Barbell Shrugged - How to Improve Strength and Conditioning and Human Performance in the Military w/ Brad Lokey, Anders Varner, and Doug Larson - Barbell Shrugged #486

Episode Date: July 15, 2020

A former United States Marine, Brad Lokey oversees all Human Performance Optimization for Reef systems Corp as their Program Manager.  Before working with Reef Systems Corp, Lokey worked as a tactical strength coach for 2 years. Prior to that he was the first ever Director of Strength & Conditioning for Stetson University which was a program that he built from scratch. Other stops along his career include; Cumberland University in Tennessee where he was the Director of Strength & Conditioning.  Before that, he spent six months working in the Georgia Tech Strength and Conditioning department – primarily working with the football, softball, swimming and diving and cheerleading squads for the Yellow Jackets. It was during his time at Georgia Tech when Lokey completed his practicum and internship hours to earn his CSCCa SCCC certification. He also spent time working with the football, men’s and women’s basketball and wrestling teams at UT-Chattanooga. Lokey was the first head Strength and Conditioning Coach and Fitness Center Manager at Webber International University in Babson Park, Fla., working in that position for two years. He was responsible for the 19-sport Warriors program, designing and implementing workout programs for all sports, implementing, and analyzing results to test the effectiveness of the programs and creating a computer database for workouts for student-athletes.  He earned a master’s degree in Business Administration and Sport Management from Webber International in 2009. Lokey is a member of the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) and Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association (CSCCa). Lokey possesses three credentials from the NSCA including; Registered Strength & Conditioning Coach (RSCC), Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) and Personal Trainer (CPT). He is also Strength & Conditioning Coach Certified (SCCC) and is recognized as an approved mentor by the CSCCa.    Connect with Brad Lokey LinkedIn Youtube     Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram ———————————————— Barbell Shrugged’s "EMOM Aesthetics Bundle" is the most efficient, effective way to build muscle, stay lean, and athletic without spending 60-90 minutes a day working out.   What you get:   EMOM Aesthetics - 50 High Intensity, Muscle Building EMOM Workouts ($47) EMOM Aesthetics: Strong 30 - High Volume, High Intensity, Muscle Building ($47) EMOM Aesthetics: Arms and Abs - Accessory Program Targeting Arms and Abs ($47) EMOM Aesthetics: Abs and Glutes - Accessory Program Targeting Abs and Glutes ($47) EMOM Aesthetics: Breathe and Burn - Accessory Program to Burn Fat and Increase Metcons ($47)   Two Bonus Personalized Nutrition Resources:   Shredded Nutrition - 12 Module Nutrition Course, Meal Plans, Tracking Sheets, and Recipes to Lose Body Fat and Gain Lean Muscle ($147) OTC: Macronutrient Calculator -  Personalized Macro Calculator to get the body you desire ($97)   Total Retail Value $479 for all 7 Programs.   This week only, get all seven programs for $97, saving you 80% off retail.   Use code “hypertrophy” at checkout save 80%.    7 Programs for the price of 2 saving you over $382. SAVE 80% TODAY using the code “hypertrophy” at checkout. ———————————————— Training Programs to Build Muscle   Nutrition Programs to Lose Fat and Build Muscle   Nutrition and Training Bundles to Save 67%   Please Support Our Sponsors   Shadow Creative Studios - Save $200 + Free Consult to start you podcast using code” “Shrugged” at podcast.shadowstud.io   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   www.magbreakthrough.com/shrugged - use coupon code SHRUGGED10 to save up to 40%   http://onelink.to/fittogether - Brand New Fitness Social Media App Fittogether   Purchase our favorite Supplements here and use code “Shrugged” to save 20% on your order: https://bit.ly/2K2Qlq4    Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://bit.ly/3b6GZFj Save 5% using the coupon code “Shrugged”

Shark Family, this week Brad Loki is on the podcast. We had an awesome talk with him talking about how he is bringing high-level strength conditioning coaches into the U.S. military. I don't know if you've ever worked with military before or been in the military, but there are a lot of very old principles that are still being taught, and he is responsible for coming in, updating all of the training tools, and empowering the units with education and getting all of the people that need the training to be done, as well as putting strength and conditioning coaches with their CSCS into leadership roles so that we have really strong, fit soldiers when a lot of the old tactics just weren't working anymore. So this is a very cool conversation.

But before we get into it, I want to thank my friends, Seth Floyd, Melissa Webb, and Michaela Buick. I'm going to call her Michaela Buick. They won the fit-t Together giveaway that we did. So the personalized bundle, they each got three programs, a nutrition program, as well as a mobility program from our store. And all they had to do was get over to Fit Together, download the app, come hang out with me, and we ran a check-in challenge. We're going to be doing it again very soon soon and i can't wait for you to be a part of it before you do that make sure you get over to the app store right now and download the fit together app it's f-i-t-t-o-g-e-t-h-e-r fit

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Make sure you're getting over to the store, barbellshrug.com forward slash store. That is where you can find all of our programs, and we're running a killer sale right now at barbellshrug.com forward slash em. That is where you can find all of our programs. And we're running a killer sale right now at barbell shrug.com forward slash EMOM bundle. You've got seven programs in there. You're going to save 80%, $97 all. We have five EMOM aesthetics programs that we just posted. So the base EMOM aesthetics, we've got a higher volume, higher intensity, strong 30 program, as well as two targeted body parts, so arms and abs, abs and glutes, as well as a Metcon EMOM Aesthetics program that we've just launched. Super stoked. We've got four brand new programs coming out, plus the base EMOM Aesthetic.

Then we've got shredded nutrition, macro calculator, so you can get super lean, jacked, athletic, stay in shape, do it in an efficient and effective manner. Get over to barbellshrug.com forward slash emom bundle. Save 80%. Let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, and Coach Loki, Bradley Loki. Welcome to the show. Corey Gregory put us in touch. I'm super excited to talk to you. You've got a pretty extensive background in the university setting, working with the Army Warrior Fitness Team. They need a better name for that, by the way.

It's too many words. Just say Army people that are in really good shape competing in CrossFit and Strongman. I had to cut you off pre-show because I want to hear all the stuff, but I can't hear it for the second time. But tell me how you got into the world of strength and conditioning and, you know, all the, we're going to be getting into some of the projects you're working on right now, but where did this journey start for you and how do we get into the university setting to kind of kick off the professional career? Started as an athlete,

you know, as most strength coaches do, high school, got into the collegiate setting, and didn't do too real well there my first year, pretty much college dropout, went to Marine Corps, spent four years in Marine Corps, and then went back to school, finished all my education, got my master's degree, and really just kind of went into strength and conditioning. It was pretty natural. As I returned back to school, I still know a lot of the coaches, a lot of the personnel that I'd gone to school with the first time, and they paid that way for me and did a lot of mentorship and gave me some great opportunities. And I was always working in the weight room, training in the weight room,

and from there it just became second nature. So when I went to grad school, I started out as a strength and conditioning coach. That was actually my first director job. That was at Weber International University. So they gave me my first opportunity, and then I got my master's while I was there as well. Nice. What did your training programs look like when you were playing sports? What college were you coaching at?

What was the conversation like back in what year was that? like when you were playing sports? What college were you coaching at? What was the conversation like back in – what year was that? That would have been, for me, coaching the first time, I was still at Central Methodist. I was finishing my undergrad there. That would have been post-brain core, so we're talking 2000, 2001. Very high-volume programs, typical four sets of ten. That's generally what a lot of that stuff looked like at that time. Working probably upwards 76 percentiles, but then you would peak those down into standard periodization. So as you'd pinnacle out, you'd end up your last

few weeks with sets of three fours and a high 90s so that's typically how most of that stuff looked at that point um and then as i started coaching i took a lot of that and i built a lot of my initial program set stuff off of a 531 metrics and then i started mixing it up still kept some of the high volume stuff especially for the younger athletes so they could build some resiliency yeah did you have a powerlifting background? I did when I was in the Marine Corps. You look like you've lifted a lot of weights. Well, that's many years ago. That's why we have to have you turn the lights on.

Gotcha, gotcha. We can see what's going on. That neck says, I'm strong. Done. You passed the test. Many years ago. Many years ago. But I was pretty competitive in the Marine Corps.

I was on the all-Marine powerlifting team. Got to lift overseas, so it was pretty awesome. Best lift I ever had, 208s raw and Vlad Volostok Russia with a 1630 total. So I had a really good day that day. That's early 90s, excuse me. Would have been about 97, so that was a good day for me. What does it look like when you're on a weightlifting team or powerlifting team in the military?

Do you still have to do all the normal military stuff? Are they like, look, you're supposed to pick up weights, go over to that corner and pick the things up? Yeah, you did then. It has changed a lot. A lot of the personnel that are on the battalion teams, the football teams, the weightlifting teams, or different sports teams now, that becomes their physical training. But at that particular time, I remember specifically when I got orders, I was sitting at Lejeune at first, and my first sergeant, he was like,

you didn't come in the Marine Corps to be a powerlifter. You came in here to be a killer. And it's like from there, you know, they didn't want you to be in the weights. And, you know, it was always a hard time staying within the high-weight regiment. I kept my body fat down at that time, but I was still pretty, pretty heavy on the scale for, you know, my, my size. And, uh, it was very difficult to do both. Very difficult. Yeah. I was at the Olympic training center. We had two Marines there.

Well, Tom Goff, who's a two-time Olympian was, um, he's, they were full-time Marines. Uh, the other, I can't remember, uh, the other guy's name, but Tom you know the stud he was a two-time olympian but yeah they were full-time marines but yet really all they did was train at the olympic training center so it was pretty cool for them yeah it was good yeah they could live and train it was good awesome um when when you were in the university setting you started getting your feet on the ground as a coach, how long is that process? I actually don't know much about coming up through the university system on anybody that I've ever really talked to that's a strength coach. It's like they sleep in

the locker room for a couple years and then maybe one day the real coach talks to them, but it's kind of like a 10-year process almost it feels before you start to get some recognition in that industry i would agree uh i've technically spent 16 years collegiate but only nine paid um i got lucky when i first came out of my undergraduate i had two really good references from my undergraduate and i actually got my first job right away as a director. But the school I started at, they had never had a program before. Fortunately for me, it was a local program where I'd come from. It was in Central Florida.

I had a very good reputation from the high school setting there and got that opportunity. And really, I'm so grateful to those guys at Weber. Coach Kelly, he's still the head football guy there, and he gave me that first opportunity, and we had a really great two-year run until I finished my graduate degree and moved on, and it was really interesting. Post my tenure, they actually stopped the position,

and they turned it into a full-time GA position instead of a paid position. So it took a transition, and I think they did that that for economics and then he built the program back up. And now the coach that came after me, some of you guys may have heard the name Steve Razzle, he did a great job, a lot better administratively than I had done. I was very young as a coach at that time. I made a lot of mistakes. I came in with the mentality really from what you would learn in a book, right? Like if you were at a true Division I setting with a $200,000 weight room, that was kind of how my programming mentality was. So the thing I really learned at Weber was I had to get really creative. We didn't have the equipment.

We didn't have the square footage. And trying to get everybody through the weight room in a day, plus I was also the fitness center manager, that was was just a lot a lot of creativity and a lot of time invested so but we were able to get it done and i learned a lot from it yeah would you say your influences are like are you you know back then or traditionally west side or you know wayla drift like this is the world you you people are forced to pick sides which i think stupid but but like so what what side would you say you fall on uh at that particular time i really looked at uh more of a high german volume training system that's where i kind of grew up um and it's really interesting now that i look at different methodologies you

know you talk about west high you talk about 531 you can talk about any of those that are out there and it's really interesting i think those are all programs, but I really think you got to have a strong foundation base. And one of the things I realized, I see a lot of people start training athletes as young collegiate athletes or high level college athletes, and they start automatically throwing these high intensities with very low repetitions. And that's great for peaking these athletes. But one of the things I see is a lot of them didn't have the resiliency base or those, those high volume bases to kind of number one, uh, graduate into that type of training program, but number two,

be able to maintain it. So like if they didn't train for a year or two, they would have to start back from scratch. But you take a person that's done six years of, of three or four sets of tens or twelves they're going to be able to maintain that that that strength a lot i feel for a longer period of resiliency without training yeah i feel like with a lot of young kids like really the the big thing is just putting on some muscle mass they're like a high school kid or early college like a lot of those guys they just need to add 20 pounds of muscle before they just need to add 20 pounds

of muscle before they even worried about training specifically for strength of course as they add muscle they will get stronger but then when you layer on actual real low rep strength training after a period of hypertrophy a significant period of hypertrophy i feel like the results are always better you see i agree i agree and i feel a lot of people skip that now so i definitely agree with you it's funny funny because, you know, Louie would tell them they should absolutely do it, that they should absolutely do. He calls that the repetition method,

is that you should spend at least a solid two years of, you know, mainly focusing on, yeah, it's hypertrophy, but it's getting the reps in too. It's like learning those movement patterns, you know, because you're like, obviously, the more you do something, the better you get at it. Like if I want to get better at basketball, I shoot shoot a lot of basketball if i want to get better at squats i do a lot of squats and so whatever it is you know high reps is definitely a great base and a

great weight great foundation lots of muscle and then obviously the cns as well so agreed uh when you were talking about kind of lacking some of the facilities and having to uh get really creative in the weight room how many people were you managing uh throughout the the the sports teams and then uh i guess some of that's kind of part one and then like what strategies are you using to get all those people through at that time you know that's what i had to really grow into was the strategy aspect, but we were managing about 500 student athletes. We had 19 sports. I would say out of those 19, I was specifically training probably about eight. And, you know, you're really limited to the time of days that you have for training, obviously mornings and then afternoons and around the class schedule. And being the first director there, that program, and basically learning,

the biggest thing was, you know, managing. We had a football group, and that football group was, you know, 150 total rosters. So how do I get these 150 people in, you know, throughout the day plus my other teams? So I had to break that football team into really three groups. We eventually got it condensed down to two groups, which that helped the organization a lot. We worked with both men's and women's soccer, both men's and women's basketball, cheerleading, both tennis, men's and women's. So there was a lot going on. We tried to

even get to the level of golf and some of the other essential sports as well. But, you know, it was just, it was a learning process for me. I think that was one piece of it that I definitely had just started collaborating. So we took Google calendars and I would meet with all the sports teams and we would be able to go through those blocks. And obviously we kind of established a tier system and that tier system would give them preference on trading times. And then once we were able to kind of iron that out based on their needs in the season, we pretty much got it worked out. But I think we really didn't start seeing it until pretty much my second year

and almost the end of my tenure there. That's when I really started to see a program develop, a culture develop, and a true strategy actually start to work. I'd say my first semester, I horribly failed. And no shame in that for my part. My first time being a director, also trying to carry grad school. It was neat for me because here I am. I'm taking an MBA with no prior knowledge, really, of working with any of the business classes.

Everything I'd done before had been anatomy, physiology, coaching. So I'm taking an advanced finance class, and I'm like, what is this? This is a new language. How crazy is it to you seeing where some of these strength and conditioning coaches have taken their collegiate positions? I mean, there's guys making three-quarters of a million dollars now being strength and conditioning and at universities that's that's a wild leap i'm assuming from uh what it looked like in the 90s i still think it's

very limited uh with all due respect just the uh typical statistics for the collegiate strength and conditioning endeavor there's only about 12 literally 12 that are making six figures or more yeah it's definitely limiting you know it's very limiting and that's that's six figures so when you're talking about the guys that are over a quarter million how limited that that's super small percentage i think 12 percent more than what you probably make if you're a trainer i don't know if 12 of the people at 24 Hour Fitness are making six figures. No, I agree. I agree.

So that's probably, if you were putting in the work, a great way to go if you're trying to make a lifelong career out of being a strength coach. That's a big number to me. And, like, you know, you're talking about an industry where the top 12%, like, you know, not everyone deserves 100,000. You know, like, you better be good at what you're doing. So I don't think there should be an industry anywhere in the world where everyone deserves 100,000 you know like you better be good at what you're doing so i don't think there should be an industry anywhere in the world where everyone deserves 100,000 yeah suck you know and there's a lot of them that suck so they don't deserve five bucks let alone yeah i see i see i see like these new numbers come out the guy from iowa there was another guy recently i think 800 yeah yeah that was the iowa guy so he's got his contract

yeah i didn't know his his first giant contract was up um and he got a second one that's that's even more incredible um when i when i saw that happen a couple years ago that he was at like 700 750 something like that i was just like wow the the trickle down just because now coaches know that number is out there like somebody has to somebody's got to be jeff bezos in the industry someone's got to go do it and then everybody else can base their worth off the guy that stormed through the door that's all right incredible you know instead of it you know like some people will like say ah you don't no one needs to be making that much money. I'm the opposite.

I'm like, thank you, God, because that trickles down to the rest of us. Because then, yeah, let's say that I want to go, you know, to Wake Forest and be a strength coach, you know, and we're negotiating. I could point out, well, you know, there's people making three quarters of a million. I know that this guy has this much experience. Here's what I have. I feel like I have more. So at least meet me. You know, like now that I'm negotiating. three quarters in the lane i know that this guy has this much experience here's what i have i feel like i have more so at least meet me you know like now i'm negotiating someone someone set a goal post that you can just kind of yeah work your way up i'm trying to kick a ball through that goal

post look especially when you're the football coach you go look uh someone someone emailed me about it or texted me about it and they were it like, there's no way a coach is worth $800,000. I was like, look, what if he makes your organization $100 million? All you had to do was pay him 0.8% of your revenues, and now you have one of the top 10 programs in the country? I would give somebody 0.8% of our revenues for sure to bring in that amount of money. That's an insane number to think about. That's a beautiful number.

Yeah, like 800K. That dude's living large out there teaching people power cleans. There's lots of things happening. We should just put that out into the world right now. If you're listening and you can make us a hundred million dollars, we'll give you 800 grand. No problem. Amen.

Right. Who wouldn't look at that and be like, wait, that guy is going to bring a hundred million. We just got to pay him 0.8%. That's insane. I think there's a lot of good stuff in the industry going on right now. Like not only like in the, you know, collegiate and the pro settings, which a lot of my friends, I'd like to see that number because I feel like more and more I'm hearing of people

making that 250, 300, I can't name names, but of recent I've known some people. I don't want to tell them. Maybe the university might get mad. But not only in the university and pro settings, tell them, you know, I don't want – maybe the university might get mad. But, like, and not only in the university settings, but, like, you know, jobs like Coach Ken, who's now, like, the VP for – oh, I totally just blanked out. What is it? The equipment company?

Yeah. I don't remember. Oh, daggone it. That's why we have the internet. Yes, that's why I'm looking it up. But, see, my point is, is now he has a really good salary basically you know educating you know they're the people that follow that equipment dynamic fitness yes and so like so now there's all kinds of positions happening that are highly paid for people like a coach can or someone who's you know got the experience got

the background got the education it's a it's worth they're seeing value in people like us i'm like i'm all for it i want someone to make 10 million because it's gonna be super easy for me to ask for 1 million i agree yeah yeah um when did this uh journey start to transition into kind of of the military and getting into training soldiers? After a few stints, various colleges, again, you know, like you mentioned, I was the director of three different universities and then had actually worked at five. So, 2015, I found myself in a situation where I wasn't working. And next thing I know, one'm in a really strange situation. One of my old Marine Corps captains called me and says,

he didn't really even know what it was at the time, but he goes, hey, don't you do that training stuff? He's like, I got something up here I want you to come look at. And he was at Fort Lee, Virginia at the time, and they had a Marine detachment there, a small unit. I was like, look, man, right now I'm broke as a joke. He says, oh, don't worry about it. I'll pay you. Come on up. I was like, all right, cool'm broke as a joke he says oh don't worry about it i'll pay you come on up i was like all right cool so i go up and uh i watch what they're doing

and it was pretty amazing stuff they were working with a little bit more special operations group so i got an underground job it was just kind of a go in and work um at his discretion and it was paying really well uh weekly so i stayed with that but the thing was it was paying really well weekly. So I stayed with that. But the thing was, it was really odd because it was in broken time. So it would be like, okay, you're going to work for three months. Then you'd be without work for like three months. And then I got six months.

And then I was like, all right, you're off for three months. And then, but you know, that was really hard. So it was really hard to balance the finances and budget. And I was really struggling for a few years. And finally, it was just by coincidence that I had applied for a program management position. I was still doing the tactical one. The guy that I was actually working for, the captain I worked for, he actually debriefing and kind of discuss the overall tactics of how we're going to organize the first project I was on, uh, they decided I was the person.

And, uh, at that time I started working for the company I'm currently with, which is Recessive Corp. Um, and that's a pretty interesting journey in itself because we started out very small and then have grown tremendously in the last three years. Do they focus mainly on the fitness side or is this like a larger government contractor? It's a larger government contractor, but we have pretty much since I've come aboard narrowed it down into human performance. So we started off, our first contract was very small. It was actually me as a program manager, and we only had four coaches at the larger military installations at that time. And we started out with a pilot program, testing a new Army resiliency fitness test, which is that developed into what is now currently the Army ACFT.

Oh, you're the guy. You're the guy that did it. You started it. I wouldn't say started it, but I was guy. You're the guy that did it. You started it. I wouldn't say started it, but I was excited. I'm going to be humble about it, but we definitely had a great team. So we developed a lot of lessons learned in that pilot program. But the most exciting part for me is when that contract grew. So that contract grew from me having four employees.

Once we had proven ourselves and basically been on the block for a year, we had really good statistical data. And that data promoted the new contract, which in turn gave me an opportunity to command 50, excuse me, 60 strength coaches. And we were now at 30 locations across the army so that position those jobs didn't exist before so for me it was like okay i'm a strength coach that just created basically 56 other positions for guys and they were all very well paid jobs i pulled a lot of guys out of the collegiate sitting that were making mid 30s low 40s up into 60 K salaries. Uh, so for me, that was the moment where I really realized, okay, I don't care if I wore a university of fill in a blank on my,

on my shirt and I had a staff of 12 and they were all making that six figure salary. I just created 60 jobs. So cool, man. Yeah. And now, uh, the next contract we, we rolled into, that was another additional 20 strength coaches. Within my first two years in tactical, between myself and the company I work with, obviously, I've got a great team and I've got great support, but we were able to create over 80 strength and conditioning jobs. For me, that was more impactful than anything else. I was really, really happy with that i want to go back to the beginning of the story and find out what what was going on with the army fitness tests that forced the transition or at least started the conversation of like what we're doing right now

of push-ups sit-ups and running is not acceptable and how far of a jump is it to get a trap bar into the hands of all of the army and say this is now the test because that's a giant leap and uh that's an age old old question you know i mean they had been training the same way and it was really interesting for me being prior service uh we did the same thing push-ups sit-ups runisthenics, and to be able to see that change is instrumental, but I think where it came from is, as they were looking at the Veterans Administration data of how much money that they were putting out for post-service injury, for broken, you know, and rehabilitation and physical therapy and all of these things, medicine even, they felt like they could really start to cut those costs by finding a better way

to take care of the military service members while they're actually in. So they started looking for the expertise, you know, what's a better way to kind of have a more holistic training methodology, not just the calisthenics, not just the muscular endurance. I also think it came down to saving lives, right? If you're maybe minimally, say, eight or 10% stronger, maybe that gives you just enough strength to pull your buddy from that high-risk zone that you're in. They're injured, you got to get them behind cover. And you just got just enough more strength to be able to do that or you know you've been training some some basic uh sprint drills where before you'd never really sprinted except in combat so maybe you're a

tenth of a second faster to get out of harm's way and you know you start to see that fruition of moms and dads coming home and be able to sit with their family at Christmas where you can't touch that as a strength coach on the project as easily as you could touch a win on a Saturday at the collegiate realm so that's hard for coaches too because they can't see the fruition of their labor and the tattoo I think is easily in the collegiate setting but for those that kind of have that patriotism or want to assist you know the service that i think that buys in yeah what's uh when you guys were putting the test together um i guess how many iterations of that test were you guys playing around with before you settled on the final the final product

the army's been running uh pilots i would say probably for many years. But in the last three years, it really took a direction. We started with a test. It was called a soldier readiness test. That was the first iteration. We ran that for four months, had good statistical data. From there, the after-action report basically generated the direction that the Army was going to go with what's now called the army combat fitness test yeah um but there were between those those two just alone so this is just from 2017 there have technically been four different versions how what assessments are you guys using because i've done a little work with the the navy um we have some contacts over

with the army and just i know that you could have the greatest strength and conditioning program in the entire world. But if you can't walk over and say, this is the FMS, they were, uh, eight and now they're a 13 or whatever it is. And now your person's healthy. What, what's the assessment process? Is it just the fitness test or do you guys have some like really dialed in metrics that you're chasing, um, with your coaches? We don't just worry about the testing. And it was really interesting that you asked that question because when my initial

thought process, when we set up for the SRTS, I told my coaches and they all agreed with me. I said, we're not going to train for the test. I said, we're just going to train the methodology of the testing so they'll be prepared for various athletic events, right, and whatever that is. So currently the ACFT has multiple facets of events that test, you know, a lot of different things. So we still kind of take our training the same way. But one of the things that we did do is we honed in a methodology also that, let's say you have a discrepancy and you're really weak in one of those particular tests. Well, we have a specific methodology that'll add into your normal training that's going to correct that. But back to your question, the metrics are extremely important. We're not concerned so much about just the metrics of the

testing. That's just a byproduct. What we're really looking at is where the training assists in getting the soldiers that are injured back to return of duty. And honestly, that's really where the caveat for generating income comes from because that's where any fitness, you know, where you're talking about Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, that's where the money comes into play. Well, if we keep this many people healthy, we're spending less money once they get out and go into the Veterans Administration system. So, you know, there's a lot of money being saved because those personnel are a lot more resilient and able to return to duty. I didn't even think about it from the VA side of people are then just stuck in the system and it becomes insanely expensive just for rehab costs for the next decade plus when it's just lifetime. We're going to take a quick break to thank our friends over at Organifi. Let me tell you something. I take them every day. You know who else takes them every day? Almost all of you.

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You should probably get three or four because they're amazing. MassDimes.com forward slash shrugged free. Back to the show. What does it look like? What does your training program look like at this point for military uh it's pretty broad spectrum i give my my coaches a lot of uh creative freedom because obviously we're at different locations every different military unit has a different culture but as an umbrella we have five components of fitness and we track the training value of each of those components based on what they do in a current day so i'll give you an example uh let's say you're a welder that's your job on a daily

basis and your job has a level of say four out of four on a one to ten scale as a level of difficulty on an everyday level. So we take that into consideration. And when we write our training programs, we write them hopefully to be the absolute opposite or inverse relationship to your daily volume. So if you're really high volume in your daily workload, we bring your training volume down. If you're really high volume in your daily workload, we bring your training volume down. That makes sense. Yeah. If you're really low volume, we ramp you up. If you're getting ready to deploy and go overseas, we ramp you up because we know that you're going to have to maintain those residuals over a period of time. Then we also prepare the program to travel as well.

That's really cool. When you are in the university setting, you've got at least a base level of athleticism that's coming to you. Whether that – that could be like a very broad term to you in that like maybe some people are very athletic or they're very sports specific and they're less athletic. But at least there's some understanding of how to move for their specific sport. Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes. When you are – That's mean it varies but it at least that you're probably thinking of specific people whereas when you look at the army as 600 000 people 40 of them probably just came from outside needed a job and they were like i'm just going to the recruiter i got nothing going on right now and yeah now this guy's telling me

to back squat who the hell knows what a back squat is that's a giant problem i would imagine like what is the education process going from less than zero strength training less than zero strength training, less than zero athleticism, to if you don't do this, you might die and not come home. That was a big deal for us, and the learning curve is immense. A lot of my coaches now, they really build that tier system, and when those personnel first come in, they first get to the unit, you're going through those basic movements, squat, bend, you know, hinge, push, pull, you know, those are some basic,

basic elementary fundamental movements that we have to train them on just to get them ready to even start being the move weight. So for those that had not competed, you know, whether it be high school, athletics, college athletics, or whatever, that's a huge learning curve. And a lot of our coaches take that, that tier approach to that educational process. And, you know, some kind of do it, obviously, increasingly, starting with a barbell or starting with a dowel and, you know, kind of basing on how athletic they are, how quickly they can progress. But you're absolutely right. A lot

of those personnel are not athletes. And what's interesting is the military had been providing fitness programs for the special operations community for years. They've been doing that for many years. So I think a lot of those guys had been former athletes or that really, really highly motivated type A personality, which is interesting in itself because most of the military personnel, you really find that type of personality as a whole. One of the big differences I say that is odd is a lot of the young military persons are the same age that you deal with the demographic in college. They're pretty much the same age. The maturity levels are a lot different. I think you see a higher level of maturity and tact and bearing in the military because of that indoctrination period of boot camp, but you see a lot better overall athleticism in that collegiate setting. Yeah. I guess there's also a piece to

coaching that many people. You said you've got 60 people. There's no coaching that many people how do you you said you've got 60 people there's no way that 60 people's each person's watching a hundred thousand athletes or whatever it is to get right you know to do the math on 60 is just not enough um i guess like how big are the groups if if somebody is is coming to work with you and you hire them as a coach? What are they looking at when they come to you and now you put them out into the workforce and here's your battalion, here's your group, here's your base? What is the process of the coaching side to how many people do they have to get moving and taking tests? Well, at the battalion level, we can operate anywhere from a group of 50 up to a group

of 300, 400. But here's one of the things that's really instrumental about our program is we're not only there just to coach the military service member. Our true job is actually to be the coach and the consultant of the units themselves. So for the non-commissioned officers, which are basically your enlisted leaders, we coach them to be extenders of ourselves to help promote the overall fitness of the Army. So at one general point, and this goes back to the old training system, like you talked about the sit-ups, the push-ups, running, those things were all run by the military. They didn't need the subject matter expertise that we have, right?

They didn't need to understand all the different methodologies or the operations of the energy systems. That's what they did, right? It was muscular endurance. So for us, we are just basically creating a great network of extenders that can continue to teach what we're teaching every day. And you got to grow that, right? It's just like if you're a single coach in a large collegiate football group, right? What do you do? You have to take some of your lead guys, some of your top athletes,

and they start to have to be your extenders and your leaders, right? They're coaching the other four guys at their rack, right? Or the other three guys at their rack and on down the line. It's kind of that same process because you cannot be in every place at every time coaching every single rep of every individual, right? Plus, you're also teaching big education process and everything's in a relatively controlled environment here in the United States, and then this group of 50 to a couple hundred people get the call, hey, now you're going over to Afghanistan and you're going to be there for the next eight months. How do you keep those people moving forward? And does it change your program as you know,

knowing that they won't have a coach there and the demands of their job just turned into seven, 16 hour days or whatever they're working. I imagine it's all day. They have nothing else to do. And our recruiting process. One of the things I tell coaches that are coming on board, the primary goal of the military, doesn't matter what branch it is, it's not physical fitness. It's not physical training. It's war fighting. And they have to

understand that because a lot of the guys that are coming on board from collegiate level, what's the most important thing to them? Got to get your training in. We got to get the training done. And that's super important to get them ready. But when they get to that level that they got to go do their job, that's what their their job is we do our absolute best to try to maintain that by audio visual you know just like this podcast they set up videos we we had to do a lot right now during COVID-19 we weren't allowed to be hands-on uh so we've been out of the workplace for the last two three months but we've provided support through telework, video, manuals, just, you know, continuing that extension, continuing that consultation at the battalion

level, at the leadership level. And these people, you know, some of these guys are working from home and they're doing our little workout video at home. We're checking out as much gear as we can, whether it's bands or kettlebells, you know,s you know we're letting them take that stuff home we're signing it out um and then we're also teaching them how to get creative with some of the stuff they have at home you know whether it be a five gallon bucket or some bricks or you know whatever it is that you got around the house that you can use sandbag you know whatever it is that you got to uh get creative at home we've we've got videos of guys working out lifting their kids overhead with the press you know so i mean I mean, it's just, just having fun. And I think it's been good because they've been able to spend that, that, that family life work balance. They got the time

at home, uh, do those things. But for, for our coaches, it's actually been a lot more hectic to have to go and prepare all of those things and all of the paperwork that goes with it. It's been more hectic than if we were in the weight room or on the floor coaching right now. You guys don't go. You guys don't go when they go. No, no. All right.

How do you guys run the programs over there then? Is everything digital? Do you guys have the online programs set up? That's correct. We do a lot of inner inner interchange through via email we use uh i'm not gonna advertise but we use various uh mobile applications um for that uh different units have different ones but that's you know worldwide uses they got a phone they've got their program in hand oh that's awesome yeah uh it's funny even as i go back i was thinking

about you know when i was in the marine corps and we would travel how did i get ready for a meet we were stationed at a place called pohon korea it's a camp out in the middle of nowhere and literally we built our own weight room we put a pulley in a tree we had axles that we were doing squats with i mean it was whatever we could put together to get it in yeah but we had a big meet we had a huge meet coming up you know we're going to seoul kore Seoul, Korea in less than 30 days. It was like, hey, we've got to be ready for this meet. It don't matter. We've got to figure something out.

That's so awesome. Yeah, go ahead, Travis. I was just going to say, where do you guys recruit from? Where are you finding your student conditioning coaches? What are you looking for? For anyone who might be listening, a lot of people who follow me are up-and-comings to the conditioning coaches, but how do they get to be awesome and, like, someone you might want on your team?

We try to be extremely active in both of the organization groups, which is the National Strength and Conditioning Association as well as the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Association. Me living in Chattanooga, I did coach at Chattanooga one time, too. I have a very active presence still there with Coach Ethan Reeves, who is the president of the CCCA. He's a good friend. He's a great guy.

I live in Winston-Salem. He was at Wake Forest forever. Yeah. So we're extremely close, and, you know, we go to the conferences and conventions every year. We do mass recruiting. We build that pipeline. I'm generally looking for coaches that have at least two years of collegiate experience

that want to change, that aren't concerned with the logo or just the winning the game on Saturday and have a little bit different purpose. Tactical is difficult because I look for a higher level of maturity and I try to look for that in the interview process because one of the things that i need from those coaches is not just to be a coach you get a lot of uh high graduate level coaches that at a division one program have just been held a or handed a program from the head strength coach this is what i need you to do right no not a lot of questions not a lot of interaction i need someone that can literally program think be creative uh learn to adapt and improvise overcome those situations and they have to learn to be managers they have to learn to be accountable for we have certain government classes that we have to take that that give us uh

clearance right security clearance operation security they have to take all those classes they have to be accountable for those things they have to do them manually. They have to create a weekly field report, a monthly field report based on the interactions that they have with the chain of command, based on the programming. They have to track all their metrics. So we teach them how to do all that. We give them those resources. But if that's not your interest to grow in that direction and become not just a strength coach, but also a manager, you're managing statistics, you're managing, you know, some of these guys, they come to me and it's the first time they ever get to build a weight room. They're getting some equipment. They're, you know, they're learning what the battalion can or cannot have and

how to get those funds and facilities built up. So it's a really great experience and I'm glad that I'm able to have that mentorship with such a broad spectrum. I got some very high level experience guys, my top base leads, uh, half of those guys are much better coaches than I am. And that's, that's been my thing is surround myself with people that, that do a lot better job than me, that, that can fulfill my weaknesses and help us grow as a, as a full team. That's a truly wise man, in my opinion. It's like I surround myself with people much smarter in turn, making me look really smart.

Hey, whatever. You know, man, I think as a strength coach, I love working with colleges and pros. I've worked with several NFL, you know, NBA, but there's nothing, nothing I think, I think, more admirable than doing what you guys are doing. Down there, preparing people to protect our country, preparing people to hopefully survive these trips that they have to go on. I can't imagine a more admirable role than what you guys are doing in the strict condition world is what I'm saying. Well, we greatly appreciate it. And it's, it's really hard.

You would be amazed at how many guys we hire initially. And within the first four or five months, they say, this isn't for me. I miss the collegiate. And it's really hard for me. You know, the last time I was truly active as a practitioner was 2015, and I'm not going to lie. I really missed that interaction with the collegiate athlete. The one-on-one or the moment the light bulb comes on, it's not just about the weight room. It's being able to overcome something and learning how to fail. I think that's the most important lesson you ever get out of the weight room is learning how to fail and knowing that it's okay and to be able to come back and have another opportunity to do it again that's the most important lesson you'll

ever learn in the weight room i feel like that position is also i imagine if you were to go and ask you know where's where's like the fittest people or the most in shape best training programs they they instantly go to the special operations people at the very highest level. The reality of a lot of our military and all of the services is that that bottom 99% is relatively underserved, and they don't have a lot of resources. Agreed. How do you see this program scaling and just inside the army and then do you guys already have conversations going with air force navy because i've i've been in some of those and i was the naive one that walked into the room thinking everyone in here is going to be a navy seal i'm gonna have to like it's gonna be cool i'm just gonna walk in do my little dance and they'll all be in shape and it's going to be great. And then I walk

in and I realized, Oh, there's a lot of non Navy SEALs, like there's a lot of obese people in the military now. Like I didn't know that there's a lot of people that just have lingering knee issues that haven't done PT in the last decade. Um, like there's also a lot of people that can't even, you know, get their next promotion because they can't run the two mile test or whatever it is. Like there's lots of work to be done. There's a ton of work. So how do you scale something like this? Because it seems like you guys have a very high touch program for, for implementing your programs.

Well, that's exactly how you scale it, right? Because initially when we ran the pilot, remember it was just me and four coaches. Well, if it works, then you implement it to more. And that's exactly what the Army did. They said, okay, so now we're going to take this 30 wide. If it produces, we take it 100 wide and it just continues to grow. But we also do work with other branches of service currently. We operate with 22 different Air Force units. We work with one Marine Corps unit at Cherry Point. So that growth is there. A lot of these units are training.

But I think what Big Scale Army really is pushing to do is give those resources, just like they did in the soft community to where we're able to give that service to the general service member you know whether and again that's all branches not just army but i'm just speaking because those are the contracts we're currently operating on but uh i think that's the goal now each branch of service does a little bit differently uh each branch of service has different needs and, you know, respectively, I still believe that if you train holistically, you may have to specialize here or there, but if you have a great holistic training program with a really good umbrella

and some great coaches and some great other resources, we operate in teams. So we have a full human performance team, athletic trainers, physical therapists, dieticians. Who am I missing? We also do the – they would provide the mental aspect for licensed clinical social workers or operational therapy. Oh, wow.

So it's like having a true Division I, you know, team ready to go. That's so sick. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I think back, man, in the 90s, if I'd have had that when I was in the Marine Corps, it would have been, you know, I can't even imagine, in the 90s, if I'd have had that when I was in the Marine Corps, it would have been, you know, I can't even imagine. Can we get into some specifics?

Like, do you guys, like, do you squat? Do you clean? Oh, yeah. It's all the good stuff, then, is what I'm saying. We don't see a lot of the Olympic stuff. Obviously, it's, you know, high-level movement with a lot of training time. And being at the age where they're're at their training age their training age is extremely low right compared to the high school or collegiate athlete there's no training age

shit those guys are low too in my opinion but yeah well yeah it just depends on where you're coming from right yeah but uh so but all your all your all your big movements oh yeah i mean we squat you know we we got different variations we program just like you would at the collegiate level so it's regression progression based off of what they're capable of doing right right you're ready to go and you got great form technique and you're box squatting thousand pounds that's what we're gonna let you do but if you've got to regress back to you know a simple uh squat and just you know it's whatever that regression is. And that we allow those coaches to train the extenders, the non-commissioned officers to help make those judgments.

We provide that guidance for the tactical strength and conditioning program as well, the practitioner's course. So we provide a lot of the guides for that. And, you know, but, yeah, as far as big movements, all the things that you'd standardly see or expect, we definitely program. Like plyometrics, sprint training, sprint, all that. Absolutely. Lateral, change of direction.

This is so awesome. Yeah. And we also keep volume for our calisthenics, too. So anything that would be standard, push-up, body weight, pull-up, all those things are programmed in. And we track those volumes, you know, to kind of see if it has any any best best uh best practice the advantage you have that other like say a personal trainer doesn't have or even a private strength coach is that you can track the volume of their job because and their weight training because like you know we all know stress is stress so if i go out there and my job is

you know loading a cart full of center blocks, that's a lot of volume and I'm going to be beat up, you know, but if my job is sitting at a desk, you know, typing away, you know, maybe my neck is hurt from looking at a screen, but other than that, I'm ready to go. So, so cool that you can monitor that volume. So then the only other volume you have to account for is like stress that they might be receiving at home from, you know, relationships and all that. Right, but the same thing at the desk job too, right?

Like if you're on a real high mental capacity. Oh, yeah. And it's funny because you mentioned the neck and the upper back for sitting in a chair. Well, if that was your job, we would actually build into your program the rehabilitation for that job as well. I love it. This is so what the Army has needed. I mean, not when i say army i meant like this branch yeah service yeah right exactly is what they needed for so long instead of you know

the crazy i mean it's not crazy i mean they did what they you know obviously we've been pretty good even before this but it's so good to see us getting you know more advanced as time goes on so i'm thankful that for you and again we're baby steps right now right like it's still at a at an infancy level um it's going to take a lot of time you're talking i would say 2007 excuse me 2027 2030 before you're fully integrated full-blown the equipment's there the coaches are all around and they're creating a lot more positions too like right now there are a lot of contract jobs, well the military themselves wants to take a lot of these guys and put them in GS jobs, you know, and I think that's going to be the direction of growth, we hope, we hope that's the direction of growth, but you know, I love the

opportunity that I have coming from a strength and conditioning perspective, I've been the guy without the job, I've been the guy without the job. I've been the guy that rode the carousel where, you know, my head coach didn't think I was the right guy and I had to go get another job and move my girlfriend or move across the country. It's miserable. Yeah, all those guys, we live that life, right? It is what it is, sleeping on, like you talked about,

sleeping on the locker room floor for a few weeks or months until you get a place or even in your car. And, you know, a lot of times you're not making a lot of money at those young ages you're going through that and my personal goal is to be a bridge builder right like i don't want younger coaches to have to go through the same hardships that i did just to get at that level why should you have to sacrifice a relationship or move you know 2 000 miles to do what you love if you're good at what you do right what you do what difference is you know but you're not being you're not being judged on your performance you're being judged because you're not so-and-so's buddy exactly you're hitting the nail on the head yeah they don't make a nurse you know sleep on the floor they don't make it you know they don't make

a police officer have to like eat ramen noodles. His first year as a cop, you know, it's just, it's our industry is like daggone slave labor is what it is. And so it is needed reform for a long time. And so for all the coaches out there, this is going to make some of my friends upset because this is the way they

come up and they believe this way it should be. Shit needs to change because like, I'm not doing that. I don should be. Shit needs to change because like I'm not doing that. I don't care. I'm better than that. I'm not doing that. And I never had to. Nor am I going to like work 24 hours for 10 cents an hour. I'm not going to do it.

You know, our industry is worth more than that. Even from the beginning, we are changing lives. You're helping those military people move better feel better have more energy and you're you're helping them save lives from for each other you're helping them save their own lives because now they can sprint like you deserve better and so i look anyway i'm on a rant now but yeah that's awesome here's the thing you're speaking that that language but i already went through that i lived that like you know i slept in the yeah you did the locker room or the car i mean i could tell there's some testimonials i mean i you know some of the other podcasts i've done before uh you know i was on

mckeefer's talk talk and i i gave my story the testimony how i came to be and i'm gonna tell you it was it was a really a rough road uh because i didn't have that major endorsement i didn't come from the fill in the blank big divisionsblank big divisions, you know, one university where somebody said, hey, this is your guy. And then, you know, that's it. You're the guy. Yeah, you're the guy. Why is he the guy?

I don't know. Because I say. Because I say, right. Yeah. Can he spell his own name? No, but he's my guy. Oh, man. I can read the penis. Yeah. spell his own name no but he's my guy oh yeah when one of the one of the do you guys do post

i don't know what the the actual term is but after their service is up is there like a a follow-up is there a way that people can stay engaged with you because i feel like uh we i'm wearing the shirt today fit ops those are our friends. We were down there, I want to say in February, like right before they said you're not allowed to go anywhere. And really the aftercare piece seems to be a really tough part of the equation because while people are in service they have to go do pt and the very first thing they don't want to do when they get out is pt and then there's like this windfall of problems that start happening do you guys have a a service or a way to stay connected to people once they're out we've not grown to that level yet and it's not something that hasn't been thought of,

but one of the things that, as I'd mentioned, we're under really tight operational security right now because it is still in infancy, right? Yeah. So as that grows, one of the biggest things that we want to see it get to is the level of being able to service those that aren't getting our service right now, right?

So that's the first part, is growing in internally. The aftermath of once they're outside of our care you know i think a lot of our coaches do provide a personal training to the side and some of those people that leave the military or leave their units do take them up on the applicational side of it and i think that's something we'd love to see grow and eventually be able to get that out and into their hands. Unfortunately, right now with the operational security of it, it's a little bit difficult to do. Yeah. How do you guys handle equipment? Where do you get it all from? You got to ship it around the world. That's a giant

supply chain to be able to get equipment to bases in the middle of, especially when no one's even supposed to know where these people are. Now you're going to get barbells out there? Call anybody in the country right now. See if they can get a barbell to their house. No chance. All the barbells are taken for the first time in the history of the world. Yep, that's because we bought them all up. Smart.

We found the guy. We found you. It's not me specifically, but the army does all their own funding like so for every service contract there's also an equipment contract and those equipment contracts were pre-written and they were very big to fulfill the need of the acft there's multiple vendors involved i mean there's there's so many and and i admit i'm really happy that i've had previous relationships as a collegiate training coach with the majority of those vendors. I really do respect my vendors a lot.

They've treated me great throughout my full career. You know, I can name several. Hammer Strength, Soren X. I mean, all these guys, they've been amazing to me personally. That's the go-to. They've offered great mentorship. Some of those guys I've known for, you know for 10 years, and it's just been great. There's a lot more out there.

It's just multiples. But I think that's been instrumental too because a lot of the guys that I bring from the collegiate setting, when that vendor steps on the footprint to meet with a battalion commander, there's already a relationship 90% of the time. They already know that guy, or they know know of them or they know at least the equipment that they're going to, you know, like I've seen the growth of dynamic when they first opened up and when they first came out, you know,

I've seen a matrix come up and grow up and I've seen all these different companies branch out. Um, but you know, I, I'm, I'm just, I'm impressed at how much, uh, they have been supportive of us and giving them the support on the ground. But the Army is actually the ones that are buying the equipment. But the only thing that we can do once we're on that battalion ground footprint is we can make those suggestions, right? We can say, hey, we'd really like to have XXO.

And then it's just like being in a collegiate setting. Okay, I got three budget requests. This is what I can spend. Well, I got to go with XX you know this is what i can spend oh well i got to go with xx and o because that's what i can afford yeah what are some of the biggest hang-ups that you have because i just off the top of my head anytime i've worked with the government or we've done i've done anything with the military the number one hang-up is always that it takes me a year before i can do anything. It's like, here's the test group.

And then they got to run it all the way up the chain. And then they got to run it all the way back down. And like the guy at the top said, we need to change this line. And it takes another couple months to get it all the way back up. And they got to come all the way back down. And then by the time assessments are done, we run the program. We have results. We make a beautiful pit

or like presentation here's everything we learned now it's another six months or three months until we run it all the way up make sure that there's funding and they cut like getting an actual contract to be able to have some stability is so hard in that industry our biggest goal with that is be ahead of it. And I can tell you the key to it is your past performance. So up until we provided that first four-month period of pilot program without any statistical data, it's like being a ship on the open water. You have no feed, right? You're fishing.

You don't have a depth finder. You don't know until you gauge it. Once you're able to get that first-level statistics and you get a good rapport or you get a good grade on that initial contract, that has a lot of weight when you go out and you solicit for your next bid. And as long as you're staying within the same disciplines, you're going to be okay because you've already proven that you can provide that service at that level. Yeah. I like that. His answers are so i would i would do the same thing you're so well thought i mean you know this guy he has to you got the government's looking at him

like this one general he that guy holds me up all the time you should say that right now call him out he's listening to barbell shrug for sure and then he would disappear right right you won't ever hear from me again it's supposed to be promotional to go on right yeah um man this is awesome what lost audio with you coach uh-oh what's in store for you guys? I don't have audio for me, guys. You got it.

We lost you for a second. We're back. Sorry about that. I just wanted to wrap up, find out kind of where you guys are headed with the program and where people can find you. Well, reefsystems.com

is our home website. And then my contact. How do you spell that? R-E-E-F. Reef Systems. Yes, yes systems and it's corp corporations uh my personal contact and social media brad loki pretty simple to find um instagram facebook um and then even you know i pretty i'm pretty well distributed as far as my contact information so you can hit any of my coaches coaches, and they'll put you back to me, you guys, Coach Corey.

And I want to give thanks for Coach Corey for really giving me an opportunity to intermingle with you gentlemen. It's been a great morning, and I really appreciate the hospitality. You guys have been great hosts, so I'm very grateful to be here. I have a question. If there's a strength coach listening who's interested in – should you just go to reefsystems.com to apply to be a coach for you? Oh, absolutely.

They can drop resumes in a pipeline there, or they can send me directly. My email is blokey at reef-sys.com. They can send me their resumes directly, and I'm willing to look at them and go from there. I don't always have time, but I'll make time. That's kind of how it is. You've got to find that spot. I really like to be engaged when I go to conferences. I go to three or four major conferences a year.

I go to the CSCCA. I go to the NSCA TSAC. Sometimes I go to the National ArtA, I go to the, uh, NSCA, TSAC. Sometimes I go to the national or the coverage conference. And I really do enjoy the, uh, you know, the interaction there. I take,

uh, I take a lot of interviews when I'm at those kinds of, uh, events. So usually we have a booth and you come up, Hey, check, check us out at the booth,

different stuff like that. So we try to be involved. Uh, we try to give back to the community, uh, as far as the strength and conditioning and the, uh, human performance. So that's my biggest goal. My personal vision as I came to Reef was really to provide the upward and lateral mobility for strength coaches and some type of stability. I've had coaches now with me for three years on just this one project.

A lot of times you don't see coaches more than a year at one individual strength and condition program collegiately. So the other beauty is by having multiple contracts in the same field, let's say you're geographically on the West Coast and you're from the East Coast and your family gets sick and you want to transfer. Well, if I've got a position, I can move you with no issues. Like you still are a strength coach and you just move and you're still within the same organization so it's you know you may be what you would call a coach

carousel but you're guaranteed a job versus oh well i don't know where i'm going that's cool man hey um i don't know who's gonna ask oh do you own who owns reef systems reef systems is owned by a gentleman by the name of Brad Ruski. It was originally a small business government contractor. They provided multiple disciplines. I mean, they were doing medical, IT. They started in IT, actually, and have grown. And right now we're really focused on the human performance.

That's so cool. All right. That's all my questions. Yeah. Awesome. I do want to give a shout-out, though, to my mentor on the human performance. That's so cool. All right. That's all my questions. Yeah. Awesome. I do want to give a shout out though, to my mentor on the resystem side who gave me the opportunity to become a program manager, Mr. Jose Batista. Just absolutely amazing mentorship and instrumental in the growth from becoming a practitioner into the actual management aspect coming into this. I mean, that was the first opportunity for me to use my MBA and really grow into that

role from a business perspective versus being a strength coach. So definitely want to say thank you there. That's the best. That's what everybody, that's how you actually become like a professional in this. When you start to talk about business through strength conditioning, all the sets and reps, that's not, that's not going to keep you around forever. Not for how to talk business coach travis mash uh masterly.com this has been an honor so i appreciate you being on show

i appreciate you guys so much and uh look forward to seeing this out and hearing it again and um anything that we can do in the future guys we'd love to have you involved um you know we're always also looking for partnerships from our side of the fence and pushing our product, getting our coaches out, meeting at different conventions and conferences. And we'd love to see you guys out on the road. Anything we can do for you guys, we're grateful to help. Yeah. Call Mr. Trump up. Tell him your boy is ready to travel. That's step one. I'm going crazy over here. I'm sitting in the middle of a squat rack in my garage just so I feel like I'm at home because all the gyms are closed. It's messed up.

I'm holding on to bands over here trying to get jacked in my garage. Trump's holding me down. I don't think Trump is trying to hold you down. I'm pretty sure he's trying to open it back up. He's like, Anders, get out on the road. You specifically. Go back. Go out there. That's where you create up. He's like, Andrews, get out on the road. You specifically. Go back. Go out there.

That's where you create value. Trump's like, don't be a bitch. Go on. I'm on that, too. I am so ready to get back on the road. I've been locked down since January. I generally get to travel once a month. This has been bad.

That's our schedule, too. We come out to the events that you're probably at most of the time, even though we haven't met. And, man, you set up shop. All the the smart people are there we get to interview them in person it's the first time we've ever done the show online for this long it's crazy well we really appreciate it i'm so grateful again to cory for introducing me you guys and you guys for having me you guys have been great hosts this morning so thank you doug larson yeah i definitely want to get back to traveling but working out in my garage has been pretty fantastic. My training is better than ever at the moment.

That's true. I'm not that worried about getting back in the gym. I've been training hard every day. It's been great. You can follow me on Instagram at Douglas C. Larson. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We're Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged. Get over to BarbellShrugged.com forward slash store.

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