about creating either this is how we open a big box gym this is a lot of people they've got a lot of equipment they can't really control the flow because it's all based around people's nine to five work schedules and group classes. And we have boutique gyms. They're different, but we all need to be. And I just look at it and it's just arguing and yelling and the governor should do this. And I'm like, if the governor walked in here right now, he would go, yeah, totally read this group.

This is why we can't do it. It's chaos. There's no unifying voice of the right way to go about anything. And I think that this can even be played out past gyms, but like a unifying voice on like, what is health? And how do we have an education system built in? Because even at the lowest levels, like when you get into the school systems, physical education does not exist. It's optional at best. And most people are just eliminating programs. So like, when do we even start to talk about health as a, as a society and clearly

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but why are you in the industry you're in the industry for the betterment of society's health you're trying to help people this is a service-based profession. If we can unify around those key tenants, then that is the thing that is actually going to make waves of change. I was proud to see this because last month, the state of Ohio had their gyms closed and all the other non-essential businesses were opening back up. Good friend of mine, JL Holdsworth, he's an owner of Spot Athletics. Unbelievable facilities there. He banded together with the big box gym owners. He banded together with the CrossFit gyms. And they sued the governor and they fucking won and got their gyms open that hour. I was so damn proud of JL. And we went on

an interview on my Instagram. And it was amazing. But I looked at it as, hey, you brought everyone together under one key mission, and you got that mission done. The same thing happened last week. They tried to close down Miami-Dade. In Miami-Dade, they're like, oh, hold on. No more indoor. And gym owners came together. We had Mark Magna of Anatomy.

He's been hosting the PPSC for a number of years. We had one of my clients who works as a corporate head at Equinox down in South Florida. They came together with Mark and all of a sudden they had a really good proposal and they brought it to the mayor. And the mayor's like, man, you guys have your shit together. You're a unified force. Open the gyms back up. And the next day the gyms were back open. But what we're not seeing today is people actually unify together. We're fighting against each other. And we're going to put the profession into extinction. That's the facts. We have 250,000 personal trainers in the country

pre COVID. We are going to come out of this thing, January 1 2021, sub 80,000. It's going to be a scary, scary thing for a lot of people transitioning out of being personal trainers and coaches into other things. And the reason being is because we didn't come together to actually make a mission be health and making a difference. We're fighting with each other instead of coming together. And what do you think about kind of like the highest level of like legislature, government? Like it's very obvious who's in charge of what the government wants you to consider health. Like we've got Dr. Anthony Fauci, and he is the guy that everyone is talking about right now when it comes to COVID and he understands infectious disease. And that is like, that's our person.

We know that that's the guy. And then you go, okay, well, on the other side of that, who's in charge of fitness? I don't know. Is anyone in charge of fitness? I don't think so. I haven't seen any. I'm actually asking. I don't know.

No. Yeah. There's no leadership from the top. So how do, how do we even start to have a conversation of like how necessary and, um, essential fitness is as a culture and as a, as human beings to, to even make it seem important, like not a single person has come out and been like, like, hey, it'd be a lot cooler if we could just get everybody to the gym or doing lunges in your front yard three times a week. You get the vitamin D.

There's some stuff. You do it barefoot. That'd be cool too. Side bonus, grounding. That'd be awesome. Don't worry about it. Forget I said it. Just do the lunges.

There just is no unifying voice in fitness. It's, it's a lot of strength coaches that have elevated their personalities or their business to a place that they, they have an influence over a certain group of people, but there's, there's not a unifying voice of saying, this is what health is. This is how to be healthy. And I am the, I'm nominating you right now. You're the minister of fitness. You're in it. But how, like, how do we go about that conversation? Because like you said, it's, it's a bunch of people arguing about the last 5% and we don't get anywhere focusing on that. If we had to do all of this shit over, say we were one day into lockdown and we had somebody in this key position that we're making general recommendations for the health care, not the

sick care, the health care of society. Those recommendations would have been simple. Hey, everybody, you are going to be having more free time than ever before. You're going to be in your house. We know you're going to be stressed. There's a lot going on. There's a lot of unknown. But here's four key things that you can do. Make sure you get outside every single day. Breathe. Be mindful. Go for a 10-minute walk. Hey, make sure that in this stress, you don't fall into some of these bad habits. Alcohol consumption is up 70% since lockdown. Make sure that you guys are moderating your alcohol intake. Make sure that in these times you're actually getting some nutritious food in, knowing very well that you don't have to go on a diet. You just need to be mindful of what is happening inside of your house, especially if you are having an influence on your kids. If you can be active,

be active 30 minutes a day, do it three days a week, and this will help protect your health and your wellness overall. And then last thing, we know you're going to be stressed. You just lost your job. You may not know where your next dollar is coming from. Your kids are at home driving you fucking insane. What we need to do is make sure that we invest in sleep. And then we have a couple key minutes a day that you close your eyes down and you de-stress your system. Physical activity, eating well, stress reduction, sleep. I did not hear one of those things said in four and a half months of sitting my ass in this house. It could have been a totally different world. It could have been a totally different world. Because as you just mentioned, we are having emerging statistics from the New England Journal of Medicine saying 50% of our country will be classified as obese in the next 10 years.

Hey, what if we actually tried to shift this paradigm? What if we actually started to reduce obesity rates? We reduce chronic health issues. Hey, you have never had more time than before to do this now. What if that would have happened? I think if that would have happened, we would have had more gym openings quicker. We would have had more people having consumer confidence jumping back into this side of the market. And I think that people would have been happier because there's a whole side of that right now. People sitting in your house alone, depression's up, anxiety is up. I hate to say it, suicide rate is up. And this is some really, really sad stuff that we know as fitness professionals, physicality can really mitigate the risk of this stuff.

Yeah. And kind of bringing it back to a lot of the specialties that you have, like as a therapist, a lot of people, you know, they may want to do it, but they don't have the tools to get themselves out of feeling like crap. And whether that's joint pain, back pain, you know, depression, because they don't understand movement. And then when they do go start moving, it hurts. And it, you know, and they actually have things wrong with them, that they need people like, how do we kind of get the bridging the gap between, you know, there are people that want to get up and do things, but not having the tools to understand that, you know, your glutes are important and here's how, here's how we turn them on and breathing's important. Here's how we actually breathe into our bellies. Like there's, there's a lot of very low hanging fruit, but we don't have

the education as a, as a society to kind of bridge the gap between, you know, like a PT that's going to help solve pain and dysfunction. And, you know, we sell this idea that fitness has to be this basically 30-second long commercial of people protecting the house. And it's just not a reality of what, what the low hanging fruit and actual health kind of becomes too. So like, how do we, how do we get people past almost like that pain piece and, and moving into understanding how their body's supposed to work? Yeah. A concept that we were talking about with my coaching staff last week was exercise is a gateway to training, meaning that we can't expect that people are

going to come in from off the streets and want to do a periodized 5-3-1 program or a MASH program right away at the bar on their back. What they need to be doing is getting comfortable with entering an environment, getting comfortable with increasing a heart rate, getting a little bit more comfortable with having some muscles burn in places that they've never burned before, and actually gaining the knowledge of, hey, this is okay. And this is something that I think may benefit my life. So I don't think that we have a huge knowledge problem like, hey, I don't know what the fuck my glutes are. I think we have a motivation problem and we have a problem

along the sides of entry into the fitness industry. We have more people that have needed us more now than ever before. We have less educated, experienced coaches and trainers out there to service these people. And calling one big thing out, one of the most important things that we could try to shift the tide on a little bit today is mainstream media's look at what fitness is, what a healthy body looks like, and how it gets achieved. Because over the last decade, we have been fucking poisoned. Our minds are poisoned in what we think we need to do to look healthy, to be healthy.

And it's all bullshit. We're talking about the rise of the Instagram influencer. Some fucking chick with her ass out selling 9.99 booty programs on instagram we got shirtless had a great post today i saw we got these shirtless hooligans out there with six-pack pictures and acting like hey do my diet plan bro yeah fucking bullshit but that are the people that have a million followers. Those are the people that are in your feeds. Those are the people that are poisoning your mind up here. And you know who's not sexy? The guys like us that are like, hey, there's a smart,

sustainable way. Hey, we're going to be active every single day. We're going to walk. We're going to do a little bit of self-help and maintenance drills. We're going to strength train because strength train is fucking awesome for health and longevity. We're going to walk. We're going to do a little bit of self-help and maintenance drills. We're going to strength train because strength train is fucking awesome for health and longevity. We're going to do the simple things and we're going to make sure that we can teach you a process so you can sustain them for life. That's just not sexy. But right now we are living in the day and age of the shiny object quick fix syndrome. People are unrealistic with what's happening out there. On one side of the spectrum, we think that just because we buy a booty program for $9.99 that we're going to get an ass like that. On the opposite side of the spectrum, people turn on

these weight loss shows on mainstream TV, and they think that they need to train four hours a day, and they need to cry after every session. And then after that session, they need to refuel with ice and water only. We need to start doing more good in terms of mainstream media. We need to get more of these thoughts out there that there is a simple and an effective way, simple but not easy. But what's the entry point to that? We need to educate. We need to get more experienced trainers out there. And we need to change the thought process of what health is. We need to change the view of what it looks like.

And we need to just do a better job of having consistency with the message across all of the landscapes of fitness. Yeah. of having consistency with the message across all of the landscapes of fitness. Yeah. I think the consistency of the message thing is a really interesting point too, because on one side you have like, like you're talking about the eight pack guy that, well, one thing about Instagram right now too, that I hope everybody understands is the whole world is in their house. So all those really cool pictures were definitely taken at least five months ago. No one's done anything cool except be in their house for at least five months. But on the messaging side, it's like, yeah, yeah, you see the pictures, then you buy the

program or you see the picture and like, man, I want that. I'll buy that 30 day fix. And yeah, there's pieces to that that are good and bad. But on the other side of it is like the body acceptance thing, which is like, it's okay to be overweight. You go, well, I don't want to be mad at that person that's happy with themselves, but that's also not healthy. That is a symbol of your body being unhealthy and carrying excess inflammation. You're not healthy. I can see it. Your body is showing us. So there is no consistent message on either side of we should love our bodies. Well, we can agree to that, but we should still talk about health.

And then the extreme of I've got eight abs and this giant ass and you should buy my program. Well, that is a way, but it's really more in the middle. But nobody, you know, the consistency and longevity, nobody, that's boring like you're talking about. There has to be a way that kind of we get away from both of them. But that's, that's just not who we are. It's crazy, bro. Because 14 years into my career, you know, when I started coaching athletes, like I've coached all types of athletes at this point in time, when I emerged into this profession, I thought that was the most important thing that I could do with my life, that I could do with my time. My legacy would

be on an Olympic gold medal. My legacy would be in a national championship. And then I grew the fuck up. I matured and I realized that there's a deeper impact that is far more important than sports. I love sports. I love training athletes. But when you can turn around somebody's entire life, the way that they live, the way that they feel, you can revolutionize every aspect of their daily living. That is truly life changing. One of my PPSC coaches, we had a mastermind a number of weeks

ago and they mentioned a line that I will never forget because it's basically my key why in this industry today is that yes, fitness can change someone's life. But for many people, those people that you remember, the people that keep you going, that burn that fire inside of your gut, you can give them their lives back. People are waiting today for change. They're waiting for something to happen. If COVID-19 doesn't push you towards change, I don't know what will. But many people, they are operating at such a low level mentally, physically, emotionally, psychologically. They think that their four out of ten is as good as it could possibly be for them.

So giving people the tools and teaching them how to remain self-sufficient with the practice for life of how to make them feel good, how to live that high performance lifestyle, even if you don't want to go on the field or court, that is really what drives me now. And I think that's a big transition in my career was I went from predominantly high performance athletics, you know, living in China, coaching the Chinese Olympic Committee, to what I am right now, which is really putting a deep impact on coaches, on personal trainers, and on clients that are really passion projects for me at this point in time, trying to give people their lives back. There is no better feeling as a coach than being able to help somebody do something that they never knew that they were capable of doing. It is empowerment.

I'd love to hear some of the process of getting people to that because that was something that I actually really experienced a lot. It just became very cumbersome. I'm like an emotional human being and I wear people's, if someone comes to me three times and they're depressed and they have back pain and it's bothering them and I become like the sounding board, it just starts to wear on me so much. And that was kind of why one of the biggest reasons I really had to like, kind of like move past that. But I loved kind of expanding that spectrum of empowerment with them of, you know, you may have never been able to do this, but I think you can. And I think you should try and maybe you won't get it the first time,

but we should make small steps to being able to get back into whatever their main goals are. If it's hiking and they've got back pain and they can't do it, or spending time with their family, what is a little bit of the process that you walk coaches through? Because you have to really push some buttons with people to get them to try things, because they've put themselves in this cage,

and it's hard for them to think that they'll ever get out. It's interesting. We're data freaks over at the PPSC and also with our P4 coaching. So we have data points on basically everything. And one of the more shocking data points was that we did a poll, and this is one of our PPFC coaches that coaches about 4,000 members in group fitness over the last seven years. And he did a poll throughout before they came in for their initial client success session. Why are you here? Why did you come into training today? Why did you start here

with this group fitness? And the number one thing was, hey, I just want to sweat. So it wasn't like, hey, I want to get strong. I want to lose weight. I want to live a better life. It's like, hey, I just want to sweat. So people are almost afraid to go in and have a goal, afraid to have a compass of where they want to be, afraid of failure. The fear of failure holds them back of actually staying consistent and buying into a process that has the potential to make them better. But the biggest mistake that I see coaches and trainers make today, and I see a lot of rehab pros make this as well, is that they are negative. They tell people that they're broken. They tell people that they need them in order to get where they want to be

instead of being a positive influence on this client's life. Because a lot of clients that come in for personal training, group training, whatever it may be, most likely they've already been to their physician that goes, don't exercise. Exercise is dangerous, especially that weight stuff. Don't squat. Don't bench press. Don't do lunges.

Don't lunge. Don't take a shit in the morning because that's a squat. All this stuff. It's like putting the shackles on people's wrists and ankles and then telling them, oh, but go be a pain-free human being. That's a tough one. But then you get into physical therapy. You get into certain sex of the fitness industry. Hey, there's only one way to do things. Everything else is fucking

stupid. And then they become like, Oh, man, like if I do one other thing that is not this, I'm going to have pain, I'm going to have injuries, most likely, I'm not going to lose fat, or I can't gain muscle like that. So they have all this negative self-doubt. When I think of training, I think of coming into somebody that is a cheerleader, but is also a coach. Cheerleaders do really, really well initially because they make you feel good about yourself. But a coach problem solves. A coach continues to gain data points and shoots you back out the most efficient path to that goal. And most importantly, they figure out what that goal is. If your goal is to sweat, yeah, we can get you on the airdyne bike, we can get you on the rower, we can make you sweat. But what's your why? What makes you tick? What brought you here in the first place? What was that life change? What was that

moment in time that was the kicking point for you to walk through those doors that day? Yeah. Nobody asks these questions. Nobody, you sometimes don't even have to ask the questions. You need to build a relationship. You need to build trust. I'm interested.

Yeah. Trust is that, that, that big one, right? That, that I was, the question I wanted to ask was kind of how long did it take you to find that like unifying voice that was not you the strength coach and not you the PT but you just the you that people want to learn from knowing that you have a breadth of knowledge that you can bring to the scenario to the situation I think it all changed for me uh 2017 I started going out and speaking a lot more. I'm just a coach. I teach people how to squat and do pushups and make sure that they're not eating shit. But 2013, I started writing

articles. I started writing a shit ton of content. I was writing for everyone, T Nation, bodybuilding.com, my own site. And over the last eight years, I've published 1400 articles. And in that time, it's like people read your byline, people get familiar with your systems, kind of everything's out there. Everything is known, there's really not a whole lot of unknown after 14 article or 1400 articles. So 2016, I started speaking a little bit because like places like the NSCA were inviting me to speak and lecture on a couple of these key topics. 2017, I started going out and actually doing the seminars. So I'd go and I'd lecture for a day. And there's a lot of great coaches out there. You know, I respect deeply every single coach that goes in and invests in education because

a lot goes into it. It's not only that ticket cost. It's the opportunity cost being away from the gym, the family cost being away from your kids and your wife or your husband. And it's also the time that you spend traveling, the cost of the travel and the cost of staying somewhere. So on average, people that come out, they spend about $2,700 to come in and hear me speak. I take that extremely seriously because I know I was the guy spending that twenty seven hundred dollars when I didn't have a dime and it wasn't

that long ago. So I started to stay after the seminars. I would talk to people about their biggest pain points. I would really just try to get to know our avatar. It's like, hey, why are you here? What did you want to get out of this? and how can we continuously evolve and make this better and the biggest thing was that every single person tended to be that outlier in the industry they tended to be that one personal trainer in the gym that was going against the grain that was giving people good things while everyone else was giving people f teas and fucking crash diets and all this bullshit that gives our industry a bad name. And then we went one step deeper. Hey, a lot of people are afraid. We're getting new clients in here. People are afraid of physicality. They're afraid of strength training. They're afraid of working hard. They're afraid of failure. And that really

resonated with me. So over like 20 events in a single year all across the world, I was like, fuck, man. You know, pain-free performance training, it's the system. Of course, we're teaching the blueprint for that. But above and beyond that, it's the way that we deliver it, the way that we communicate, the way that we teach, the way that we coach. And that is going to be the missing link to really invoking behavior change with your clients, but also making that coach more successful as a fitness professional. And I say professional very specifically there because there are people that go above and beyond

to deliver well within the scope of practice, but to deliver the unthinkable for their clients. Yeah. And the biggest limiting factor was the psychological. It was the mental. It was the barriers of entry. And it was the barriers of consistency. And since then, you know, that was a big shift into let's unite. Let's come together. Let's make a change.

Yes, training is important. Yes, I want to know how to squat, how to hinge, all that stuff. But the way in which you deliver it is maybe more important. Yeah. Do you guys spend a lot of time actually in there talking about kind of behavior change and what it takes and systems for getting people to buy into what you're saying in your seminar? We do.

And we just started the V3 version of the Pain Pre-Performance Specialist Certification. And we added two hours of coaching and programming methodology. And we actually have data and case studies behind what we're actually doing. So we were having Lifetime Fitness kind enough to share the data points with us from their certified PPSC coaches. We have Equinox sharing their data, and we have a number of small boutique studios sharing their data. And we look at things, you know, one versus another. Hey, you delivered this. Hey, you go into an initial session and you assess, you assess, you put them on the table, you tell them they're fucking suck, that they're a terrible human being because their squad is

shit. And then we look at the opposite side. Hey, we get them training right away. We do a screen. We do an assessment that feels and functions like training. They think they're training. We're assessing, we're screening, we're getting data points. The difference between those two things is unbelievable in terms of the client success, aka the results that they achieve, the injury risk mitigation, the lifetime value of that client. And then the one that I'm most proud of is the closure rate on that first session. For any personal trainer out there, you know that a 20% closure rate, one out of every five people that comes into an initial session, if they get a package with you you're gonna be really successful we

brought it from 15% at lifetime to 40% so we almost tripled that just by doing the right things and taking care of people but the delivery of that first session was pivotal delivery yeah that the it's the language thing too like you go on the table and they say you're doing this wrong okay well what what do i do that right like we could we could talk about what i'm doing wrong all day long but a coach and i think that this is one of the sweet spots really in between kind of that practitioner side and the coach side is that the coach really has the ability to come in and say like, and do an assessment and say, well, we're doing this well, so we'll keep doing that.

And at the same time, knowing in the back of their head that they're assessing what they struggle with and what they can't do and where they should be. But a lot of that really just comes down to, you know, language and empowering people and really coaching them versus saying this is wrong. And that never works. I always go back to like the key goal of especially the first couple sessions. You want to celebrate the strengths of that client. Yeah.

And you want to work on some weaknesses, celebrate the strengths, work the weaknesses. But when you work those weaknesses, be cognizant of your fucking language. Don't be like, yo, you can't squat today. You need to go over in the corner and foam roll and think about what you just did. Like you're like a dog that's getting reprimanded because you shit on the floor. That is not the kind of communication. We need to know very, very well that our client is not there because they're super into fitness the way that they are. They're there because they want to do something different. We need to figure out what that is. And we need to identify that driving factor that is going to keep them there so they can actually

get the goals achieved, get the successes that they're after, and learn a thing or two about their body along the way. Any great coach, they don't just coach, they don't just program, they educate. And if you can continuously educate somebody, that is the most rewarding client that I have, is that we can continuously go deeper and deeper and deeper on them because they stay with you for life. Every single coach out there would love to never go market again for new clients, for new members. Oh, yep, we're packed. I don't have another second on my schedule. We have to increase rates because we have so many fucking people. Those are the kind of people with high retention

and high returns that get the best results with their clients as well. Yeah. Where can people learn more about your seminar? How do they get out to Wisconsin? Are you still doing it right now? Do you have dates? Yeah, it's a long story, but we canceled 65 dates due to the coronavirus. Congratulations, you're sleeping. Your health is very improved right now for sure. Well, I moved into an executive role going into 2020 here. So I am extremely fortunate to be surrounded by 27 of the world's best educators all across the globe, five different continents that are delivering these courses at an epic experiential level and right now we're working the machine so we had 106 days off without a course and we have actually run four

courses since being let back into captivity we are actually running this weekend in hong kong and also this weekend in taiwan and we are going to be double and triple booked into August, triple and quadruple booked into September. And then beyond there, it is going to hopefully stay healthy, stay consistent, stay open, so we can do what we had planned this year. So it's exciting. I love that you called it captivity.

I've been calling it captivity since day one. You're the first person that's dropped the captivity along with me. I feel good about it. Love it, man. But everyone can go check that out at get PPSC.com. Beautiful. Yeah. We'll get all that stuff up in the show notes. So go and hang out. Doug Larson. John, appreciate you coming on the show, dude. I've been looking forward to hearing your perspective for, for a long time in an actual conversation, not just reading your stuff over the internet. So appreciate you being here.

You can find me on Instagram at Douglas E. Larson. You bet, dude. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We're Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged. Make sure you get over to BarbellShrugged.com forward slash store. Programs, e-books, courses, making strong people stronger. We'll see you guys next week. All right, friends. that's a wrap.

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That's the one. Everyone loves it. I will see you guys next week. Peace.