Barbell Shrugged - Special Warfare: Do You Have What it Takes w/ Tyler Christiansen, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash - Barbell Shrugged #568

Episode Date: April 14, 2021

To become a member of the U.S. Air Force’s elite Special Warfare team, you have to be a part of the top one percent of the top one percent.    And no one knows better about what it takes to do that than Tyler Christiansen, Human Performance Director for the Special Warfare Training Support Group.    On the latest Barbell Shrugged podcast Anders Verner talks with Tyler about the intense training these Airmen go through and how the Air Force prepares them both mentally and physically for the types of missions no one hears about.    These specialists are often embedded with other special ops teams like the Navy Seals and Army Rangers so they have to be able to do everything they can and then some.    To learn more about Special Warfare, visit at airforce.com and make sure to check out the latest Barbell Shrugged podcast available at barbellshrugged.com.   In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged:   How do you prepare for special warfare training What performance metrics are monitored by try USAF What lifestyle metrics are tracked How to build a strength training program for special warfare How is that program built for performance with such a broad skill set   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   Coach Travis Mash on Instagram   ————————————————   Diesel Dad Training Programs: http://barbellshrugged.com/dieseldad   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   U.S. Air Force. Find out if you do at airforce.com.   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged BiOptimizers Probitotics - Save 10% at bioptimizers.com/shrugged

Shrugged family, this week on Barbell Shrug, J.D. Sheffield, strength and conditioning at Special Warfare Union for U.S. Air Force, as well as Tyler Christensen, who is the human performance director at the U.S. Air Force, focused on the special warfare. podcasts that we filmed with us air force highlighting their training how they ramp up their training how they really are just all complete total badasses and and what it goes what it takes to get everybody ramped up i mean if you've ever seen a professional athlete i think that when it comes to the special warfare people of the us air force they even have bigger better badder training systems because they have if we prepared for so much more than just like on the field or on the ice or wherever that professional athlete is playing, when, when you,

when you listen to these and how they structure strength training programs for special warfare, it's very, very cool. And if you are interested in checking out the u.s air force special warfare i highly recommend heading over to airforce.com finding your local recruiter getting in there we're honored to to have the ability to tell these stories interview these people and get the word out about the u.s air force special warfare it's a really cool partnership we've done it for multiple

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show welcome to barbell shrug i'm I'm Anders Varner. Doug Larson. Coach Travis Bass. J.D. Sheffield, the strength and conditioning coach for Special Warfare of the United States Air Force. And Tyler Christensen, who is the human performance director. Welcome to the show, fellas. We were just joking around a little bit before we hopped on and actually hit the red button. We're supposed to be jumping out of airplanes together. We're supposed to... And the most exciting part of together. We're supposed to do that with them.

I'd love to see you jump out of an airplane. Here's the best part about me separating my shoulder is Travis Mass is the strongest man in the world. And I refuse to not talk shit to him as much as possible whenever we are in the same room it's amazing it's like the little guy in the background that just chirps you're the first human to ever talk shit to me in the weight room ever most people like they've avoid me and then you're the one that goes right at me i needed you you my whole life to push me. Like a little chihuahua that can sort of lift weights well. Every time.

Every time. And we were going mountain biking, and I was just talking smack the whole time. And then, of course, I was the one that went over the handlebars and tried to rip my arm off my body. And then I started talking shit. That's the story of my life. Whenever I start talking shit and stuff it comes full circle on me there's no way the karma's not coming back to you yeah um fellas i would love

to get just a quick bio on uh how how we how you guys got to these rather large positions training special ops and um really at the highest level of special ops that our country has. Coolest. Yeah. John, go ahead and go ahead and start us out. Yeah, I'd love to go first because I don't want to follow you up, Tyler. My name is John Sheffield.

I am strength conditioning coach for Special Warfare, the United States Air Force. Born and raised in North carolina i yeah where where in north carolina burlington okay yep um i did my undergrad at ecu fun place to be that is a very fun school it was a good time i'll say that um but uh that's really where I got into strength and conditioning, and I started volunteering with the staff that was there at the time. I learned a ton. I was a dumb kid. Went in there, they let me watch, and I learned so much.

Who was the strength coach there? Mike Golden at the time. He was there danny will nate barnes uh mike yarden those guys were all there all right it was uh it was a good time it was it was i learned a ton good yeah did you have much of a lifting background before that or did you just really start training in college i had started i I played sports and lifted, um, at high school. Um, I worked out with Carmine Pagano and he, he owns cast in Greensboro, North Carolina now. Um, I'm a good guy. He really taught me how to train, um, in the beginning. And then once I got to ECU, it's just a totally

different ball game. Um, so I did that for a while. When I graduated, there was a little bit of time while I was waiting to go to grad school. I volunteered again at Elon University. I interned and worked with Carmine at CAST. Then I got accepted

and went to Drexel University for grad school. Awesome. What did you major in? Exercise science, I take it? accepted and went to Drexel university for grad school. Awesome. So I, well, what did you major in? Is it exercise science? I take it. Yeah.

Yeah. Grad school. What was the grad school? It was sport management. Yeah. Okay. Good. Um,

so it was, it was a lot more on the business side. It was more of the administrative side of collegiate athletics. Most strength coaches need that more than they need the other stuff, really. I'll be honest. That's a true statement. Yeah. So I did that. When I got there, I met Mike Rankin,

who's still the strength conditioning coach there. At Drexler? At Drexler, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he already had two GAs at the time. So, again, I volunteered. I showed up. I kept showing up.

And then when one of the GAs left, he was like, take it. So I finished out grad school as a GA there and then eventually got hired full time. So I created a – At Drexel, yes. For the whole – did you do the whole program or like were you like basketball like what what were you the coach of so i we split up the team we ended up help like we would help out with everybody but the ones that i was responsible for directly were uh field hockey men's women's soccer yeah softball tennis squash right um we had a ton of athletes we had a crew team with

i could i lost count there's so many kids on the crew so yeah it was it was really and they're all vastly different all their all their you know personalities are completely different from one to the next um which i think was helpful for me as a strength coach. But then one of my buddies got into tactical. He started working with the army with the Thor program. He came back to visit and he was like, yo, you got to try this. Yeah. That's what I've heard. So I, and he told me what he was doing and it sounded pretty cool. So I sent my resume in a couple of times, and then I finally got a call back, and I ended up getting hired as a contractor with Exos, working here,

same location that I'm at now, doing the same thing, and then eventually became a GS employee when they stood up the human performance wing. Yeah. Tyler, where, where did this start for you? Oh, you better grab a,

grab a drink and get comfortable here. I hope you started when you were like 13 years old. This is why we have people like you guys on. It's so awesome. Cause everybody that at some point makes it to a cool position like you are somewhere along the way, a barbell showed up when you were between 13 and 15 years old and someone held your hand for a little while yeah that that story is not me i was a kid who graduated high school about a buck 35 um and i my athletic career will just

say peaked in high school as well um i was i was one of those uh kids, you know, late developers. I was the kid that always heard dislocated hip, dislocated knee. Like I was that guy. Anyways, joined the military, was an infantry guy. Went to school, got my bachelor's in exercise science. Worked with Iowa State, Illinois State. And then after I graduated college, I went and did contracting over in Iraq. So I did contracting over there for a year, came back stateside. And when I got back stateside, I was like, well, now I need to find a big kid job, you know. And so I was looking

through, you know, like some of the job posts and stuff like that. And I saw this was in probably November, December timeframe. So like baseball was starting to roll. So I saw an announcement from the Colorado Rockies and I'm like, I'm never going to be able to get this. But then I was like, logical me is like, the worst thing that's going to happen here is you're going to hear no. Right. Or not hear anything.

Yeah, or not hear anything. But like it doesn't hurt you at all, right? Right. So I ended up applying and got the position with the Colorado Rockies. So I started working with them, and this is in 2007. Do you know Doug? Doug. Right here.

Doug Larson. I worked with the Colorado Rockies in 2006. Okay, so were you there? You weren't there in 2007 then? Nope, just 2006. Okay, yeah, I was one and done it's good but you guys were one year away from each other how crazy is that yeah why didn't you stick around another you know um but i was really fun yeah brian jordan uh brad andrus uh where they had two there and

stuff so i ended up that's right i know that tulsa so i I was in Tulsa with their AA program. Rumor was we're going to try to push me to the AAA in Colorado Springs. So in the off season, I moved to Colorado Springs and I saw an internship at the NSCA there. And around 2007 is when the NSCA started their, I guess it'd be kind of the floor level of their tactical strength and conditioning program. So, so I was, I went in, did an internship and they kept putting me with all the military folks and stuff because of my background and things like that. Well, at that point in my career, I needed to make a decision whether I was going to stay in the professional realm or shift gears and go this tactical route well the problem with going the tactical route nothing really existed in 2007 it was just kind of you had little one-off

contracts here and there that type of stuff but it didn't really exist so i decided anyways i was going to make that right hand turn and stay in the tactical side i ended up going to those ballsy yeah yeah well it was a we we'll just sit. I wouldn't rack it up as ballsy as probably ignorant. Um, I ended up, um, going to the army physical fitness research Institute out of Fort Leavenworth. So it's associated with Carlisle barracks, a war college and stuff like that. So essentially any major coming into the army, they had, they went to this college to prepare to become a Lieutenant Colonel. So I went there and I was doing an extra as an exercise

physiologist for them. And, uh, essentially this is the point of my career. I realized I was not cut out for research, the research arm of our field. Um, I was doing a research protocol and I did a thousand students that year that were in that program. And, but it's just repetition of saying the same thing. I got to the point where, you know, we all think we're hilarious, right? So it got to the point where you give the speech and then you're like, you put a strategic pause in because you know the same dumb, corny joke is coming at that time. So you're just like, good one. But anyways, so I did that for actually a year to the date. Then the NSCA called back saying, hey, we're going to grow this program.

That'd be Mark Stevenson and Rob Rogers were there at the time. And so Mark was leaving. Was Scott Caulfield there in that time? Not yet, but I do loop in with, uh, Caulfield here, here in a little bit. My bad. I'm listening. Yeah. Um, so went back to the NSCA, did the coordinator for the program. Um, and then at that point, the NSCA was going through some changes and, you know, I needed to grow my career. So therefore started, I took a position in Washington, DC, working for the special mission unit out there. Absolutely loved that job. Loved everything about it, except for the part that's called

Washington, DC. I was more of an outdoorsy, you know, not the cement jungle, like get me to the beach, get me to the mountains, like that type of thing uh so i ended up going down to seventh group special forces worked with them for a few years down in uh destin florida if you've ever been amazing if you haven't been make sure you make a stop one of my athletes is from destin so my wife's family lives out there so we we've actually been there many, many times. Yeah. Well, let me know if you want a friend to go back down and hang out. We need training partners all the time. So seventh group. And then in 2014, the government had a big layoff that happened

due to fundings and things like that. So I ended up actually out on my butt, but I ended up back at the NSCA. And when I was at the NSCA, again, the tactical program that we were having there, you guys had Nate Palin on recently, right? Yeah. So Nate replaced me. Yeah. So anyways, went to the NSCA there. the program had kind of gone stagnant just because no one was in the driver's seat. No one, uh, what I like to say is was herding the cats. Cause there's a lot of great people, great ideas out there, great concepts, except they're all heading in different directions or the ones that are heading in the same direction of running in parallel. And there's no connection between the two so they're duplicating effort so we kind of hone that in um and then made an education a simple education system of

the basics of strength and conditioning for the tactical individuals so your your airman what's that i can't wait to get into that part okay i want to move on all right so finished up my time there, developed a few programs, and then got a call out of nowhere saying, hey, you need to check out this battlefield airmen training group at the time. So, I check it out, go into USA Jobs, check it out. And sure enough, I ended up getting this position down here. And we've grown from a team of like 20. And for the human performance side, I think we're up to like 170 people right now 17 coaches in particular you know specifically we have dieticians uh atptots we have sports med docs we you know we have the whole gamut we actually have a full team

here for psychs and everything i did i did a um seminar for the Air Forces. It's that Pope. Well, it's in that Pope family. It's like they're like the special forces of Air Force. I'm not very good about that. Air jumpers. Yeah, yeah, air jumpers. It was so cool. They had all that.

They had, you know, PTs, massage. It was just like a collegiate soothing conditioning room. It was awesome. That's where we were supposed to be, Mash. That's what we're supposed to be doing right now i actually am super interested in just kind of like getting into the kind of the the meat of the actual training programs that you have for these guys and that um yeah what's important training athletes you're kind of periodizing an entire year so that they're getting through a season peaking at whatever

playoff time or whatever that looks like whatever the sport season is if it's if it's baseball getting to the playoffs keeping them healthy staying strong and then and then peaking towards you know the end of the season how do you work with special ops guys that actually plan out say um an entire year-long cycle knowing that someone's going to be in a really dangerous place for six months and and you may have them for six months uh leading up to that to get them ready and and also managing kind of like the the training side not just the physical training but, whatever the demands of the job are. And the fact that they got to go knock on doors and practice taking over buildings or whatever, whatever's going into it. How do you actually manage an entire year to get the things done

that you need to get done when they have a billion things that they need to be the best in the world at? Yeah. So John, if you don't mind, I'll, I'll go from the macro. And then as we build that down, I'll hand it off to you. So essentially we're in nine different States. We were supporting approximately 15 courses across our pipeline in, in the human performance arm of our organization. With that, we had to look at how do we get everybody heading? You know, I talked about the NSCAsca getting people on the same head all heading in the same direction and we need things like continuity uh integration of of our parts and link everything up so we came up with a theory of developing what we call a

human performance course map course map is a term that we use internally for planning so it takes planning on the front side to be able to connect all these pieces. So we've got John as a strength coach, but we also have a dietician. Do you think the dietician should be aware of what John is doing for a condition? Do you think a ATPTOT should be looking at his volume and his program is acute chronic workload ratio. All these different things. We need to like link all these parts. So we put a system in place where essentially, you know, the main thing while we're here is for that tactical course map,

the tactical planning and what they have to accomplish to be able to do their job. We're trying to build the physiological and mental foundation of these individuals so they can display these new skills that they're getting, their technical tactical skills, right? So we, to do that, we take it from the macro. We look at the tactical schedule. Okay, this is what they're doing. Then John will go in as a strength coach and say, okay, we have, you know, big testing going on here, right? Prior to testing, if we increase the stress we impose upon the students, do you think that'll affect the testing? I think the

answer is yes, right? Brian Mann, Dr. Brian Mann did a bunch of that with football. They found most the injuries were at the end of the season. Why? Not because of who they were playing. Yeah, it was exams. Exactly. So, John looks at that tactical course map, then he develops his course map, his plan for that year. But we've got courses. So, John's at a course, but we have multiple course linking. So, we got to link all these things together. Now, the dietician goes in and looks at like okay they're on their feet this long they've got you know hot physically demanding tactical training and more calories yeah right those type of things awesome and then the site goes in and we have

attributes we're trying to develop in these these uh i say kids but you know their trainees are young men and women um but But we need to instill these attributes. So if you ask me, I think within strength and conditioning, things like drive, arousal control, things like these attributes are present within strength and conditioning. And we, we, I don't know what the proper term is, but we, we implicitly train it within strength and conditioning. We don't put a name to what we're doing., but we implicitly train it within strength and conditioning. We don't put a name to what we're doing. So what we're trying to do is now the strength coach, the psych will teach the strength coach on basic skills within their wheelhouse.

And now when that stuff comes up within strength and conditioning, John can be like, hey, we're going to work on arousal control instead of doing like the old days with speed. Just run faster. just run faster. It's like, what? Okay. I'll run faster. I don't know how, but I'll, I'll give it a little more effort. Right. But we can, we can give a means and way of, okay, now arousal control, control your breathing. We know tactical breathing and arousal control, you know? And so we can work on those things and that, and instead of implicitly trained, we, we train with intent. Um, so that's psych. And then we have ATP, TOT. We talked about a little bit, and they're also our safety arm to watch the volume, uh, dietician. I talked about that. I'm missing, I'm missing part of our team here. John, who am I missing? The, we got, we The strength coach, ATP, TOT, dietician, and psych.

Sports medicine? I mean. Yeah, well, we have a sports med team. But anyways, all these people are linked together in this, and we take these courses that are going on. Again, we're in nine different states, so they're going on in different ways we got to get everything for each uh you know the tac p pj combat controllers and uh special recon we've got all this big spider web that goes out but we just have to make it sure everything's connected so we train with intent you guys have a gps tracking you know do you have anybody who does like data and oh yeah yeah data is another full conversation yeah um more numbers than

i love that's kind of my will that's what i dig is like the the whole how much data can you collect what can you do with that data what does it mean yeah that's really cool who does that we we have hp techs who uh capture a lot of that information for us. So typically if you go into a traditional strength room or, you know, college, whatever, it's usually the strength coach going in and putting the pucks on everybody and making sure everybody's all linked up. We have HP techs that do that. All that information is then taken and thrown into smartabase um where

essentially yeah yep and then it puts it in its proper buckets and then on top of that we we have a research flight so we're a human performance group with a research flight connected so remember what i just told you we're coming up with the planning process right yeah so we're planning on the front side we're capturing real-time information and now passing it. Oh, so like you get better and better and better. We know where we've been. We know where we're going, and we know what the future looks like. Oh, that's so sick.

Nice having that budget there, Mash. We need to get that at your house. I know, yeah. I'm going to ask Lenore Ryan today if we can get all that stuff. You got like nine figures we could spend on my home gym. That'd be awesome. They'd be like, you're fired. That's awesome.

Do you have any tangible examples of collecting data and then viewing the results and then implementing new parts of the training program and then seeing real real world results as a result of the data uh we're we'll say we're just starting this initiative and starting to link everything together but i can give you a couple small examples um so let's first talk about the tech that we capture we got omega wave uh we've got uh zephyr um we've got Smart or Sparta Science Jump Mats. And then Sleep Bands. There you go. We've got Sleep Bands that we're looking

at aura rings at the moment for our students. Sleep Bands, we do gravity tests. It's a urine analysis. I'm messing up the name. I know I am. No, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we've got a lot of those different things in, and then that's all uploaded. SmarterBase puts it in its appropriate bucket. So for example, so I think data should inform the coach of what's potentially going on versus data telling the coach what to do. So when I go through these examples, it's just there was more to it, but it's data that we use to inform the that's registering in the red three days in a row, then that's just

sends a flag to the coach saying, hey, eyes on this individual and look. And then, you know, we all know we've all been strength coaches that you see somebody come in and you're like, yeah, let's dial it back this week. Cut it back. Right, guys? Yeah. That's actually a question that I was really wondering, you know, when you think about the military, it's like, point your finger, you go do this right now. But that's not really how strength and conditioning works. It's a more of a conversation between a coach and an athlete to get the best results. Yeah, there's a time and place for everything. You know, we're, again, remember, we're trying to instill these attributes, in this military discipline so you know this may be something that we look at in the future not currently doing but look at in the

future is the aspect of like when they first enter into a course let's do command and control let's let's let's like yeah i understand that strength and conditioning should be fun and we should be able to figure things out but let's be honest it's not like professional sport when you get down the road and you're in the real-time game when you're in a real-time game you've got to perform or you don't perform right pass fail that's bad right yeah so we've got to go in on the front side and like or we don't have to excuse me we can look at it a couple different ways is like yes it should be a conversation but other times you just have to do while trying to mitigate injuries, of course, and safety and that stuff in mind. But it may be one of those things where you come into our program, the start of our course, and it's command and control.

You don't move. You don't go to the bar. You don't go to your next station until the coach or the cadre or whomever tell you to move. Right? Right? And then we all know we've all cleaned a weight room. You know, Rourke Kutchlow, he used to make us have the logo on the plates all facing the right way.

That's what we do. We had the handles on the side of some plates. And, like, the coach should be able to – the head coach, Rourke, could look down the whole length of the gym and see through that little window in the plates. That starts to instill those, you know, dress right dress type stuff. That it's not just about you and you just put it back how you want to you guys are training special forces so they're it's not like you're gonna have some schlub they're gonna be like okay they're not gonna debate you they're yeah no yeah they're awesome people number one

yeah no absolutely but we and on the other side you know i know that things can go to extreme and we're not going to take advantage of of you know us in in that position but sometimes these are killers i'm not gonna mess with them too much yeah oh you don't want to okay regarding the the design of the training programs themselves like when you're thinking about designing a new system or new training program for special operations guys, what, what physical capacities are you prioritizing over others? Is there like a hierarchy where, you know, where muscular endurance or endurance or strength or flexibility or whatever, what is, what is like the most important to the least important? I'm going to kick this one to John. Yeah. We,

so we're working on developing this physiological profile that, that fits, you know, generally what is a successful candidate or trainee look like at the beginning and then at the end. And that's, that's what we want to work towards. As far as like,

what's most important. These guys have to be able, and women, they have to be able to do everything. So they need to have some sense of, you know, coordination, balance, stability, strength, power, endurance, and they got to be able to put up with some suck. Yeah. So it's all encompassing. You have to touch a little bit of everything. As far as the pipeline goes, for us, I think in my experience in the last four and a half years, it's not like what you see on TV. Look, I've had the monsters come in. And they do. And they're jack jacked and they can do it all. And then you've got some people that are coming into

this pipeline that they don't have the background. They don't have that athletic background or that strength and conditioning background that others do. So a lot, and that's, that's a big chunk. And so we've developed this prep program to help develop them, get them ready for entering this pipeline, whichever one it might be, whether it's combat control, TACP, Parahavsky, or special. Are you familiar with Coach Kian, Joe Kian? Yes. That sounds like his block zero, like the tier system. Yeah. like the tier system. Yeah, yeah. Because a lot of freshmen, you know, you think that awesome athletes going into Division I program would have all these skills, but it's just not the case,

even at Division I schools. So, yeah. So I think what we've done a very good job of, and Tyler's kind of headed this up, is, you know, we've hired some amazing coaches, amazing coaches, guys with some incredible resumes, and they're fantastic. And they understand, you know, at the beginning, while I'm the type of guy, maybe I'm maybe I am an Olympic lifter. And this is that's what I do. I love it. That's not what these guys need right

now. Yeah. So, so we're focusing on, you know, what do they need? How can we teach them? Cause the education is a huge piece of all of this. We're trying to educate them the whole way through. That's the only way to get buy-in. You have to do that. So, you know, what's important, what's not important from a training perspective and from their perspective, like, do I need to be doing cleans right now? No, you need to learn how to just squat right now because you can't do it or you can't do

it well. And so it's at every course, they have another coach. And what we're trying to do is just build on that education and on that training. So I'm towards the end of the pipeline. So by the time they get to me, they've learned quite a bit. I continue to build on that. And away they go. Let me ask you this. Does everybody like to say I come in and I'm the one of the studs you're talking about? Do I have to start at the beginning or do I skip places or

how do you, what do you, what's it like? So everybody starts starts the beginning um they all go through prep and then they go through tyler correct me if i'm getting this wrong um but after that they go through assessment and selection right which is a tough one right and then after that they go through a number of schools um i've only worked with combat controllers and special recon. Right. So those guys are going through, um, jump school. They're going through. Now I'm talking, I'm saying, you know, in your strength conditioning program, you said you have them start at the basics and then you, you're like the end of the pipeline.

I'm saying if I, what if I come in and I'm in, you know, I can, I can squat clean. I can do all these awesome things. Do I skip some of those and go straight to you or do I have to go until, you know, down that pipeline of where I end up with you? You have to go down that pipeline where you end up with me, but each coach, each coach in each location, it's up to them how they program and how they, they progress each, each individual.

Okay, good. All right. So there is some element of individualization within the program? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Sorry, just to interrupt real quick. Yeah, that's one of the hardest things about getting everybody on the same page, heading in the same direction and doing the same thing. It's like coming up with policies, right?

You come up with a policy to protect the organization, protect your people, you know, things like that. But you also need, I believe strongly like strength and conditioning is an art form. Like there's a million ways to skin that proverbial cat. Right. And so the, the aspect of saying this, like, because I have a preference this way, doesn't mean that all my coaches should be you know have to do it this way our coach our organization so yeah it's it's getting everybody just like if it's a six lane highway i just want you on that damn highway i don't care what lane you're in right and that's that's what we try to foster in our community how do you guys actually set up a training session because when i hear you, it's like we've got people in jump school. We've probably got people in dive school.

We've got people, you know, there's a million schools and a million different skills. But everybody needs to be on the same page for a training program. What is, I guess, kind of getting back to Doug's hierarchy of needs, but what is an actual, how many hours are they in the gym? And what are you guys focusing on when you get there? If somebody's passed through all these beginning stages and now you've got somebody that's in special operations and they're the cream of the crop. Like, are they in the gym five, seven hours a week? Or is that just kind of like a maintenance piece of their overall training? Yeah, John, go ahead. It varies from location to location.

Some of the schools are more demanding, so they're going to have less time in the gym. I think the goal for the coach is to, one, have them well them well equipped for where they're at and what they're doing. So where I dive school conditioning is a huge piece and pre-dive getting ready for all of that conditioning is a huge piece. So there's a big focus on that. But the coach also has to have in the back of their mind, where are they going next? Yeah. So you, you want to have that, you know, in your back pocket and thinking about that at the same time.

So strategic, the whole thing. So I'm just real quick on the dive school. Like, is it, you just focus on a lot of aerobic conditioning? Obviously that's important. Do you do anything when it comes to like pressure and the things that they're going to experience when they're diving? I haven't spent time at the dive school or pre-dive. I think Tyler, you you've probably seen a lot more of that than I have.

If you want to take that. Yeah. So it's, it's within this industry, we have things that fall into that gray area like rucking is rucking a tactical skill or a physiological human performance type of skill right so the same thing what comes when it comes or is is could can be said could be said about the aspect of dive school right is okay so the pressure chamber they that is right now is considered uh getting those experiences and stuff like that is is a a tactical skillset. So their dive instructor puts them through that. Yeah. So the dive school, they're, they're in charge of doing those things,

but for like our coaches. So at pre-dive, they'll be working on that. Cause as John said, we're looking towards the future, where are they going next? They're going to dive school. So these kids just exit assessment and selection and now they're in pre-dive preparing for dive school. So in that session, we're going to be working a little bit more on that muscular endurance, that cardiovascular aspect. Now we're in dive school and we're doing a lot of diving,

which hits the muscular endurance and the cardiovascular, you know, aspect. Right. So, you know, it's just like, you know, some people work with MMA fighters, like when they're in actual training camp and getting the conditioning in do you think the strength coach works on conditioning or he may focus on that power aspect or you know something else outside of the conditioning because in their tactical mma training they're getting that done so we're going to complement it with something else over here. So that's, that's kind

of the aspect that we take. But yeah, to answer your question, there's some things that fall in that gray area. We work to compliment it, but it either sits on the tactical side or human performance. So. So most people listen to this show, they're in the CrossFit world, maybe the weightlifting world, maybe they do bodybuilding and they know what those workouts look like like a daily workout you go to a crossfit gym you warm up you do something heavy you do a mat con you cool down you go home you know power lifting similar you warm up you do something heavy you do a bunch of assistance work etc etc yeah what what's down for five minutes between sets eat eat a lot eat a burger what what does what are some examples of individual training days look like in in the various phases that you guys have developed

for me um so at my school they're in these guys are in air traffic control school, which is their, you know, that's the main thing of what they do in their, throughout their career. So while they're learning air traffic control, they're sitting down all day long. Yeah. So typically what I would do, when I started, training was very, very different as a contractor. Training was mostly handled by the cadre. So you've got operators training operators. Well, those operators, as good as they were and as tough as the guys that were putting out, they didn't know strength conditioning. Sure they didn't.

Yeah. So it was a very… No more than you knew what they do. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So I didn't have a whole lot do, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So it, what I didn't have a whole lot of control over what was happening. Right. I had a, I had a day, maybe two days, and then it grew to three days. And as I kind of, you know, work my way in, showed them your skills. Yeah.

So this is beneficial. Okay. So now I've got them five days a week, two hours in the morning right so we would start zero six i take them in and this is typically how how my training sessions go every day we come in we're going to roll we're going to stretch we're going to do some correctives we're going to you know warm up and then everybody's going to push pull hinge squat you know all the big movements we're going to do everything it sounds like doug push pull and squat yeah but there's you know there's obviously a focus on different days um some days i'm doing you know a heavier push and pull than i am you know squats hinge whatever um so that kind of rotates through.

Oh, wait, hold on. So you're saying every day is like a total body day. You do all those different movements, but you focus on one or the other. Right. Okay. Perfect. Yeah. Sounds like a straight conditioning program. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and, and my goal is to have them better when they walk out than when they came in. So I only have a certain number of weeks by the way. Yeah. And I don't have a whole lot of time to test each lift. They have their own tests that they're already doing for the pipeline. They have a fitness test that they have to complete a certain number of times and that takes a whole day. So, all right. So I take all these days out. I'm left with this

amount of time. So I don't worry a whole lot about their, their maxes and their percentages. I'm looking for a lot of effort and I'm looking for good movement. Perfect. As long as they're moving well and they're challenging themselves they're getting better um i keep uh progression regression in my head so while we go to the first explosive movement these three guys are ready they're gone i just unleash them and let them go right these three guys kind of in the middle they need some help help. They need a lot of focus. So I'm going to watch them. These other guys are there. They're not capable of doing that exercise. So I regressed their exercise. So while everybody's hinging, they may not be doing the exact same exercise.

Right. Right. I think that's brilliant by the way, because you know, some people can do deadlifts. Some people are doing trap bar. Some people have a kettlebell learning to do the period. Yeah. It's brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. And so I had, I did, I had one kid, he, he couldn't clean to save his life and it was awful and he knew it. So we regressed his exercise and it took me 10 weeks and he was finally

cleaning at the end of it, but it took, it took work. So I don't want to, to throw everybody in doing the same thing every day. Yeah. But once we warm up, we do our strength and then we'll do our conditioning. And that could vary depending on, on what we deem is most important and what these guys need to do.

So are we going to condition first and then lift or are we going to lift and then do conditioning? Depends on the school. I take it or wherever period they're in, I guess. For me and my location, it's, it's really dependent upon the the fitness test scores that I get back. If they're up here and they're conditioning and their strength is here, then, you know, do they have a different test than the regular airmen?

Those regular airmen. Yeah, they do. Nice. Those regular folks that still risk their lives. Those are the worst words to describe them. So their test is significantly different. It is. It is. What is it? I want to go do it this afternoon i think it's the regular air force test is like the push-up sit-up and then a mile and a half run yeah yeah well i think they're changing that right aren't they changing it like i thought the whole military is going to adopt the whole new style trap our deadlift okay the army is already the army side is yeah the

army side is but but the Air Force hasn't yet. No, not yet. That's opposite. Normally, Air Force is ahead of the Army. But anyway, good for them, I guess. But yeah, to piggyback on what John was saying about the, I know, Doug, you keep like, well, what do you guys do? What do you guys do? Like, you know, you definitely want to know and the thing is it depends like when I say like

Our pipelines like a spider web We got pieces It's a little just like the people that do the logistics behind the scenes like my praise to them to get in you know all these different like pieces moving to where they need to go and and the Accommodations and go with that but in that you, if we were to look at similarities across our pipeline, we move stuff slow, we move stuff fast, and we get time under tension. You know, those are the core fundamentals.

And again, and then we make sure it's supported by an energy system, you know, whether it's aerobic, anaerobic, and in the work capacity sense. Right. What? Oh, go ahead. No, the difference between somebody being at home and somebody being overseas or wherever they're stationed uh probably in in a pretty heated environment um how do you guys handle training while while somebody's

deployed so our guys are are in a pipeline to become operators. Once they become operators, then they are sent out to the different STs or other locations. And they have to be able to, you know, once they get there, there are contractors and coaches in those locations. And that's where they deploy from. So we don't see a whole lot of that yeah yeah yeah and but we we are setting them up for success when they're at those units and they do deploy in the aspect of like we're when we're teaching them john talked about our progressive education system right when we're setting up that progressive education system it's not to make them a strength coach it's not to make them a dietician, you know, all those types of things. But what we're doing is setting them up for

success for when they don't have a strength coach, they know that what's right, what's wrong, you know, and they can progress. And that way, you know, if John sends so-and-so a program and they're deployed overseas, again, not in our pipeline, but, but John can send them a program and they're like, ah, I know what this is. I know what the regression is for this. This doesn't feel right. And then also they coach up their buddy. So essentially as we educate these individuals, when they end up at the line side, the operator side or deployed,

we're setting up a culture of safety in the strength and conditioning room instead of the old meathead thing of let uh, let's you, you did, you know, four and a quarter. Well, I'm going to try for, for, yeah,

that type of thing. And like somebody can like, nah, dude, your, your, your form starting to break down. Let's,

uh, let's regress. Do they have strength coaches? Do you guys in the air force, do they have people who do go on deployment with them or are they on their own when they go over there it depends on the environment i know a few entities again not in our organization um have deployed to maybe non-combat type environment right uh to support their entities

but uh but yeah it's something that i know is actively being looked at, but I don't think it has moved. There's a lot more logistics and probably more legal red tape with sending a GS or a contractor overseas. So there's a lot more risk to be assumed. I want to ask you guys, you talked about OmegaWave, which super interests me. Like I said, I'm more of a data guy. And like a lot of people i doubt many people listening to our show knows what the mega wave looks at looks you know what do they

what does it actually monitor on your athletes john do you want to roll no or do you want me to take it okay so the mega wave essentially looks at the central nervous system and says hey what's the readiness look like i believe there's a heart rate variability in that that algorithm i'm not 100 on that but they also have dc potential right yeah uh you look at for the people that may not know what that is like essentially think of we've all likely been hung over once or twice in our life that morning where you wake up hung over that dc potential is probably trash at the moment so it said that that component so you're a little slower things like that um so we look at those and it just essentially kind of gives us a snapshot of your readiness at that time um what and we can

look at um so i think we currently test it uh at the beginning of the day so we see what that recovery that we did at night ended up, or took place. And then we look at what the, I don't want to say damage, but the stress we imposed throughout that day, and what happened in that time. So we take two tests, one in the morning, one at night, and we measure how well you're recovered or how much of a hit we took on you, on your central nervous system specifically. As we know, like stress is stress, whether it's physical stress, mental stress, social stress, you know, all those different types of things. But they all affect like the central nervous system in general.

Sure. I love Omega Wave. Like I've gotten a chance to use it just being with, I'm with this company called Stronger Experts. It's like a group of really good strength coaches and nutritionists. And so it fascinates me because, you know, yeah, it looks at the DC brainwaves and it looks at the echocardiogram and then it looks at heart rate variability. So it gives you all these data points that normally are used by themselves. And it really, because, you know,

sometimes if you just look at, say, heart rate variability, like it doesn't tell a strength coach a daily readiness because things happen you know what's causing it but when you look at all those things together you can really start to over time by looking at the data start to understand this person's like what is their track in life like what is it going to look like like you can really start to individualize programming around it but anyway yeah yeah because you guys are with special ops is there a benefit uh when they're with you guys i mean if you're preparing people for the fact that they're probably going to be sleep deprived and operating at their you know maximum capacity and have to be thinking on the job do you guys put them in

sleep deprived states put them outside for a couple days in a row and then say time to go train like yeah actually prepare them for what they're about to face yeah go ahead go ahead john occasionally you guys put that there occasionally but it's more, um, that's more on the tactical skill side cadre and, and those guys are handling that. So that's usually what, when that occurs, what we want to do is set them up to be capable of doing that. Right. So that's the, you know, make sure they got good sleep and they're on a good regimen so that when they do have to go into those stressful situations, their body's ready to go. Totally. I think a lot of people say, oh, if they have to do that, then I'm going to train them like that. But by training them

with proper recovery, sleeping, eating right, they're more ready. For example, right now, I'm super sleep deprived because I've been working on this crazy project for China. So I slept like three hours a night. If you then put me in a situation where I got to think on my feet, I would crash and burn right now. You know, so like, but like if I. You're doing great. Keep it going. Yeah.

But you got to prepare their body to be on tip top. So when they're in a situation like that, they can survive it and think on their on their feet yeah absolutely and it's it's looking at it in the aspect of so we prepare them physically we give them little doses of venom to prepare them for the snake bite at the end right for when they're in love your analogies yeah and and the other aspect is uh you know we always can't chase the proverbial what if you you know, we can't always just go chasing those fantasies because then how are we supposed to train? You know, if we're constantly, well, well, I'm training in case this happens, in case this happens. Listen, the chances of that happening is probably two to 5%. You know, let's just make you good at a lot of these

different things, make you the jack of all trades and fill up your fuel tank and make your fuel tank bigger. And then when it happens, I know we'll be prepared for that. You know, like a strength coach, when they have their athletes, there's this whole debate, like do I sport specific or do I train to be good athletes? Most good strength and conditioning coaches would say, I'm going to make you a really good athlete, and then it's up to your sport coach to make you the great athlete. It sounds like you guys are doing the same thing.

I'm going to give you the best shape of your damn life. It's up to your, you know, major or whoever to make you this incredible officer. Yeah, absolutely. Or whatever, person in the Air Force. But, yeah, so it sounds like the exact same thing. Yeah, I like to say we build the physiological foundation, both mentally and physically, for them to display their technical tactical skills. When we get down to, I think one of the disservices to the tactical injury or injury, the tactical industry is just what you said, specificity. Because I think the commercial market has grabbed a hold of that. And, and so like when

you see tactical training on TV, you see the firefighter in their gear, you see the, the policemen in their gear doing this, this, you know, whatever it is, but I've always, you know, specificity of me is joint angles, you know, what's the injury train injury, injury trends, what's the ESD supporting system, you know, it's those specific things trends what's the esd supporting system you know it's those specific things it's not mimicking movement um and when we when we mimic movement it's it's like what the hell's going on they just go do the movement like if that's the important just keep doing your sport you know and yeah in in tactical that's acceptable to work out in your kit and like that type of stuff but when's the last time any of you guys been in a football weight room and

saw the players coming in their pads? Like what the hell are we doing in the tactical injury? I'm with you. Do you guys use velocity? You know, I heard you mentioned Brian man and I've heard you talk about a mega wave and all this awesome stuff. Do you guys use any velocity based training?

I don't. At times I wish I could.based training i don't at times i wish i could yeah i don't have the equipment to do it yeah um there's definitely times like i said i i don't typically max out my my athletes right but if if 50 moves at a certain speed you'll know it's gonna be 50 yeah right so and that's gonna vary from day to day. And so because I don't have the ability to do that, typically call it our RPE or RIR or whatever. That's typically where I go with it. Sure. And that's cool too. But yeah, I would, I would love to, to get my hands on it.

It seems like it would be perfect for you guys. Like I think you would never have to max out you can monitor progress you could understand daily and it would just make it would do a lot of those data points that these other things are trying to do for you it would do it all for at once but you know yeah no i'm a huge velocity based person myself and uh you know but it's not about me it's about the coaches and one thing that we'll look at is as we start because we're laying the foundation right now as an organization not not talking strength and conditioning i know you say yeah but we're setting that foundation so as we lay that foundation

and then john's like oh yes this this still applies and we'll definitely work to get him those those assets so that that we can we can figure out what that optimization looks like because that's ultimately what we're we're in search for is that Holy grail. Right. Okay. How do we train these guys? I told you guys have got to prove to them that you're this amazing, you know, the more, but it sounds like you've already done it cause you've got a lot of awesome toys. So,

but I just feel like you're just going to continue to show how awesome or how much of a, of a use that you guys are to the military, you know, or air force in this case. But yeah, you guys kind of have free reign on, on the use that you guys are to the military or air force in this case. But yeah, you guys kind of just have free reign on, on the equipment that you do have. Do you have a lot of flexibility there? If you go to the person in charge, whoever controls the budget and say, Hey, I want to buy this thing. It's 500 bucks. Are they like, I don't know. Or if you go to them and say,

Hey, I want to buy this thing. It's a quarter million dollars. Are they like, yeah, sure. Great. Go grab it. Dude. Don't put me in a place. You gotta have some good justification. That's all. That's all I can say. Exactly. Show us how, because, you know, we talked about that course map, right? On the front side, the front side planning. If John comes and gives me his course map and, okay, this is what he's doing.

And then he's like, hey, I want this shiny object over here. And I'm like, well, how's it fit into here? And if he doesn't have an answer for that, or show me a way, I mean, we're all strength coaches. We've all been there. Strength coaches like, Hey, I want this new shiny object. They use it for two, three weeks. And then it's sitting over in the corner collecting dust. Yeah. Right. So we want to make sure it's built into the actual plan. Once we get that justification, it makes sense. And, and the resources are there. Right. So we want to make sure it's built into the actual plan. Uh, once we get that justification, it makes sense. And, and the resources are there. We'll definitely want to empower our coaches. Cause again, we're, we're in search for that Holy, Holy grail of what

success, what the ultimate, you know, physiological profile looks like. How long do you guys have with that or athletes, um, before, before they get sent out on deployment? I imagine your average person comes to you guys at 23, 24 years old. How long before you feel like they're physically capable of going to do whatever they need to do when they're on deployment? Do you have like a year or two years with them before they're ready, or is it you got six months and you ship out? Each pipeline is a little bit different as far as how long it is. Tyler, you probably have a better handle on the exact number.

So our pipelines vary. TACP, Tactical Patrol, six roughly six months these are all roughly roughly time yeah i mean you went start to finish and you didn't have any uh you know holding time or anything they've been in at least probably like a year before they even get to you right a lot of these well the enlisted folks come straight from bmt basic training right they come and i think that's like eight weeks long or something like that. Then they go into our program or prep program, which is eight weeks,

eight weeks, weeks long. I'm tripping over my tongue here. Then they go through an assessment and selection. And after they finish the assessment selections, then they start into their specific programs. Right. Those,

those lines and that spreads, spreads like crazy. So our tech piece roughly six months and i'm just going rough times here i think uh the um combat controllers and sr special recon john is how many months 18s yeah about 18 months i think yeah and then our pjs i think that's roughly around two years or something, somewhere right around that time. So it's a much longer pipeline.

That's what I want to be. They're the super freaks. They do everything. Yeah, they are super freaks. They'll jump on if a plane into anything. Those dudes were awesome to work with. They were just like – it was like working with a Division I school. They were – those dudes were bosses and very intent listening to everything i said i was like man

yeah i'll do this it's great yeah um you've mentioned a couple times about uh kind of the mental health training that you guys do uh can you just dig into that a little bit uh on what that program looks like and how it integrates into the physical training that you guys do? Yeah. So if we look at, so again, we're trying to get these attributes that we, we achieve and we, we deliver things with intent. So when we do assessment and selection, we're not just putting you through stuff just to put you through stuff. We put you through certain events and, and hard things to try to pull out, you know, teamwork, what's your drive, what's your motive, you know, all these different things. Now, when we get to so we we have that

aspect, then we have the other aspect of how it ties into strength and conditioning. So the aspect we talked about arousal control earlier, arousal control is present in strength and conditioning, right up arousal down arousal. I think a couple years ago, I would have said up arousal, down arousal. I think a couple of years ago, I would have said up arousal was the wheelhouse of strength and conditioning because we all know how to get the heart rate up. But when it came to come back down, none of us did it. Now we have the half breathing stuff out there. We have all this breathing and down arousal meditation and all this, the pendulum starting to swing back that we're now encompassing that. So essentially some things that we could do again, our psych would be the main education conduit,

not only teaching the students, but also teaching our strength coaches. Cause John already knows how to get the heart rate up and he knows how to bring it back down. But instead of implicitly training that John's going to look at the program and let's say he puts a circuit together. Okay. You complete the circuit one round but you can't go to the next round till you get your heart rate underneath 115 beats per minute oh that's awesome yeah and then if we if we you know throw a competitive nature in there right and Anders you're doing uh you're doing the circuit I'm right behind you and you know that I'm

going to catch you you don't you don't you've been talking crap the first half of the day. And you write this down, Bash, right? Write this down, Bash. I'm coming for you next week. Anything past six reps, I got them. Let's go. Who needs six reps when you got one big bomb? You know what I mean?

We'll have a meditation contest with our heart rate i will lose for sure yeah he needs it he needs to sit for five to ten minutes before that i need to work on that sympathetic nervous system but uh yeah anyway so you can't go to the next round until you get your heart rate down well i'm coming up behind you so there's that extra pressure well instead of john just yelling at you get your heart rate down let's go which would probably work yeah which would be which would i was like well that may work in the aspect of egging you know trying to keep the heart rate up so they have to work harder to get it back down um but then instead of just saying get your heart rate down john's gonna be like hey tactical breathing in through your nose, out through your mouth.

You know, remember those down arousal type things. Then when the heart rate drops, now they go to the next round and we do it again and again. And again, it's just instead of, I think, you know, if we look at me personally, I look at mental toughness, what people call mental toughness skills. I also call problem solving skills. And with this, you know, arousal control, up arousal, down arousal. You need concentration, internal, external. You need to be able to set goals, right?

And periodization is goal setting, right? We're taking this massive problem and we're breaking it down by steps so it's manageable. Arousal control, self-talk, turning off that negative voice inside your head. You know, when you're up against this big daunting task, you gotta be able to turn that off. And then I'm missing one, concentration. Performance imagery, being able to visualize.

It's usually called visualization, but I like performance imagery because we get all the senses involved. But all those things are present within strength and conditioning and they're common ways or tools to solve common problems in life yeah now as those problems become bigger and bigger they become more and more important to be able to understand how to do those things yeah i would imagine just being able to train awareness is a massive piece of what the the the end goal is for, for you guys. And that like the heart rate piece and being able to slow it down as fast as

possible and just kind of eliminate as much chaos. When that transfers over to real world, real life and death scenarios for, for many of these guys just having the awareness to clear your mind and, and calm down so you can make the right next decision is probably a very good skill to have. You work on getting that flow state. Sounds like that you're trying to bring everyone into that.

What I would call the flow state. Like when he goes unconscious and can't be stopped or something like that. Yeah. And how do you get into that flow state? It's through repetitions, right? We have like five psychologists for our whole organization. So we're going to be utilizing and think about the reps.

And we have thousands of kids running through the pipeline. How many reps do these kids get? I keep saying kids. They're young men and women. They're kids. They're kids. They don't even have a full brain. That's why they do what they do.

They really don't. It's not like you run into a bunch of 40-year-olds out there trying to go run through deserts and find bad people. Yeah. Once you turn 32, that's over. So, yeah, it's about that repetition aspect. So the aspect, you know, again, we have five psychs. They are not going to be able to get a high reps in. Right. Or one button, I guess, belly button piece of our program that sees the student and the cadre on a consistent basis is going to be our strength and conditioning coaches. So being able to teach these guys that skill, now they get the mental reps in of practicing those those whatever the skills are that our psychologists put in place now now the the coach is the repeater so we're

empowering uh i guess a lot of people we're empowering the strength coach to to be able to you know do things within their lane and a scope of practice we're empowering the psychologist to reach the masses and we're empowering you know the the uh airmen the trainee to be able to get those mental reps in so it's a win-win. Yeah. I feel very confident in our military right now after talking to you guys. Right. Yeah.

It's super cool seeing from, from such a high level and then just kind of like exactly how you guys carry the program out. Where can people learn more, find about, find out about recruiting? Where should we, where should we send them to, to learn more about the programs and how they can become a part of the air force special ops i believe um i'll double check this

and get it back to you guys or the pa team will get it to you but i believe it's af spec dev dot com dot question mark is appropriate uh But I'll get with the PA team. We'll get it in the show notes. We'll make sure it's there. I promise. And then, yeah, we'll get you the proper recruiting channels and things like that. These are all, again, we're just standing up. I should have known that information and I dropped the ball on that one.

Are you guys looking for strength and conditioning coaches? Are you guys looking for strength coaches right now? I just have a bunch of friends obviously who are broke strength conditioning coaches needing jobs but like do you guys have any openings uh we i think we have a couple strength and conditioning positions um open um they will be posted on usa jobs.gov all right and and they get posted on there so yeah we any any of the strength coaches out there that are looking to get into the tactical realm, um, USA jobs.gov. Um,

we have a lot of contracting companies out there. So indeed, usually those tactical strength and conditioning positions are on indeed. But if you're looking for a government specific, um, position, then it's going to be on USA jobs. Sweet. I'll tell. Do you guys have any places that you'd like to send them to actually connect with you specifically?

Personally. Personally. Yeah. My, my way. I'm busy. Leave me alone. Let's see.

Yeah. Again, I'll send you, I'll send you the links. I got two i don't know why i have different handle names for different social media personally but i am i'm just like oh this will work when you know it's like why don't you just have one and done across the board so it's because you're making all that money being a gs11 or whatever you are and you don't have to worry about social media like we do yeah good for you oh yeah uh but appreciate it oh the website is afswdev.com that's that's going to be the recruiting page say it one more time afsw W-D-E-V. D-E-V. D-E-V, not D-E-V.

Dot com. Dot com. All right, sweet. John, you got any social links there? I'll be honest. I'm terrible with social media. My Instagram is chefstrong, S-H-E-F-F, strong, one word. Beautiful.

You guys can't really, like, film your day. Yeah, I don't film a whole lot of stuff. You know, it's okay. We're giving away all the secrets in here on my cell phone. I'll be honest. It's not a secret. There's nothing secret about it, man. It's just training. Squat. It's just training. it's just training it's just training

all all the you know all the universities all the sports they want to train like the military you get the military all the military wants to do is strength train like collegiate sports it's just training it's all just training yeah get a little bit better today than you were yesterday right coach travis smash uh mashley.com it was an honor talking to you two gentlemen that was Yeah, get a little bit better today than you were yesterday. Right. Coach Travis Mash. Mashlead.com. It was an honor talking to you two gentlemen. I actually got out of a head coach's meeting for Eleanor Ryan because I wanted to talk to you guys.

I'm probably in a little bit of trouble, but it was worth it. We appreciate it. Thank you. Doug Larson. Yeah, guys, appreciate it. You bet. I'm on Instagram at Doug C. Larson. Fellas, I really appreciate you coming on the show. I enjoyed that. Yeah, guys. Appreciate it. You bet. I'm on Instagram at Doug C. Larson. Fellas, I really appreciate you coming on the show.

I enjoyed that. Yeah. I love when you say there's nothing special going on, but that's not true because the number of angles in which you guys have to attack and solve big problems is different than everybody else. It's not just running a football or jumping and sprinting. It's keeping people alive and making sure their brains work as well as their bodies.

How that all integrates together into one big program in which you have very limited time to work with each person before they ship out is not an easy problem to solve. So it's very cool to hear how you guys do this. I'm Anders Varner. At Anders Varner, we are Barbell Shrugged at barbell underscore shrugged. not an easy problem to solve. So it's, it's very cool to hear, hear how you guys do this. Um, I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are Barbell shrugged at Barbell underscore shrug. Make sure you go to barbell shrug.com forward slash diesel dad, making all the dads strong, lean and athletic,

and make sure you get over to Walmart. If you're in Palm Springs, San Diego, Los Angeles, or Vegas, we are on the shelves in the performance nutrition section. Get over to the pharmacy, three programs on the shelves.

We'll see you guys next week. That's a wrap. I want to thank all of our friends over at the, the air force. Make sure you get over to the pharmacy. Three programs on the shelves. We'll see you guys next week. That's a wrap. I want to thank all of our friends over at the Air Force. Make sure you get over to airforce.com. Go see a recruiter if you are interested in learning more about U.S. Air Force Special Warfare. Also, I want to thank Organifi.com forward slash shrugged. That's where you can save 20% on the green, red, and gold. And then leakygutguardian.com forward slash shrugged for our friends over at Bioptimizers. I will see you Monday.