Barbell Shrugged - Total Human Optimization with John Wolf - 271

Episode Date: August 2, 2017

This week we traveled to Onnit Academy in Austin, Texas, to talk to their Chief Fitness Officer, John Wolf. Onnit’s mission is to help people achieve total human optimization, and John’s the one to get you there. He’ll be the first to tell you that movement and training is just a part of total human optimization. You might know Onnit best from their nutrition supplements and fitness accessories (like these kettlebells, for example). When John was brought on as CF[itness]O, he was tasked with creating a system that incorporated everything Onnit was already doing -- and to use all the information available to make the best humans. In this week’s episode, John gets into some solid, specific technical about how to make your movement more efficient. Bonus: Get 10% off your order with Onnit when you go to www.barbellshrugged.com/onnit.

When I'm teaching that seminar, that's a big part. It's like a big block of the first day is preempting everything else with this part of the practice. It's like the foundation building blocks, the alphabet before we create words, before we create sentences or poetry, whatever movement ends up being, right? And so, you know, if you don't know A, it's kind of hard to spell a lot of things, right? And so your body will make up a new word a compensation but you still it's not the same thing it's a new word it's a new movement and so a big thing we're talking about with this and it's not purely just to feel good it is about a better understanding of self Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson and Alex Macklin.

We're in Austin, Texas, hanging out at Onnit Academy. And we are here with Onnit's Chief Fitness Officer, Mr. John Wolfe. Chief Fitness Officer. That's awesome. What a title. CFO. CFO. Whole new meeting. Whole new meeting. That's awesome. What a title. CFO. CFO. Whole new meaning.

Whole new meaning. It's confusing. People send him, like, financial shit, and he's like, I have no idea. I don't know. Apparently, you don't know what I do. That's the wrong motherfucker. So what do you do as the Chief Fitness Officer? Mostly, I just am thankful that I have an awesome gig at an awesome company.

But it is. It's actually a really unique deal, right? So, say, for someone to do a lot of the things that I get to do here, you know, you'd probably be working at something like Nike or one of these big apparel brands. They might have a division. But here it's kind of cool because I have a seat at the, like, the C-level exec table where, you know, on its mission is total human optimization. We do a lot of different things and I get to oversee everything that's fitness related from fitness, product development, education, the gym here where we're at, where there's all these amazing people doing amazing things every day.

And it's just it's been a great pleasure to kind of guide this because when I got here, the fitness department was still pretty new. And, you know, there's a lot of exciting things coming up. Yeah. Last summer we started hanging out, and I knew that there was some pretty cool stuff. And actually, we had hung out with Aubrey, and he had showed us some of the – we did maces with him one day, I think is what it was. We did. Like, before this was a thing, because this gym was fucking dope,

when you guys had, like, just one small room. Now you guys have, like, three or four different rooms. There's, like, a studio, too. You've got kickboxing in there. You've got the 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu in the other room. You've got, like, the full gym set up in here. We were here years ago when it was just, like, one small room, like a fourth the size of this, and you had some kettlebell –

not kettlebell, you had some maces and some clubs in the corner and some battle ropes and one small mat and now it's like expanded to this big thing so you know that is actually that room right there that classroom used to be that room and it was that concrete floor with the little section of jiu-jitsu mats and a crossover cable which is like very eclectic right so in that one room everything that kind of expanded into this big space was somewhat represented or tried to be at that point in time. Yeah, it was obvious even back then that what you guys were doing was very unique, and it wasn't like any gym that I had ever gone to. I mean, certainly you have dumbbells over there, and you've got barbells, and you've got basic strength and conditioning equipment that everyone seems to have. But then you guys have a lot of other very unique things and the style of training here is very different so like from your perspective like what is like the style or philosophy that is different here at on

it you know it was really great to like getting back to landing this gig right so uh i had this fitness studio in california and we had a very eclectic mix, like inclusive philosophy, right? So I would bring in all these educators. And then those educators would eventually influence my perspective on what a complete system of training would look like and feel like. Because I don't think good information displaces good information. If you find something that's really powerful, you're kind of, it's your responsibility to learn how to integrate it into whatever your current framework is. And when I started the relationship with Onnit, what I found is that's exactly what their philosophy is. Total human optimization means how do you use all the good information and all the good methodology that's available in the marketplace

to make yourself a better human being in some way, shape, or form. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. We got in trouble, John. Get that mic right in the mouth. Right there. If anyone knows how to play some mic, it's Doug. It's like right in my mouth now, which I don't know if I'm comfortable with,

but I'll deal with it for you, Doug. We can have you, though. It kind of makes me uncomfortable, you know? No, no. I know you pretty well, John. You don't get uncomfortable by extended eye contact or extra long hugs. Okay, you copy. But this is the first time in public with you guys.

I'm trying to play coy. But, yeah, so when I got here, the fact that that philosophy that I already had put in place was embraced and encouraged was really what drove the decision to get out here and really go all in as part of this community and part of this company. So I got here. They're already doing a lot of different stuff. We were acquiring Black Swan Yoga. We already sold clubs, maces, kettlebells, sandbags, battle ropes. And the task that I was given was like, well, create a system that incorporates all of these things in something that was sound.

It's principle based. Right. And since then, we continue to bring in subject matter experts that continue to influence our perspective. So the education system, the philosophies here are a living body of work. And just like a lot of the things that I've been able to get exposed to through my relationship with you guys continues to influence many of the

interactions I have with the coaches that I have because it's my job, you know, to nurture those individuals as human beings through this total human optimization philosophy. And movement's just part of it. Training's just part of it. So it's kind of uh it's a big task it's a big task to always be able to evolve to the next step and celebrate everything that is conventional everything that is in the functional fitness space we don't we don't think anything's wrong we just look at, well, how could we bring something that complements it? How can we do something that, you know, brings something to the table that's

new but brings value at the same time? Yeah. Yeah, I like how you don't throw away ideas. You just try to bring it all together and see, okay, how can this all work together to make you better? Yeah. Yeah. And the unconventional piece has been really interesting

because I started working with some of the tools last year. Last summer I started working with the clubs and Mesa specifically, and I found that it highlighted a lot of gaps I had in my own movement practice, and I noticed that a lot of the stuff I was using was actually very healing for my body, shoulders, hips, things that I had done a lot of repetitive movement in was using was actually very healing for my body, shoulders, hips, things that I had done a lot of repetitive movement in the sagittal plane with weightlifting and CrossFit. And then adding clubs and maces to the mix in addition to has been really great for me. So I'm not snatching what I used to snatch, but I'm living a very healthy lifestyle at this point.

And I see where had I adopted a lot of these things earlier, I could have trained longer. I could have been competing longer. And that's the key is if you look at different systems or different practices in the fitness realm, say bodybuilding. Is there something wrong with bodybuilding inherently? Well, no. It's just aesthetically driven. If you're looking at CrossFit, it's very work-oriented, measured work, right? So it's just different goals, different outcomes.

But the fact of the matter is no matter what we invest in, there's some level of sacrifice if we focus solely on one outcome because uh like when uh we're at the mastermind with daniel talking about well as human beings we're often looking at one one goal and at the exclusion of something that's equally important and we need to be able to to look at well you have this this thought but there's the counter thought is just as important you need to be able to like look at well you have this this thought but there's the counter thought is just as important you need to be able to like take remove yourself from one perspective take a higher higher point of view and incorporate both and so for us that's what we look at our unconventional movement system is about longevity and performance so we think that if you have the ability to evolve

as an athlete or as a as as a fitness enthusiast over a long period of time without injury, without setback, you're going to gain on the performance side. So exactly what you're saying there. Yeah, the person who can stay in the game the longest, that's who's going to be the most fit, you know? Yeah, and so we have a lot of these NFL athletes coming in because we brought this really dynamic, amazing young coach in, and he has a stable like Earl Thomas, Von Miller, top-tier NFL athletes coming in. We're exposing them to a lot of this stuff, and they're like, man, this is crazy, especially with the veterans. They're not trying to move as much away as they were.

They just want to stay in the game. Stay in the game. And so I always hear him talking. He's like, hey, the best ability is availability you know because it doesn't matter if you got a contract if you can't play you ain't making money yeah and uh you know for a lot of people they think you know they want to be an athlete but they're not making money that way and they're sacrificing their quality of life yeah for something that you know it should enhance your quality of life that's it yeah

and we were talking to Daryl Christian recently. He trains a lot of UFC fighters, and he was talking about how a lot of the UFC, the big names that we know didn't make as much money as the guys who were able to fight longer. You know, some guys did a really good job and have done a really good job of fighting for a long time, and their strategy was a little more around training was

well more intelligent more well-rounded and just more thought out whereas some other guys just like flash in the pen they had a big name because they got the title or whatever but they weren't be able to fight for a long time so you look at how much money one athlete made versus another you'd be shocked it's like some guys you didn't really hear much from, you know, they kind of like just rode in the middle for a long time. They made a lot more money. So if we're looking at athletics as a career, that's just another way of viewing that. Yeah. And so, you know, a lot of the things that we were doing, becoming more present and more in a variety of things like paleo effects is in town

and now we've been present there for a couple years so we're seeing a lot more people uh more warm and receptive to what we're talking about because you know i think a lot of people think well everything could be a flash in the pan doesn't really matter so the test of time yeah really validates things and so we're seeing we're going out to these conventions like the cs cca this uh strength coaches convention this collegiate strength coaches convention. And the same thing happened year after year. They're starting to see us. And now we're talking about clubs and maces is in-season training.

So, you know, sub maximal loads, triplanar movement, keeping the nervous system very active and that neuroplasticity high for for their ability to stay reactive and and uh responsive to the dynamic sphere whatever the sport demands what do you mean by uh triplanar triplanar so can you explain in a way that for people who are listening and not watching yeah yeah so it's really um you know i think people look at movement and you know we all see like anatomical man you know and sagittal plane and coronal you know like you have this this person bisected in these planes and people are like well that's a sagittal plane dominant movement or like well you know movement happens in in all the planes yeah you're either stabilizing or moving through those planes one or the the other, all of the above.

But there's a dominant factor. So like CrossFit is a primary sagittal plane. It's very up and down, forward and back maybe a little bit. And so the system that I was taught, this kind of concept that's borrowed from mechanical engineering called the six degrees of freedom. And so it kind of borrowed that in

aeronautical terminology to kind of explain the potential for more movement and i thought it was really intelligent but then it was still overly complex so if we looked at i just look at the axes of the primary axes of movement these three axes so the primary one axis is up and down vertical axis so what is that it's represented by your spine when you're upright So you could either move along that axis So this is like translation or even like transporting yourself up and down that line is the way we kind of explain So it's like a squad a jump. I'm moving up and down right but in every one of these axes we can also Interact with it through rotation. So along that same axis, I can rotate, right?

And it's very valid and important because along each of these axes, we're looking at how the body can or can't move around these axes or primarily in rotation, we're finding that a lot of dysfunction is hiding in rotation. And so even if we can, you know, use prime movers to move external load, it's just those little details. Like wherever I'm looking at you, if there's an unwarranted, unwanted rotation happening in your body, I'm going to challenge that rotation. And it doesn't even matter.

It doesn't matter where it's at. then I'm going to take it away and reduce the load, maybe challenge you structurally, and replug that new awareness into the gross motor pattern you had before and hope to see an improvement in efficiency or even output. Do you have an example of this? I mean, shoot, it could be just about anything, right? So, like, throwing mechanics might be one. We do club work. There's one very dynamic exercise called a mill.

So the body, you swing the club across the body and out, and then there's a rotation of the elbow here. Oh, yeah. And so if that elbow doesn't rotate over, or even if we can look at patterning sequentially from the ground up, so respecting that kinetic chain. So if the foot doesn't turn over and transfer force into the ground, looking at foot, toe, ankle, knee, hip, and then torso,

then we can look at the club as something that amplifies whenever that timing is off because that lever extends, and then all of a sudden, whatever is loose, wherever there's not a clear transfer energy, all of a sudden you see, whoa, there's a wonkiness right there. It gets loud. It gets real loud real loud amplifies it boom and so you know we're looking at using a lot of these unconventional tools and it's hard to do anything along that rotation with a traditional loaded implement right yeah and one of the things we were talking about right before the show is one of the you know when i used to think about rotation as a core thing like oh we're going to rotate you got to be able to turn about rotation as a core thing. Like, oh, we're going to rotate.

You've got to be able to turn your whole body. But then after working with the clubs specifically, I was like, oh, I'm getting rotation at my shoulder. I'm getting loaded rotation at the shoulder. Whereas before it was either like I was just pressing, pulling, up or down, or back and front. And then I get the clubs and I'm loaded through this rotational movement. I go, oh, this is interesting.

And then additionally the wrists. Man, that's a big deficiency for a lot of people. So for so long I've been gripping barbells, kettlebells, pull-up bars, and I have a fixed finger hold. So I'm gripping the same thing that's the same diameter over and over again and just a straight up and down. I'm like pulling straight back on it. When I had the clubs, I was pulling my wrist in different directions

and my fingers were having to adjust, so my pinky might have to reach a little bit harder or vice versa as I was moving through these planes. Yeah, and that's the thing is like the lack of efficiency becomes apparent. Then you have to deduce where that lack of efficiency is coming from. Is it coming from the ground, you know, and is there a lack of connection there? Or is it as far distal as the hand and the implement in the hand yeah it's kind of interesting and and you know i think a lot of people um for us

we don't really care what the application is like we're not overly attached so like i love working with crossfit athletes with power lifters with uh team sport athletes it doesn't really matter to us because movement good movement is good movement. It transfers no matter where you apply it. And lack of good movement has a predictable outcome. It's going to show up. Yeah. Well, you know, these amazing athletes, they're not the best movers.

But they're the best compensators. Yeah, they're amazing compensators, right? They have, like, no ankle dorsiflexion, and yet they're out there doing things that are, like, mind-blowing, you know, for us to witness. And then we just might work on one little thing, like the biggest block for their performance and for their longevity, and one thing can change everything, right? And so for us, you know, we're,'re like say if we work with a crossfit athlete

and we're like well that shoulder doesn't rotate like you're talking about what happens if I just help that shoulder rotate and I don't need to be an expert in what they're doing specifically because they have skill coaches that are going to be much better at what they're doing you know Olympic lifting like you know Coach Bergner or something like that I'm never going to argue with Coach Bergner I'm just going to be like well coach what is it you see there and then i might come to a conclusion is like well i have a toolkit where i can kind of help coaches athletes become better athletes and then give them right back to their skill coach yeah yeah the specificity yeah you know get out of my stay in my lane, you know, and I think that, you know, it's a really fun way to be a coach that way, you know,

and cool because I'm always like you guys, I'm always learning more, right, because I'm working with this athlete and he's in this sport or this movement practice. You know, this is the venue that he or she excels at or operates in, and I just do the things that we do here, and then we hand them right back to the person that's in charge of their performance, their skill development. We've been alluding to unconventional training and unconventional tools. Can you run us through the tools that you're using that aren't commonly found in other gyms?

Yeah, definitely. the tools that you're using that aren't commonly found in other gyms yeah yeah definitely so um i guess the the biggest thing when i took that task of working here the biggest the first thing was i was tasked to create a foundational body of work that encompassed a lot of the tools that on it had become known for or that we offer and so it was like two days to even conceptualize what that would look like because it was a big task. And so it incorporates our foundational course, incorporates open chain mobility work, which is just like joint circles. If you see like Max Schenck's stuff, a lot of his stuff is open chain joint circles. Then he does a lot of ground-based stuff. So the five-minute flow stuff, I know you guys had him on the show.

I love Max's work. And he keeps things really non-dogmatic and allows you to express your own movement. And that's really important, I think, and it's a big part of what we do. So that's the lead-in because if those two things will show a lot of what's going to happen later on, we can already point them out and reinforce, like, okay, this is going to mean you're going to have a hard time here, here, here, and here. One of the things, you actually showed me some of that flow stuff before I met Max. And the, I remember when you said something at some point that really stuck out to me, and I've used it in my own coaching, which is, as you're going through that, make note of what's happening

left to right. You know, as you're doing the flow stuff, I could just be rolling my shoulders. And I think a lot of people just do shoulder rolls or something like that or they're rotating something. But they're not really thinking about it. But while you're doing that, you bring your awareness into those joints and you go, you know what? There is a difference between my right and left shoulder. And having that awareness can change like, oh, I need to be –

and then I'm like keep on checking in. This is stronger here or there or this has more balance and that's that's been really helpful for me and me coaching other people i don't know how many times i passed that that got through me to them and i've had athletes walk up to me afterwards and was like holy shit like i didn't notice these five things yeah it's a conscious movement practice right so um when, right? So when I'm teaching that seminar, that's a big part. It's like a big block of the first day is preempting everything else with this part of the practice. It's like the foundation building blocks, the alphabet before we create words,

before we create sentences or poetry, whatever movement ends up being, right? And so, you know, if you don't know A, it's kind of hard to spell a lot of things. Right. And so your body will make up a new word, a compensation, but you still, it's not the same thing. It's a new word. It's a new movement. And so a big thing we're talking about with this, and it's not purely just to feel good. It's is about a better understanding of self. I kind of tell everybody it's your daily check-in and so like for you if you're in a committed relationship which i know a lot of us are when you get home if you're like hey like this is how most people treat their body where's my dinner

it's time to lift where's my dinner how come you're not picking this shit up you know and this stupid knee gets in my way every time I want to do something fun. My fucking shoulder. You know, and this is the dialogue in people's head. Yeah. But then when we're moving through this in this conscious practice, I'm telling people, like, well, you could have that approach. But just imagine how that is because your spouse for life is your body. Like your consciousness and your body, we kind of separate those things in our modern culture.

So the dialogue is coming from here. But you're abusing your relationship with yourself. Do you use that analogy? Because you should. All the time. So then when we do this movement practice, I need you to reprogram your dialogue with your body. So it's like, hey, how are you feeling today? Like when you show up home from work, hey, how was your day, honey? How was your day, honey?

Oh, but you don't know until you listen yeah and so this is what you're talking about right you move you're asking a question and then you listen you're like oh shit you know you're not feeling so hot right there you don't really have that going on hey what can i do to help this situation be better. Right. And then I can ask for the work or whatever else we want as an outcome, right? Or maybe today's not the right day to ask for shit. You know, maybe we just pay it in. We accumulate positive, you know, brownie points. Yeah, yeah.

And we assess that every day through this practice, and that's an important part of the system. And then we can get into all the cool stuff everybody wants to do. So we go from that to setting a foundation of body weight, like gross motor patterns, hinge, squat, push, pull. And then we apply that to a lot of different tools. And we understand that everything has to be contextual. So the tool will change your hinge pattern because you're interacting with something that is very, like a barbell is no longer the same as a sound bag, is the same as a kettlebell, same as a club.

I just noticed, I went to the club certification and just swinging the club, vastly different than swinging a kettlebell. I think I've gotten really comfortable with that single implement and just having a different implement has been really great. Well, how do you choose the appropriate tool like yeah i mean well that's kind of fun too because um we're talking well we we're hosting this amazing seminar uh we have all these clinicians in the house and i think for a lot of people in the fitness arena it's largely an experiential model of delivering. So like people are consumers, so they have to want to do shit.

Yeah. And you have to provide an experience that inspires them to continue wanting to do more shit. And so a big thing is, one, what fires people up. I might train with clubs and maces and all this stuff, but if someone wants to lift a barbell, fuck yeah, let's lift barbells because I don't care what the tool is, good movement is good movement, and if I have a strong principle-based framework, I can apply it to a rock or a stick.

I don't care. We train with anything and everything or nothing. And so what does that person attach value to? And then from there, we can open the door to more opportunities, new, more novel experiences, and show the value of those things, but from this position of trust because I met them where they're at. Yeah, exactly. You've got to meet them where they're at. Yeah, exactly. You've got to meet them where they're at to get your foot in the door.

Then you'll be like, hey, how about we try this little tool over here? Then they check it out. I'm like, oh, this is really cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's a very mature perspective that a lot of people don't get until they've been training people for a long time. Do you feel like you've always kind of been like that or how long did it take you to develop that framework?

Man, you know, a lot of this mobility stuff, I was like, oh, I was so into this. It makes me feel so good because I was injured inherently. And a lot of people that I would track through proliferating that information were people that have either are injured or were injured and don't want to continue experiencing what that's like. And so it was really easy to work with those people. But then I'd get a lot of people like, do we to do all what they're kind of like the people who just like okay whatever the 24 year old hasn't been fucked up yet yeah i mean he just wants he just wants there and to go load up 400 pounds how's this gonna make me swole exactly exactly like bro you gotta go down the street you know but no but what would happen inherently was uh

i didn't hit critical mass. I didn't have the level of authority. And now it's just, for me, that part is a non-negotiable. Everything else is I'll meet you where you're at. But as far as building that conscious movement practice, that's the non-negotiable. If you want to work with me, this is where we are. This is where we stay. Always that's part of the practice.

But back in the day, it was, like, so frustrating to have people have people come in like, well, do we have to do this mobility shit? What the fuck is this? What the fuck is this? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. We don't have to. But you can leave. No, no, no, no. I'll do what you want to do.

I'll straight whoop your ass for an hour straight. You know? The problem was that people would be like, ah. But they come back. Make them pay. Can we do the mobility stuff now um now you know what sometimes it takes that though you know you gotta break them before they want to listen yeah you know and now i'm so thankful i think that the industry's changed a lot and people are starting to value skill development as part of this this process where they like I want to do cool shit because Instagram, YouTube.

Oh, yeah. And so, like, a lot of times it's kind of frustrating. Now the problem is on the opposite side. Like, I want to do this cool thing. I'm like, bro, your wrist doesn't flex more. You know, it doesn't extend more than this. And you want to do a handstand, you know? And so we've got a lot of work to do but um but again now it's like now it's like

holding people back from doing things that are too crazy too kind of far out there but um but no you know it's been a long journey and i think what i had to come to terms with was realizing it's okay if you're not interested because there's other people that are happy to provide you what you want you just showed up at the wrong place at the wrong time next year when you're not interested because there's other people that are happy to provide you what you want. You just showed up at the wrong place at the wrong time. Next year when you're all fucked up, come on back, you know. I mean, because you might be really ripped and be really hurt, you know, like really shredded, really hurt. And I'm still going to be here and I'm still going to be happy to be of service.

Did you get yourself to the point where you were all fucked up at one point? Oh, man. And that's why you're like, okay, this is all a good idea? Yeah. So let's take a break and we'll come back. I want to hear about how John fucked himself up. Oh, man. Over the last year, I've used clubs, maces, and a few other tools that I've gotten from Onnit.

My shoulders feel better. My hips feel better. My body feels stronger in all the planes and directions that they weren't before. If you wanna check these out, go over to barbellshrug.com slash on it, and you'll get 10% off when you buy something, but you need to use that link. Hey everybody, Marcus Gerzi,

co-host of the Barbell Business Podcast. If you're a gym owner who's looking to fix, build, or just take your gym from good to great, tune in every Tuesday to the Barbell Business Podcast. You can find us on iTunes and anywhere else you can download a podcast, or you can watch the video version on YouTube on the Barbell Shrugged channel.

Tune in to find Doug, myself, and Mike Bledsoe talking about the latest tips and tricks to take your business to the next level. We'll see you Tuesday. We're back with John Wolff. How'd you fuck yourself up? Oh, man. Are we specifically talking about training? How much time you got, brother?

Which area do you like? We'll save the other one for the Bledsoe show. Yeah, yeah, which I think I probably shared there already. I think so. Yeah, so, you know, when I was really young, I was in an auto accident. It was back before car seats or seat belts were mandatory so i just like right you know ride the little center console so i could see over the seat you know boom hit the windshield and i yeah i remember doing that like sitting down like oh grandma am i in

trouble you know i broke your window you know but then i didn't realize i was a hard-headed little kid i used to fall all over the place right um? But then I didn't realize until I was in my 20s, I got some film shot and realized, like, there's likely compression fractures that I experienced in my cervical and thoracic spine from that incident. It could have been from other stuff too, but this is the most traumatic thing I can remember at an early age. And then everything, man, my neck and my back,

quite literally looks like a stage two degeneration. It looks like a 70-year-old person's spine. Oh, shit. And so I took on powerlifting, bodybuilding practices. How old were you? I was like two at the time or three. Yeah, I was like really young. Well, damn. When you had the car accident?

Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, I was just like, again, I was just like this little kid sitting on the center console in the old mobile. Nobody had a seatbelt back then. Yeah, I mean, you guys might remember doing that too. Yeah, exactly. Oh, the brakes hit. The brakes hit.

Oh, there you go. I got you. I got you. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, in today's day and age, that sounds preposterous. How are you going to let your kid do that? But, I mean, that was just normal. We were riding land boats, you know, back then. know back then it was like we're safe you know cars were

awesome they're huge ones oh big oldsmobile i had a 69 ford galaxy i don't even know what that is google that shit that was my first car i like the year yeah yeah yeah i'm fond of that yeah it's a good year it's a boat yeah sure. I could put nine people on it comfortably. Man. Two bench seats. And then in the trunk, you could probably load a whole bunch of people, too. Oh, yeah. All sorts of stuff.

Some Scarface shit. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. How much has changed? You know, same perspective, just a different car. Yeah, so I just didn't realize that. So I was doing judo and martial arts when I i was young and i always have these neck issues and then i you know i got into chiropractic when i was young but it just never really did anything that that good i was still

fucked up even as a young martial artist and so i got older i started getting a bodybuilding and then power lifting and you know i started getting the loads pretty high and i just noticed my neck and my mid-back not only were locked up but they're like like seized up you know weren't just tight they're like the joints were like screaming you know yeah they're stuck and and so i got some film shot this was one car i had me put my chin on my chest and then shot the film from the side it's an x-ray and yeah and and then so my C-spine was like T2 slid off of T3 like this to do it because it was just so locked up. And then it hinged off like so. And I'm like, oh, shit, my head is literally hanging off by a ligament.

And so we went through a cycle of trying to address that, and then that's when I realized, like, okay, I was already starting to do some mobility stuff, but I really dove in. I already had the toolkit, but I was just like everybody else. I wasn't fucked up enough to really put enough energy into it so that it was really countering everything else I was doing. How old were you when you had this? When you learned this?

I was, like, in my late 20s. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And you were already training and doing powerlifting by this time. Yeah, exactly. You know, and so it wasn't like I was doing bad training. It was just that the training wasn't conducive

to what it was that my biggest issues were. And I had no way of assessing that accurately and even being aware until it was already a big problem and I think that's you know that's why people come to seek out a lot of coaches that might or clinicians that obviously are going to be qualified to to help unwind that process turn the clock back through a daily practice and of course that person has to take ownership of their own wellbeing as well.

But, but yeah, so through that now I can do a whole bunch of crazy, you know, I'm a bigger dude and I can do a whole bunch of crazy shit all over the ground and move. And people will be like, well,

you're going to fuck yourself up. You're like, no, actually I do this. So I'm not fucked up. Yeah. And so, and so now,

you know, that's kind of the, the opposite side of the spectrum there what are some things that you that you did or that you do well it's kind of the same stuff we were talking about that conscious movement practice and then and then there was you know obviously some uh help from some really good clinicians at the same time it was just chiropractic and and the daily mobility practice and then moving away from super maximal loaded training, actually I went a weight. So say like at that time I was pulling raw, you know, 505,

you know, and I probably could have fought for more, but I'm really meticulous about my technique. You know, like I really want to maintain like a nice strong spinal position, right? And so I stopped. And then so for years, I didn't pick up a barbell at all, really, because in my studio, we only had kettlebells as the heavier loaded implements. They only went for 70 pounds. And one day I went to this CrossFit fundraiser.

And the first event was, you know, work up to max deadlift. And it was like, was cool i was like oh man did your eyes burn watching some of those no no judgment man it was all for a good cause too sometimes it was a lot of like yeah right but um but at the same time it was like i just was trying to get in where i fit it because i was uh you know in a new new waters i was like i'd never been to a crossbow box i never certainly never did did it in this form so i was just trying to like hey what are you guys doing because they had different groups doing different like an a group that's trying to go really heavy in a b group that was kind of going moderately heavy and uh you know relative to them it's heavy for them right

they know where their their window of opportunity is to hit their max and so i was like oh i went over to like the d group hey guys what are you guys going to go for you know like oh we're going to work up to you know high 200s like okay no problem i could do that went up and went up and i ended up with this like this huge behemoth of a dude right and so yeah i'm like hello sir please don't eat me but can i work in with you and it was just like he and i just the two of us and we we started where a lot of people were trying to max and then worked up. And he's like, I'm like, so what are you going to go for? He's like, I want to go for like 520.

I'm going to try PR today. I'm like, okay. Well, I haven't deadlifted in a long time, but I still feel strong and I feel capable. So we worked up and I hit 505 that day. And a lot of the guys were like, no, you can put 10 more on. And I'm like no i'm great i just i just hit my old pr didn't i hadn't dead lifted for literally three years anything other than a 70 pound kettlebell and and so i just realized like okay this practice it might and i got stiff after that a little bit you know like the first time i got under

i had that much weight uh on my structure at all pulling against my structure. And, but, but I didn't have any negative tension. It was just like, like my mid back and my traps got, got fired up a little bit, but I was able to dispel that tension and really fast. And so it really tripped me out to like give up something i valued so much for this other practice that was more therapeutic and then to come back and realize that yeah maybe i lost a little bit but as far as what i was able to achieve before and now as far as the number

it matched up sure and then sounds like you feel you feel better too better same thing you're saying mike like i it was really impressive to me that I was able to hit the number, but I really didn't care. If it was 475, I still would have been really happy as long as I wasn't fucked up after. How much of that are you doing these days? How much more traditional strength training are you doing? Just basic pull-ups and then front squats and pushing prowlers and running sprints. Yeah, I like doing all of it but it's never you

know like i'm never gonna do like it's not my nature either like german volume training or you know like it's not my i require a lot of movement variability for for just the way i'm wired and yeah and for me to stay engaged so like uh i typically love having like 10 to 15 minutes of really concentrated strength work, and I can scale up if I want to concentrate on deadlifts for four to six weeks. Yeah, I might deadlift three to four times a week, but that's just the strength part of a holistic program. So actually, that said, how do you break up a single training session like you

have you have it like in blocks where it's like you warm up then you mobility work and then you strength stuff and then there's conditioning or something along those lines like how do you structure a workout usually yeah so depending upon the goal of the day but the most basic workout the format that we teach in our foundations course that i was talking about is is this multi-step approach right and so first off, we're going to look at our strength skill, our primary strength skill. What are we going to invest the most in? So what I'd say is, well, especially if you're kind of early into programming,

even workout programming, you have to focus on something. So if you don't focus on something, if you're not committed to one thing or at least one or two things, you're really not focused on anything. You're just kind of throwing shit on the wall, right? So whatever that is, let's just focus on something if you're not if you're not committed to one thing or at least one or two things you're really not focused on anything you're just kind of throwing shit on the wall right so whatever that is let's just focus on one thing and let that decision drive a lot of the supplemental decisions around that so if i have a primary move say we're talking about the deadlift i notice a hinge pattern i'm going to prime that pattern and focus on what other rotary movements around that pattern might not be deficient in that day because a lot of stuff hides in rotations so hip rotation some spinal rotation to see where

things are kind of gunked up so our general mobility would be kind of like a full body joint circles unloaded stuff kind of having this dialogue i spend yeah 10 minutes doing that and getting a nice little like blood flow kind of self-assessment. Then I get on the ground and we might do like some series of ground-based crawling or activation drills, like isometrics to reinforce positional awareness and strength on things that I might feel like, oh, this is going to really help stabilize my structure. Then after that, I might do some like a neural charge like maybe some like a twitchy movement like a med ball throw if i feel like i need to like up ramp my nervous system still

like even if the uh the static stuff was good to build some awareness and tension but i still like feel like oh groggy i might do some plyos or some jumps or some sprints or some med ball throws just to get that nervous system charged up and then go do my strength work after that you know i do some supplemental conditioning so if the really heavy hinge i don't need to do more hinging because i should get as much as i could out of that i'm going to get diminished returns if i continue loading that pattern so i'm going to do stuff that's complementary some squatting some pushing some pulling maybe some rotary movements to unwind some of the tension I built in that bilateral stance.

Right. And so after the conditioning, we do some posturing. So it's a lot of reverse posturing. So like wherever I'm loaded, say again, we're looking at that hinge. I'm in this flexed hip position. One of the things I want to do is unload that position, really provide a functional opposite of the loaded position. So I'm going to extend those hips bilaterally ideally you know bilateral flexion hip flexion bilateral hip extension but i'm not going to stop there i'm going to really work on trying to again unwind through a lot of

things that again we're hosting this this course the functional range conditioning course i quote a lot of other people because again i integrate a integrate a lot of stuff. So I'm never afraid of saying, man, this stuff that they're doing is really awesome. And so I get only like five, ten minutes to really decompress the body and get the most out of it. So we do a lot of active isometrics in kind of yoga-ish postures. So say I'm in a pigeon pose. Instead of just waiting there, I'm going to build tension against the ground, use a ground reactive force and really fire off those hips and do some PNF in a couple cycles and get the most out of it

because I only allocated so much time in that training. That's it. So in an hour, I'm going through that process. And that's what I'm saying. I can still do all the strength work or the conditioning work, the prowlers, but I might only allocate so much of it because i have more of a holistic sure framework and goal that i'm for me and what we generally condone and empower people to utilize that framework for themselves because experiential model training you might it's like it's like uh scoring with a girl for the first time. You might only get this one chance.

So I'm not going to try to give the most complete experience. Make the most of it. Yeah. We were all lost until you said that. We were all like, oh, I get it. Yeah, you got it. Okay. So you're building a lot of like balance into your training.

Like training, you know, different movement patterns or opposing movement patterns, basically. Yeah, because longevity being the focus for me. You don't want to get too far in one direction. I can get a lot more adaptation short term if I didn't have this balanced approach, but I also will get a lot of unwanted adaptation along with the wanted adaptation. And that's kind of the balancing act, right? So what I find a lot of times is it doesn't seem like you'd be very efficient in terms of, like, how fast someone would adapt, but it tends to be pretty efficient if it's well thought out.

There's little tweaks here and there, and a lot of times I'm not seeing that the people that implement that are necessarily – it's hard to gauge because they're not doing the other. But against other people who are training in four to six weeks in, whatever their sacrifice is, it's starting to hold them back. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? They don't know it yet, but there's something that they're doing

that's overloading the pattern, overloading the structure. Yeah. Like for weightlifters, like, you get too strong. Like, weightlifters are really quad dominant. Like, they don't ever hardly pull or they never hardly do any eccentric work. So they're super, super weak. And, yeah, you get left back because, you know, you can get injured or, you know, you pull off the ground. If you can't get the bar off the ground, there's no way you're going to stand up to clean it.

So, you know, like not having that balanced approach. Like you've got to – if you're going to be for a specific sport, like, yeah, you've got to be somewhat in, you know, working towards the specific needs of that sport. But that doesn't mean you don't have to completely neglect, like, total balance. Yeah. Yeah, and that's the thing is so when we have athletes, we just shift the paradigm. Yeah. balance yeah yeah and that's the thing is so when we have athletes we just shift the paradigm yeah so someone's again i consider most people who consider themselves athletes weekend warriors

is still i would rather approach it from the longevity yeah longevity standpoint yeah but if you're a professional athlete then we're going to flip that paradigm and now it's not purely performance performance and longevity like you still have to have that component we just instead of it being 65 35 in favor of restorative training mixed in that's supplemental and and complementary to the strength training or the other things that you want to achieve it becomes more 65 on the performance side you still have to do the restorative and therapeutic movement practices that that we want and we see that they actually are more efficient in their sports skills as a result of that practice. Well, it's also probably a time and a place for it too.

You know, like you mentioned earlier about in-season athletes doing more like bases and club stuff to, you know, keep them healthy during season. You know, that's probably a better thing to do at that time rather than like before when they're trying to prep up for the season. Yeah, and we stay out of the way. Hey, you guys are trying to develop attributes before the season starts. Awesome.

You're just having a hard time late in the season keeping these guys healthy. Let's look at an unconventional approach. What is unconventional? It's kind of like unconventional warfare. You can go straight at the problem or you can be a little you could subvert that and kind of like unconventional warfare. You can go straight at the problem, or you can be a little, you know, you could subvert that and kind of like, let's sneak around and, you know, attack this from a different angle,

something that people aren't necessarily looking at. It doesn't make it necessarily less effective. It might be a better way to manage your resources in a variety of different ways. And, you know, a lot of wars are won that way. So, like, unconventional warfare, you know, that's kind of like that. Did you get any resistance from people with that kind of? Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, you got a lot of people that are not going to buy in.

And that's okay. They're just not. We don't want to spend a lot of time trying to convince people of doing things. We're an audit and the community of people, like people like you, we work off, like, attraction principles, right? You know, so, like, hey, the people who want it will seek us out and find and if in or they'll seek out other people that are doing similar things and still get the value because we don't really care where you get as long as you're getting better as long as you're getting it yeah as long as you're getting it or as long as i'm getting it we were uh just talking about biomechanist last week when we were at Cal State Fullerton,

and they were talking about injury rates and variability in movement. And so I could definitely see where implementing something like clubs and maces in season could add variability of movement in order to keep people healthy longer. Yeah, and that's what they're teaching in this course. You know, I bring it up again because they're here right now, but dynamic systems theory. So a squat is a movement pattern, but a squat, you can train a squat a thousand times.

It's never the same squat. The muscles fire off in different sequences, and your body's adjusting to so many different variables, temperature, wind, noise. Like, any of those things change. Rotation of the earth. Exactly. Where are you in relation to the equator? many different variables temperature wind noise like there's any of those things change rotation of the earth exactly where are you in relation to the equator well you know the thing is sub-perceptually those things are being accounted for to some degree by things that are smart you

know your body is accounting for these things in ways that your mind can't right you know proprioceptive senses and things like that mechanoreceptors in your feet all these things you're not thinking about are happening and influencing how you move and then like you you're talking about um you know people talking about injury rates and movement variability but when you talk about movement variable you're also talking about pain science so even if people are injured but there there's a lot of times they're finding people are in pain it's not even it's not even mechanical it's not even structural a lot of times sometimes it's it's just the movement map is off. And so it doesn't make sense when you look at the hardware,

but the way that the body's seeing itself is out of whack. So movement variability and neuroplasticity. So you change the way you move. You change the way you think. I find that when people say something simple like this, people live in this world. So this is the realm that they own. Remember, like you're in my space.

How much space does a desk worker own? The space in front of their face and they're crunched over it, right? So it's a small little area where he's like. I own the whole room. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. I want to own the whole room. And so when we start having these big movement practices, I'm moving through this range.

Now my body is aware of all this space. I want all this space. All this shit is mine. Yeah. Right? Because all this is a potential range that I might move in at any given moment. So you find that people will start becoming more aware of self, more aware of space, spatial awareness, time awareness. awareness you know uh you know it's it's amazing what innocent movement practices can do to benefit people you know not only physiologically but psychologically mentally as well you know it

changes the way they think about themselves in relation to everything yeah yeah so anyway i could get really like let's get back on the the serious training shit well i was gonna i'm over here thinking about why you gotta get elevate beyond time and space. Once you get outside of time and space, then you can see it for what it really is. Yeah, yeah. That's the schmuck and bird shit. I was going to ask you about, so you have the different tools. You have the clubs, the maces.

Are there any kind of like unique advantages, disadvantages over using one or the other? Yeah. What kind of scenarios do you use them for? Alex is always trying to get practical information. I love that. And you know what the thing about it is, is like we teach each tool to be able to do a lot.

So you can use a club as a strength tool. You can use a rope as a strength tool. But is it the a strength tool you can use a rope as a strength tool but is it the ideal strength tool and and that's where it depends on what's available right but at the same time we also have to celebrate it's like i'm a short stocky dude i'm probably not going to be a center in the nba right so you have to recognize the inherent nature of the tools and so our education kind of does that so when you talk about well what's the benefit so we create a theme around the tool so like say our

durability course is all the restorative movement stuff practice which by the way is probably harder for most straight athletes than moving any external load because they're working against their own body right and gravity so our theme for that is a resilience in recovery right and so then we have say the club the club you're swinging remember this space right here so if i extend another lever and i extend the length of my arm now i own more space so it's kind of like weaponry like every every foot you extend your reach you extend your kill zone by x number amount right so you're not trying to hurt anybody with clubs in fact our theme is a vortex of vitality, hashtag vortex of vitality.

So you're swinging this stuff. You become so tuned in. But energetically, you could argue circles and figure eights and rotary woods. It's almost like if you look at a generator, right? You're generating more neural energy, nervous system energy through this practice. It is like an uptick,

upcharge. The mace, because you're in a closed configuration, two hands on one tool, and say like you lock in, we even really focus on pulling that mace apart, like bending the bar. And that offset load is instant education and on a push-pull. You don't have to think about it. It teaches you right away. I've been enjoying front squats with the mace. And it doesn't have to be that heavy. Boom. It doesn't have to be that heavy. My back is just lit up.

That means you're doing it right. Yeah. And so what we say there is a hashtag revel in rotation. So like revel, like celebrate it. Because all of a sudden, this rotary input, you're controlling this. Because I don't want to be, like, here. Yeah. Because the weight's pulling me.

I want to, boom, lock it in. I loan this line. And now even though it looks like nothing's happening externally inside of my body, I'm accounting for external rotational load anytime I'm controlling that object. And I saw the girl over there, she was training a guy, and she was going into, like, reverse lunges and all this kind of stuff. I mean, it seems like, yeah, even though you've got the tool, you can still move in all the familiar ways that we typically move, you know,

in the gym, like doing the front squat. Yeah. Yeah, so what you might have seen is she was hitting some landmarks, some positional awareness. So we always want to say, everybody do jiu-jitsu before? Yeah. What about position before? That's what's say, anybody do jiu-jitsu before? Yeah. What about position before? That's what's done a lot of jiu-jits as well.

Position before? Submission. Submission, right, is a popular jiu-jitsu term. So we borrow a lot of stuff. So like slow is smooth, smooth is fast. All right. So we use these terms, but we'll change them. So position before transition.

All right. Slow is smooth, smooth is strong. Beautiful. Beautiful, right. Slow is smooth. Smooth is strong. So you're talking about beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. Look at that. Nice.

When you say position, are you talking about, you know, holding the tool? And body position. So before I train a position, I would need to know that you own a position. Own your position. Yeah. Own the ground you fucking stand on, right? And so, like, why am I going to put you in a reverse lunge position with under load Own your position. Own your position. Own the ground you fucking stand on. Right? And so, like, why am I going to put you in a reverse launch

position with under load when I don't even know if you can be in that position with stability. So, we always go static to fluid to dynamic. So, these are really simple, but it's very logical. Yeah. Right? So, I want to know that you own the end ranges of the position or where your end ranges are before I ask you to do more than

you mechanically can yeah and then we want to work in trend uh you know uh fluid so static to fluid and fluid is like strength like eccentric focus like how smooth can you make this transition uh depending upon the tool it might need to be at a tempo a certain tempo like a club swing but a lot of times I want to be able to say, like, well, I want to own that full range. And then we'll go into dynamic where most people, like, if it's application specific, say weightlifting, it gets dynamic really fast a lot of times, right?

But good coaches will break it down and scale it up and break it down. Exactly. And so that's what we're just saying. The same things any sound coach does, maybe instinctually, intuitively, but we're just telling people that this is how you coach people. Yeah. Because it works. And I'm really a lazy coach, so if I say these things

and they're like the framework that everybody operates in, I'll just go, hey, remember? They're having a hard time with the dynamic skill. See if they can fluidly move through that same range. Oh, they don't even do that. No, find the position that they're not comfortable in and make them train that position. And then let's plug that position back into the fluid approach.

Oh, they have it. Okay, now we can start building a more dynamic outcome. So say I wanted to incorporate maces and clubs into my training. Hell yeah. But I didn't know how to do that or I didn't know Any progressions? I'm just I'm just total newbie. Like how would I get how'd I get started? Oh, you guys the heaviest equipment possible. Yeah Go as heavy as possible and do the most complicated movement you possibly can get an audience

Get on Instagram for some aces on Instagram and then swing it as hard as you possibly can. And bust their head open. That's the number one. You know, it's sad to say that's exactly what most people want to do. But, and I'll tell you what. Remember I told you, like, it's been this amazing journey to get where we are right now. The next part of the journey and what we felt that we haven't supported the end user that doesn't make themselves available to come to the events as well as we should. So we put out some info product stuff, but it was really more geared towards our coaches and using the coaches to be out there and making sure they're well educated on how to scale people up and down.

But it wasn't an experiential model. We'll be doing a lot of info product development that's geared towards brand new users. Like a membership site with videos. Exactly. doing a lot of info product development that's geared towards brand new users yeah like a membership site with videos exactly exactly there's there's actually a potentially a really cool platform that'll be developed in-house to deliver that kind of stuff um and so uh it's just a matter of time so developing new stuff as you guys know takes time and so i have a whole bunch of stuff in the hopper but i heard that's true yeah yeah you know you guys have been developing you use some pretty cool pretty cool software and applications of your own so i know there's

years behind a lot of that stuff what other kind of unconventional tools are you like you got the you got the clubs and maces are you looking at anything because i know like like on it at least with with the clubs and maces i haven't seen like y'all are pretty much the main people I'm seeing using them for the most part. I'm sure it's been around for a while, but y'all are making it very mainstream. Is there any kind of other tools that are coming out like on the edge, on the cusp? You can't talk about it? No, no, no. I mean, okay, so I can kind of say, okay, so our foundational body work

is the body weight stuff that we talked about to suspension, which is a regressive and progressive tool, which is not that unconventional really, you know. But just the way we approach it is on this platform, you know. Maybe by suspension. So gym rings. Gotcha. But we take a wooden gym ring, like the high-end Rogue rings that they have, but we put a foothold in it so you can use it more like a suspension trainer

versus just a gymnastics ring implement because that was the big limitation with wooden rings. I loved wooden rings, but then if you wanted to do, like, plank work, it wasn't ideal. You know, they were far from ideal for what you'd see a lot of TRX or Jungle Gym users using them for. So suspension to sandbag, which is a really safe tool. You want to drop a sandbag

on you. It doesn't really hurt. Sandbags are something I, every time I see one, I go fuck, I need more. I need these at my house. You can drop them on your floor at home. We'll get you somewhere here. On the way out. You can just fill them up at home. So it's easy to take home.

Sandbags for everybody. But it's just great because someone's's afraid of even a kettlebell can be scary for a new user you know they get banged up they don't know what they're doing then they're distracted by pain and the sandbags you could drop it on your head i wouldn't advise it you might get a crick in your neck but you're probably not going to go to the hospital right and you can drop it on your foot and it won't matter you can drop it on your foot, and it won't matter. You can drop it on the floor. It won't damage anything. So it really opens the door to, like, a safe approach to strength training and even getting into more dynamic skills.

You can rip it, throw it, and walk away. You can land on the floor. It's not going to do anything. Maybe bust open at the worst, right? Ideally, it wouldn't. It depends on how good your sandbag is. From sandbag, we'll go into battle rope. The battle rope, you guys had Aaron on the show.

If you give that guy a couple days of Battle Rope, you're like, I didn't have any idea what was up with Battle Ropes. That's what you do. In five minutes, I was just like, oh, I've got to get a rope. Yeah. Because they're way more versatile than I thought it was going to be. Yeah. If you're listening to this, we already did a show with Aaron.

Watch the videos. Amazing. The dude's – he's got years in the trenches with that tool. He's kind of – you know, like it takes a certain kind of crazy to love kettlebell sport and to love battle rope training, and he loves both of those things. That's a very lactic thing. Yeah. It's like cyclists or long-distance cyclists, long-distance runners, competitive. They have to have the crazy switch.

It'll be crazy. Yeah. More than a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So then from the battle ropes, we go on to kettlebells. So we started looking, okay, now we need a little more technicality in the approach that we're going to say.

Sandbags. Suspension, we can scale up and down really easy. We can make down really easy. We can make it really easy. We can make it really hard. The sandbag is a really safe strength tool. Then the battle rope, you're mostly concentric work. You're not really going to focus on, like sleds.

You can make someone work really hard on the sleds. It's not going to beat them up. Not nearly as bad as something that's primarily eccentric, like you're saying, right? Right, right. And then the kettlebells. Then the kettlebells go to the club, which makes it a lot more technical. And then we do the mace because we push them a little hard in that course.

But we just kind of give everybody all those tools. Now, what's new, what's coming up? More of the same but cooler versions. So, you know, see, like, the Marvel stuff. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We may or may not have another cool licensing deal, you know. Yeah.

I don't know if people know about it, but you guys, I saw this when y'all launched it. Like, y'all made, like, Captain America, like, bumper plates and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah, it was really cool. Iron Man kettlebell. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Maybe, you know, there's new Marvel movies coming up of stuff. Yeah, it was really cool. Iron Man kettlebell. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Maybe, you know, there's new Marvel movies coming up.

I don't know if we have anything going on. Just don't make one off Ant-Man. What's that? Don't make one off Ant-Man. Dude. The next thing is the Ant-Man kettlebell, man. Oh, no. No, no, no.

I'm just kidding. It looks just like an ant. I'm just kidding. It shrinks up. But, yeah, we have some other innovative tools coming out in the near future. I'm constantly developing some stuff. Landmine training, so a barbell course that kind of respects everything that is in barbells but also looks at, well, how can you use a barbell differently,

not to displace what's already out there but to complement that and give you new perspective on ways you can vary what's already, you know, the gold standard of what you would do with strength training. And so with that, you know, you have offset load stuff there, too, with landmine training, right? So there's some stuff there. That's not necessarily innovative per se, but then we have some variable resistance tools in terms of dynamic variable resistance like water. There's some cool products that

will be incorporating water as resistance. I can't really disclose exactly what that is, but there's going to be some cool stuff. I'm trying, man. But that product is going to be awesome because the person who designed it is a friend of mine he's an inventor they're actually using this tool for a really great like global cause as well uh the transportation of

water for uh indigenous people in villages so there's like it's going to be used for fitness purposes but a variation of the same things will be used for fitness purposes, but a variation of the same thing is going to be used to help people. Because a lot of problems is like a lot of these places, they'll have a source of water, but it's like five miles away. And then these little kids are carrying buckets of water for miles and not going to school because of the inefficiency of getting water to their home. And plumbing would be ideal, but in interim, they need a better solution to what they currently have. So, yeah, that's about as much as I can share right now. You know, plumbing would be ideal, but in interim, they need a better solution than what they currently have. So, yeah, that's about as much as I can share right now. But, yeah, it'll be cool. And, again, transportability for that tool is extremely high because sand is not always easy to source.

You don't want to put beach sand. You might not have a beach, but you've got a water faucet in every hotel you go to. Huh. Ah. I think I made – yeah, I'm going to see where you're going in every hotel you go to. Huh. I think I made – yeah, I'm going to see where you're going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right.

And, of course, like, I mean, you guys are all about integrating it with, you know, different types of training. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. John, thanks for joining us today. Where can people find out more about what Anand's doing with the unconventional training? Yeah, right now we've got all the education team posting regularly on Instagram on a rotation. So if you get tired of me, you don't got to worry.

You only see me once every eight days. You get to see all the other educators and what they're doing at the Onnit Academy Instagram channel. Of course, check out Onnit.com. You get a really better understanding of the broad, the reach that the brand is, the different sandboxes we're all playing in. you get a really a better understanding of the broad, uh, the reach that the brand is, is, is the different sandboxes we're all playing in. But, um, on it,

academy.com is where we do a lot of, uh, it did provide a lot of information about lifestyle as well as the fitness practices. So, uh, check us out anywhere on those. And if you want to catch up with me, coach, john wolf.com.

Yeah. I would have had just John Wolf, but someone already had it. So, you know, uh, you know, son of a bitch. I know. Damn it. So you ever get in up with me, coachjohnwolf.com. I would have had just John Wolf, but someone already had it. So, you know. Son of a bitch. I know. Damn it. Did you ever get in contact with him?

Like, hey, dude. Like, come on. I need your domain. He already has an established website. So I was like, okay. So now the website says Coach John Wolf, the Instagram. So I was trying to keep it uniform. But that's better, too, coach, you know.

Yeah, I guess no matter what I do, I'll always be a coach. That's kind of the deal. so I'm happy with it. Master John Wolf. Yeah, I was like, I had the John Wolf. I'm like, that sounds – that doesn't sound cool. Yeah, it sounds douchey. I was like, oh, just – okay, I'm a coach. It's like I'm not verified on Twitter, like whatever.

Yeah, anyways, yeah, come check us out. Check out the – through that Instagram channel on the Audit Academy Instagram. You'll be able to develop a relationship with any of those coaches. And like I said, if any of those things interest you, then follow down that path. You might find out a lot, and no matter what you're learning, you'll be able to tie it back to the common principles of the whole system. And if you find you want to go deeper, then we're all here.

Awesome. Thanks for joining us, John. Thanks, man. Thanks for having us. Thanks for being here, guys. Sure, dude.