Barbell Shrugged - The Art, Science & Psychology of Teaching Technique w/ Doug Larson - 227

Episode Date: September 21, 2016

Doug Larson returns to the show, but this time as our guest!  We put him on the spot and ask him the questions this time.  Tune in and see how he thinks about teaching technique.  Must listen episode.

You didn't assign me to a roll. What am I supposed to fucking say? You go higher. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're all fucking. I'm low. You're middle. You're high.

Okay, okay. That makes more sense. Ready? Fuck it. This week on Barbell Shrugged, Doug Larson comes home and joins us for an episode all about technique. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged.

For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Counts, it's how you use it. I didn't get that at all when I was a little kid because I didn't understand dick jokes at the time. What's funny to me is I watch movies now, and I can't remember lines like I used to back in the day. You were all about quoting movies. I know, but, like, at one point it just stopped.

I don't know. It's like my brain stopped, you know, drinking them in so much. Like, it just – Well, I feel like movies – I think I hit a certain age, and maybe I quit watching them 12 times. You quit watching Billy Madison? That's probably what it was. There are some movies that are classic and very, very quotable.

Like, the last one I can remember is the original Anchorman, the first Anchorman. I didn't watch the second one because I heard it was shit. But how many times did you watch it? Like a million fucking times. Right. So like nowadays I don't watch movies repetitively like that anymore. I think because back then you had it like on DVD or VHS. So it was just like you popped it in again over and over and over.

That's true, man. Growing up, man, I watched the same movies like 20, 30 times. Like all the Inanna Joneses, Cliffhanger. Oh, yeah. Kindergarten Cop. Yeah. I've seen Kindergarten Cop so many times. Like all the Inanna Joneses, Cliffhanger. Oh, yeah. Kindergarten Cop. Yeah. I've seen Kindergarten Cop so many times. Man, it's a great movie.

What is your daddy and who – What is your daddy and what does he do? Young kids just want to watch the same tape over and over, like Max and May right now. All they want to do is watch the same – Is Riley like that? My kid's like that. I'll read the same book four times in a row.

Every night. He's just like, more, more. It's supposed to be like that, but he goes like this. Like, aren't you tired of this story? No. Man, every night before bed, like all of middle school,

I watched D2, The Mighty Ducks. Oh, yeah? Every single night. Oh, that's why you're a hockey player, right? Yeah, I only made it like 20 minutes in

most of the time, but like, man, I can recite that movie start to finish. Is it because it was the only one you had or you just really liked it? Yeah, it was the only one

I had on VHS. That's how it worked back then. Yeah, no, that's it. I had one movie. It's so comforting. I guess it was my Independence Day. D2. Oh, man. Yeah, that's such a good one. I had Independence Day on VHS.

What was your opinion, Mike, of Mighty Ducks 3? I thought Mighty Ducks 3 was pretty good. If you're a real hockey fan and a Mighty Ducks fan, you're going to like them all. Do you remember it very well? Not as well as D2. D2 was the best one well? Not as well as D2. D2 was the best one. I don't even remember D2. In my opinion.

That was when they were Team USA and they played Iceland. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they played Iceland. That's right. D3 was when they went to, like, a private school or, like, a prep school. Oh, that one was stupid as hell. I remember that now. That one was so stupid.

They should have stopped after two, man. Hey, did they leave it open-ended for a four maybe? I don't remember, man. I feel like they made like maybe like a – you know how Free Willy? They had Free Willy 2. Back to Free Willy. Back on Free Willy. That's right.

And then they had Free Willy 3, which was bullshit. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I'm going to go – And the Santa Claus, the same thing. Like Home Alone 3? Yeah, yeah, Home Alone 3. You just had –

Totally different kid? Totally different kid. Oh, yeah. You didn't even know like who the fuck is this kid? It's a completely different plot and you didn't even know who the fuck is this kid and it's a completely different plot. It's a good story. If they do a part two

or a part three and the main character is a different actor, you know you should watch that shit. It's direct-to-video. Direct-to-video. They don't even have

any fucking movie release. Straight to DVD. This summer. Man. That's so funny. What the fuck are we talking about? Yeah, welcome to

Bobo Shrug. I'm your host, Mike McGoldrick, here with Alex Macklin. Yo. CTV behind the camera. What up? And we're joined? Yeah, welcome to Barbell Shrug. I'm your host, Mike McGoldrick, here with Alex Macklin. Yo. CTV behind the camera. What up? And we're joined today with the famous Doug Larson.

Doug! Good to be back. Welcome back to the show, man. Thanks. So awesome you're in town. Yeah, man. We got an exciting episode today. We're going to talk all about some technique, specifically certain movements, how much to

do, a whole slew of it. So before we get started, though, I want to take a second to thank our sponsors, Ex Officio Underwear. I actually bought these underwear five years ago before I went to Africa. Now, they sell their slogan as 10-day underwear, which you can wear them for 10 days straight, which is pretty disgusting. I don't recommend that. But I've had these for five years now, and they're still lasting.

Have you washed them? I have washed them. How long did you go? 10 days? Did you try the full 10 days? Of course not. No. I bought like eight pair.

I feel like he just has some nasty skin marks after like day three, man. You just have to wash those just out of. For real, though. They're the best underwear. You only buy black. You only buy black. So if you like really hate buying underwear every three years, get these.

They'll last you like five years. Okay. Send us a check. Yeah. I don't even know if they make them anymore. So, anyways. Was that a real plug? I don't know.

That's just bullshit. Last week we had PVC pipes. Yeah, yeah. It was the moment. We also want to thank big-ass fans for keeping us cool right now. Yeah, that should be a real plug. That is a real plug. These things are awesome.

Yeah, those things. It's like a helicopter blade up there keeping the whole damn gym. That terrifies me. It really does. The whole gym is windy. You can stand in the corner way over there, and it's still windy. Everywhere in the gym, it's awesome. Tell your story.

It's like 90 degrees. What's my story? Tell your story. Wasn't it you who threw a soccer ball? Oh, yeah. I was kicking a ball up and down, trying to juggle it, and I kicked it up really high. If you look at this fan as it's spinning,

it doesn't look like it's going that fast, but if you watch the perimeter of it, it is moving. The ball hit it, and it rocket launched into that wall 90 miles an hour, just straight beam line. I was like, oh, shit, we can't do that again. Then it was a Final Destination movie in here, and that thing comes crashing down. I also, those movies are the shit.

I like all those movies. Two days before a competition once too, I was actually climbing a rope right here and I got to the very top and like did my last push to touch the beam

and the rope snapped and I fell and landed like Spider-Man in the bottom. You remember that? I remember the concept of that. There was a lawsuit

and everything. You don't remember that? Yeah, you sued the gym. I don't remember. I don't remember the details. It was like five years everything. You don't remember that? Yeah, you sued the gym. I don't remember. I don't remember the details. It was like five years ago. It was crazy. That was back before we had those looped ropes.

It was pretty cool. Back then, it was literally tethered up with just some string. Now we only buy the highest quality ropes, which is why that rope is like half the diameter that a normal rope is. The bottom is so frayed. We need new ropes. I just realized there's probably listeners out there who – this is is actually doug you're one of the owners of this gym that's very true and this is where we started the show hence the banner in the background that's right we start they start the show started here to just

start at the old old place oh you were filling technique videos though there though no we start technique right here i started technique right there. That was 4th of July, 2011. And then Barbell Shrug started out six months later. They started as totally separate projects, and then eventually we decided to bring them together. Barbell Shrug kind of caught some traction, and people were really starting to enjoy the show. And then it just kind of made sense that since we were already doing this

little short, like, five-minute clip of, like, of in the gym, practical application, how-to type videos with Technique, we would just tie them into Barbell Shrug. That's the commercial. And you were doing them on your phone i was like let's make these crunk i was that yeah cdp saw those we still have those they're still online yeah they're actually on we're at faction strength and conditioning so those early technique wide videos aren't on the barbell shrug youtube account they're on the faction strength so if you want to see like the early early early ones where ones where I'm teaching the very first round of weightlifting technique,

again, I'm doing it right over there with the very first smartphone that I ever had, that shot. The very first smartphone I ever had. It was the first one I ever had. And that was the key. I got a new smartphone that did HD video, and you could upload straight to YouTube from the phone. So all of a sudden, video became really, really easy. I'd just record it, upload it right then, write a little thing on my phone, and then it was just done.

There was no, I didn't do any editing. Like, you can see me, like, I'm, like, on the phone, hitting the thing, and then, like, I run over, and, like, I talk to it. I kind of yell at it across the room, and then I run back over to it, and I turn it off on the videos. Like, they're not fancy.

Could you trim back then? You couldn't? So, like, is there actually you running back and forth in the video? It was probably possible, but I didn't even do it. Gotcha. So, yeah, so CTP saw that, and he was just like, ah, okay, we got to clean these and he was just like, ah, okay.

We got to clean these things up. We could easily make that better. Yeah. Not because they were bad, just because we had the ability to do it. Right. Yeah, what a great segue in today's show. We were going to talk about you starting up technique-wide. Like, man, I get people still all the time writing us emails,

thanking us for all the videos that you made. And I learned a ton from those as well. And I was also very grateful when you asked me to be on some. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, you're on one of the most popular ones. The Double Unders. Double Unders, man. That was one of our most popular episodes for sure.

Yeah, me and you did the Olympic Snatch and Clean series, Clean and Jerk series. If there's anyone to teach it really well, it's Doug, because if you've ever trained with Doug or watched Doug train, he has really, really good technique. You're very sharp and precise on everything you do. And like, you just, I don't, I've never seen you like break down in a movement. Yeah. I had a very unique upbringing with respect to strength and conditioning where a lot of people say like, we have good technique and we pride ourselves on

technique, but like, I literally was not fucking allowed to use any bad technique. It just, it just was not a thing. And if I, if I use bad technique on a rep, it was like, stop. Done. Back away. Okay, are you too tired? What happened? I wasn't Metconning. I wasn't CrossFit back then. I was literally just doing strength conditioning and weightlifting. I started working with that

particular guy, Mark Real, who runs Real Performance in Washington. Mark's a good dude. Mark's an awesome dude. great strength coach still a very good friend of mine to this day and and um you know i was very fortunate that he kind of took me under his wing and and and coached me since i was again like 15 years old and he was very conscious of what good technique was and he had very high standards and i think i think that is really the key a lot of people know what good technique is but if you let your athletes get away

with bad technique then now they have bad technique even if you intellectually psychologically understand that they should have better technique and you should say something to them if you don't and you don't uphold that very high standard yeah and they break down well now all of a sudden they don't have good technique even if you know they should and they know they should reality is that they didn't and if you didn't go in there and say something and fix it or make it make a tweak a modification stop them educate them or whatever then then their technique won't probably be as good as it as it could be yeah so that's that's a hard thing to deal with as a coach too because like it takes patience across that yeah it takes patience from a coach because for one like you need to trust that what you're doing is is really good for them and then

also you need to keep them interested so how how, when Mark was bringing you up, teaching you everything, like how did you stay interested? Or was it just because you were basically a clean slate? I kind of was a clean slate in many ways. I was very fortunate myself that I grew up doing gymnastics. And so when I was younger, I did gymnastics and I ended up having

essentially four inch motion everywhere my whole entire life. Ah, You bastard. Until I got my shoulder kind of cranked out of place in an MMA fight and I had shoulder surgery, then that was like the first time ever that I had like a range of motion issue post-surgery. I've had some range of motion issues with my left shoulder. But prior to that, my whole entire life, I had no range of motion issues. And so for Mark to come in and teach me good technique, he's like, do it like this.

And I go like that. And he goes, yeah, like that. Like aside from Olympic lifts, where there was a little bit more to learn for the basics of any other movement, squats and dead lifts and pushups and pull-ups and all that, it was just kind of assumed that I could do it right off the bat. So really it was the Olympic lifts that were the thing that I actually had to practice

technique on that. It took me a long time to really refine my weightlifting technique. And it took about eight years before I really kind of said, OK, I'm not done, but I'm pretty much done. That's like 99% as good as I think I can get it. And then I kept that technique until about a couple years ago. And then I actually came back after six or seven years later

and made a few other little tiny, very minor tweaks. But, you know, it takes a long time to get to where you think you, like, are settled. I think I have, like, the technique that I want, and I'm good. I'm comfortable with it. I don't think it needs to be changed. Like, it fits my body type correctly, and I feel good. It doesn't beat me up, et cetera, et cetera. It takes a long time to get there.

But for me, having very high standards with my training growing up, I really think was the key to ensure that I had good technique even when I got tired. Even when I started doing CrossFit and doing Metcons, I still never really broke down on my technique because I'd never, ever not done a perfect rep. I was only allowed to do perfect reps. I remember, what was that one open one? It was like maybe 2015 or 2014, the deadlift box jump one. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, where you had to deadlift, and then the weight increased on the deadlift, and then you had to box jump. Well, like everybody we saw on videos, their back was just like totally rounded, and everybody was just smoked after that workout. But, Doug, did the entire thing. You worked up to like what, like almost like 315, 330 pull? I think the last set that I did, like right before the clock, like I got off the box and I jumped down and I did my last set at 315.

Yeah, that was the heaviest weight. Eight touch and go unbroken. Yeah. Perfectly neutral the whole time. And, yeah, Doug's back was like completely neutral, like just nice and tight and locked. And I think I made an Instagram post. I'm like, yeah, you see, you could do the CrossFit

without completely rounding your back and doing the stuff. yeah that was really that was really cool to see and i'm like yeah well doug doug is the technique guy that's why now it certainly is possible i mean yeah like if you i i mean we preface this so if you if you are like at the absolute absolute edge of your ability and you are super super super tired then then you might falter a little bit the the only time that i can consciously remember myself rounding my back on something was was that powerlifting meet we did the spf meet and i yeah i pulled i pulled 501 perfectly flat and then and then i pulled 510 my for my my third attempt that day and i rounded like a little bit and i remember i remember pulling thinking like holy shit like like it felt in your head it was in your

head it was probably so bad. But on video it was probably just literally like. Yeah, it's exactly right. Like my back had never moved. Like my low back had never moved at all. It was always just totally straight. And it kind of like went like that. And I felt there was movement there.

And like just for a second I was like, what the hell is going on? I'm broken. I was like, am I safe? Yeah, I'm totally fine. Like I'm not actually like in danger. But, yeah, all that to fine. I'm not actually in danger. But yeah, all that to show, I'm not this infallible thing as far as technique goes. But that was the edge of my limit.

That was my deadlift record. Prior to that, I did 500 and then 510. My deadlift record up to that point was 501, 227.5 kilos. I think I had a video of that on YouTube. It was the one in Nashville, right? Yeah, it's on someone's account yeah i watched it the other day yeah yeah you can google it and you can look at my back and see how much i round i don't round a whole lot but i remember feeling it yeah and so because that was like a pr attempt and it was like at the edge of my ability is the end of a powerlifting competition in competition and it mattered i did i did let it slip for sure so so if that is a habit though, then it's gonna be a problem.

And if you train like that every day, then you're going to do that in competition. I never, ever, ever trained like that. And so in competition, I let it slide just a little bit, but if you train like that every single day in practice, it's gonna be impossible not to do it when it comes to competition. Not just like once in your whole life.

I know you were always saying, you were always talking about technical maxes where you know you work up to a max effort with like almost perfect technique and you're really big on that and that was something that kind of clicked for me when i was working with you like coming up is like yeah you can go and pull maybe 530 or 540 but what happens to your back and what happens to your form you know when you start to pull that yeah you may get it off the ground but but you continue to lift like that, and it's going to cause problems. I like how you always, like you pulled 5'10", but that was the limit.

That was your limit. That's something you never hear nowadays is the technical max. The technical max, yeah. You might see coaches write it a lot. It's like, Bill, do a tough single with perfect form or however you want to say it. But, yeah, I mean, that's a great way to keep someone safe

in training and like, maybe let them look at it differently than saying, putting the brakes on so much. If you say, technical max today,

they're like, cool, you know, I want to try and max that out. And it's like, it's so different than saying like,

go be safe, you know, push hard, but not too hard. Yeah. Because it just, it's looked at totally differently. Especially when you mix it

with what you just said, which is like, you said you rounded your back in a meet. It's like who gives a fuck what you lifted in the gym? Why even risk it? Yeah, meets are about looking good on paper. In the gym, you want to look good no matter what. You want to keep yourself safe.

You want to be injury-free. But when it comes to the meet, what you actually post on the board is what counts, assuming you don't actually hurt yourself in the meet. There's always a balance of safety and performance, but it's assumed that in a meet, especially if it's the very last lift of the day, you can push it a little harder and do something that's kind of on the edge of safe versus not safe.

But I like what you're saying about the technical maxes. You have to, in my opinion, the best way to get someone to do something different is to make it something different. If you just say, go do your max, but just you know, just make sure that you don't, like – Just half-ass it today. I'm working on technique. If you told me that – Not a chance, dude.

Yeah, you're going to throw all the weight on the bar. Be conservative. Like, don't hurt yourself. Like, okay, yeah, whatever. Yeah, yeah. It took me a long time to get over that. Now, because I'm getting older, I actually listen to that stuff. Well, it also gives you a new place to look at, like you kind of said.

Like, you know, if you have your technical max and you have your one rep max, if you're always trying to think about focusing on improving your technical max and getting that up, then can we call, can we, can we hashtag that or something now and make it probably, because I'm so tired of seeing like, this is my new back squat PR,

no sleeves, no wraps, no blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

blah, blah, blah, The list goes on. It's like, ah, just call it a technical max or something different. Sorry.

Sure. We can. If we can't start it up yeah i mean and another thing to that too is that yeah if you train with good technique and you're working with heavy weights uh that's how you end up gonna improve your absolute max in the first place anyways yeah yeah you're only gonna get strong in the positions that you actually train in so if you want to have a a perfectlift, that's a very, very high number. If you want to deadlift, you know, five, six, seven hundred pounds or whatever, and you want to be able to do it with perfect technique, then you have to do all your reps in practice like that.

Like if you pull reps in practice and you round your back every time, your back will get stronger in those positions. Like you still might be doing some wear and tear to your spine if you're going into spinal flexion as you're pulling a deadlift. But you will get stronger in whatever position you train in and so by doing technical maxes and only doing technical technically perfect reps that you'll get strong in a position that you want to get strong in and if you don't maintain technique then yeah you won't all right oh so go ahead is it a short one or a long one well Well, I don't know. Just go ahead. Erased. It's probably pretty long.

My bad. Yeah. So I want to play from the other side of that now, play devil's advocate on it. So how much is too much technique? How much of that can actually limit performance gains if you're too focused with technique and you're being too safe? Right. You can absolutely do too much technique like if your technique is is good then you don't need to grab a pvc pipe as an example and do 20 minutes of technique work every single

day like if your technique's pretty good then just get to training and or if if you really have a movement where where your technique is not as good as it should be then you know maybe you maybe say that's a you can't power clean correctly you like you you don't scoop well you can't hit any pockets like you're you're not on your heels when you should be you don't get full extension or whatever like you can do you know 10-15 minutes of of power cleans and work on that technique every day yeah but then really the majority of your training should probably just be getting your front squat higher you're getting your raw numbers you're getting higher because technique you should be able to assuming you have good mobility your technique should take you a couple years to get 90% good

and then the whole rest of your life to get to 100%. But you want to get to, like, 90%. That's going to take you a couple years, but it's going to take you your whole damn life to get strong. Yeah. Like, getting strong and having enough mobility, those are, like, the two big things, and you can learn technique. If you have enough mobility and you're strong

and then you can learn technique in a couple years, like, at the most, then you're fine. Yeah. But some people do focus way too much on technique while their raw numbers are pretty damn low yeah like if you're if you are like worrying about the nuances of your clean and you only front squat 230 who cares go live some more shit go get stronger yeah like strength should be that's a strength should be the real thing there. So if you have glaring mobility issues, like you have no ankle mobility or something like that, well, working on your clean technique from the floor,

it's kind of a fruitless effort. Like you're never going to be able to do it correctly because your ankles don't bend well enough. So, okay, well, don't worry about practicing technique because it's not an effort-driven thing. It's not practice that's going to make your technique better. You need to fix your mobility. And then good technique becomes possible.

And then, of course, working on it becomes a reasonable suggestion. But while you're doing some type of a modification for something like we mentioned the power clean, maybe you're doing just hang cleans or tall cleans or something like that, tall power cleans, and you're working on some aspect that you can do 80% correctly at least, depending how bad your ankle mobility is,

maybe you can't do that perfectly correct either, but you should be working on your mobility, trying to fix that up, working on some variation of the movement that you're trying to perfect that you can do correctly enough to not hurt yourself, and then spend the rest of your time doing, again, some other variation that can get you strong. So in that case, maybe, even though it's not like a weightlifting thing

maybe you're doing box squats or like wider overload the simple movements break down yeah break down the more complicated movements into simpler components that you can do without you know yourself yeah if you don't have really good ankle build you can still get very strong in in a variety of ways you can still do super heavy split squats and super heavy lunges and super heavy deadlifts and rack pulls and uh and box squats and wide stance powerlifting squats anything with a vertical shin you can still get really strong doing good mornings and rdls and have no ankle mobility issues that prevent you from doing those movements correctly yeah when i heard well sorry when i heard my back uh i mean you you remember like you wrote you wrote me some programming to do while I was recovering,

and my squat technique was all kind of jacked up. You had me basically go back to the basics and squat on a box with a kettlebell, do goblet squats to fix my squat. I mean, sometimes that's what you have to do. You have to break it down into simpler components. There's still plenty to do. There's still plenty to do, but you've got to break it down to where you're not getting to the point where you're reinforcing bad habits. Yeah, exactly. So I think that comes with creativity in your programming and as a coach because you should recognize those things when you have those kind of athletes where you want to give them enough to work on,

but at the same time you don't want to put them in a position where they can mess things up. So doing things, like you said, like the pull unders where it's like it's basically practice like you're not going to go super heavy on like tall cleans or clean pull unders it's really good technique work but maybe you kind of trick them into knowing that they're doing technique work whereas if you labeled it technique work they're gonna be like i don't care about this stuff i just want to max out my clean yeah i would argue you could still even go super heavy if you mass if you've gotten really good lifter yeah well no heavy. If you've gotten really good technique. You're a good lifter, I think. Well, no, I mean, if you've gotten really good technique,

like say you're doing like a tall clean or a tall power clean or something that, you know, like for instance you suck at squatting or receiving the bar, but you can power clean really, really well. Well, I mean, if you can do that really well, you can still work up heavy. It's just that now you're practicing good technique with heavy weight, and that's really how you progress and get better with moving that barbell. Yeah, I think kind of cycling back to the example I gave on just using a PVC pipe as an example to drill your technique.

It's only going to take you so far. So far, yeah. If someone is brand. Go back to the PVC. Silver line PVC. Thank you again. It can only take you so far. If you are brand spanking new to weightlifting, then, yeah, maybe get a PVC

and you kind of show, like, okay, here's how you do it. You've got to make sure you hit right around here and you put on your shoulders and your elbows are high and whatever. And that person, knowing nothing, goes, okay, I can practice with this PVC pipe in a really easy-to-understand way where I don't have to actually know anything to be able to achieve these positions and feel what it feels like. But then after that, as you have six months, a year, two years experience, you don't need to do a lot of PVC pipe technique work. Maybe you warm up with it for whatever reason. You clearly haven't seen the Instagram memes about going back to the PVC.

Oh, yeah, I haven't. It's so funny. Sorry, go ahead. Okay. So what I like to do at that point is instead of calling it technique work, I like to do a lot of speed reps. So if you look at what Westside does as an example. Sounds so much cooler.

Yeah, you call it speed work. Speed work. That sounds way cooler. And then you can put on 50%, 50%, 60%, 70%. Call it speed reps. If you did EMOM 70%, that'd be like the heaviest I would call speed work. If you did EMOM 50%, you did 15 reps at 50% of power snatches,

you're not going to get tired. No. But you are going to. You're going to get better at the lift. Every single lift you do in that scenario is likely going to be the highest quality lift that you can personally perform. Yeah. You're not going to be tired.

It's going to be easy. Like, you're going to want to do it fast and powerful. Yeah. Because you have like a whole minute to rest on something that's 50% of your power snatch. Like, it's not heavy. But it's enough weight where you can feel it, and you're not going to break down.

You're not going to hurt yourself. You can do that shit every single day. So it kind of functions like technique work. I like that. Speed day. But again, it's repositioned and rebranded as speed work, and speed sells. Speed is sexy, and people want to do speed work.

For sure. Typically, a Monday would be a really crushing day for me, and then Tuesdays would go in, and it would be 70% work, speed work. I would literally try and move the bar as fast as I could, focus on good technique, and I'd leave the gym feeling better that day. Even going in, I'm like, man, I'm a little tired from Monday. Had I just, you know, fought my ego and wanted to go in and, like, try and max out on another lift,

like, you just come back Wednesday better. So those sessions are a lot of fun, and they're very good for you. Yeah, you're killing two birds with one stone. I mean, especially for weightlifting. If you want to practice getting faster, a lot of coaches will say, well, you just need to move faster. Well, there you go. That's a good way to move faster.

You just load up the bar with a lighter weight and then try to move it as fast as possible with good technique. If 80% of your training was speed work, and that 50% to 75% will, even as high as 80% range, where you don't get particularly tired. There's no, even if you include things like squats, there's probably no sticking point at below 80% on a single for a squat. You're going to be able to blast right through that sticking point.

If you only went heavy one, maybe two days a week, and did all the rest of it was speed work, especially on the Olympic lifts, like all the rest of it was speed work, and then you spent the majority of the rest of your training trying to get as strong as possible then it's a very conservative way to do perfect reps on on your Olympic lifts and then get get your raw strength as as Those numbers as high as possible and then eventually your your max is on your snatch and clean jerk

Well, they will definitely go up if you only do perfect reps and you never miss and then your front squat goes from 300 to 350 To 400 well your your snatch is gonna go up. If you only do perfect reps and you never miss, and then your front squat goes from 300 to 350 to 400, well, your snatch is gonna go up too. Even if you were only doing reps at, you know, 50, 60, 70 percent, well, the 50, 60, 70 percent numbers are going to go up. Go up as well. Right. Yeah. So what about time? So let's say that, you know, you are someone who's getting into this and you need to obviously work on technique work, you need to learn some things for a little bit, but you've only got five sessions a week, an hour a day, like how much time are you actually's getting into this, and you need to obviously work on technique work. You need to learn some things for a little bit. But you've only got five sessions a week, an hour a day. How much time are you actually dedicating to this so you can actually get some good training in too?

You've got pressure from everyone else that's in here doing all the fun stuff, and you're in here watching it. How do you make it fun too? Yeah, how do we keep this interesting? What recommendations or time, at least, to spend on it? I think the first thing to figure out it i mean i think i think the first thing to figure out is why you have bad technique in the first place so if if it is simply a i just i'm brand new to this and i don't know what what to do i've never seen a snatch before

i've never seen a clean before i've never seen a muscle before then then yeah there's a rationale for doing a little more extra technique work uh compared to someone who's a little more intermediate uh if you if you get some type of an eval or mobility assessment and you realize that you just don't have very good overhead range of motion or you don't have very good ankle mobility, like I said before, or there's some actual physical limitation, well, again, you don't need to focus on technique because there's no amount of effort that can get you around those physical blocks.

So that becomes a question of how much mobility work to do rather than how much technique work to do. Yeah, a lot of people confuse the two. They're like, well, I need better technique. But really, I mean, if you look at – Oh, I've had the opposite too. Yeah, exactly. And I was going to ask you, like, well, you mentioned, like,

if you know you have bad technique or good technique, well, how do you know? I mean, you would need to get some kind of evaluation or at least, you know, evaluate yourself, like looking at videos or something like that to see, like, whether your technique is limiting. You might actually, after looking at videos or something like that to see like whether your technique is limiting you might Actually after looking at that video you might actually see it's something else. It's not your technique Yeah, I would recommend things to like maybe Maybe like on the Monday is is like a practice or a technique day or a speed work day Whatever you want to call it and then Tuesday could be like your raw work capacity your raw strength day

So you have one day that's just focused on movement quality, all the mobility work, the speed work, the technique work, and then the next day, for time purposes, you could have just pure work capacity, very simple movements, things that don't require a lot of mental capacity to do them correctly, so you can actually get some adaptation in and grow and get some good training in. Yeah. I mean, I think a really good way to throw technique work in without being bored is to utilize the rest periods between your strength work more effectively than just walking around talking to people.

Yeah. Do some mobility between it. That's huge. Yeah, having an active recovery strategy, so to speak. If you're doing heavy-weighted pull-ups, as an example, and that can be your A1 in this example, then maybe A2 is that you're doing ankle mobility work, and then A3 is that you're doing ankle mobility work, and then A3 is that you're doing, you know, barbell only.

You know, like you guys had an interview with Justin Thacker the other day. Fucking awesome dude. He's got the Thacker method, the ABCs, right? ABCs, yeah. Maybe you do a portion of the ABCs as a part of your rest period for your heavy-weighted pull-ups. So if you're doing heavy triples on pull-ups, like it's not going to be affected that much if you go do five or six reps

of some barbell work. Yeah, this isn't to be confused with, like, doing it fatigued, because-ups, it's not going to be affected that much if you go five or six reps of some barbell work. Yeah, this isn't to be confused with doing it fatigued because it's really tough to practice good technique under fatigue. That's generally not the first step. Typically, you would want to practice technique fresh. Once you've mastered that skill and it's very consistent, then you would want to start maybe adding in some fatigue to it down the line. But you don't want to do the fatigue first.

Yeah, anything that you're trying to perfect, I really think if you're going to Metcon with it, doing something like an EMOM, where, again, you're just doing triples every minute on the minute, something like that where there's a built-in automatic rest where, again, you have a condition or a structure there where you don't have to psychologically pull yourself back from performing. You know what I mean?

If you say uh you know you're gonna do metcon you're gonna do five rounds of of you know 10 pull-ups and then 15 power cleans and then 10 burpees like on the 15 power cleans like if you don't do it perfect then you're not gonna you're not going to like stop and rest start over kind of walk around just like like if it's 115 pounds you know you can just pick that up and you can be 15 unbroken you're not going to stop and wait and do picture perfect reps while everyone else in the class or everyone else that you would be competing against in your mind is sitting there just doing unbroken touch and go reps and they're fucking kicking your ass. You're not going to slow down.

So programming in a way where what you want to have happen happens automatically. If you did triples every minute on the minute, then you could do three perfect triples. And even if you did take a five or ten second break and you were doing one one one you're doing a cluster set or however you want to call it yeah um you could you wouldn't be uh you wouldn't get behind right yeah like yeah there's time to mess up and recover from it and be okay yeah in fact it's probably even a better idea to to you know do a perfect wrap and drop it and wait wait 10 seconds there's no reason you have to touch and go unless it says you're supposed to touch and go. Now, what about you hear the stories, and I'm just playing devil's advocate here. People that do better in certain lifts when they're tired,

like they learn how to do the movement better under fatigue. Because I've seen that happen a lot. Squat snatching is a really good example. Like by the end of it, they're actually fatigued. Yeah, or like a snatch ladder. Usually people start pulling under the bar better because they got to – All right, CTP. I'm just kidding.

Yeah, that's a very good question. That has never happened to me, so I don't know what that feels like. Y'all are crazy. Well, you're going to comment from experience. You're going to start the movement well. It is a thing. Yeah. I have seen people do that where they can't comment. Well, you're going to comment from experience. You're going to start the movement well. It is a thing. Yeah. I have seen people do that where they can't –

like they try to hit a PR a couple times in a row, and then they do like three burpees and then jump on the bar, and they hit it. And it's like, well, I didn't really make – I think a lot of it has to do with – It's not intuitive in some ways. I think it's more mental. You're not expecting it.

Yeah. There's no pressure. You're just like, fuck it. I think it's more mental thing than anything else. Like a lot of times people, you you know we hear paralysis by analysis they tend to overthink uh when they go to a bar they're thinking they're like okay i gotta gotta i've never heard that term with lifting it's so good oh really oh really the only place i've heard i got that constantly when i was growing up yeah that's the only place i've heard that's funny i've read it like business and books and

stuff okay yeah i mean when people tend to get and overthink what they're trying to do and then Yeah, that's the only place I've heard. That's funny. I've read it in, like, business and books and stuff. Oh, okay. Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, I mean, when people tend to get and overthink what they're trying to do, and then when they're on a clock or the pressure is on, they're just letting their bodies kind of – their minds disconnect from their body and doing what their body already knows what to do. But I think that comes from just more them practicing.

I don't think a beginner can sit there and do that. And automatically learn it. I think it's more of like in a more experienced person, they're just turning their mind off and then letting their bodies be athletic. Right. I mean, the fatigue can take whatever compensation you're using to get through the movement. If you're tired, then maybe that compensation pattern becomes where it's not an option anymore. So if you're a person, I've seen people try and do kip and pull-ups,

and they're kind of stiff and they're hanging there with bent elbows and whatnot. Even if they have full range of motion, for some reason they're trying to kip and they're hanging like this. And if they're really tired, all of a sudden they just go, ugh. Yeah. And they kind of just fall to straight arms. Same thing if you're a person who pulls deadlifts with bent arms, which some beginners try to pull deadlifts with bent arms,

which seems crazy if you've been doing this for a long time. Like, why would you even try that? But it happens. And so if someone Metcons and they get tired or if they're just tired from doing multiple reps, all of a sudden, like, doing deadlift with bent arms, they just fall away back to a straight elbow. But the point is you wouldn't practice that. I don't know.

I've got some early arm pullers that I coach. I might actually have them do, like, a max set of pull-ups and then go power clean. Well, there's also what happened to you guys yesterday with Corey Gregory. I don't know if I really do that. We were training, remember? We did all that work, and then you squat, and then you said, oh, I feel much better in this front squat because I've just been warming up

pretty much for a fucking hour. Right, right, right. Yeah, so, I mean, that could definitely have something to do with it. You get more warm and things loosen up that were tight previously, and, you know, they can get better. But I still think, like, you know, dedicating some time, you know, to practicing technique is going to be the best bang for your buck.

And not trying to do it in a Metcon, like, while you're fucking tired and gagging and throwing up everywhere. I think you need to go ahead. I was going to say, being warmed up, too, you might just be a little more into what you're doing. Like, you're kind of just – you're a little more relaxed. You're a little more whippy, I might i might want to call it so when i'm all warmed up my technique is slightly different than when i just walk in cold and pull on a bar sure

like there's something about being warm where now um now everything just kind of feels different and so that could factor in as well but but if anyone ever comes to me and says like oh i only have good technique when i'm tired i'm like well that just means that you don't have good technique at all. Yeah. Like, you just don't quite have down what you're doing. And there's nothing wrong with them saying that. Or your warm-up sucks. Yeah, their warm-up could suck, too.

But, like, anytime someone comes to me and I say, like, show me how to snatch, and they're like, oh, I can't do it with PVC. I'm like, well, like, if you knew how to snatch correctly, there's no way you shouldn't be able to do it in slow motion. Like, to be able to say, like, okay, like, here's a position, then here's a position, then here's a position. You should be able to at least demo the correct positions with a PVC pipe.

If you can't do that, then you don't really understand what you're doing. Right, right. Yeah. Silver line PVC. I want to switch gears. What's some of the most common fucked up movements you find with technique?

Like what's the big ones? what's the ones that you're just always having to come back to like oh what movements need the most attention uh well i mean certainly weightlifting is the the hardest movements to learn in crossfit uh or the people the ones that people tend to have the most emphasis on like they they tend to realize that oh wow like it looked really easy when i showed up at a crossfit gym and the guy was doing that thing but then when i tried it all of all sudden it was really complicated and like everyone was yelling like eight different things at me and I Got paralysis by analysis. And so people tend to have a very difficult time learning weightlifting gymnastics

Certainly could be like that. But we have such low level gymnastics and CrossFit that it's like we don't even get to the hard stuff So it's not it's not hard to learn the technique because we don't even try the more difficult gymnastics movements. We rarely get past anything that's considered to be a basic gymnastics skill, let alone like an ABCD level skill. Yeah, and I think the basics are – we spend way more time on the weightlifting basics than we give the attention to gymnastics that are deserved. Totally. And, you know, you talked about weightlifting. I want to name one, and I think it's kipping, just basic kipping. Yeah, basic kipping. I'll just use a bar.

I even teach a clinic on that because there are so many people that just don't even set it up correctly that I really spend an hour kind of teaching, like, this is at least where you need to have your hands, where your body position needs to be. They have no idea how it feels to actually – No idea what hollow is. Right, like no idea what a hollow position is, no idea to hang from a bar where you can actually stretch

your body out and your feet not hit the ground. I'll say, alright, everyone go hang from a bar and try and hang high enough that your feet, if you really try and stretch, they can't hit the ground. And they're all hanging and they're not touching and their toes are pulled up. And I say, alright, now literally touch the ground and they all put their feet on the ground. I'm like, no. We need to know what it's like

to be stretched out. Yeah, for something that's pretty much everywhere in CrossFit fundamental it's so fundamental it all starts there yeah and then a lot of people their kipping technique is is not where it should be yeah yeah weightlifting seems to be the one that that people have to focus on for the longest period of time it's hard as fuck yeah i mean that's biased in many ways because CrossFit is so weightlifting dominant. I would say, like, there's, as an example, there's many CrossFitters that compete in the American Open and National Championships and some that went to Worlds, but it doesn't happen the same way in gymnastics. Like, the skill level for CrossFitters on the National Worlds stage for weightlifting is pretty high compared to the rest of the population that that ever tries weightlifting but compared to gymnasts where it's relatively low level gymnastics so uh gymnastics is is a super technical very very difficult sport gymnastics

are fucking amazing athletes and and uh crossfitters just we we're not we're not really uh we're not really built to do all the high levellevel moves. If you are a very large crossfitter that's going to compete in the CrossFit Games, if you're 210 pounds and you squat 500 pounds, you've got big, big legs, then you're not going to be doing iron crosses and Malteses on the rings. You're not set up to even try that. People think that muscle-ups are a hard, high-level skill, but they're actually one of the most basic things in gymnastics. This is how I get up there.

It's super basic. I think maybe some of that comes from weightlifting, too. You can just measure your progress so much easier. Week to week, if you're a beginner weightlifter, you can measure progress week to week. You can get five pounds on a lift every week for a year or so. But gymnastics, it's much harder to do that. The progress is a lot slower.

Maybe not slower, but it's just harder to see, in my opinion. So maybe that's just part of our nature is like we just kind of want it quicker, want it now. Well, could you take the whole thing that we talked about earlier about using it as a technical max? Like if you look at like your muscle-ups, like can you do a max set? I think that's a great idea. Like a max set of like technical max. Perfect muscle-ups or a perfect L-sit. Or a perfect ring support hold.

Or just a hold in general, like looking at it that way and breaking it down. With my clients, I have a ton of isometric holds that we test. And I try to get them to do it with, actually, I need to do that. I just learned something today. Thank you. To have more technical maxes on these isometric holds. We have maxes on the holes But I don't make it clear enough. I guess that it needs to be

Absolutely perfect technique. I say that but now we're gonna we're gonna reword it very cool. I'm excited. I'm new to it now Yeah, I want to back it up and ask you so I want to back it up So how do you kind of how do you teach technique because I mean you you did technique wads wads, and how do you like to teach it? I can take that many different ways, but I think the easiest way is just to demo the movement, show them what it's supposed to look like, show them what it's not supposed to look like, and then go back and show them what it is supposed to look like.

What I find a big mistake is for a lot of people is that there's a very high assumption of knowledge. You've been doing something for a really long time. Oh, huge. Where you think someone knows more than they do. They don't know anything. You think that they're going to know, like, some of the basics, and then you say, okay. Or use terms or anything like that.

Like, you can't just be using terms out there and just throwing jargon. Totally. Some CrossFit coach will walk out there and be like, okay, just demo squat real quick. Just make sure your knees don't go valgus. And they're like, valgus. Oh, okay. Baltimore. Baltimore.

Vipotamus. Got it. Hey, that's the name you shouldn't say. But, yeah, so I've seen CrossFit coaches before. They'll tell the athlete what not to do over and over and over again, but they don't tell them what to do. To do. And so the assumption when you tell somebody what not to do over and over and over again but they don't tell them what to do so the

assumption when you tell somebody what not to do is that they know if they're not if they don't do that they know what they should be doing which isn't always the case even if you told them before um i try to always bias when i when i coach and or mentor and or teach in any fashion i try to make sure that i always tell people what to do and i don't just tell them what not to do yeah like even even down to like my my one and a half-a-half-year-old kid, if he, like, throws a banana across the room, and, like, when he's eating, I don't say, no throwing. I say, no, no, buddy, you can put the banana on your plate

or you can put it in your mouth. You can put it on a plate or in your mouth. This is awesome. If I ever have kids, I'm going to you. He's doing parenting, Wad. Why even show them what not to do? I've had coaches say that they never even demo a bad rep because some people may not have even seen it before,

but now they have that idea in their head. That's a good question. There's a good rationale for that, I think. Depends on the person. So I'm a person who the reason I started Technique WOD and that I like this world is because there's so much to learn, and I'm a why-based person. If I don't know why I'm doing something then I won't do it like if you tell me a solid

logical rationale for why I need to do something then I go okay and now I don't have to memorize it I understand it and I won't do it anymore so so we just mentioned the valgus knee thing so if your knees dive dive together and your your toes point now your knees dive in you're now twisting your knee as opposed to bending it you get MC MCL problems. You get meniscus problems. You get ACL tears, et cetera. Okay, well, now I know that I'm going to tear my knee. I'm going to blow my ACL if I do that with any amount of weight, and my knee dives in too much, and I'm going to hurt my knee.

Okay, well, now that I understand that's how, that is the physical mechanical mechanism for tearing your ACL, well, I know not to do that now. And I have real motivation, not because I told you so. Right. And because you're the boss of me and you're my coach and I just blindly, infallibly, like, follow what you say. It's because I have a real rationale.

And because I understand it, now I'm motivated to do the right thing. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a huge part of getting somebody to understand, like, why they should even worry about their technique is understanding the consequences and what all can happen down the road and why you're telling them the things that you're telling, not just like, well, just do what I say because I'm the coach and you should do it, but just explaining why. Or just give them candy every time they do it right.

Yeah, I love candy. Skittles, Starbursts. Starbursts, Skittles. Ooh, I love it right. Yeah. I love candy. Skittles, Starburst. Yeah, Starburst, Skittles. Ooh, I love those things. I like little kid candy. The fruitier, the better. That was so funny. Yeah, so actually to rewind on that,

why do you want good technique? I'll tell you a cool story after the show that is not okay to tell on the show. What a hook. So why good technique? If we rewind and apply that concept that I said about, like, why would you want to have good technique in the first place?

Like, the whole point of having good technique is that, number one, you're applying the minimum amount of stress to all the joints involved with the movement. And then number two, you have the greatest mechanical advantage where with the least amount of force and effort, you can move the most weight.

So that's why technique is important in the first place. So with the example that I just gave a second ago with the valgus knees and your knees diving in, toes out, knees in, twist your knee, tear your ACL. Well, that's way too much stress on the knee because you had the bag technique and now you're hurt. So if you did it correctly with, say, your front squatting in this example you're doing a front squat with a totally vertical torso knees perfectly in line with with your toes you're going to have a much easier job lifting the most weight with that vertical torso if you're if you had bad technique that wasn't necessarily dangerous but you're doing it wrong like you're pushing your butt back and you're bending too far forward and your elbows are dropping well now you're not going to be able to lift as much weight because mechanically you're not as strong because

you don't have that vertical torso yeah you know what and if you if you came to me if i was a beginner and you were teaching me how to front squat and you told me all the things that could happen, I'm not necessarily going to believe you would buy into it because it hasn't happened to me yet. Right. And that's just kind of how we operate sometimes. Totally. We usually react to things that happen. Whereas if you told me I could get more out of this lift if I corrected it this way, I would probably respond to that much better. So maybe that's a good coaching takeaway,

like is to don't necessarily always show them what's going to be bad or the bad things that are going to happen, but say like you did that really well, but you could get a lot more weight. Ooh, we all like that. If you actually set your body up this way, I would respond to that better. If you eat that donut, you're going to get diabetes versus if you don't eat donuts, you're going to get all the chips. You're going to get abs, bro. Yeah, I mean, if you're a coach, you're going to get diabetes versus if you don't eat donuts, you're going to get all the chips. You're going to get abs, bro.

Yeah, I mean, if you're a coach, you're coaching a CrossFit class, and you have 20 people. It's a big CrossFit class, but let's say you have 12 people, and you have two people that are brand new, and you don't want the 10 people that have been there for two years to have to wait while you coach these two people. What I tend to do in a situation like that for making sure that they have good enough technique we don't hurt themselves is i'll just demo something for them yeah and then i won't say anything i'll just say here try that real quick and then and then they'll try it and then i'll just talk about the one or two things that you know what you need to like have better posture or make sure you're pushing these out or or whatever just just fix the two little things yeah whatever they happen to be and go that looks perfect man great job and then over time if that

person stays at your gym, as an example, or they're your client for years. And you add to it. Yeah, you can work on giving them all the details, but they might not need all the details the very first time out the gate. You just, if they try it and they look pretty good, you go, great job, man. I think a lot of people tend to, and coaches do this. I was guilty of this for a long time,

is I tended to over-coach and over-correct and give way too much right off the gate. Like you just need to figure out like maybe like the one, really maybe even the one thing that's like the most screwed up and then have them fix that. And then once you get to a point where, okay, they've got that down, then they can – you've got to kind of triage the correction. Right. Yeah, the analysis paralysis that you talked about earlier,'s that's how stuff like that happens in my opinion where you've been you've

been told so many things by so many people or like 10 things by the same coach um and then all of a sudden like you just you're thinking about too much all you can see it when they're doing the move oh yeah like it's it's hard to stop yourself too because you'll see them okay checking the hands, the feet. And I'm like, just worry about the one thing I said. Just jump through the roof. Just something simple. Right.

Yeah, just like going to reference Justin Thacker again, like one thing that he said when he recorded world-class weightlifting with us was that when you first start teaching to a beginner, like snatches and cleans are a jump. And then once they get better, then it's not a jump. First it's a jump, and then it's not a jump first it's a jump and then it's not a jump like depending on how how technical they need to be in the moment a beginner you want simplicity so you say just jump with the bar yeah and then once they get more advanced okay well you're not really just jumping with the bar anymore there's a little more to it

right once they have a you know some experience well now you can you can layer in all these these uh details and it doesn't overwhelm them anymore. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah, I like this. We ended up talking more about good coaching cues and ways to transfer information to a beginner. Where do we want to go next? I thought that's what you were leading to. I was like, what? Here he comes.

Actually, one quick question I wanted to ask you, Doug. I don't know. What's your opinion on cues? Because I noticed in just working with you, you don't really use a lot of cues. You're more instructional than anything. And demo. Oh, yeah. I've noticed that about the technique.

That's very, very true. I tend to be like a natural teacher. I like to explain things and give people details. And like I said before, I'm a why person. I need a rationale. And so that's just a me thing. Like I need a rationale and so that's just a me thing like i need a rationale for something so if someone just if someone's coaching me and they're just like you know heels heels i'm like okay they're both said that yeah because that's the

one that just everybody just yeah barks at people yeah so like i'm i'm gonna listen to you and i'll do what i think you mean but i'm definitely gonna come after that set and say okay are you yelling heels at me yeah explain explain what's going on here like what why why did you and I'll do what I think you mean, but I'm definitely going to come after that set and say, why are you yelling heels at me? Yeah. Explain, explain what's going on here. Like, why,

why'd you tell me to do that? What's the rationale? Like, do you have a real reason for telling me that? Like, I'm, I wouldn't say skeptical is the right word, but I definitely,

I'm definitely in a person where I'm just like, well, until you prove to me that that was like a really good idea, I'm going to assume that it's not like an amazing idea. Like I, I need proof that that's something that I should do. I don't do anything unless I have a real reason to do it in almost any category of my life.

So what was the original question? Oh, the queuing. Yeah, queues. Yeah, so I don't – Like what's your opinion? Barbecues? I don't queue people at a barbecue. I don't queue people unless I know that they know exactly what I'm talking about.

Yeah. So I tend to just prefer that I'll I know that they know exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah. So I tend to just prefer that. I'll just let them do the reps where I'm not overcoaching them and just let them do the reps. And then once they finish the reps go, okay, that's pretty good. You know, and then I like to question people. I say like, you know, how that feel, what do you, what do you think you did well? What do you think you could do better? Like I do, I do a lot of coaching by, by questioning. Um, and then if if i say okay well probably one of the main things that you could work on today i try to just give them one thing whatever the most important thing is and then explain to them okay well when i say heels that means put your weight on your heels and it looks like this and i'll go through the whole thing and

then after that now i can say heels to that person but i'm coaching a large class and i haven't had like a discussion with somebody or explained it to the class then i tend not to just yell right yell individual cues at people i i like to dig into details and explain exactly what i mean i like to i like to use um things that are similar to other movements or like analogies you know like like oh anyone here play golf and say yeah yeah well maybe think of like a backswing in a golf and golf where you you don't rush the backswing you don't rush the pull off the ground. Maybe you take your time and go through and then follow through with the lift or whatever. If you can find something that they have a connection with,

then it really helps it click in their head with that movement. And going back to your point, you tend to, and I noticed that you did this when you were coaching, is that, yeah, you wouldn't take it to the extreme where your coach, he would be like, stop, stop what you're doing. You'd come over, you'd watch, you'd come over, and then you'd start asking questions. So I think that's a good point and that's a good balance to take. Like if you have – if you're a gym or if you're a coach and you're coaching classes and you see that people are lifting with, you know, not so great technique, you know,

watch them and then come over there and then address the issue rather than just, like, blowing it up and maybe embarrassing them, like, while they're in class. Yeah, I tend not to, like – I don't like to cause a scene. I like to make people feel bad. I just let them do their thing. If they're going to hurt themselves, like, if it looks really bad, maybe I say, hey, hey, let's hold on for a second. Right.

But if it's just they just don't know any better and they're learning, then I don't go there and just be like, okay, like, turn it off, like, hold on for a second. um but if it's just they just don't know any better and they're learning then i don't go there and just be like okay like like turn it off like go sit in the corner because i think a lot of i think a lot of coaches are like kind of you said uh earlier you know you you let it happen but they're maybe afraid because they don't want to hurt anybody's feelings or embarrassed or call anybody out exactly but but the way you approach it is a good way i think that is is is a lot that balances you know allowing people to at least feel like they're getting some work in and you're not constantly interrupting them and then helping them get to a better place at the end. Yeah, at some point people just need to practice.

Right. And you're not going to have perfect technique until you practice. And if you can't practice because you don't have perfect technique, then you're stuck in this weird catch-22 chicken or the-the-egg thing where you just can't do anything. It was Diane Fu that talks about coaching that way. When she gets a beginner weightlifter, she really doesn't tell them a lot in the beginning. She just lets them do the lift over and over and over

and play and learn and learn, right? Yeah. It's weird because in weightlifting you don't think about it, but if we were all playing basketball and every time you shot, I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Damn, that's a Ruthie. That's a great analogy. Shut the fuck up that's a rookie. That was a great analogy. Shut the fuck up.

Let me shoot. That's a great analogy. Right. The thing I was going to say was T-ball. I think about it as T-ball practice because they automatically think about a little kid. Like if a little kid wasn't swinging a baseball bat perfectly, you wouldn't be like, oh, that kid's going to hurt himself. Like all you coaches are bad people for letting him swing like that. You're going to hurt him.

And like people do that with CrossFit all the time. Like they look at people that are beginners.'re brand new and they're not doing it right well no shit like nobody who's brand new to any sport has like absolutely perfect technique for any sport basketball baseball football it doesn't matter like yeah you're gonna you're gonna have to learn it's gonna take you 10 years to achieve mastery or whatever people say it doesn't have to take a long but like but it's gonna take you a lot of practice to get really really good at something and so just because someone has bad technique doesn't mean that the coach doesn't know what good technique is it doesn't mean that the

athlete isn't trying hard or doesn't care it means that it means that you know it's it's just not their time it's part of the journey yeah right right it's going to take you a couple years to to figure out exactly like how you're supposed to be doing it because you're new boom you think some of this is on like that the other athletes too um i guess what i'm getting at here is like you'll have as a coach you might feel the pressure to over correct someone because you know people are watching you like totally like they you know can you speak on that you get where i'm going with that absolutely it's part of the culture so and people fear judgment a lot of times so um i know i know a lot of a lot of coaches i know a lot of athletes i know a lot of times. So I know a lot of coaches.

I know a lot of athletes. I know a lot of gym owners. And I've seen it many times before where someone will come in and they'll be like, what the fuck is that guy doing over there? I can't believe they're letting him do that. And I heard them tell him this cue, and that's not the right cue to tell him. Or I'll be coaching somebody, and someone will come over, and they'll be like, he's not doing this right.

And I'm like, you think I don't know that he's doing that thing wrong? He's doing 20 things wrong. It's his fourth day. Go away. But it does come down to not just your style or how knowledgeable you are as a coach, coaching an athlete. The culture does matter. And so your athletes will gravitate towards whatever the culture is. So the culture I grew up in was a culture of you never do anything wrong ever. That's just like as far as technique goes.

Like you always did the best technique that you possibly could. And, of course, just like I said, like it still took me eight or ten years to learn what perfect technique was. But the point was is that if I was ever lifting a little bit too heavy or I was a little too tired and my technique was not whatever my best, 100% best technique then we we paused we took a break we rested and then we came back when I was rested to do whatever 100% of my current best was and that was the culture of the gym that I grew up in so it was like that for everybody and because of that most people that have been training there for a decent period of time had really good technique so that made your bachelor party extremely weird because Mark Real the guy you're talking about you know he was you know if you weren't throwing out them you know making it

rain correctly you know we had to stop the whole fucking night no no no girls don't put your clothes back on it's elbow it's actually it's in the wrist that's a stickler that guy yeah um actually that was a good time by the way uh was that part of the story that you can't tell oh no i'll tell both stories later if you want um yeah i mean back to that point that you can't tell? Oh, no. I'll tell both stories later if you want. Yeah, I mean, back to that point that you were making. Like, yeah, don't do that. Don't be that person that goes up to, you know, a coach or somebody in the gym and just be like, are you seeing this?

Like, I was just getting so frustrated by listening to you describe that because that is just the worst thing. Whoever that person was, I hate them. Please do not do that. Dude, there was this guy who used to do that when I coached all the time. Oh, my God. Man, I definitely done that. Please don't fucking do that.

I've done it before, too. It wasn't me. One thing that I've – speaking of that point, one thing that I think is a good suggestion is that you can always ask somebody, like, hey, do you – like, what I tend to do if I – because I travel and sometimes I go to gyms and I see people and I'm like, hey, do you mind if I give you a little tip? Or, like, do you mind if I help you out here a little bit? Because I saw you over here and I just, you know, whatever.

Just ask. And then usually most of the time they'll say yeah, you know, because they want to be helped and people want to be helped and get better. But, yeah, don't just go up to somebody and just like, hey, I'm going to give you all these technique tips right now. Right. Without you even, like, wanting. First off, who are you? Yeah, exactly. Who the fuck are you? That yeah so yeah yeah i rarely just like go like tell people what to do especially if i'm like in someone else's gym i i always if i if i'm even thinking about like kind of imposing and helping out like um i generally do ask like i say hey do you mind

if i give you a little tip on something like and i that's usually if it's like someone who's they're working by themselves, I can tell no one's paying attention to them, and I've got some free time, maybe I'll help out. But oftentimes as well, I'll ask whoever the coach and or owner of that gym is, do you mind if I help out a little bit? Do you want any help? I don't have to help out.

It's your gym, man. I'll do whatever you want. I try to be very respectful of the gyms I visit. I think even if you're coaching a class, that's something that maybe you should do, especially if it's some person that you don't know and they're maybe new or something like that. You should definitely just come politely with them rather than just coming out straight out the gate like, you're doing all this shit wrong. Or even if you're giving positive cues, they're just like, I just got here, dude.

That same advice works great with women too. It's very discouraging i often tell i tell our athletes like if i have them if i give them a very specific exercise to do a very specific correction that's very specific to them i'll usually tell them okay like if you go to another gym or if you're doing this and i'm not here um these are the things that people are going to come tell you they're going to say why are you doing that like you don't You don't want to do that for these reasons, that reason, this reason, that reason. But that's because they don't know this and that and the other thing. And we already tried those other few things.

And because you're in this very specific situation, this actually does work in your case. And so just be prepared when someone says you shouldn't do that, that they don't actually understand the full story and you have a rationale for it. Yeah, that's like go. It's like go. It's like go.

That's such a good that's such a good point because i get a lot of questions all the time it's like well i go to this gym and then my coach that coach there tells me do this and i go there and then we you know if they're in our online programs and then you guys tell me another thing like realistically what is what's what's your take on that should you listen to just one coach and just stick with that or weightlifting is really bad about that. You get a hundred different technique recommendations. Yeah.

I don't think you have to just listen to one person. I do think, however, I think the more perspectives you can get on a topic, the better. Which is why the podcast is so fucking cool, by the way, because we get to go around and interview people and get a million different perspectives. Oh, yeah. And if you listen to this right now, you're getting our perspective. You're getting our guests' perspectives. You a million different perspectives. Oh, yeah. And, you know, if you're listening to this right now, like, you're getting our perspective. You're getting our guests' perspectives. You're getting many perspectives. And that really helps round out a comprehensive base of knowledge on a topic.

But what was the question? My question was, yeah, I mean, what would you say to somebody who is getting multiple coaching from, you know, multiple technique? Pick your favorite um so that said um i do think when you're first learning something it's it's very easy to get many perspectives and get confused in the process so um i think when you're a beginner i actually do think it's beneficial assuming the person that you're listening to is very good like the that's that's the underlying assumption that whoever you've chosen to be like your mentor, it actually is good. But it's easier to learn and get good initially if you just kind of latch on to one person and you kind of get their full perspective, you know, over the course of maybe a couple of years.

And then once you like you have that architecture, that framework from which to hang all the rest of your ideas for the whole rest of your life on, then you can kind of move on to someone else. So having a mentor in the beginning that is kind of one person or one gym that operates on one philosophy, I think is easier and less confusing. And then once you kind of get it, you get the concepts, you get the philosophy, like you understand like the big picture, then you can start to go out. And when someone gives you a piece of advice that sounds different it might be a different method but you you'll go oh that's just a different way to do it but that's actually fundamentally the same thing yeah you know it's like if you if you grew up in a barbell only gym and and then you you went somewhere sorry say you grew up in a crossfit

gym and you understand movement like you understand the category of movement you understand biomechanics anatomy etc and then now you go to you go to on it and on it is a not quite a crossfit gym it's it's different than crossfit it's still kind of functional fitness and they use they use sandbags and maces and things like that like equipment that we don't generally use in crossfit gyms they don't they're not like purely barbells kettlebells that type of thing they um very cool gym but this the style is is a little different but if you're a movement expert you can go into to a gym like on an academy um shout out to john wolf super cool dude if you're an awesome john's awesome go check out on an academy um but you can go to a gym like on an academy and and understand that what they're doing is in many ways similar to what what you're

doing at across the gym it's same same but different because movement is movement but they're using different different tools to get to get a very, in their case, a very similar, very good result just like you find at a CrossFit gym. So attaching yourself to a mentor and learning the basics and the foundation, I think, can be a lot less confusing than if you're getting hit from all angles all the time with all these different perspectives that they all sound different. Even if it's the same concept in 10 different ways with 10 different methods, it can be very confusing.

Yeah, it's like sometimes you just got to pick one dude or pick one coach and one method, follow that, get your feet wet, get your hands dirty, practice it, and then you could get to a point where you learn basically the fundamentals and how it all kind of pieces together. Then you can learn different types of view you know, viewpoints and opinions. It's like we use the analogy that CTP brings up all the time. It's like a person who goes to all these different certifications and all these seminars and all these different things,

but they never actually go in the gym and practice. Or ask if they're a Technique WOD School of Knowledge certified coach. Yeah. They should have a shirt that says ask. We should make a Technique WOD certification. Yeah, a shirt that says ask me about technique. That would be kind of cool certified coach. Yeah. They should have a shirt that says – We should make a technique-wide certification. Yeah, a shirt that says, ask me about technique. That would be kind of cool, actually. Yeah, with respect to the one –

That's why I don't make shirts. Yeah, that's why McG doesn't make shirts. Oh, my God. We got a dead battery or something here? Uh-oh. No, he said keep going. I think CTP is changing out the camera battery, but the audio is rolling. The audio is still rolling.

So, yeah, with respect to the single coach, I think you should stay with a coach until, again, assuming they're a really good coach and maybe they're like the best coach ever and you stick with them forever, you can totally do that. Like Kendrick Ferris stayed with his coach since he was a little kid. Yeah, he's still with Kyle Pierce. Still with Kyle to this day. That's right.

And so you can't stay with a coach for a long time, and there's nothing wrong with that. But once you get to the point where when you do something, you know exactly what your coach is going to say, then I think, like, on every topic, you just, like, every time your coach talks, like, it's just on repeat. Like, you just know what he's going to say, like, every single time. That's probably the time when you can go, okay,

like, I think I got that perspective from him. It doesn't mean you stop listening to him. It just means, okay, maybe now it's time to branch out. Maybe get a new coach to do your programming. He's done his job. He's done a great job. That's right. Or she.

Come on, guys. Oh, yeah, sorry about that. Yeah, I mean, actually speaking of coaches, like my coach growing up, Mark Real, like one of his main goals was to get me to the point where I didn't need him anymore. That's an awesome goal for a coach to bestow upon. No, I was going to say bestow upon me, but that's an awesome goal for him to have for me. Yeah, I think that's a great goal for coaches,

to build some autonomy in the athletes, right? You don't want to – The student becomes the teacher. Maybe you do want to coach them forever because it's great for business. I don't know. Sure. But at the same time, like, you want them to be able to – I mean, you want to try and train them to be better than you.

Right. You want them to know more. That's a good coach. That's the ultimate success for a coach. Like, if you coach an athlete from knowing nothing to knowing more than you, then, man, you've really done a good, solid service for that kid. Amen. Yeah, yeah.

Boom. Well. Well. That being said, if you haven't seen all the Technique Wads, go fucking watch them. Is this the wrap-up? Yeah, we still – yeah, we got all the Technique Wads still on there, some of the most popular ones.

You know, we did the weightlifting series and the thoracic mobility series. We got a bunch on deadlifting. The pistol ones, huge. Oh, we got a bunch of trick ones with Chris Moore, like the incline bench press. Oh, yeah, a ton of accessories. And rows, huge. Yeah, the weightlifting series are particularly good, in my opinion, because they're more than just like single 10-minute video teaching.

It's because I'm in them, okay, Doug? That's why. He's the demo guy. He was getting there. Yeah, but the snatch, the clean and jerk, the snatch I think is a six-part technique. They're both six-part series, yeah. Yeah, so there's a big overview.

There's a first pull. There's transition. There's second pull. Which further proves our point that Olympic weightlifting takes a lot of time. There's six videos for one. And it's all for free too. Like we have so many of these videos like literally for free. They are for free.

We have the squat series in there. Squat series is an awesome series. I still want to make that video where I take all the Olympic lifting ones, the snatch, clean, and jerk videos, and then compile every time in a row that you said the weight's going to lean out in front of you and you're going to miss the lift out in front. That is like a thousand of them back to back. If it's in this episode, you know I did it.

Yeah. I've been wanting to make that for a while. That's pretty funny. You did rope climbs and muscle-ups. Double unders. Double unders. That double under video is like one of the most popular ones. It is.

Yeah. It's a really good one. Thank you. Were you on any besides the weightlifting ones? The ones with Chris. You did a couple with Chris? Yeah, a couple with Chris. You did some horizontal pulling ones.

Yeah, the barbell rowing Was really good Horizontal pulling And then incline bench Got my chest Swollen Yeah yeah That one with Chris Was funny as fuck

When he smacked your ass Oh yeah Good times Good times So yeah check those out They're all on YouTube Most of them are on The Barbell Strut account

If you want to Kind of check out Some of the old Throwback videos That we did on our phone They're on the Faction SC Faction Strength're on the FactionSC, Faction Strength Conditioning, FactionSC account on YouTube.

Their audio is not good. Their camera work is not great. They're old school videos. So appreciate them for what they are. But all the more modern, fancy, nice-looking ones are all on the Barbell Strugged account. And there's, you know, maybe we'll have to just start doing these again. You just never know.

Stay on. I'm down. If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll know. So go to barbellshrug.com, sign up for the newsletter. Or just text me. I'll let you know. Text CTP. Anything else you guys want to add?

I think we're good. Doug, what the fuck have you been up to? Tell us real quick. I have been up to a lot. We live in San Diego now, so we spend a lot of time out there doing the barbell business thing. If you're a gym owner and you don't know about barbell business, that's a podcast that me and Mike primarily run with another guy named Marcus Gersey who runs. Marcus is the man.

Marcus is great. Marcus is awesome. Runs an awesome gym in Orange County, California. So if you're a gym owner and you like this show, that Barbell Business show is very, very similar. We just started doing video with Barbell Business. We did audio for a long, long time and finally decided it's just crazy that we're not doing video for Barbell Business. So we're starting to put out the Barbell Business podcast video on the same Barbell Shrug YouTube account that all these videos are on. So if you're a gym owner and or if you're a coach or you're an athlete

and you want your gym to do better, have better business practices and thrive and grow the membership base and be able to buy more equipment and do more cool stuff because you're successful as a company, then I highly recommend that you talk to the owner of your gym and get him to watch Barbell Business. Yeah. Just like this. It's totally free.

We just put out an email where Thacker's episode. And one of the things we noticed when we were there is like, this guy runs the gym, he coaches all the athletes and he still does all the coaching because he loves it, you know? So like, I see that a lot with owners is that they get so consumed in the,

in having to run the business. I mean, you got to run the business, like you got to make money, you know, you got to keep the doors open. So, but it,

but it can oftentimes take away from a lot of the coaching that you want to do which is why you started the gym in the first place so it's a great thing barbell business has a lot of really good advice to help gym owners kind of get there yeah get back to doing what they love again as well that's right that's the primary reason we did barbell business was all the coaches and gym owners that um that listen to the show they really fundamentally just want to get back to like doing the fun crossfit stuff that, that most people started the gym for in the first place. Like they, they want the coaching at their box to be the best coaching that, that is in their area, that they want to be the best coaches in their city. They want to offer the best service. They want to have the coolest gym and all the business stuff it's necessary. And so you have to do it,

but a lot of times truth be told, it's not the most fun part of running a gym and it kind of gets in the way. So, you know, if we can help the gym owners just simply be better business owners where everything is a little bit easier and they don't have to spend as much time on the business stuff uh and they can at the same time be adding more and more members to their to their box every single month then uh then running a gym becomes a lot more fun and a lot a lot less of a hassle yeah um i know some people that they run gyms and it's fun for the first year and then it turns into a lot of work. Reality sets in.

Yeah, it turns into a lot of work and kind of the honeymoon period is over and they begin to kind of question whether they really want to do this long term, not because they don't love it anymore, but just because the business requires so much of their time that it's just starting not to be so much fun anymore. So, so we try to teach gym owners how to, how to make it where they're, they're good enough at the game of business, so to speak, where, uh, the game of business also becomes fun and it just is a little bit easier because they're good at it. Yeah. Cool guys. Um, yeah,

to wrap up. So we, I love the coaching cues that we talked about, the different ways to think of technique work in a different way to make it fun uh simple things like speed work days technical maxes technical maxes like i'm gonna i'm gonna start applying that now that's fantastic you can use that for gymnastics and weightlifting movements like that's a great takeaway technique to people use that on yourself use that on your clients thank you very much for listening