Barbell Shrugged - The Future Of Fitness With Mike, Doug, And Crew

Episode Date: November 30, 2016

And… We’re Back! I want to start off by recognizing our team of incredible coaches who stepped up and led the Barbell Shrugged show through the better part of 2016. Chris “CTP” Norman, Mike McGoldrick, Alex Maclin, Kurt Mullican, and Mike McElroy, we have have nothing but gratitude for your work. Doug and I are returning to the show stronger than ever with new vigor and we’re bringing Dr. Andy Galpin and Kenny Kane along for the ride. Galpin and Kane will be regular co-hosts and resident experts in their respective fields of Sport Science and Coaching. We’re excited that we will be able to create a really rich experience for you with their presence. On today’s show we dive deep into the future of CrossFit, and Strength and Conditioning. We also get into a great discussion about the future of coaching. It’s not going to look anything like it does today. From each one of our perspectives we share what we’re currently seeing and where we think it’s going. Enjoy!

And we're back. We are back. Yeah, barbell shrugged. You look confused. What are we doing here? This is a podcast we do, Mike. You're involved in it. Yeah, this is great.

I forgot how to do this. Yeah. It has been a long time. It's been a year. So. A full year. Some of you might be wondering why Doug and Mike and Andy's here. Andy and I are along for giggles.

But some of you might be wondering why the heck are Doug and Mike back on the grill? And so, fellas, to start this conversation outside of bar fighting dialogue, why? Why? Why are the listeners and viewers seeing you guys on Barbo Shrugged? We'll be right back. I want to take this moment to recognize the coaches who stepped in and led the Barbell Shrugged podcast in 2016. Mike McGoldrick, Mike McElroy, Kurt Mulliken, and Alex Macklin. I really appreciate you guys stepping in, stepping up, leading the show. A lot of gratitude to CTP for pushing the ball forward behind the scenes all the time. And I know the audience really appreciates it as well. Not the last time you're going to see these guys on the show, I promise.

We have decided to come right back onto the show. Actually, we always wanted to come back on the show, and we decided we were going to take a little bit of a break last year. The break went a little longer than we expected. We never expected to be all the way off the show for so long. We kind of let it go for a little longer than we had originally anticipated, but the plan was always to come back. So finally we have made it happen.

We are back on the show. Yeah, we were thinking in a matter of maybe two or three months, and it kind of dragged on and on and on. And one of the really big reasons that happened is because we got really busy working on some stuff in the background. A lot of things that are going to support the show going forward, the things that are going to allow us to sustain for years and years to come. One of the things that we were running into was we just kind of,

honestly, we kind of got a little out of breath, if you will, four years straight doing shows. The creativity started to wane a little bit. And one of the things we wanted to do was help bring some other guys in to help bridge that gap in the meantime. So it was never to try to move out of anything so much as was to keep providing the best thing we thought possible. So where we are now is Recharged.

We've got basically our foundation built with Barbell Shrugged, and we also have Barbell Business. We have this foundation built that's going to allow us to do a lot of really cool, creative things. And what we really want to do is introduce to you all the, like, the cutting edge of what's happening in strength and conditioning, health, and fitness. And we got Kenny and Andy who are going to be kind of like our unofficial official on the show whenever they can make it co-host. Me and Mike will be on the show pretty much full time. And then Kenny and Andy are going to be popping in here and there.

So maybe not every single time. These guys are super, super busy. But hopefully at least one of them will be around for kind of every other show moving forward. Yeah, and you know, Doug and I, you've seen Andy and Kenny on the shows before. But like one of the reasons we want them on the show is more is Kenny has this insane coaching background and this idea, this ability to see where athletes are at and actually add context to what's happening with each athlete and then also teach other coaches how to do the same thing. So from a coaching aspect, Kenny Kane is one of the best on the planet. And Dr. Andy Galpin is one of the leading researchers

in strength and conditioning on the planet as well. So the fact that these guys are going to be with us all the time is a huge plus. We're super excited for this to be happening. Yeah, and in fact, for the listeners that only popped in in the last year or so that may have not seen you guys on the show before, can you guys give us like a super brief bio, like who are you, what's your background? Kenny, maybe you can go first. Sure. My name is Kenny Kane.

I currently own CrossFit Los Angeles. I've been, I was raised in the fitness industry. So I grew up training people at my mom's business and have run PE programs. I've coached every level of athlete from octogenarian. Is that the word? There you go. Octogenarians. That's why they keep the PhD on board here. We've also trained many pescatarians.

So if you're a fish eater, please pay attention to what I say because I know it all, like an omniscient person might. No, I've been doing this for a very long time and have a varied background in a variety of sports. But I believe fundamentally that coaching can help change and save the planet.

And that's what I've sort of committed the next several decades of my life to helping coaches develop their coaching game. So that's a big thing that moves me. And I'm very passionate to help you guys out with all the endeavors of BBS. Absolutely. And you started one of the first CrossFit gyms. Do you know what number it was? CrossFit Los Angeles is technically, I think, at this point, number six. So CFLA started in 2004. And you're still there.

We're still there. Still up and still scrapping. You've been in this game a long time. It's a long time. Longer than most people. Longer than us. Oh, yeah. So that's helpful in some ways.

And then it's also one of the things that I'm learning is to learn from all the people who have been starting in recent years. Because the rate at which people integrate information at this point is, in one word, profound. People are integrating content that is coming from people like Dr. Galpin very quickly. Not just business systems, but also training systems. So it's a very exciting time to be a coach. And I feel like my role is to stay a student always and be able to figure out how to integrate these things to help people. Right on. Andy, what's your background, man?

Well, before we even get into that a little bit, you may have seen me or some of the stuff that we were talking about with the Barbell University project that we were working on. And that's a great example of what Mike, you just talked about a few minutes ago, where at some point last year, you guys as a company maybe got stretched a little thin. And you guys had to make a bunch of really tough decisions

about things. And that was one example of a project that we had going that we maybe jumped out of that too fast. Yeah, we started doing a few too many projects in a very short period of time, and then we decided, man, if we're going to do any one of these projects to the best of our ability, then we probably should select the top one or two and really put all of our resources toward those one or two projects. And Barba U was one of those things that we were kind of just getting off the ground. We were having a great time with it, but we inevitably decided, you know what?

It's not the right time to get that project off the ground right now. We should probably refocus on the things that we already kind of have that are half-baked that we really should drive to completion. So Barba U is on hold for the moment, but Andy was one of the primary people as a part of that project. Yeah, so I go back a long time with these guys. If you haven't seen me on the previous shows, Doug and I actually went to college together. So we're going on 15 plus years. We lived together, trained together for a long time. We went to Memphis together to get our master's degree.

And that's when we met Mike. And that's when we met Chris, Chris Moore. And so I've been in a fortunate position to watch this company grow from sort of the behind-the-scenes version. So I left from there, got my doctorate in human bioenergetics, and now I'm out here in California. And I work in the Center for Sport Performance, and I'm the founder and director of what's called the Biochemistry and Molecular Exercise Physiology Lab. So I study muscle. My job is research for the most part.

We do biopsies. We look at the single-cell molecular level to try to help identify performance things. What we're seeing in the gym of why, questions like why some people recover faster than others, why some training programs are more effective for some people, but the same program is less effective for another person, and just a bunch of things like that. So it's a scientific background that really actually supports our evolution of strength and conditioning.

And to help us reach further, to be more effective, to not waste as much time, and to use that model to learn a lot more about physiology. So that's what I really do, and that's why I'm actually really excited to be on this show as much as I can, and some of the stuff that maybe we'll get into that Kenny and I are working

on to add some context. But for me, I want to be able to come in and say, OK, let's add that that foundational level for some of you folks that are watching that or maybe you're just into this field, but you don't have that exercise science background. We can actually get that in an entertaining fashion. We can lay that foundation and do it really fun and kind of skip through all the crap that you don't really need to know while you're coaching but then also to hit that stuff in the top end too to really go at the advanced muscle stuff to go at the future where this stuff's really going because there's some stuff that maybe we'll get into later in this episode that it's a really exciting time in terms of science and in terms of what that means for coaching in my career one of my main goals when I got into this was to do as much, if not more, information or publications for the lay than I actually do scientifically. So to me, if the information is not effectively communicated, what's the point?

You want more than like six or seven people to read your papers? Yeah, more than six or seven, maybe ten. That'd be nice. Yeah, so it's doing things like this that we can say, let's get the information out, and let's continue to actually see if it's usable. And if it's not, let's scratch it off the board and go back. And we can find things that actually help people. Right.

And one of the reasons I think you're a great asset to this show is you're a legit scientist that also has a solid comprehensive training background. You played college football. You've been lifting weights essentially your whole life. You were a national caliber weightlifter. You competed at the national championships in weightlifting when we were all on the same weightlifting team

at University of Memphis. So you have the academic side and the practical side. So you're kind of more bent these days towards the academic side of things, even though you still, of course, train on a daily, weekly basis. And then Kenny, you're kind of on the other end of the spectrum. You understand the science,

but you're kind of bent towards the practical side of things. So I think you guys are a great pair that are quite complementary to Mike and myself. And that's what Doug and I know. Because we kind of know all of it. That sounds like a great combo, but the thing is, I hate this guy so much. That's good. Conflict, man.

Conflict sells. We need a little bit of friction. The good news is that Andy is really good and has a huge following with octogenarians and pescatarians. So that helps us all here in this thing. Andy had mentioned, too, like one of the things that's driving us and one of the reasons why we want to help out with the show is some of the stuff that we're working on, which is to sort of consolidation of this information. It is such a great time to be a coach in the wellness fitness world because things can happen and real change can happen as well, assuming that we use that info. Yeah, and more information is pouring in so quickly. I think it was like not being on the show for a year was great for me,

and then being able to kind of sit down and digest what's actually happening and step away from it. Because when you're in it all day, every day, and you're stepping in it all the time, it's easy to get stuck in a house of mirrors. It's like you're kind of just seeing the same thing. This looks kind of different. Oh, wait, it's the same thing over and over again and then if you can get a little more elevation and kind of see like oh what's happening like at the at the fringe of

what's going on i think we've always prided ourselves on uh developing at the fringe like what's happening here at the edges the people who are experimenting the innovators the innovative coaches the innovative researchers that are doing something so special. And I see it as really our job to go find those people who are too busy working on that innovation, too busy, like, pushing this thing as far as they can possibly push it to come up for air and say, hey, everybody, you should come check out my thing or develop the skills necessary to get people's attention. And this is where we come in very handy because that's really our job is to, like, identify who is really working at the fringe and pushing the boundaries around strength and conditioning, health, fitness, nutrition, and then highlight those people.

So that's what I'm super excited about moving forward. I think that having all of us kind of getting like the last year to kind of catch our breath, look at the whole spectrum and be able to like push even further out. So I think especially in the next, I think you'll recognize in the next few months that we'll be able to introduce some really cool new ideas. Yeah, we'll always still be talking about CrossFit and weightlifting and powerlifting and strength training and kind of the general concepts of nutrition. But then to bring in all these kind of fringe new topics that are that are just emerging, like on the way over here, we were we're listening to a talk a guy was giving on the microbiome. And that's that's something I've had a huge interest in in the last year or so, because it seems to be this like this emerging area.

What we're learning and how how knowing more about the benefits of having a healthy microbiome and how that affects our health. And I really think we're kind of just on the cusp of really understanding how beneficial and how to manipulate that stuff. And we don't know anything about it almost. Like we're kind of just becoming mainstream right now. People are just starting to research it. And it's going to blow up into this big thing. And if we can interview researchers and professionals on this new category,

we can help push it into the mainstream. Yeah, no doubt. This is one example of many, of course. There are so many things that have happened in the last two years. I'm not talking 10. And I would even say we would all probably agree that, for the most part, the gap between science and application has been fairly wide. And most of the time when we publish papers, we're like, okay, Kenny, I'm not really ever going to use that.

And that's cool. I like knowing that as a nerd, but you're like, I've never. Thanks a lot, Kenny. Yeah. Well, Andy and I joke sometimes Andy will write a paper and who sees it? Six people. Yeah. And so that's one of the things is that sometimes the coaches of the world and the people that are actually keeping people healthy and fit,

the practitioners of that are the ones that are integrating some of this stuff either correctly or incorrectly. And so that's the idea of sort of bridging this gap. But we're in a time period where we can do it a lot better. Yeah, and I was telling even Brian McKenzie this yesterday, and I was telling him about one particular thing that just came out this week, and he was like, his jaw was on the floor,

and he's like, that's never been possible before. I'm like, I know, and this is only going to be happening more as long, right? I think I know what's happening. I think I know what you're talking about. It's exponential, right? And it's only crazy in facts. And I told him, and he vehemently disagreed for the record,

and I'll fight him for this in the cage when we're done. He is here, ready to fight over there. But he looks like he's ready to fight. Get your mouthpiece ready, Brian. He's got Brian Diaz with him, known as the Mexicutioner. Although Andy has short femurs, and he's known to, at one point, lift a lot of weight, my weight's on the Mexicutioner. And I have two successful flying arm bars in my career,

unlike Bledsoe's, 0 for 1, apparently. This could get interesting. This might get dangerous. That's true. You crushed those flying arm bars in that jiu-jitsu comp you did. Never practiced it once in my life, hit two flying arm bars in the same competition. You made them look good, too.

Yeah. Never see it coming. You know, and my contention is actually we're at a time where, for the first time ever, I think science can catch up to practitioners. You know, because most of the time we argue, like, why are the scientists 20 years behind? Why are they so far behind? I actually think that gap is closing,

and some of the stuff that has hit in the last month is going to push us way ahead of the practitioners. I'm going to give you one quick example of that. A study was recently published, and I think it was Bouchard's group, and I apologize if I can't remember the author, but where they took some stuff, and they were able to actually look at some DNA markers of some different athletes. And they took this information and then they put them into two different training programs based on those answers.

So this is always like the idea with some of the stuff is like, oh, OK, you've identified you as you're this kind of person, you're this kind of person. But we never actually then say, OK, let's put you on a program that emphasizes that category. Take you 12 weeks and see what happens. And what they found was when they individualized or personalized your genetic traits to your training program, the rate of improvement was far higher than when they did. And so you're like, oh, shit, this is actually viable now. What was maybe the percentage difference over a 12-week period? Do you remember? I don't remember. Significant?

More than significant. It was not only clinically significant in terms of, like, statistically significant in the lab, but it was practically significant. So we're talking more than double digit. It wasn't like a 2% or something like that. Like 10%. Wow. A big number. That's huge.

Now, this was preliminary. There's a ton of problems with it. There's massive limitations. I was going to say, this is like the first ones. Like, this is going to. Yeah, this is prototype. Beautiful concept here. That's going to be huge.

This is what's coming. And, in fact, the tests they were able to do are very, very cheap. And they're going to be commercially available. So this is legitimately something you can put into practice where you've got your people walk in. They do their health history screening. They do this. They take this one little test. You get their results back. And you go, oh, walk in, they do their health history screening, they do this, they take this one little test, you get their results back, and you go, oh, okay.

Like swab their mouth or something. Yeah, you get more training volume. You need to do more repetitions. You respond better to do less repetitions. Boom, here you go. Now eventually that will expand out to maybe instead of two categories. We've actually found that to be exactly true of Doug and me. No, I know, right?

You and I are very similar like that, and he's the polar opposite, right? Yeah, he's not as good. Exactly. I never get tired. He gets tired very fast. Two reps. Doesn't matter how heavy he is. That's what keeps his wife happy, though.

Two pumps and a quiver. Yeah. So that's just the exciting stuff that's coming. And it's crazy because it is the future, but it's not really even the future. It's now. It's now. It's here. It's coming. And it's crazy because it is the future, but it's not really even the future. It's now. It's now. It's here. It's available.

And it's published. It's done. And if you think, and what I really want to emphasize is, if that study's already been done, what do you think's happening right now in the background? Obviously, there are dozens more going like this. So just wait. Give it two years.

Give it a year. And then we're going to have 100 of these studies. All right. I'm going to hook everybody right now wait. Give it two years. Give it a year and then we're going to have 100 of these studies. I'm going to hook everybody right now for at least the next year. We actually already know the researchers and we know some of the scientists that are working on some stuff that like

when I get talking to them about it I'm like, are you serious? Are you sure? And then I don't know how many times I've talked to somebody who's working on something and they're telling me about it and I'm going, I don't know how many times I've talked to somebody who's working on something, and they're telling me about it, and I'm going, I don't believe it. And then they're like, oh, yeah, I'm working with Stanford or something. And then kind of a little bit of instant credibility comes in there, and then I start – I'm like, oh, I'll listen longer.

And the next thing I know, I'm going, holy shit, this is real. And we'll be bringing those people on the show, which will be really, really cool. Well, the government just put $170 million into a project called Motropack, which is effectively molecular markers of physical activity. They're putting $170 million into looking at some of these markers at the molecular level and trying to identify this stuff.

Wow. It's here right now, and we are, for the record, working with Stanford on a project. So that wasn't even me you're talking about. That wasn't even Andy. More credibility. I didn't even know that. Well, now I, yeah. I mean, normally it's hard to believe that your friends are doing cool stuff,

but, you know, whatever. Wow. I guess I'll. Dude. Your friends, your good friends, you're not really that cool. He's throwing bows today, man. Throwing so many bows. No wonder you got in a bar fight.

I know. I know. In the last year, Bledsoed so gruesome balls that's what happened no it's true though like like it's the hardest to like take advice from your friends like like if doug tries to tell me something like you know i've been really looking at this thing you should check it out i'm like uh-huh yeah well i know exactly what that's like you're the one telling me the new crazy thing. I'm like, oh, sure.

Got an idea. We should totally change the company. We should totally change the company. Right. Good. Just like you said last week. All right. It's true, though.

Like, if a mom has a son and the son becomes a doctor, like, the mom's not listening to the son. Like, you're too close in the relationship. Like, it's easier to take advice from someone who's, like, a few layers removed from you personally. Your buddy's like, don't drink, and you know he got blacked out drunk last week. You're like, pfft. Even if it's good advice, like, you're not taking it from him. Kenny, what do you see coming up?

You mean just as far as the transition in the space? Yeah. Yeah, what's showing up new for the coaches? Well, I think there's a giant movement overall. You mean just as far as the transition in this space? Yeah. What's new for the coaches? Well, I think there's a giant movement overall. If we take a lot of steps back and look at the macro picture, Andy and I have talked about this in recent weeks, and I think you're going to see doctors start to deal with emergency situations primarily over the next 10, 15, 20 years.

And what that's going to carve some space for is for coaches, physiotherapists, or those that are integrating all these different practices, integrating some of the very content that we'll be talking about over the next year. These sort of integrationists are going to start to replace in preventative care what the doctor used to be many decades ago that can't quite service that now. Because this technology, because this information is getting more condensed and easy. It's too much. Well, but it's also at the same time easier to interpret.

So the everyday practitioner is going to have more of an opportunity to really help people's health and well-being. So I think from a from a macro perspective, I view the role of the coach as somebody who's going to be servicing health and wellness. And of course, I say that because I'm biased towards that. I believe that coaches change lives. And I say that just because, you know, my mom's funeral a year ago made me realize when I'm watching a thousand people honor her, like the ripple effect of multi-generations who are just touched by her. And I, and I realized that the people in my life who made the biggest influence were the coaches. And I go, okay, well, if this is a real trade and profession that develops over the next several decades and people are really learning

and really helping their clients and and and groups live healthier we're going to see ideally i mean this is sheer optimism but we can start to um you know battle the trillions of dollars that we're spending on pathological health that's preventable here in the states so that's like that's like one of the things that andy and i talk a lot about but that as far as what i'm concerned that's preventable here in the States. So that's like, that's like one of the things that Andy and I talk a lot about, but that, as far as what I'm concerned, that's, that, that's a, that's a real opportunity. And I think it's a big space for people to like, look, take a few steps back and go, okay, I'm going to get my game on.

I'm going to go really try to help some people. So that's the big, that's the biggest thing I see coming. Yeah. We have to consider that the, like, fitness coaching, personal training, you know, like, even PE, like, coaches, this is a brand-new thing. And if you look at all of human history, I mean, we could argue about, like, how far back that goes, but thousands of years, we'll assume.

A couple hundred, I think. Yeah, a couple hundred years. But if you look at the grand scheme of things, having somebody, like, physically train somebody and that being available to the average consumer is super new. Right. That's it's like we've had doctors for centuries and centuries. You know, I'm sick. You know, we'll you know, we'll cut you open, let some blood out or something like that.

Like we've had at least some version of doctors for a period of time. But the idea of having somebody that helped make you as well as possible, make you as fit as possible, is super new. And so what we have is we have these doctors with the sick care all the way over on this side of the spectrum. And then we have these personal trainers and coaches and fitness coaches over on this side of the spectrum. And I think kind of what you're saying is we're going to be filling in the gaps. Yeah, there's a huge gap there.

There's a huge gap. And I think, Doug, you've talked about this is the average person doesn't really see the personal trainer or the fitness coach as the most intelligent person in the room a lot of times, unfortunately. And I think there's a huge opportunity with the information, Kenny, you're talking about that's going to be coming in and the things that we're going to be able to understand and as educated as we're going to be able to understand and as educated as we're going to be able to become as trainers and coaches, we're actually going to be able to take people from

like that borderline being sick to being very healthy. Simultaneously, we're in a culture where it's easy to be sedentary. So it's one of those things. It's going to be impossible not to be sedentary. Yeah. I mean, it's going to go that far. It would be impossible not to be sedentary. So it's one of those things. It's going to be impossible not to be sedentary. Yeah. I mean, it's going to go that far. It would be impossible not to be sedentary. Right. As things are just getting more automated. And what that means for you as the coach,

think about this from, Doug, your point, the personal trainer value. As everything continues to get more and more automated with technology, the things that are going to be actually more worth value are going to be the person-to-person interactions. Which means, and your point too, with now you have a personal trainer down here, a physician up here, that gap is going to close. And what that means is your value as a personal trainer

or a strength coach is going to skyrocket because you're going to be able to provide the person-to-person interaction that no one's going to have anymore as we automate everything else in our lives. That's going to be the major difference. So not only is this stuff valuable to save lives and save health care, but you as the coach, your personal value, your rate per hour is going to skyrocket as our person-to-person interaction is alleviated with our advancements in technology. So if I'm hearing you right, I would make the assumption that learning how to write better programs

or teaching better movement might not be where a coach will need to focus in the future. In the future, the coach might need to be focusing on how to relate to the other person better, how to connect better, how to find what might be blocking them from being able to achieve their goals that isn't necessarily better movement or the right program, but maybe something more along the lines of coaching them through some life issues. Yeah, that's a base expectation. It's just assumed that you know how to write workouts and you know how to coach movement. Like, you should know that stuff.

And then beyond that, understanding how to interact with another human being and being very good at it really is is the kind of the lifelong skill that you need to continue to cultivate and pursue mastery with no no that's part of the stuff that you're doing with your context right with the mastery yeah i was just going to comment that i think one of the biggest things that is happening or has happened to this point now this conversation's evolving and evolving quickly, is that that experience, that physical fitness experience is new. It's relatively new. It's a century old, if that, as far as Western civilization goes. And so this role of the person who teaches somebody else physically is like,

okay, well, here's your workout, and this is what the workout is. And, Doug, to your point, like, yes, there is an assumption that that's done right, and I would argue that I don't know if that's done right or not. Well, there's still going to be a spectrum of who's really, really good at it and who's not quite as good at it because they're brand new. But the assumption should be, if you're a coach, that you have some skills in those areas. So the point is that that part, that physical part, the way we talk about it in our seminar, the Mastery Method Workshop that we teach, is like that first part is the second dimension.

So you interface with the workout as this two-dimensional thing. That's the workout. I'm going to do that. And that's what that is. But the real expansive point, the longevity piece and the person's growth evolves behind that second dimension. If you kind of get behind that idea of just a workout, there's a great opportunity for personal growth and great interconnectedness between people. Now, that might sound a little bit airy on one side, but that's also the one thing that human beings need is that connectivity. And a few occupations won't get outsourced. And those that

connect people from their bodies to their spirits are going to be people who are needed as I think civilization evolves. I mean, this is obviously a high concept stuff, but I think there is a role, a legitimate role. I think the coaches that are going to be successful moving forward are going to be energizing that type of role much more because the writing of programs and the teaching of movement is being commoditized to a degree. So that's now going to be – it's no longer going to be the best workouts and the best movement.

I mean, those are – like, you have to have those. But then you're going to have to – that new layer of is that coach able to connect with their athletes on a deeper level and really see what's really going on. Not what someone's saying on the surface, this is what's happening with me, but, like, what's really going on for that person that even that person might not know what's going on. A good coach can recognize that. Benny, what do you think the changes are right now in the world of strength?

Like, not just, like, wellness and health, but, like, performance, strength, speed, power, like, where's that world going right now? I would say in one word, like there's more of an integrationist sort of theory going on right now. A lot of people are barring concepts. And now we're starting to understand, like, Doug, you're going to respond a little bit more to volume than Mike is. Like he's going to dose two reps and you're going to dose eight and we're going to arrive at similar points. So there's that sort of like, you know, individualized understanding

that's already starting to happen. Andy referenced that 10 or 15 minutes ago in the conversation. But I also think that, you know, things got fragmented in the strength world, meaning that people got stuck on the thing that they established. So real sharp minds figured out specific ways to get people stronger. And purists would hold on to those ideas as if the earth was still flat. Rather than saying, oh, wait a minute. What you didn't know is there are a whole group of people that still believe the earth is flat. It's called the Flat Earth Society, right? Something like that.

My physics teacher in high school belonged to it. Just for novelty. And he would have us contribute a buck to his membership. If you're watching this and you haven't Googled this yet, go Google it. It's fantastic. I would love to know if Flat Earth. I mean, because I went to school in the 40s.

So it's like a long time ago. No, I graduated in 1989. I feel like this is one topic, too, that if you met Joe Rogan the first time and you're like, hey, Joe, I never met you. Andy, what do you think about Flat Earth? And just step back. Yeah. All right. I got him.

He's in. Here goes a 20-minute conversation. He's in. But I think now we're at a point where we can understand how to individualize. We can start to interpret different sort of training systems and individualize it so this concept of integration and also

like you know this huge benefit to keeping things simple but then there's also like we're in an MMA gym where people are rotating and twisting and so there's a lot of this you know the strongman coaches Julian Logan, these guys have been moving the needle as far as, okay, good, like this multi-planar stuff,

these weighted objects in different planes are also helpful. None of that's new. It's just a matter of going, look, it all works. And so I think at this point, there's enough humility around coaches to go, let's start borrowing concepts rather than staying fixed. Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I feel like the individualization piece is becoming the standard. It used to kind of just be like everyone did the group CrossFit classes or you could do a generic program, and only the high-level athletes were getting individualized programming.

But now it seems that that's becoming very popular, not just amongst the professional-slash-elite athletes but but even regular everyday people are seeking out individualized programming because they see the value in it. Yeah. And I think there's a gap there. I mean, as you're talking about, to me, almost like a market market specific, like is a group class strength development program going to be more beneficial to an individualized one for sure 100 of the time an individualized one is going to work however some people will still need just for their own motivation a group environment that's that's the interesting thing as the market itself of strength and conditioning evolves people will sort of figure out like i'm okay not adding 30 pounds to whatever lift it is on this given year, given that I'm enjoying being with my 530 class every day. As long as they're educated, they can make that sort of educated swap. And that will keep them coming back happily and healthily.

Absolutely. We're seeing that scientifically, too, where it has only recently started to become acceptable again to publish results almost based on individual data. In fact, now a paper that I had in review right now, I got the comments back where we had done a normal study where you take, you know, you're 15 people and then you put the average together and you make a bar graph, right? Before, after. And they came back and they're like, no, you need to put in individual data points for

each individual person. And I was like, fuck yeah, because that's what I've always wanted to do. Because you want to be able to see like 12 people went down, but then three then three people went way up well that's important if you're that one of three people yeah that's that's that's almost like a an evolution of the scientific method that's happening right now because the scientific method has taken us to where we are now and that i think that's the frustration a lot of scientists are having yeah they're going we're kind of butting up against the ceiling here yeah and so they're allowing us to do that now now there's some problems with that because you have the chance for

randomness, right? It was a random thing and there's anytime you deal with humans, you get weird things. So it's not a perfect system at all. It's not the solution, but they're allowing you to at least explore that area. And now what we can say is, hey, look, we found this product, this supplement worked, this training program worked

and it was significant, but it worked for only 12 to 20 people. So now you can question, okay, the group average reads significance, but really is this something we want to put out to the general public because it will only really work in like 55% of you or 60% or whatever the hell that number was. I can't do math good. That's what I keep dug around for, 60%.

I don't do math good. So this is really important stuff moving forward with us. And the other thing that it does, going back to your comments before, is the thing that's going to change science and it's going to actually make it important for people is our ability to use meta or mega data. That's what's going to do it. And our ability to work together. So, for example, instead of me doing a study and being limited by all the money

and being limited by participants so I can only have 12 people in my study. That's the classic critique against human, especially exercise physiology research, is you're underpowered at all times. You should have 10,000 people in that study to make a real conclusion. You had 12. Well, now what we can do because of the Internet and because of technology, we can do a multi-site study on things like this and have 12 universities linked together and have 180 people on our thing that are all doing something really cool. And that's happening right now. And that's actually moving forward. And now you're going to start to get real answers with real power. And that's going to be really, really helpful. And with some of the things that some of the practitioners are doing, I can't tell you too

much, but this is a project Kelly Starrett and I are working on where we're going to take some, like, giant numbers and start to look at things like injury rates with training. Right. But across 200,000 people, 300,000, and that technology's out there. We couldn't have done it before because literally my computer didn't have the processing speed to handle all that data. And now we have it because of supercomputers, and that's the future.

Data collection is getting easier with apps. I know somebody, you know, I know a few different people who are either running businesses or they're researchers and they've found somebody who has an app that's doing their program, and they're like, oh, and the user is

checking in daily and dropping in their results and their numbers. And it's like, wow, it's just automatic data collection that's happening without someone having to be in a lab even. Yeah, think about how many of you in your gyms are collecting all these numbers. I mean, this is one thing that you and I connected on immediately was you got all these metrics for years, a performance of thousands of people going in there. Well, how is that not science? That is science, right? Now if I combine your gym with the 10 other CrossFit gyms right in LA, and I can

really look at, okay, what's actually happening here? And now we have that connection between the gym owners who are now collecting all these data that they never used to, and it's easy, it's digital, it's collected, they checked in because they bought Barbellogic, and you have all your numbers, right? Shameless plug.

But now, this is actually where we can actually start to get conclusions. Yeah, no doubt. Nobody I want to talk about now. Is that all you have? Yeah. That was good. Kenny, we were talking about sick care versus health care earlier and how kind of the doctors really do a great job with kind of acute trauma.

You know, you get in a car accident, you want to go to the ER, and, like, that's great. That's what doctors are for. On the chronic side of things, you know, the medical system does an okay job with managing some of these more chronic conditions, but the wellness community oftentimes and the coaching training community, you know, they do a better job with things like obesity.

It's a chronic condition that can only be fixed with chronic treatment, which would be training, exercise, nutrition, and whatnot. Do you think fixing that problem is in part more to do with educating society on where to go when you have these other problems? A lot of people, if they are obese or they have heart disease or they're diabetic or whatever, they want to only go to the medical community, which, again, it's not a bad thing, but it's a partial truth in a way where it's only fixing the problem at one level

and it's not comprehensive enough to truly solve the problem they're looking to solve. Well, I think, you know, I'll have to speak in generalities because the problem is so massive and so complex and there's people far more bright than anybody around here, and certainly me, to sort of answer this comprehensively. But, you know, it boils down, like, if we're looking at the, we've talked about this, and Andy and I have talked about this, in 2023, 73% of our health care budget is going to be going to things

that are preventable. So there's a big chunk of this population that doesn't want to know and they don't care. So they're not going to do much even if they've been educated. And we've had different undulations of, hey, you know, there's presidential fitness programs. There's, you know, the first lady is saying go out and exercise. We have the NFL play 60. There's a million different variations of get out and be fit. But on some fundamental level, something is happening in our human existence, and that is that we're not connecting to our physical presence.

We're just not. That's more to me an issue of the psychological state, and it's a distracted state. I heard a great quote the other day, and Andy, you might be able to help me remember who it's from. What is it? The distracted animal is destructive? Yeah. That was Brian McKenzie on my class two days ago, quoting somebody else.

I can't remember. Take credit, man. Just take credit for it. Yeah, I think I thought of that. I think I tweeted that a while ago. But the point is that there's a psychology right now. It's not necessarily a physicality. So it's a lack of reluctance. So somebody can go, yeah, okay, I need there's a, Doug, there's a psychology right now. It's not necessarily a physicality. So it's a lack of reluctance.

So somebody can go, yeah, okay, I need, oh, no, I need to work out. And even if they get the best trainer, best, you know, personal motivator to get them moving, that may not be sustainable if the head game isn't addressed first. And I think that that's where fundamentally we've missed. Like we go, okay okay science is important we got to move our bodies because it does x y and z that we all can kind of agree on and then we go into the field and then somebody comes in and we go okay we're gonna we're gonna do an assessment and the assessment is what is happening in your body without actually going what's going on in

here and between your ears that stops the process of fucking moving and how can we get you to connect to that movement and moreover how can we make that a lifelong habit so to me the battleground is in this sort of distracted space that our consciousness is in and as we start to really address how to get that conversation that sort of meta conversation, that deeper one, then we can start to elongate and really just drop into that second dimension again and hit them with the hard physicality. Now, that's very difficult because it assumes that the tool set of the person having this conversation with somebody who's like,

what are you talking about? Like second dimension and meta, what the hell is going on? Like, I think I was just told to be here. Cause my doctor said that I'm out of shape. Right. Cortisol levels are shot, you know? So there has to be some like emotional mental connection at those base levels and at the base introduction. So Doug, I didn't want to answer that too ethereally, but I think I did. I think, I think that, I think that again,ereally, but I think I did.

Ethereally? I think that, again, going back to the span of human history, this is the first time that we have the option to be sedentary. And technology has allowed that to happen. So we now have a technology that's available to the average person whose consciousness is not necessarily – like that person didn't develop that technology. Like, I pull my iPhone out. I don't know how this thing works. Like, I know it works. I use it all the time. And it enables me to do less.

Like, I can do more with less effort, right? And so I can do more with less work physically by using this device. But I don't have the consciousness even to build that thing. Right. And so what's happening now is we're playing catch up. And so we're becoming aware, I think, we're becoming aware that we have to move. And we're creating, like, these artificial, like, programs so that we don't die. It's like, oh, oh, I have to now do this thing.

Because I used to be out in the field, like, you know, on the farm. And I'm moving things. I'm picking things up. And I have to run from here to there and now it's turned into like I can just go from my desk to my car to my bed and just rotate that dinner table you know in there and and and it's one of those things like oh for the first time we're having to like analyze we're actually having to go back and analyze how to move something that was just naturally done for a long period of time what's really cool about it is because we're now understanding it at a pretty high level i think is we're then going to be able to like i think there's gonna be like a leapfrog effect so we had you know our parents and our

current generation is gonna probably die young from very unnecessary things. But on the other end of this process, there's a really deep understanding that's going to allow people to live a really long time and move a lot. But we're going to have to go through this period of time where it's like a dark age of some sorts. And so we're trying to push that forward and break through the other side because if we can break through the other side and we can get all of society and the culture to break through the other side with us, then there's a very bright future. Yeah.

I mean, let's go Peter Diamandis here, right? We're in this age of abundance. Yeah. That's where we're at. We have to engineer suffering. Yeah. We have to engineer being hot or cold. We have to engineer being hungry, engineer being fatigued, because for our entire human

existence, we haven't had to do that. And in fact, to make your point really clear, this concept of exercising for our health, if our species makes it another 100 or 200 years, this whole idea of exercise is going to be forgotten. Right. And what I mean by that is this. Our entire history as a species, our physical activity was the same.

And at the very, very blip, maybe this line goes a mile long, in the very, very last step, it fell off to where we slowly started decreasing physical activity. Well, now what's going to happen is, faster than we know it, physical activity would be dead.

And what I mean by that is, 10 years ago, it was probably good to say, hey, get out and exercise 30 minutes a day because we were still actually fairly physically active. Right. Now, if you exercise 30 minutes a day, you're going to die at age 40 because we're going to be completely sedentary in 100 years. So like exercise is an idea. It's going to be gone. You're going to have to totally change your life so you are physically active all day because this idea of, well, you're literally going to be in your backside

here all day. And all the research is showing, hey, look, just because you train really hard for an hour a day, if you're completely sedentary for the other 23, that's not enough. And that's only going to get further down that spectrum. So they're going to forget this little 50-year thing when we try to promote exercise. So on a practical

note, for the time being, how do you combat that? I'm in that category. I work out an hour, maybe two hours a day on most days, and the rest of the time I'm pretty sedentary. I'm on my laptop, I'm talking on the phone or something. I'm not really doing a lot. You have to engineer the suffering somehow. So this may include playing with things like fasting. This may include playing with things like a lack

of sleep. Hopefully also this includes adding in physical activity, taking Riley for a walk, going outside, walking around, moving as you can. You do this. You don't take your phone calls on your desk. You put your earbuds in and you're walking for the hour. That easily is the thing that keeps me moving around all day. I talk on the phone a lot and I walk for hours every day and it's hilly where I live so I'm walking hills for hours

a day. It's like I go for a three hour hike or more almost every single day. You don't even count that as your training. I'm so crazy fit. He's such a savage. These things are going to be gone. It's already here but it's not mine these things are going to be gone. Yeah. Right? And it's already here. It's not mine.

I'm keeping mine. It's going to be Tony Stark, right? It's going to be like you're going to be able to walk on your computer and do this. Right? So you're going to be able to move around and you're typing in air, in space. Man, I can't wait until augmented reality gets here. Minority report for real. I'm more excited about augmented reality than I am about virtual reality. Yeah, yeah.

Even though virtual reality sounds pretty awesome. Well, the augmented reality is interesting because that actually will, in my view, increase physical activity. It'll take us back. Yes, exactly. It's going to take us back where we need to be with universal connectivity. Exactly. And that's what I mean with this whole little 50-year gap where we're like, well, get out and train. Like, that's going to be gone because everyone's going to be like, oh, I'm going for a jog as I'm typing right now or whatever. You're going to be able to do all these things.

Yeah, thinking in, it's going to be popped out. What I'm looking forward to is being able to share a feeling versus, like, share a thought. I want no part of feelings. I'm a quantitative scientist, not a qualitative scientist. Get that shit out of my face. Get it out. Sorry, I cut you off like 20 times, Kenny.

No, no, I was just going to add. All right, new goal. Get Andy to feel my feelings. Get him to appreciate your feelings. One of these. Oh, bro hug. Oh, boy. One of the things I was going to add a few moments ago is that, you know,

the health and wellness box, if you're to create a diagram and create the health and wellness box. Is it a box? I thought you were a triangle guy. No, he's on a triangle. A box is in circles now. A box is in circles? Totally moved on from triangles.

So he added a whole other dimension. No, one more corner. He needed it. Have you been to the 12th dimension yet? I'm heading there. It is crazy. Next, we're getting in the cylinder. That's the evolution.

How long we can just keep cutting off Kenny? Just keep it going. It's 17 minutes old. How do you think you get to that 12th dimension? A frustration. That's all I had to say. A frustration. No, one of the things that I was going to add is that, like, it's interesting because our conversations, the ones that we're having are hitting a small percentage of the population.

What we're trying to do is expand the conversation so more people can hear this. And so one way to sort of look at it as I look at like the professionalization of health and wellness is like, if you've got a box and people's fitness circles are inside of that. So somebody's fitness circle ideally is very robust and very big within the box. But what we've seen within

our space is sometimes people will over-prioritize fitness so that fitness is actually bigger and more important than health and wellness, i.e. a professional athlete. So professional athletes have to consciously make that choice that I'm going to put my overall health, I know that I'm going to be taking some risks in order to achieve the things that I need to achieve. And that circle is therefore bigger than health and wellness. But for the majority of the population and the people that we're really trying to connect with are trying to understand, look, here's this health and wellness bubble. And then the fitness thing needs to go inside of it.

And the populations that we're affecting are only that the part that was formerly that sort of big circle that encompasses the box rather than taking a larger picture, which is the overall health and wellness box and keeping people's fitness big within it. Does that make sense? I can't wait to see you draw this out. I think I lost Mike. I need a picture. In the 12th dimension. I need the pictures. He's like.

I think you're absolutely right. Like, our friend Lauren used to say weightlifting is great for you unless you compete in it. Yeah, right, right, right. Because at some point your fitness goes beyond where it needs to be, and it's not healthy anymore. It kind of, on that upside down U-shaped curve, like, the peak is kind of somewhere in the middle. And then if you push it more more you start to fall off where where also now because you're trying to get as strong as possible all your fucking joints hurt and now and that's that's not healthy that's bad for you at some level in this case like your your physical your physical body is not healthy that's why it

hurts right like if it was healthy 100 healthy it wouldn't hurt right right and so i think you're absolutely right the the general population, like the everyday lay person, needs to or should prioritize wellness and overall health over fitness because they are not one and the same. You should be fit, but you also should be healthy. Right. Well said. You said it.

No, but you said it. I feel like you said it better. That's why we're all standing in a square. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's wrap it up, homie. That's why we're all standing in a square. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's wrap it up, homie. It's good to be back.

Yeah. It is really good to be back. It is good to be back. Not talking about health and fitness and strength and conditioning on a show with my friends for a long time. Yeah, I've missed it. It's good to be back. And, yeah, we're not going anywhere. So, really enjoyed having you. It's good to be back. And, yeah, we're not going anywhere. So, really enjoyed having you.

Thanks for being patient with us. And see you next week. Back next week.