Barbell Shrugged - Strength: Old School vs. New School w/Zach Even-Esh, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash - Barbell Shrugged #549

Episode Date: February 17, 2021

Zach Even-Esh is the founder of The Underground Strength Gym and creator of The Underground Strength Coach Certification. He is also the strength and conditioning coach for the Lehigh University wrestling team and the author of The Encyclopedia of Underground Strength and Conditioning.   Since Zach began training athletes in 2002, he has helped hundreds of athletes from various sports and ranging from the youth level to the Olympic level to achieve great success both in the competitive arena and in life.   In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged: The will to train for multiple decades How the current generation struggles puling themselves in the gym Instant gratification vs. delayed results How training changes as you age Why strength over a lifetime matters https://zacheven-esh.com   Find Zach on Instagram   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   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   www.masszymes.com/shruggedfree  - for FREE bottle of BiOptimizers Masszymes   Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://prxperformance.com/discount/BBS5OFF Save 5% using the coupon code “BBS5OFF”

Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrugged, we are joined by our good friend, student of the iron, lifetime weightlifter, powerlifter, one of the very first people I ever saw on video, making kids lift rocks. Pretty cool. Zach Evanesh, good friend of the show. He's been on multiple times if you go back into the past episodes. And this week on Barbell Shrugged, we were talking about old school strength versus new school strength. What's really cool about Zach is that he still coaches a ton of high school athletes in their strength training and on the wrestling mat, which gives him a really good look at what kids are doing in the weight room,

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Friends, we'll see you at the end of the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner. Doug Larson. Coach Travis Mess. Zach Evanesh. Welcome back to the show, man. This is so rad. Dude, I was on your show like three weeks ago.

We talked for like 90 minutes. I know. I totally spaced out on my wife because we filmed at like 8 to 9.30. By the time I got back inside, she was like, you ready to go to bed? I was like, no, I'm all jazzed up. I was ready to talk for another two hours. That is the problem with me having my open schedule only at night is when I'm done with a great podcast. I'm like, I should just go max effort squats. Well, let me just tell you a funny

story before we kick it off, baby. So when I was in my like mid-teenage years, this gym in my town, one of the guys that I was almost training with on the regular, we became trainer partners when I was competing in bodybuilding, but he worked there and it was a Saturday, maybe it was a Friday. And I remember saying, hey, dude, I heard of this story of guys who sometimes do squat parties at like 11 at night. When you shut down, we should come back later and hold a squat party at midnight. And he was like, midnight. And I said, all right, let's just come back later in the evening. We'll crank the music.

And it was a long time ago. I remember giving him like a Pantera cassette tape. And there may have been like six or seven of us. And we had a squat party. And I remember like we're shouting, we're screaming at each other. And I remember we would, the whole like gut check was do the pre-exhaust. So do the Mike Menser leg extensions to failure, then forced reps drop sets then we squat now let's see who like first you can't even stand up now we're gonna squat so i remember this kid andy he was squatting

415 and we're doing forced reps and when he was walking in it was like he was drunk because his legs were so numb and i just remember like destroying the gym that night and it was a squat party so you know you know kids go to chunky cheese what what did we do in our teenage years squat parties squat parties oh good times good we gotta bring that back we can break in mash's neighborhood mash is out there in the lake out yeah nice north carolina yeah just have a squat party at midnight introducing all them to all the neighbors. Yeah. Jump in the lake.

It's going to be like, yes, you're the squatter, you're the spotter, and then you are the guard in case the alligator comes out. In the dark. So there's one guy has the samurai sword, the other guy's the spotter, the other guy's the squatter. Who ever thought gators in Carolina? But there's a gator in that lake. Well, one that they know of.

People keep taking pictures and videos of them. Scary. Yeah. Zach, how many gyms do you own right now? We got two. You have two right now still? Got the one that you guys were at in Manasquan. We're actually eight years exactly.

So December 1st is eight years. That went fast. And then my North Jersey location, real small spot. We have been there four years. That's the one that I merged with like a martial arts building. Upstairs is a world champion jujitsu instructor, Vitor Belfort. Not Vitor Belfort, Vitor Shaolin. I was like, what?ort. Not Vitor Belfort, Vitor Shaolin. I was like, what?

I was saying Vitor Belfort. Vitor Shaolin Ribeiro. That's a sick last name, Shaolin. Yeah, they call him Shaolin. What a humble, humble guy from Brazil. He's also, you know, talking about being tough challenges. He has two locations in New York City. So New York City so New York City

is is horrible now um we've got a wrestling club downstairs my my buddy Donnie DeFilippis runs that this guy was he's just amazing and then we have boxing and I don't follow enough boxing but jerry cooney was a um yeah yeah he's he's the instructor it's his what yeah he lives in a town uh right next to us yeah who did he lose to in the heavyweight finals i think um that was back in the 80s boxing yeah 80s i believe so jerry i think he's got like a radio show with uh serious satellite but he lives in a neighboring town. And so this facility is we're all, we're have very small space, but everybody's basically world-class instructor facility. So our partner basically brought like his love for martial arts under one

roof. And then ironically ironically enough kind of everybody's semi-local and so we are that's in a town called scotch plains it's about 25 minutes from new york city it's a great little great little spot just shy of a thousand square feet plus the outback area yeah by the way mich Michael Spinks, yep. Are you guys shut down right now? Is everything moving? What is New York City? A lot of schools are shut down. A lot of the public schools have been shut down.

I'm a full-time strength coach at a high school. We are shut down. We shut down last week. We shut down this week. We were automatically going virtual the week after Thanksgiving. So we'll see. The universities is where the week after Thanksgiving. So we'll see. The universities is where the real struggle is. You know, normally now I'm not training college kids,

but there's college kids who did not go to school because they're virtual Pennsylvania kids. And then they just got word that their wrestling season is canceled. And Pennsylvania has been open. Like I have friends that are there in the summer. They've been eating, going to bars, this and that, no problems. But maybe the colleges are different. So one kid we trained is a senior. You can't have college without kids rubbing on each other. That's the problem. I just interviewed Kurt Hester.

College is full contact whether you're an athlete or not. He said, he goes, look. Yeah. athlete or not he said he goes look yeah Kurt Astor said our our last football game was on Halloween day and it was done at like three in the afternoon he's like you think college kids aren't going to Halloween parties on a Saturday night he's like we've been coveted out for three weeks so right now you know uh basically you know I've seen what's going on new fact i feel the worst for cali and australia you know australia is very strict you know people are like unable to leave their home for like a kilometer i saw k-star just shut down his facility my buddy

we have to have him on i'll text him right now you know what i said um me and k-star had done a seminar at a guy's place down in florida michael king and michael sold off his jams he had multiple crossfit facilities and now he's in california and he's got like this monster in indoor um marijuana i don't know what you call them, marijuana factories. Yeah, dispensary. Yeah, it's called King's Cannabis, I think. So Michael, super smart guy, I said to Kaystar, I was like, dude, if you just would have had like a, you know, marijuana inside your gym,

you would have been okay, you know, or liquor, right? But we could argue this crap like all day. It's really, I always, it's like in the schools i blame myself when i see things going wrong and i say well that's my fault for not being an administrator look i don't want to be the governor or in politics but it's our fault for not i don't know be getting enough influence on these governors who are making decisions to shut down gyms or to not delineate the difference between a gym and a private fitness studio. And it's like, you know, I've seen also firsthand what that does to kids. Mike, you know, my son is 12. My daughter's 14. I've seen what happened to the kids emotionally at

the high school I coach at. I saw what happened, you know, we opened in mid-June outdoors, the listening skills, the thinking skills, the loss of muscle, the loss of grit that these kids went through because of what, that they, I mean, that they had because they did not go through stuff. And so, you know, I'm like, all right, well, it's my fault because somehow, someway, we voted in the wrong governors and I didn't make enough connection. You bring up a super interesting thing. What you're kind of saying is like we're overprotecting these kids

and they're just getting soft. On like a very high level, we're over – I'm over bringing all the points together. But do you feel like when you were growing up that there was any of these like just built-in protections? We all know the answer to this. Yeah, like why is – why do we have to protect everybody from everything all the time? This is the devil. It just makes us soft.

The cell phone. Exactly. The self. Somebody posted on Twitter, Bobby Stroop said that the cell phone is the cigarette of our generation. And I think, you know, Doug and Anders, you guys are still in your 30s, right? 37. You young kids. You're a bunch of kids right now. How you right now i'm 45 in a couple of

like yeah i don't know crush days and i'm 47 i'm still the old man in this group i know me and travis are the big bros but if they would have done that to me i would be in prison if i was a kid if you said no jim i'd be like, all right, I'm going to bring your ass down. I'm going to bring your mom's house down and then I'd be in prison. And like you would have no houses left. I'd have killed you all. I would have broken in. I would have easily broken in to it.

I would have found a way to break into a gym or I would have gone to the yellow pages, found the phone number of the gym owner and would have said like i'll meet you at 3 a.m you know of course how do you not stand up in the middle of these meetings when you're like all the teachers are around and you all have like the face shield we don't have meetings we have all we have all virtual meetings don't you ever like raise your hand on the zoom and you're like stop oh dude send all these kids into the wrestling room with me right now. We will end all this. Let's make it happen. The things I've started saying to the kids, it's like, I'm like, all right,

I'm probably going to get sued or fired because I'm like hurting. I'm like, I don't care anymore. I'm hurting feelings and I'm just going for the throat now. Yeah. They're overprotected on, on one side so much that you got to balance it out and you're the only one that can do it. And they don't, a lot of them don't know how to fight.

Don't even want to fight. I have a saying when you sit on the couch too long, you become the couch. And so kids that were tough, you know, we, the school shut down mid-March. I could not get back to my school, even in the summertime, even with outdoor stuff because of these COVID breakouts with the teenagers. So I didn't see them till September. So about six months. And I saw kids, skinny arms, they got like roly-poly bellies. And I'm like, guys, at 17, you should be ripped. And if you don't know what to do, you're sprinting and doing push-ups

you automatically know to do that there were many kids who did zero and even football players so like travis i know you played football you know i knew all those injuries were coming you heard it on podcast they're not injuries people were like hurt hurt, but not injured. Knees, ankles, quad pulls, hammy strains. And I said to him, I go, guys, I'm not shocked because you didn't prepare yourselves. You didn't squat. Those of you, most of you who had equipment at home have a bench. You don't have a squat rack. And you didn't even do goblet squats. You didn't even invite two friends over to house to lift the barbell and you did a, got under the bar. You didn't find a way. And then you see these kids who normally lift it hard. I'm like, dude, I haven't even seen you for two months since I've been back. Where you been?

Oh, I'm in the trainers. I go, do you go to practice? Yeah. Oh, do you play in the game on Fridays? Yeah. Then how are you not lifting? If you could bang with guys on the football field and you're not lifting, you don't want it. And they're like, ugh. I'm like, get out of here. You don't want it. I don't have the time for this. Yeah.

I have a question just because as a dad of a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter right now, I'm not faced with as many of the social pressures that come along with being a dad. I'm not faced with as many of the social pressures that come along with being a dad. I would say that maybe a lot of the social pressures when my in-laws look at me and they're like, why are you sprinting with your daughter? Why are you making her hang from a pull-up bar right now? Why are you making her pick up the kettlebell right now? I'm like, well, this is just the way we do things. But in the middle of all this, so we created this, this is who we are. We're the diesel dads. We're the ones that have

to fight this. The good fight. Yeah, the good fight and apply discipline. And we also just, we've been lifting our whole lives and the number of ways that lifting weights has changed. But it's also a mentality that we all grew up 13 years old. We were sitting underneath barbells and had no idea that 20, 30 plus years later, we'd still be sitting here learning the same lessons underneath barbells. I knew I would never stop. I was so addicted to the training that like I think about it with the holidays coming up. I remember like writing a list for my birthday and the holidays. What was my gift list? I wanted high intensity training book. I wanted Robert Kennedy's book, Maxi Cut Legs. You know, I wanted like,

yeah, you have to look up those old books by Robert Kennedy. They were amazing. You know, all these books from the 80s. And then also, Anders, you speaking about like your daughter at two and a half. When we moved to this house about 11 years ago, my kids were a year and a half and about three. And so what did I do in our garage? Climbing rope, gymnastic rings, and kettlebells. So we moved here in February. So this February is 11 years. Once springtime came, my kids start seeing me climbing a rope

in the garage, carrying kettlebells up and down the sidewalk, sprinting up and down the street. And guess what? They thought that was normal. So there are my kids at a year and a half and three, we had like a pretty big, those big gymnastic fold-up mats i think they're like nine feet by six feet my kids are on the front lawn doing headstands try just doing exploring and uh i was like yeah that's what kids do you want to know why because they see us doing it so it's normal and so there's a kettlebell out what would my son try to do dad lift the kettlebell you could say no no no ethan we're flat back like no no no he's like he's like baby caveman like go and lift things and there was a guy um man i don't follow him deeply enough he's a uh big sprint running guy but the way he teaches is more through like exploration.

I feel like his name is Barr, a Darian Barr. And so he was talking about how, you know, decades ago, years ago, whatever it was, if, you know, kids were not lifting weights, they were lifting stones. Or let's say we were working on our farm, you know, the farmer wasn't lifting weights, but he would maybe dig a ditch. He learned how to position his body to lift a stone. They learned through kind of this exploration and being, you know, this diesel dad, you were talking about it when we did the podcast, how you wake up in the morning and do these two exercises for 50 reps each. See, that sets the tone for the entire household, not just for you. We initially think it's for ourselves, but when our kids see us training, when they see the way we eat, when they see us turn down certain foods, but then they might see their friends, parents eating certain

foods, they start making connections of, I don't want to say right or wrong, but what's healthier and stronger. And it's the ultimate physical education for kids. This is my garage. It's so awesome. Having a full gym in here is like, there's no way you could escape, but seeing the fact that there's always weight on the barbell. I wanted to go back though because the reason I was thinking of that is like, how do you feel the social pressures among parents, whether it's through coaching or just your friends when you know that the kids are becoming soft. Yeah. And you see it happening. And you're with them probably maybe more than their parents actually are when you're at school. How do you handle that in talking to parents and going, like, look, the kid's just soft. He's got to go struggle and stop protecting them.

I have seen some really unique things through the years and the decades of coaching. So I started coaching really in the mid-90s, 95. Had my first job at a fitness center. And it was mostly adults. But then in the summer, they would bring their kids there. And it was just a different, I remember teaching a kid how to deadlift. And he did it right away. Not knowing that, oh, he should

have squatted for three weeks before this. And that, you know, I showed him deadlift, bent over row, military press, and he was like, boom, everything, he just did it. And then same thing with those kids in my garage days. And then I'd say around 2010, I noticed a difference. And as a coach, when you're working with kids, you have to remember that you are not just the coach. You are now father. You might be sometimes replacing mother if the kid doesn't have a mother and you have to have some different caring traits for that kid. You're the uncle. You're the parent figure. And so sometimes, not sometimes, really the better connections I've had with the kid is when I'm not just talking about the sport and winning more and being the best running back on the football team or the state champ wrestler.

It's about getting them to really be better than who they were yesterday. And also sometimes being truthful and saying, look, you got to go harder and you got to get tougher. And I can't be more motivated than you. This is not just about sports. You're going to need this when you go to college or if you don't want to go to college for work. And then I put it, I turn it on. I go, what if I had your energy right now? Would I inspire you to be around me? What if I had this effort? What if I was like, eh, what if I didn't even talk for an hour the way you don't talk at all for an hour? How would that feel? Well, dude, you got to feel the same.

The rock always said, be the hardest worker in the room. You have to teach kids that because we come from elitist backgrounds. We've all had pretty high-level sports. If we were not high-level sport, we were highly competitive, and we continue to be highly competitive. We raise our kids much differently than somebody who maybe was just kind of part of the team. They don't really get what we get, and so that's never handed down. Those conversations of intensity and dedication and eating right and getting a bet on time are never a focal point in those households. Whereas in my household, you know, if there's crappy food and I see a behavior about it that I don't like,

there's a conversation about that. There's, you know, things being said about winning and effort. And so you have to fill those gaps. And what would I say to parents? Sometimes, you know, if I'm harping to a kid too much, I hate being that like preachy type guy. I say, listen, I got to call home because right now your parents are paying for this. That's their hard-earned money. And if you're not following through, you know, we need, I need to have a conversation with them. And sometimes that creates a change because they start realizing that they're blowing it. Sometimes it doesn't. And then how does that look at the college sector or the high school sector when people are not paying? Well, at that, at that stage, right with this, you know, the high school, dude, I start telling kids, I go, you don't want it.

You don't want it. Like, and sometimes I tell a kid, how are you not afraid to step on the football field? You weigh 140. There's guys 240. How are you not afraid? And that's not, that fear is not spurring your work ethic. And I tell them, I go, look, this is also what I say, guys. I'll close it out at this because I could go on.

I say, this is what I always tell them. What do I always tell you guys? Whatever I say to you is exactly what I would say to my son or daughter. I'm not giving you a special treatment. I'm not treating you tougher or lesser. Everything I say to you, I say to my own children. And then I go, so let me say this to you guys. I go like this. You're going to have to pull your heads out of your asses right now. And then I go, don't go telling your parents

because now I'm going to get sued because I said ass. Turn into a little bit of a joke. But you also got to give them time. It does take time for them to turn the corner. Like Travis, we're able to watch your, when you were working with the kids out of your private facility, I was able to watch them through the years get tougher. I see them in the beginning kind of, you know, quitting into a lift or just not being as intense. And then you see them a few months later, they're up a notch and up a notch. And so that's what we got to realize is this stuff takes time.

Oh, I have a kid, Matt Weininger, who's been with me over a decade. Rabbit, right? No, no. Now he's going to the Navy. So he's on his way to doing something awesome. Matt is with me now at Lenoir Ryan. And so he started with me when he was in elementary school. And he was such a good athlete.

I think I remember him. Lightweight kid, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He would never put in the effort like everybody else. So he was watching all these other people make Team USA, make world teams, runs at the Olympics. And I would always tell him, bro, you are better than them. But you don't put in a quarter of the effort. And finally, now that he's at Lenoir Ryan

and I have him every day, he's like accelerating. Right. And he's starting to believe. And for the first time ever, he starts talking about beating the top guys. Oh, I said, you finally, I said, Matt, what did you think when I was telling you that all those years? He said, I don't know what I was thinking. I'm like, yeah, I wouldn't lie. You don't hear me saying it to other people. I'm saying it to you because it's the truth. I don't lie to the kids. If they have zero talent, I just say work hard and do your best.

But, I mean, this kid, I was telling him, just put in the effort, man, and you will be better than all these kids. And now he's finally getting it. So you're right. It sometimes takes over a decade. You know what I tell my daughter? And now he's finally getting it. So you're right. It sometimes takes over a decade. Yeah. You know what I tell my daughter? I go, look, it's really important that you have good sportsmanship

and you take care of everyone on your team. But it sure is a hell of a lot easier to make friends when you score a lot of goals. Yeah. That is funny. At two and a half, I remember my daughter playing soccer at that age. I take her to the soccer field. I said, this is how we fill it up.

You just try and kick that net as hard as you can. I don't care. Dude. You fill it up. My daughter was at soccer. She may have been like four. No, it was before we moved here. So I remember the coaches.

It's this big, I think it was called Rovers. There's a lot of soccer coaches there. They're from England. And so I remember my daughter was like tickling her friend, and the coach is like, girls, it is not tickle time. And so my daughter started playing tennis at age three or four. And we took her to a tennis club in Florida and they instilled the excellence and the competitiveness in her. And now she's 14 and she's still learning you know that she it's the work ethic and it's how you eat and it's also how do you utilize your time and so she's 14 and you know what we're like oh you got to do it now I look back guys at my own I didn't have this like intensity until I got to

college and I was no longer competing in wrestling. College wrestling at my university gets canceled and then it's too late. And like Travis said, some kids don't flip the switch until college. And it really comes down to, Dan John speaks about it, like your genetics, geography, who are you around? So sometimes i repost those wrestling videos from georgia which is part of russia and then opportunity so if i like i interviewed kurt hester in kurt hester's behind his high school uh behind his high school was gail hatch's weightlifting facility that's awesome opportunity yeah that not everybody has. Totally. Zach, I'm curious, maybe not during COVID, but just over the years, how often or how much do you communicate with your athletes outside the weight room? Just texting, phone calls,

do you have private Facebook groups? How much communication do you have with your, especially like your high school kids? Yeah, a lot. So not at the high school where I work at full-time. We have, we got to use Google Classroom and those kids have a million Google Classrooms. So like right now, I post some of my PDFs. Here's a bodyweight only book. Here's an ebook for home gym workouts. If you only have a bench, but no squat rack, are you a member of a gym utilize the gladiator project but with my own members at the underground there's texting there's checking in um it might be like a video where we're like yo dude where you at for two weeks don't be a bum you know we i i've learned to be also a little bit more i don't know if friendly is the word, Doug, but now that I'm a dad,

I've changed my whole, not my whole coaching philosophy, but it's just different. Whereas I've always said, you know, prior to my kids being born or prior to them kind of going into sports, everything was about winning and getting a college scholarship. And, you know, that not everybody's about only winning or even wanting to be competitive in college sports. They don't even want to do it. And so what I learned was how to really focus on helping them develop strength beyond the gym, whether it's social skills, whether it's commitment to their academics and setting goals for a big college, or just, you know, some confidence in themselves to go and have better social skills and have more friends. And I remember we had one kid, he was so quiet and socially awkward that if I, you know, I remember teaching him how to do a bodyweight squat, He would do like a mini squat. Then he would like

back up two steps. Like, where are you going, dude? Like you couldn't even get near the kid. And then senior year, he was class president. You know, I can't remember what he built up to a deadlift. It was probably like 455. He squatted probably close to 400, 405. But I just remember like this kid couldn't look you in the eye. If you talked to him, his head was down and it was like, it was like this fast mumble. And he became class president. He's got this like good, strong speech. You know, so for him, it wasn't about being the captain or getting the scholarship for basketball or football. No, for him, it was about owning the football team. the captain or getting the scholarship for basketball or football.

No, for him, it was about owning the football team. Yeah, exactly. You guys can play and get brain damage. I'll just own your team. Yeah. Now he's in college, like, studying financial stuff. But also, the biggest thing was he could, you know, speak. He would, like, volunteer at my fundraiser every year. He kept the score

and i'd be like chris dude can you add this up and figure out who's first second or third it's like a million points something he's like you know it's like and it you just got to let kids find their strength so you know on the surface people look at it as strength and conditioning but we know whether it's for the dads for the the kids, for our own kids, for people we train, it's a vehicle for being better at life. And so you want to be a better dad, you need to be strong and fit. You need the energy. You need the grit and toughness for when tough times come. There could be dads out there struggling financially now because COVID changed

and altered the landscape of their career. They had to get a pay cut, all kinds of things. Well, I feel like if you are somebody who trains hard, you're like, let's go bring it. I'll get another job. I'll create a job for myself. Whereas I feel like if you're not working hard, you're like, oh, I'm defeated. Okay. We, this is, we have nothing, you know? And so training always inspires me in life. So, you know, look, I'm not Mr. Tough Guy, but mid June, we went back to open up the gym outdoors. I had to furlough my coaches. I trained athletes in the morning. I did the online stuff. Then I came back in the afternoon and evening, nonstop, six days a week. Sundays, Saturdays and Saturday, I run from the gym an hour. Then I'm with my son's baseball, daughter's tennis. Sunday,

back to baseball, no days off. Now, coaching at the high school, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., go home, cup of tea, quick bite to eat, run the gym from 4 to 7. So I leave the house at 6.30. I'm home at 7.30, 13 hours. Then I might do internet work at night. You want to know why I do it? Because it's a zero option. I'm not going to quit. And training taught me to be tough. That's what it teaches you. Battling through squats, battling through cleans, sprinting hard, sprinting hills, running a 5k when you never ran a 5k and just having the balls to do it. That carries over to life. Whereas I feel like if I wasn't fit, you know'd be like uh just all right we'll just close the gym we're gonna give I'm gonna give up like look and sometimes quitting things is a smart thing to do

it's right it's dragging you down but then you pivot and you you kind of go sixth gear on another thing but training to me makes me better at life. That's the bottom line. Well, it's something that everybody can do. You can all – like anytime somebody comes and asks, it's not even like do an air squat. It's not even like do burpees. Go outside and sprint to the mailbox down the street as fast as you can and then walk to the next one and then sprint to the next one. Beautiful.

It's as simple as you can possibly get. And pure. That's so pure. You just go. I feel like certain people are on the same page. Right before this, I had a Google meet with my students. And guess what I said? Go outside and get fresh air and sprint from one telephone pole to the next.

I say it all the time. And I tell them sprinting is better than jogging. When you sprint, it's hard. It's going to change and transform your body. Yeah. And it makes you stand out. Like, I think that that's the really weird part about fitness and just training in general is that, um, like my my this garage right here is seeable by every single person that drives by like the way that it's set up you can't not see it every single day and when people walk by uh they know that something different happens inside that garage than their garage does anybody join you like a neighbor people i've had people, but most people don't. I actually heard a rumor that the kids want to start coming in and training,

which is awesome. That is awesome, dude. They know it's different. And they don't want to go take the light jog with their parents. They want to come in and bang weights. You know, years ago, K-Star and J-Star were talking about how they created, of course, the stand-up desks about how they, you know, they created, of course, you know, the stand-up desks.

Then they created this other movement in their neighborhood where we're only walking to and from school. That's what we're going to do from now on. And it was like the neighbor did it, then the other neighbor, then more of the neighborhood. Then they were like, now we have moms in our garage doing front squats. Then we teach their kids to front squat. And so they turned kind of their neighborhood into a, or they turned their garage into this like community

fitness. It's awesome. It's the best medicine for kids. And let me tell you, I get to see it even in my own kids. I don't really coach my kids when they come to my gym. I let the other athletes in the gym coach with them. So my daughter will train with another girl or she'll race against other boys or my son will jump in with the other kids because once I start telling them what to do, no good. And even like a couple of weeks ago, I did this. I was, I was tired. I ain't going to lie. I was tired coaching, coaching seven, eight, nine groups a day. So I was like, you know what? I'm going to let these athletes create their own warmup. I'm, I need to get out of my own head. So I said, guys, you create your own warmup. I was like, do you know, be unique, use any tool in the gym, whatever you want. And so one kid's like, I'm like, be unique, use any tool in the gym, whatever you want.

And so one kid's like, I'm like, okay, Travis, you go first. Travis is like, jog. I'm like, well, that's original. Can we do something different? I'll do something different. So then one kid, he's a lighter kid. He's a wrestler. He's like, all right, fireman's carry. And he goes up to an eighth grader who's like 6'4", 175, big kid.

And he just like grabs him. The kid's like, what the F? First of all, when's the last time somebody shook hands or actually touched somebody? It's been like nine months. He grabs him. He carries him. Then he shows him how to carry him. Then they do piggyback ride.

Then they started doing tags with the med balls. They started pegging each other with the medicine ball, six pounder, you know? And then I said, you know what? You guys create the whole workout. Today's going to be wacky Wednesday. Do you create it yourself? And so I'll do that again this Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. And they programmed like high volume, high intensity, like the toughest damn training

session. I was like, this is great. You need to to give the distance the other thing is we coach everybody think about this especially you Travis you know you and I grew up where you go to a gym you're learning it on your own then you got to ask the biggest guy then you're training hard with hopes that the big guys simply give a head nod to you. They realize, all right, this kid's been here three months. He's earned enough for me to just give him a head nod. You're fighting for that. Today, we over coach. We hand them everything. There's no mystique to it. I wanted to learn about training. I would sit on the floor of a bookstore for four hours and read everything. And so sometimes you have to take things away to give

them the opportunity to be stronger because- And figure it out themselves. Right. These beautiful weight rooms don't necessarily have the best college football teams. And so I think a lot about that, that easy stuff is, you know, easy stuff is the enemy. And, you know, I had this conversation with our friend Joe DeSena because I had a job offer for a government slash military position in Florida. And one of my kids was struggling with, we might move. He's going to be away from these friends. And I'm speaking with Joe and he goes, you know, that might inspire me to make the move even more because we want our kids to be resilient. We want them to be able to socialize and get new friends. And he's like, sometimes, you know, that is the reason to make a move. And same thing with your own career your own job like you you build comfort

um in a cage so to speak and then you know what comfort is just the enemy you know joe's doing those kids camps that i've heard him mention before um basically the way it worked ducky was uh we had he was you know, he was doing these races. Kids would come up. Yeah. So, one of our kids did the first one. It was a two-week program. And this kid was already very tough. He'd stay after. He'd always ride his bike 20 minutes to the gym, ride back. He was a unique kid. He did the two-week camp and he loved it. It was extremely tough. And so we had two other kids that wanted to do it, but deep down I knew one was definitely not ready. Definitely not ready because he's here for a month. He's gone for three months. He's on and off. And I told him, yeah, you know, yeah,

yeah, you're not even here. You don't even train. I don't think you should do it. Would it be good for you? Yes, but I don't think you're going to be able to do it because I know what Joe does. It's like brutal on the body. And so another kid was going to go who's tough, but sometimes if he's a little too much outside of his comfort zone, it's not good. So one of our kids had to get picked up literally on like a second day and was slowing down everybody. And I told him, I was like, dude, you're talking about how embarrassed, you know, that you feel bad. I go, but deep down, you don't feel bad. What you are is you're embarrassed with your own lack of preparation.

And that's the truth. You didn't, you barely train, you barely show up. You want to run. You want to be at the finish line of the marathon, but you only want to run the last mile. You don't want to run the first 25 miles. That's the problem with you. The other kid gutted it out, got picked up on a Friday. I think it was ending on a Sunday. Maybe there was some miscommunication, but it changed them. Those two kids that did the full camps went even like tougher. They just like got another level of intensity and it's amazing how these tough things push you. And so, yeah, Joe is still doing it. And even Doug, remember when you guys were in Cali, you were near Mark Devine.

Well back in these kind of like, Oh man, maybe Oh nine, 2010. I was in touch with Mark a lot. I was following SealFit. I had seen them do it on the CrossFit journal, like the first group of guys that went through it. So I'd been in touch with Mark a lot, back and forth, back and forth. And then two of his instructors came through my certification and I was like, Mark, I'd love to do your camp, but I don't want to do a seven-day camp. Or the Kokoro camp was like five. No, it was 50 hours. That's what it is, 60 hours. I was like, I got to fly in two days early.

I'll probably be useless for two or three days when it's over. I'm like, it's going to be a week away. And I've never been good with leaving my family to do workout stuff that just, I always felt guilty about it. So I was like, what if Quattro Deuce and Brad did something here? We're on a beach and you do it for, you know, a day, half a day. And I said, a lot of people would sign up for that. And so I helped, they didn't have a name for it, but the whole time I was like 20X, 20X, because he had a video called 20X or 10X. I can't remember, 20X. And so they called it 20X

Challenge. It became a 12 hour challenge. And I still take lessons from that 12 hours. I remember just, I was changed. And I always look back and say, damn, 12 hours has changed my life. It's amazing how something hard can change your life. And of course, the preparation leading up to it, I was so afraid to be unprepared. I trained, I was, I like, I turned the shower on and I would do 50 squats before entering the shower. anywhere we'd be on vacation anytime somebody was looking 40 push-ups i'd get 500 in a day i just was training non-stop because i was afraid of being unprepared it completely transformed me were you in the greatest shape of your life then i was in great shape but then i feel like my body fell apart after that ironically so i take a month off yeah i feel like that training sometimes people can handle it but i think maybe if you're like a quote-unquote bigger guy sometimes it doesn't work that well on your body but uh i was in great shape because i would do i did a lot of calisthenics circuits a lot of

volume just a lot of body weight work uh i made sure no matter where i was it was like i was always doing those flutter kicks and pull-ups and stuff like that. And pushups, I was always very good at, but I started doing things like if I walked my dog, I always had the ruck. I had my go ruck bag on. And then any, you know, anytime I'd hit a corner of a street, it was like 20 squats. You remember Vision Quest? That reminds me of like- I was on a Vision Quest. Yeah. You remember that movie Vision Quest, That reminds me of like- It was on a Vision Quest. Yeah, you remember that movie, Vision Quest,

like the wrestling movie, and the guy was like waiting on the elevator doing push-ups. Yes, doing push-ups. I still love that movie. I watched it before I went to one of my college practices, and I started sending clips to them before we- It was our first Max Out Friday day. Yeah.

I was sitting there listening to Vision Quest. They were losing their- By the time I visit quest. They were losing their mind. By the time I got there, they were losing their mind. I remember watching that with my wrestling team in high school. It was like a special movie night just for that movie. The power athlete guys, you know, Johnny Wellborn, they interviewed Matthew Modine like a month or two ago, and he was like, dude, today that movie would not be able to happen people would be

up in arms you know you had like uh the young guy with the adult girl like you know the gay guy doing something to him in the hotel he's like all these things he's like would lead the crowd to be up in arms oh yeah and he's like that movie wouldn't be we wouldn't even be able to recreate it today it would it would have like such a different storyline but the way he broke it down was really interesting um and yeah i think we all need as a father as an adult as a man as a young kid boy or girl you need these opportunities to experience some sort of a vision quest where you're chasing something and you're pushing yourself and you become like obsessed in the rabbit hole of preparation. And I feel bad for people who don't experience that stuff.

Well, isn't that also, you know, I guess my brain is sometimes brought to this like this new bullying thing or cyber bullying and all this and i feel like um so much of growing up is just finding out that there's a pecking order in life and if you want to climb to the next rung of the pecking order there's one way to do it there's only one way and uh and those people that are at the top of the pecking order are not – yeah, the people at the top of the pecking order aren't very interested in giving up their spot. And there's only one way to get there. And you've got to go.

One time, that reminds me. When I was a kid, I've not told this story on air before. I was in ninth grade, and there was a senior. This dude was huge. His name is Skipper, If that tells you anything. And like, he's in my math class in ninth grade. He's a senior. He sits behind me and he flips my ear, flips my ear. Right.

And like he's picking on me. So I go to my, I go to my stepdad, because thing is my stepdad was partners and they owned this huge lumber company, his dad and my stepdad. So I go to my stepdad and I'm like, you know, Skipper picks on me every day. He said, okay. He said, tell you what. He said, tomorrow, as soon as he touches you, you punch him right in the nose and you don't stop punching

until they break you up. And I'm like, man. I was like, you know, he's like, look, you either do this with this guy or when I get, when you get home, this will be way worse with me. So I, it was like, I laid in my bed as if, as if I would have been handed down a death sentence. So I feel like I'm on my last night of life and I didn't sleep at all. I wake up, I wake up the next morning and my mom was like,

my mom was like, let's go to, let's go to school. I didn't eat because my stomach was so not. I literally feel like my mom is driving me to the gas chamber. I get to school. I walk in. I'm so anxious. Luckily, it happened right away.

I have to stress it. He hit me in the shoulder and I'm just like... We fight and fight and fight and fight and fight. In those days, the teachers literally watched. So they're watching this thing happen. And I am like, give him every bit I had. And finally they pulled us apart. You know, I'm bleeding.

He's not, but you know, I still, I was hitting and he never picked on me again. So it sounds like the parents nowadays, they'd be like, you can't do that. This torture. And it was tough, but I promise you from that moment on my life was different well you know everything about me was different that uh john wellborn and i had this conversation he's like you want to stop uh a kid from getting bullied put 30 pounds of muscle on him and now people change and then ironically when we came back to school in the fall, you know, 75 kids, and I see two kids are better too. One kid gained 30 pounds and just people respected him. Another kid gained 15 pounds, had his sleeves cut off.

And it was just interesting. So now I call that kid Logan plus 30. I'm like, I don't even know your last name, but you put on that 30 pounds of muscle. So all the kids are like Logan plus 30. I'm like, I don't even know your last name, but you put on that 30 pounds of muscle. So all the kids are like Logan plus 30, Logan plus 30. And I always say to my own kids, I go, here's the problem. Nobody's ever punched you in the face. Nobody's threatened you. Nobody's stealing your lunch. And like two or three years ago, one of the kids on my son's baseball team, they wanted

to go trick-or-treating together. And so I was like, all right, cool. I, they wanted to go trick-or-treating together. And so I was like, all right, cool. I'll take you to go trick-or-treating. And we go to that area. It's a huge development. And, you know, I'm with my son and they're at, he's with his friend and his friend brings them to these other kids' house and they're playing like kill the man with the ball. Except one kid's being like a real dick about everything, you know? And my son is the only kid who's an outsider, who's not from that neighborhood. And so like if he tackles my son and he's down,

he's kind of like hitting him and I'm getting pissed. All right. I'm pissed deep down. I just want to say, knock them in the effing mouth, you know? Yeah. But there's other dads, right? Except that kid's dad's not there. I would say knock them in the effing mouth you know yeah but there's other dads right except that dad's not there i would say right in front of them but yeah so um my son had been you know wrestling for a little bit probably like two or three years had wrestled and he had my son was coming to this gym since day one not going through workouts but doing his own thing so

he had a he he had a strength. He'd done push-ups, blah, blah, blah. So then they're like, all right, yeah, we're going to make teams. So my son's 12, so maybe he was 10 at the time. Maybe he was even 9. I think he was 10. So they're like, all right, we're going to make teams. And then one kid's like, yeah, everybody versus Ethan.

And then one of the dad goes, no, you want to be a tough guy. You do it. One of the dad says to him, so then he like grabs, he grabs my son, Ethan and Ethan. I don't know. Like he just knows how to do like a throw from wrestling knows how to do like a step and throw. So the kid's like trying to grab my son, like steps and hits him with like a hip toss and like gets him down the kids on his back. And then my son goes like a hip toss and like gets him down. The kid's on his back. And then my son goes like this. I can do this all day. It's like a movie.

But I was so glad I didn't pull him from the situation because my instinct was protect him. I'm like, Ethan, let's go home. I don't think they're going trick or treating. And he's like, no, I want to stay, dad. I'm like, all right, man. Dude wants to stay all right so i told him when he got in the car i was like ethan man i'm so proud of you because i was like that kid you know he was being a real dick to you because you were now part of his group and

they don't like that like you said there was a pecking order and he was he stood up for himself and and i don't want to say unfortunately, but the truth of the matter is sometimes people don't stop until you physically do something to them. And now there's cyberbullying and this and that. I had – oh, go ahead. I was going to say you want to change your son's or daughter's confidence, get them to a strength coach.

I felt like an awful father this weekend. I was over at my buddy's house in our neighborhood, and my daughter was on the trampoline. Sometimes she just balls people. She bear hugs them, rips them to the ground, and it's because we have a very physical relationship in our family. I'm always pushing her. I'm always trying to create adversity,

like intentionally making it harder. So when she's hanging out with other kids, she like grabs them and rips them down. And I think it's funny until she grabbed ahold of this kid who's three, three and a half years old or something like that. And it's a boy and she super strong bear hug and he started punching her in the face i just kind of let it happen because i was like you kind of deserve this right now and then all the parents it was it was insane i couldn't believe i was like watching the

first fight go down i didn't know what to do right so intense know what to do you're in but she deserved it she mauled the shit out of the kid. Yeah, and you know what? He was just trying to break free. It's like a good lesson for our kids. You know, I used to watch my older brother get into fights after school, neighborhood bully, this and that. And I've said it. That's what inspired me to do push-ups was I also feared other kids. I feared being bullied.

I just didn't like that. And so, you know, people do treat you differently when you look strong. And I think even the world is so crazy. I really say it a lot now. It's like, you know, if there is a criminal out there, he's probably, you know, scouting people out looking for somebody who's an easy target. So if that person looks strong, fit, looks like he could handle him or herself, they're probably not going to choose you. They're going to think twice. You know, I was thinking while we were talking about this,

just, you know, so how many kids do you have, Anders? One? One girl? One. Travis, you have three kids plus four. Your daughter and your oldest daughter. Oldest daughter and two boys and another daughter. I have a one-year-old now. All right.

And you also have three kids, right, Dougie? Yeah, I have three, two, four, and five. Where are you training now, Doug? Do you guys still own that gym that was in Tennessee, or do you train out of the house? What does your training look like now? No, I sold the gym. I still train there on occasion.

We have a lifetime family membership, so my wife trains there all the time, and I can go up there whenever I want and hang out. I still enjoy the people and all that. It's like all the benefits of having the gym without the responsibility and the liability of having the gym. It's like the perfect scenario. Everybody wants that set up. Totally.

And then, of course, I know tons of gym owners in the area. And so I bounce around to probably like five or six gyms sporadically. Plus I do jujitsu as well. And then I have a dope garage gym that probably does – probably about half of my training in my garage, which has been one of the best parts of COVID is that I've been training in my garage, to your point from earlier, like my kids see me working out multiple times a week now. And before, when I was just training at gyms while they were at school or whatever they didn't see me

training so much and so they actually are much more interested in in lifting weights and doing pull-ups and kettlebell deadlifts like you mentioned earlier also just these days because they've seen it so much and so much more in the last you know eight nine months compared to prior my little son has turned into an animal like rock, Rock is like, he is, he's already better than me. I was never that vicious going under a bar, and that kid will go under. Yes, but think about it, Travis. What did we just say?

Genetics, geography, he's in your house, in your weight room, and opportunity. He's got the opportunity every day. He literally sees the best weightlifters in the country. Right. You should, I think anybody who has kids, you want to make sure you have gymnastic rings and a climbing rope because they start doing that when they're babies. You know, when they get bigger and heavier, it's, you lose that relative body strength. So it's harder for them to climb rope. But if you get it going early, just like kids who do gymnastics till age nine, when they're

teenagers, they still, they somehow still have that strength that was developed from those early, you know, youth years. So, and Doug, what about, didn't you have a shoulder surgery? Yeah, I did. But I had a shoulder surgery um yeah i did uh but i had a shoulder surgery like 10 years ago and so i have some restrictions um with overhead with overhead stuff like i really can't i don't have full range of motion overhead i tried to fix for many many years so many many specialists um we mentioned k-star earlier you know i saw a bunch of his um coaches and therapists and whatnot and just have made very little progress with range of motion landmine work landmine work yeah it's all it's all angled pressing for the most horizontal coaches and therapists and whatnot and just have made very little progress with range of motion

landmine work landmine work yeah it's all it's all angled pressing for the most horizontal and angled pressing so i can't do pull-ups or jerks or snatches but i can do snatch pulls i can do power cleans like i kind of work around this there's still plenty that i can do i can still wrestle and do jujitsu and fight mma and box and that's what he loves and all that yeah that's that's the stuff that that really uh i remember but actually to your point to a point from a second ago i actually did gymnastics from when i was three or four until i was nine or ten just like you just mentioned and and yeah a lot of that stuck i had great upper body strength i had good mobility everywhere for for the whole rest of my life like i'm 37. I can still basically do the splits.

I just got it when I was young, and I just still have it. Yeah. I've seen what I've noticed about gymnastics. It's that strange phenomenon. I've trained wrestlers who did gymnastics until age nine, and then they're 16, and they walk on their hands all around the gym, and they climb rope. They look like Spider-Man. I'm like, damn, that strength from gymnastics in this strange way gets implanted into them.

And they always have it. And they have a different physique than obviously those who did not do it. So I think this would be interesting if we spoke about, you mentioned kind of working around that shoulder injury. That's a big thing. Dad's like, well, this hurts, that hurts. There's always ways to work around it. So Travis, you had the hip replacement. I see you lifting very heavy. What are you working around though? What are you kind of unable to do? I don't think anything I can do. I don't't know um i mean like i haven't snatched a while but i'm sure i could oh yeah that's a lie yeah i did last week i snatched for the first time

how come you're laying low on snatches uh just because i got to a point where i realized that time was an issue so you had to think about like what do i really like doing i like to clean and then i like the you know squat bench and deadlift So I kind of stuck to those four because, you know, it seemed to make the most sense. But then I just, you know, I do enjoy being able to snatch because it separates people that, you know, not many people can do a really good snatch. And so it's really exciting to be one of those people who can, especially at 47. I started doing it again and it came right back the other week. So I don't know. Where are you training at your university or at home?

No, I got a little bit of both. I got my own on our farm and at my house. We have a gym, and then there's a gym right beside of my office at the university. And then, yeah, I don't normally train at the university just because, you know, I go there, train my athletes, and then I get out of there. Right. It's too pretty, too. You know know you were saying i've been meaning waiting to say this is that you said about like uh you know it's things are too nice i totally agree in our university it's super nice what equipment is what squat racks are there i saw there are joke kids

yeah they're the uh the, totally just – totally just – What is the name of the company? Mark this and, like, put this out of there. Oh, all right. We don't got to talk about it. Anyway, no, it's all right. It's good. It's Coach Kintz stuff.

And, yeah, so we have that. It's just too – but it's too pretty. It's like, you know, it's got all the logos. My style is much more of a Dungeon- know like yeah yeah so oh here goes is the vba before dynamic fitness yeah nice yeah that we're getting some new jerk blocks they're sending us they're prototypes oh yeah that's right i heard you were doing okay that's right. I heard you were doing, okay, that's very cool. And so, you know, so you're doing it at home. Where are you? Are you in a garage shed here? What's this that you're in? Oh, I'm in my attic. We just, we just moved into our new house this weekend. And so I'm going to, we're going to redo it,

but this is where it's going to be my office. Be your office studio. So Anders, you're always in your garage. You ever go like what you said in the morning, you do the 50 50. Is it always with a sandbag or uh what you said in the morning you do the 50 50 is it always with a sandbag or what do you lift in the morning uh pretty much whatever pops in my brain at 5 30 in the morning um there's no real rhyme or reason i i typically will just kind of if there was any structure to it i try to just do whatever i did in yesterday's training just lighter in the morning um just to like keep things going yeah um like this morning was 50 good mornings at this 95 pounds and then 100 pound sandbag for 50 lunges um and then go walk a mile uh yeah i love that just in that i wake up every morning and it's like, I just do the thing that's the center of everything.

Right. And like, uh, I actually like this, I have a space heater in here right now, but I choose to work in my garage because I feel like I'm in the gym. Like I could go in my house. Yeah. I could go in my house and where it's really nice and perfectly conditioned like air conditioned and heated and whatnot you are in a place of work and that in and of itself is inspiring yeah i feel like i uh i don't know i started going to coffee shops a lot coffee shops are awesome but there's nobody in coffee shops that really understand like is like trading the vibe that you're going for yeah i really miss i mean even in san diego when it was like cold 55 degrees or whatever but like when you roll those garage doors open and you go into the gym like you're at the gym you're in it you're always in it you're always looking at it people are always working i think

that that's one thing that i miss the most about owning the gym is like just passively watching hundreds of people move a day and seeing just movement over and over and over again and people moving is inspiring it reminds me uh so we're actually pretty busy at my one location with the athletes and i'm assuming it's because the high school weight room is closed. This is canceled. That's canceled. Which one are you busy at? Which one? My one in my hometown.

Manisquan. Very busy. Yeah. Like every group, you know, I take like eight to 10 kids. I think we do like eight to 10 kids a group. Saturdays is 12. Pretty much, you know, eight out of 10 times were capped out. But my son was in and I saw how hyped up him and my daughter were. They were both in

because it was crowded and there's a lot of energy going. I let them, I used to control the radio. Now I'm like, all right, whoever works the hardest, go make a playlist. 90s hip hop, 80s hip hop, whatever. of the rap they play is i'm like whoa you know it's a little bad on the language but whatever that's what gets them hyped up yeah and then i saw that like my son is trap bar dead lifting now my daughter wants the front squat now my daughter wants it i noticed that they fed off the energy they couldn't they couldn't not do it well it's also like for for coaches when people want to go on YouTube and watch thousands of hours of instructional videos and then you put them in a room and they don't realize that great coaches

can go in a room of 20 people and know everything that needs to be fixed on all 20 people in the first five minutes of class just by going through warm-ups. I still remember to this day, one of the coolest compliments I got was at my CrossFit Level 2 cert. They pulled me out, and we had our group circled up of 10, 12 people it was, and had me running front squat session. I don't even remember what the exact lift was, but they basically wanted me to go around and pinpoint the biggest fault of every single person in the group. And their, their point is that you should be able to be able to like remember everyone. And within

you just were able to walk around and pinpointing everybody. And the coach just looked at me and was like, didn't think you'd be able to get through all 12 or whatever it was. And I was like, dude, this is so simple. When you watch hundreds of people moving every single day, it's just the tape that plays in your brain over and over. You start identifying stuff. You don't even, when you're just in it, and I think this is like the thing that I really do miss about owning the gym is that I can just go downstairs and just watch and I don't have to be coaching but you're just sitting there watching snatches you're just watching clean and jerks all day long you watch thousands of people

squat in a year thousands of back squats in a year if you can't just immediately you're you're it's like nails on chalkboard to your eyeballs when when you see people not do things well and it it should just annoy the piss out of you that that's happening in your gym and it's so irritating when you hear people that can't that just allow that to go on in their gym. It's so, so irritating. I wonder like, do they not know? Can they not identify? Or I can't imagine a coach not caring, but sometimes you see bad pushups and you're like, whoa, that can't, that's, and you know what? People, whether they're adults or teenagers, they need to be reminded like, yo, we've never done pushups that way. Like for three months, you've been doing them right. Get back, lock in the trunk, get your head up an inch.

Don't do that weird shit. You know, and so sometimes- It used to drive me nuts. And that would be like one of our, in coaches meetings of just like, we have to be relentlessly on people about moving well. You know why? It has to irritate you so much that somebody would be in your class and not squatting well. It just, to the fact that it's like, it, it, it just, it should bother you. It should bother. It should be a reflection of you as a coach when somebody walks in your gym and they can't squat well. Like what is the most basic thing that we do here? And I do miss that. I actually,

I struggle sometimes going to gyms and seeing gyms that aren't doing that. And I have to, I have to like, I know that feeling. I have to remind myself that it's not my gym and I'm not coach. Two things on that, Andrew. So like as a coach, you cannot be satisfied with good enough or it'll get there. If you see it wrong, you need to go up and help that athlete. And if it's a coaching issue, you coach. If it's a mobility issue, then you might pull them out and adjust. But I was for a year when I was traveling up north for my coaching. And then my

daughter was, I'd come home. It was like an hour drive. Then I have to take my daughter to tennis. I was like, all right, I can't even lift out my own gym. So I started going to a gym about 10 minutes from her tennis club. And I was in like a back room for squats. And I see these three guys squatting. They're three friends. One kid squats great. Another kid, his ankles are so tight. His hips are so tight. But the guy who moves great naturally is like, he's like, get lower, get lower. And then I was like, all right, here we go. I was like, he can't get lower. No matter how much you tell him to get lower, his ankles and hips are locked up. So let me help you through this. You got, he's doing five sets of 10. I was like, you got to go lighter,

go back down to a plate. Just trust me. Put your feet an inch wider, get as low as you can, hang out for a second or two in the bottom. You're going to do that for five reps. You're going to do that weight again. You're going to try to get a little bit lower. The other kid, his buddy was like, he's got to go lower. I i'm like he can't go lower and then they don't have clamps on them like clamp that up and then i was like shit i cannot even train myself i'm helping out these guys i know and uh i don't say one thing to anybody in the gym i go to i should not have phones on it was so hard i keep my head down head down but that's i think that's one thing i i have covid i so i used to go to a crossfit gym and

they're they're awesome people but when covid hit i i had to like turn this thing into my dojo like i yeah garage gyms are are empty and cold places of not work. They're storage units until you turn them into gyms. And the only way to turn it into the gym is by sweating your ass off and getting after it. Right. You have to like christen the gym through work, the garage through work. Yeah, it's cold. It's stale. There's nothing going on.

And the only way to do it is to go squat listen breathe life with your sweat yeah i got like 10 minutes so just what's what's it look like with um with the diesel dad training how's how's that looking with uh programs what do people need because i like it um yeah so the the general idea is that we have i mean doug can lay all the specifics out but i saw the different kind of tears he wrote the the full strength program which is the emom strength program um hypertrophy program is like 20 to 30 minute just uh shorter workouts yep 10 minute emoms two of two or three of them back to back um just lifting as much volume as possible basically and in a short amount of time and then uh we call it the density weight training which is density metcon but move well um

lift weights and and building muscle is the fountain of youth for for these men it is i always tell my wife i'm like i just ran into a He's younger than me, but he looks like he's 15 years older than me. He looks like hell. Why? No exercise and lots of alcohol. Yeah. The alcohol one, dude, that one just drives me. Yeah. What are you doing for your training? Like how do you coach for 13 hours a day or you're on the floor? A lot of coaching. So I'll get a, usually I'll get like a short break at the high school. So, I might go in there and do like a three exercise, three round warm-up. So, depending on what I'm doing, but it might be like pull-ups, push-ups, and a kettlebell carry. It might even be some machines. It might be like a lap pull-down or cable row, some sort of, you know, back exercise, back extensions, and maybe lying leg

curls. Then I'll do an exercise like a main lift. Let's say it's a front squat or a trap bar deadlift. I do a set, I change the weight, I go again. I do a set, I change the weight, I go again. So, I'll do a main lift for like two easy sets and then like three tough sets, then everything's like a circuit finisher. So, you know, I might do things like 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 reps on pull-ups and push-ups or pull-ups and dips, or I might go through similar to how I warmed up, but just go for like seven, eight, nine minutes and push it. Here in my office and in the basement area, I have an 80 pound body tempering roller. And I remember you telling me about the 50 reps of each exercise. So normally I come down in the morning, I do calisthenics, like 25 squats, 25 pushups, and then some sort of abs, dead bugs, maybe bird dogs, maybe V-ups and then some sort of abs dead bugs maybe bird dogs maybe v-ups but now i've been

grabbing the 80 pound roller and doing zurcher squat zurcher good morning and like yeah honey thompson does this like whipping exercise but it's an 80 pounder it's freaking hard so yesterday i was watching like to decompress i uh i don't watch much TV, but I started watching that girl who's like that chess prodigy. I know what you're talking about. I haven't seen it, but yeah. I love chess, so it's a good show. But like, all right, every 30 minutes, I'm going to do five to 10 squats, five to 10 good mornings, and then like five of those whips to each side. If I'm lifting at my gym, I've got a knee that's going to have to get fixed the end of the spring. But I like to get like a bodybuilding style warmup that's done as a circuit. Then I do a main lift. And I usually couple that main lift with something small, dead bugs, band face pulls,

band pull-aparts. And then I go back to a finisher. So like I did a lower body workout last week. I did belt squats, standing leg curls, Bulgarian split squats, back extensions, band work. I went through that twice. Then I did band squats with the safety bar five by five. And then I finished with another circuit of belt squats, standing leg curls, Bulgarian split. I ain't messing around, guys. I ain't got time to be weak. I ain't got circuit of belt squats, standing leg curls, floor gear and splits. I ain't messing around, guys.

I ain't got time to be weak. I ain't got time to be weak, man. Yeah. Dude, I love that. I've really started to, you know, it's been two years of this. And what I've really settled on is just the commitment to just trying to do it throughout the day versus doing it all. So I like hop on the – I have a one-mile loop that goes around my neighborhood versus doing it all. All at once. That's a healthy way.

I have a one-mile loop that goes around my neighborhood that I try to walk four or five times a day. Excellent. That's 15 minutes. Typically, I try to do it with family as much as possible. I do one of them at 545 in the morning when no one's awake. But then I'll try and hit a 5K on my erg in between writing calls standing podcast standing erg right no the the rower oh the row erg i'm trying to uh i want to get a versa climber because

i want to my neighbor has one and oh my gosh i almost got the cops called on me like three months ago because i saw they had one in their garage and i was like no way is that thing getting used no normal human i was like i'm either training with that person or i'm buying that thing off of you and establish a pecking order by taking it and the wife is backing out of the garage and i like knocked on her window and i was like she like had this like uh like uh please step away from the car and i was like the verse climber does it get used yeah like yeah my husband does it and i was like does he use it a lot like could i buy it off of I was like, does he use it a lot? Like, could I buy it off of him a lot? Or does he use it and I need to come over to your house? She was like, no, he's on it a decent amount.

And then as soon as COVID hit, I noticed that he went and got a cage. And I was like, dude, we need to be best friends. You went and bought a cage because you knew it was about to be slim picket. You bought a power rack? Yeah. Bought a power rack. Yeah. to be slim picket you bought a power rack yeah bought a power rack yeah okay yes so i i want to my because of my knee that's the one thing i miss i want to be able to run hills i miss that

and so i want to get a versa climber i'm not so sure i want to be on the air don i could see me really working that versa climber and just playing rocky for soundtrack yeah that thing's so nasty i want but they're like two grand or something they're crazy yeah i don't i didn't realize that so i'm gonna uh i'm keeping my eyes peeled on facebook marketplace um yeah that and then uh i really the emom aesthetics program that we there's like the 20 to 30 minute one is like the perfect flow for me where i just have four exercises in the day go in max reps in a minute switch exercises max max reps in a minute i still try to lift heavy but do it in the like five to eight rep range versus the the one to three the heavy single for a day i may if i'm if i slept well um maybe build up to a heavy single but i really try and save those

days for when i get to talk shit to travis in person yeah listen travis he does this look at his shoulder see i asked you what happened. That's right. You busted up his shoulder. You got to be – I only missed two weeks of training. I rode a 5K almost every single day. Did good mornings. Everything that I could, like, do without having to totally, totally hurt myself.

That was a tough month, though though of trying to train without like you don't realize that you when you can't even pick things up with it it emotionally it's what's tough pick on travis smash travis there's only so many like single arm kettlebell deadlifts that you can do before you're like, I, the day that I, it heals you. It training. This is another thing I constantly harp on with athletes. You broke your finger and that's it.

We're not training anymore. Everything's over. That is a common issue amongst these kids. And you know what? Doctors will tell them, all right, your wrist is broken. It's not

worth it to do anything why can't i pull a sled why can't i do one-arm kettlebell work back extension squat jumps lunging and so movement is the ultimate medicine it's the ultimate therapy you want you know if you're a dad out there you want to be better at anything train you want your kids to feel better about stuff show them how to train train with them and yeah and uh like i said i don't really coach my kids when they're with me in the gym i just put that they they join in on groups with the other kids yeah and i remember i remember uh i read an old article from ronnie coleman in a bodybuilder magazine you know back when he was like on top of the world now if you look you look at Ronnie, you can see he's just, he's just totally banged up from all the, all the stuff that he did over the years. But, but back then he was like, you

know, one of, he was the best person bodybuilder in the world. And the question that was posed to him in that article was, uh, have you ever been injured? Have you ever, have you ever had something that kept you from training? Um, what, what do I do when i get hurt and he was like are you kidding me i have never not been injured ever like i'm always injured there's always something nagging there's always something broken there's always something there's just always something yeah you gotta just learn how to train around it if you let an injury stop you then you're gonna fall out really quick it's so interesting too doug i was i was rowing a 5k yesterday and like you just watch your brain in the middle of that as you're going to fall out really quick. It's so interesting too, Doug. I was rowing a 5K yesterday and you just watch your brain in the middle of that as you're counting strokes or whatever your rhythm is.

And I still can't really do a lot of things because of my shoulder. But I was just there thinking about how lucky I was that I never get hurt. And then all of a sudden I was like, wait a second. I don't really have a shoulder right now doug was at my house two years ago and i partially tore my bicep tendon oh i also like shattered big toes dropping weights on them but in my brain i've never stopped so it's like this mental thing of like no i've never really like you work around it hurt i've never had to have surgery i've never had to like never been sidelined and mentally i just keep going and have this if you were to it hurt i've never had to have surgery i've never had to like never been

sidelined and mentally i just keep going and have this if you were to ask me i'm like yeah i've had some things but like i don't really like think about it it's not me this whole time i've been like missing coaching you know like you know being the majority of what i do until you said that i was like this whole time i'm like you know i should start getting a few kids and until you said that. I was like, this whole time I'm like, you know, I should start getting a few kids. And then you said that, the pinky thing. And then I remembered why I quit. It was like, I am in the wrong era for me to be touching those kids.

It is, look. I want to tell them the truth. You are a pussy. That's your problem. Yeah. That is your problem right there. Yeah. And if my son came to me, he's like,

Dad, I hurt my finger. I don't think I'm going to work out. I would tell him the truth. Here's the you but here's what you're being you know i'm waiting for them they're like my mom will let me well fight back and tell them you want to work around this and then right that it's it's actually heartbreaking because i'm like dude you're telling me you don't want to work around the wrist, the foot, that like you don't want to work around it. Somebody messaged me today. I can't do this assignment because I hurt my knee in football.

First of all, football hasn't been played for like two weeks here. And guess what? Upper body, push-ups and abs. Get it done. That's what blows my mind. So I got to go in like two minutes guys but i think whether you're a an adult a kid there is always a way and you want to be very careful about becoming good at making excuses it's just crap yeah crap where can they find you my man uh strong life podcast zachstrength.com and just google that

shit right all over the internet i love saying google that shit travis bash oh uh masterly.com and i don't know when this is gonna come out but i have a really cool book coming out when is it it comes out this week we're gonna going to do it. About kids? Yeah. Strength PhD. No, that one's going to take me about a year because I'm gathering all the literature on it right now. But no, this one is just like all about biomechanics and like how to easily relate them to like CrossFit, weightlifting. Whatever it is you do, you'll be able to understand the mechanics.

You'll understand the equations. I simplified it too. Like I took all this crap that i'm all right we'll do a full show on it yeah full show on it all right good doug larson you bet find me on instagram douglas larson zach good to see you buddy i know man i miss you guys got to do some sort of reunion gig yeah it'll happen master a new house out in the middle of nowhere it's gonna be beautiful Lake Yeah we'll get a boat

And then we'll have a big party We're going back To Miami Beach One of these days We're gonna get another Coke mansion Coke mansion For real though

We did That place had a 13 or 14 That place was dope They had a bench in the back With a preacher Bench attached to it That's all you need

If you're a Coke dealer Just enough to posture Get a pump. Look at those arms. I'm Anders Varner. At Anders Varner, we are Barbell Shrugged. Barbell underscore shrugged. Barbell shrugged.com forward slash diesel dad.

Make sure you're a part of class two coming in January. And also, if you are in San Diego, L.A., Palm Springs, or Vegas, get into Walmart right now. Three programs on the shelf for strength endurance and fat loss Walmart and walmart.com coming soon friends we will see you next week that's a wrap friends make sure you get over to barbell shrug.com forward slash diesel dad that is where all the busy dads getting strong lean and athletic without sacrificing family fatherhood or fitness for everybody that wants to go check out Organifi at Organifi.com forward slash shrug the green, the red, and the gold.

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