Barbell Shrugged - Training for Athletic Performance w/ Dr. Jordan Shallow, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash #716

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

Dr. Jordan Shallow D.C. is a Chiropractor, Strength and Conditioning Coach, Powerlifter and founder of both Pre-Script and RX'D RADIO. Jordan currently works with teams, companies and individuals all over the world, lecturing, coaching and consulting on applied biomechanics, sports performance, and injury risk management. Understanding the needs of the individual, and the subsequent demands that a particular lifestyle imposes on each person, is the cornerstone on which his clinical practice is built and provides the guidance for him to provide the best care, to everyone.   Dr. Jordan Shallow on Instagram Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shark Family, this week on Barbell Shark, Dr. Jordan Shallows dropping in. I love having Jordan on the podcast. It's probably been a couple years now since we were in New York and I actually got to do this in person, which is always super, super cool. He's one of the smartest people just when it comes to understanding human movement all the way from the most basic levels to his doctorate in chiropractic and the way that he's able to communicate ideas is always fascinating to me. But he's been on the road probably for the last year, maybe longer.

I feel like every time I see him, he's in a plane or in a different country doing seminars, working with pro athletes, and tons of knowledge inside his brain that we're able to get out today when it comes to human performance, training athletes. I think you're really going to enjoy the show. As always, friends, you can head over to rapidhealthreport.com. That's where Dr. Andy Galpin and Dan Garner do a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis that everybody inside Rapid Health Optimization will receive. You can access that over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrug. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Dr. Jordan Schallop. Dude, welcome back to the show. We haven't hung

out with you since New York. Since then, you've just been living in airplanes, traveling the world. Quite literally. Pre-pandemic. Yeah, nuts. Made it happen. 10 minutes to hang out because you actually hit on something that I'd love to get your opinion on when it comes to how we communicate strength conditioning principles to people. And I think you're an awesome person to ask this question to because every time Instagram puts me in their crosshairs when you guys are launching a cohort and prescript, a video comes up where you're explaining something

that I would consider to be simple in a very complex way that I've never, ever thought about it. Like in a way, like a very intelligent physical therapist would talk about these things. And if, if you didn't work with people, or even if you do work with people, having the flexibility to be able to kind of go up and down in meeting your client or your target audience where they're at. I'd love to just understand kind of like your, your mindset on that skill. And, and I'm specifically thinking about a video that came across where you're just talking about a squat recently. And I was like, dude, push your hips back, drive your knees over your toes and sit. And then your explanation of it, I was like,

this guy is on the next level. I need to get on that level. But as far as communication goes in strength conditioning, as far as communication goes in strength conditioning, as far as principles go, I'd love to hear just kind of like, what is your take on how people can develop the skill to play it all ends of the spectrum to meet people where they're at in their journey? Sure. Yeah. My parents live in Windsor, Ontario, and it's like kind of a, it's Canada, Detroitroit so it's like a little bit seedy a little bit hood and like three minutes from where my parents live like six months ago there was a gun seizure and it was the most like elegant collection of guns uh that could

because it just the way they were purposed like i had a 22 uh a benelli pump action 12-gauge shotgun and an m72 single-shot rocket launcher, and I thought, brilliant. Rocket launcher! Right. Who has a rocket launcher and then just gives it up willingly? That doesn't seem like the same person.

It was a seizure, so they came by force. You said elegant. I thought that was very friendly. Can I have your rocket launcher? And they were like here you go yes here here you go uh yeah not known to be reasonable reasonable people the rocket launcher owning crowd and i thought well okay that's that's perfect right because there's you literally have a tool for every task someone comes in the old bill burr joke you don't want to have to redraw well you got the 22 you know you're not a great shot and you got you need to get a slew of people out of your way you got the 22 you know you're not a great shot and you got you need to get a slew of people out

of your way you got the shotgun and like you really don't like your neighbor's cat or your neighbor and there goes his house so it's like that's that's a perfect way to like phase up you know he doesn't have a 22 and a nine millimeter it's like that's redundant he doesn't have a 12 gauge shotgun and a sawed-off that's redundant he doesn't have like a javelin missile and a rocket propelled grenade that's redundant he has one at every tier and i was like well that's kind of how you want to understand concepts in my opinion is like a lot of times in the education space we get like fifth graders teaching fourth graders which is like okay but like well you know the example of the squad the squad is a vertical translation of the pelvis with the pendulum load between the hips knees and back while keeping your center of mass over your midfoot.

So probably something. Is that the video? Yeah. That's exactly it. Every time I came through, I was like, that's Jordan. I love it. That's why he's special. Because we're selling M72s to people in the shotgun market, right?

Because I'm not trying. I don't need clients. I don't want clients. I don't need clients. I don't want clients. I don't do education. I need people who want to get clients and who might be at that level of understanding, who have that shotgun level of understanding that want to ramp up and scale up to be able to reach that M72,

that really, you know, that diagnostic, that clinical, that more in-depth level. Because it's just ultimately what you want to do is you want to be able to solve problems quickly, right? And there's a level of like detail that allows you to see past or to see things at a resolution that other people might not if you understand all the intricacies. Right. Like sometimes personal trainers end up like Zoolander, like the files are in the computer.

It's like, well, fuck, like, what's that? It's not going to help. So yeah, I think it's really important for people to one, be able to actually practice these soundbites of like common, commonly posed question and have answers at every level. Cause look, I have like athletes I work with who are at the 22 level of comprehension, but when I put the rocket launcher over my shoulder, it instills a ton of confidence in them that I have like dead straight. Yeah. I clear delivery. Here's exactly what we're doing.

And here's why. Right. It's like the scene in oceans 11, where like all of a sudden Matt Damon needs to step in. Cause George Clooney has been fucking around with Andy Garcia's wife. And Brad Pitt finds out. And it's like the last minute switch in the staff. And he goes,

don't look up. He knows you're lying. Don't look at the floor. Cause he knows you don't know the answer it's like you not you've got to be clear with your delivery and you know it starts with being able to dissect okay what audience am I am I talking to you know am I talking to the 22 the shotgun or the m72 crowd and do I actually like do I know what it like how I feel how I think and how I act around these types of questions and it's something that we definitely challenge our students like look practice like what is a squad is a really classic example because it's like you know it's

it's almost goes without saying in a lot of cases especially in gym settings it's like oh yeah the squad is not a deadlift it's like a squad is not a legs and okay what is it right so having having succinct answers to common questions is like helps build trust between you and your client and being able to scale that up to your clients and your clients comprehension, your clients wanting this to learn your clients, wanting this to know that you're smart and can handle shit. So, uh, yeah, I think, you know, fundamentally we communicate through exercise, but being able to have these sound bites just makes your job that much easier. Yeah.

And one thing that's also great about you, in case people don't know a ton of your history, very successful power lifter, which also brings, you talk about ways to build trust with clientele and meet your audience. If you have somebody that is built like you speaking in a way where it's very obvious you've played the game at a high level and can speak about what's going on in that game at a high level versus somebody that weighs 115 pounds And it's just spitting deadlift information at you. That balance of being in it and having the experience on the floor and your own training. And do you feel like that is really just as important as being able to talk at a high level on the communication side? Yeah.

So like the old does, does the coach have to be a good player type thing? Right. And it's like, I think in the case of health and fitness, absolutely. Yes. Because there's so many things that there's so much information that we collect that we aren't conscious of the fact we're collecting it while we're collecting it. Right. Like I can, you know, I can hear what you're're saying i can see the room that you're in but there there are things that i'm picking up subconsciously that i'll that'll adhere to a part of my memory that might be triggered that oh i didn't remember i didn't know that i remembered that right like i could i could run into doug and be like oh you know what doug was wearing that shirt when i saw him on the podcast last i was like i'm not making probably was he definitely was hey respect that doesn't like a cartoon either.

Just like five T-shirts that are all the same. They're all rapid and shrug and that's it. It's like Doug, the cartoon character. When you look at his, you look at his cupboard or look at his closet. It's just like white T-shirts and green shorts. Yeah. So I think there's, there's an intangible, there's an intangible aspect to learning that I don't think is appreciated a lot

and we're getting to a position where like anecdotally we're downplaying the importance of like anecdotal evidence because we don't really respect what we learn when we're not like when we're present in a room like it's not rope learning it's not memorization like it's really pattern recognition at the end of the day and i think the most effective coaches have just been in the room, the greatest amount in any capacity. And, you know, they,

they could tell you, you know, the ins and outs and the X's or the O's, but they probably couldn't tell you, they can't tell you what they can't tell you. And a lot of times these things that we're learning subconsciously through like pattern recognition and, and,

and recognizing like trends and things like that. A lot of those things are what separate good from great coaches. It's one thing to just be able to espouse a bunch of research or a bunch of textbooks and have a bunch of initials after your name. I think there's nothing when

the moment really requires it, you're going to want that sure shot and that steady hand. That comes from moment really requires it you're gonna want that like sure shot and that steady hand and that comes from all of the information you're not aware you're gathering from just being in the room over a long period of time and i think that's that confidence that you have when you've just seen it so many times um is somewhat like measurably intangible but i think that's for in estimation, I think that's something that's really important. And it's almost an attempt to be like whitewashed out of importance

by research. But research, again, is so sterile in its methods as it has to be to be reproducible, that it discounts the learning we don't know we're doing. And like a lot of times that can just be considered pattern recognition. I wish I could remember the numbers. I saw this on Twitter somewhat recently, the number of papers that are being put out in strength and conditioning. Like if you saw the graph, it's at, it's like, it's at its hockey stick inflection point right now, where it's just, it's all over the place. And sometimes, and we've even had clients in some of our programs where I'm like, what did you get your PhD in? And where are you? What, what, and they're like, yeah, lunging with a, with a weight vest versus a dumbbell. And I'm like,

whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What, what are we learning here? And it's like, well, I just did the study. And it's not that things like that are bad. It's just now we have so many studies. At some point, the pendulum kind of like has to swing back to just, can you get in the gym and go lift the weights properly? And how much experience do you have doing this and coaching? Shark family, I want to take a quick break. If you are enjoying today's conversation, I want to invite you to come over to rapidhealthreport.com. When you get to rapidhealthreport.com, you will see an area for you to opt in, in which you can see Dan Garner read through my lab work. Now, you know that we've been

working at Rapid Health Optimization on programs for optimizing health. Now, what does that actually mean? It means in three parts, we're going to be doing a ton of deep dive into your labs. That means the inside out approach. So we're not going to be guessing your macros. We're not going to be guessing the total calories that you need. We're actually going to be doing all the work to uncover everything that you have going on inside you. Nutrition, supplementation, sleep. Then we're going to go through and analyze your lifestyle. Dr. Andy Galpin is going to build out a lifestyle protocol based on the severity of your concerns. And then we're going to also build out all the programs

that go into that based on the most severe things first. This truly is a world-class program. And we invite you to see step one of this process by going over to rapidhealthreport.com. You can see Dan reading my labs, the nutrition and supplementation that he has recommended that has radically shifted the way that I sleep, the energy that I have during the day, my total testosterone level, and just my ability to trust and have confidence in my health going forward. I really, really hope that you're able to go over to rapidhealthreport.com,

watch the video of my labs and see what is possible. And if it is something that you are interested in, please schedule a call with me on that page. Once again, it's rapidhealthreport.com and let's get back to the show. How much experience do you have doing this and coaching? I'd rather see photoshopped pictures of people who don't have abs than see massage research getting published on like a daily basis like i don't you know because we've gotten away from principles right that's like the biggest problem is like who wants to be in the rct to see if fucking uh placebo parachutes work it's like nobody because we know how gravity right like you don't want to swan dive it in from 26 000 feet no you don't so but you don't need to fucking study for it i can't

man like we just fitness has gone to the fucking old people like i just this boomer culture of like everyone now is just it's it's dr oz effect all over again i wasn't down with raspberry ketones don't tell me to fucking go on a rucksack march fuck you i i walked to grade school i had a backpack on my back like i'm not fucking doing that shit again shut up like it's nuts it doesn't sound like this is the first time you've gone on this rant oh i usually just sit here in my apartment by myself yelling it's great you actually have an audience today yeah that's great this is beautiful i feel like it's like a paradigm shift in like i just went through it so i went from being the guy in the room a bunch going back to school knowing a lot of research and now i'm realizing man i just realized i knew

a lot before i went to school and maybe i met school might've messed me up a little bit. Like I just got in trouble by coach Ken today, maybe online worrying too much about X's and O's versus actually coaching. So it's good to hear you say that. Yeah. I mean, I look at it like, you know, a friend of mine, Pat Davidson was like, we're like plumbers, right? It's a trade, right? Trade school, like trainers should should have and this is like i'm quoting him like they should have like an apprenticeship they shouldn't have a degree like if my plumber comes in and he's some i don't know a hydraulic engineer and i was like well first off that's gonna be expensive and i don't think i need that like i just don't know how to fix my toilet flap just keep running like so i find it similar and it's it's odd to me that now more

than ever there seems to be like an arms race in like the intellectual space again of like phds and studies and the thing is like if you're gonna do it do it judiciously like you know like we've all looked at research and we can all smell bullshit right this is the equivalent of the spray tanned fucking research study like the amount of times people are just stacking the deck for a favorable outcome for a bullshit infographic they can share on instagram that validates their thing over someone else it's like dude you're just disingenuous as the fucking 22 year old kid with fake sleeve tattoos like get the fuck out of here it's nuts i totally agree is greg douglas um published like it was just an article

where he went through a bunch of research and how high of of a degree that most research is falsified in one way or the other and then you're like well then what the hell do i read maybe just go to the gym a bunch and like you said notice trends boom yo to what degree is ai fixing this uh this research problem yeah you dig into that is that you play that game you give me you give me the face like ah god did he fucking say ai why are people still talking about this i don't know man you have a rant for that one chat gpt is gonna write some like dumb fitness kids blog for a bit but, but it's a cult of personalities, right? Like branding and company now, like founder led companies, even from the top, like what are the most successful companies

in the world? The Tesla, it's because it's Elon Musk, right? Meta, Zuck. There was a time where these were faceless, where no one could tell you who the CEO of General Electric was, but that day is dead. Anyone in the fitness industry, it's like, yeah, it's a big industry, there's billions of dollars involved. But at the end of the day, you want to have a point of differentiation. So I think AI is just going to be, it's AI right now, especially when it comes to fitness, is going to be a massive reversion to the mean. And to be a point of differentiation, you want to be an outlier. So it's like am i going to have you know the collective collective conscious of the internet aggregate to tell me what to do when i don't want to be a uh you know a a bisection of everything that's already out there right you're just going to get you're going

to be extra medium by the time it's all over so you know is it here to stay yeah it's crazy i was just over with the sal and justin Adam at Mind Pump. And Sal was telling me that AI used Sal's voice and video to promote a product that he wasn't actually promoting. Luke Gromen, So he saw an ad with him in it. He goes, I've never done that before. And the company just hired an AI. Do I think it'll solve research problems? It's like, no, because people are still greedy and people still have egos and people still want their study to be better than someone else's.

So I don't think it'll help quality assure. It'll permeate the industry in weird ways. But I think research, you know, I don't think it'll help necessarily that problem, but its biggest problem is probably yet to be uncovered. Like there's something big that we're missing. The unknown unknowns with AI are really scary. And I try not to think about.

What about the plagiarism of AI then? I mean, that's, that's plagiarism right there. Yeah. Well, fuck. I mean,

I mean, have you been on Instagram? Is there an original thought been on that? No. In the last decade? No, but I mean, AI is just going to like expedite the whole thing

and like and i just told you since most research is bullshit ai is simply going to gather a bunch of bullshit like i mean it doesn't have the ability to filter out the bullshit it's not like a pot a potential positive use of ai to be like the 99 of these studies are shit for all these reasons and here's the one x names all those and shows you that like the actual legit ones that matter good luck i think a human being would have to write that logic and that human being is probably going to be flawed exactly what i was going to say exactly maybe though yeah um dude what uh i would love to know you've been uh on a plane traveling around the world on uh on tour and tennis what uh what do you learn somebody with your experience and working

directly with athletes like what does that schedule do to somebody um and like how much of a beat down not just on the court you know three days a week for three hours at a time like what do you what do you learn when you're really that close to somebody for that long uh watching them go through an entire tennis season yeah tennis first off tennis is not like i was a peripheral tennis fan you know if wimbledon was on and i was near a tv i'd like skip i look oh like jokovic is winning again or something like that but you know if wimbledon was on and i was near a tv i'd like to buy like oh like jokovic is winning again or something like that but you know it has no season per se it's an eat what you kill type of sport where you have to constantly be playing to get the points you need to stay

getting invited and ranked high enough to uh you know get to the money tournaments so realistically your tennis season can run year-round if you're trying to vie for like a top 50 top 20 spot or even top 100 it's even worse the further you go down the rankings like from 100 to 200 you're in like a challenger's tour and it's it's a nightmare you're traveling in cities that you you know aren't necessarily what you consider big tennis markets you're in india you're all over asia um so first off the sport of tennis i think is i think it's kind of gaining popularity we talked about break point a little bit before the show um but it's massively understated as far as like the demand

on the body um you know you look at the energy systems and you look at the duration of the sport like this thing can go up to like five hours five plus hours in some cases like a grand slam is going to be best of five where you know you can be out on the court you know tie break after tie break after tie break and you can be playing in the 100 degree heat for five plus hours so uh first off massively underrated and massively understated when it comes to the physicality of the sport itself. Then when it comes to like working with an individual athlete on the road, it's like, you know, load management becomes so much more than training, right? Load management becomes like, I mean, load management and stress management become the same thing where your

big rocks actually become more down to logistics in or sorry outside of the gym than weights lifted inside of the gym right so like you know you got to factor in flight times you got to factor in hotel check-in times you got to factor in rental cars and bags and there's so much procedural stuff that goes into that because like it is unique in the sense that you know patty mahomes doesn't have to book his own hotel room right there's a team there built around that he doesn't have to do patty mahomes doesn't have to hire a meeting because the team takes care of all of that where when you're a pro tennis player you have to actually take care of building a team that takes care of all that for you right and it's it's a i think it's the fifth most watched

sport in the world so it's all that has these problems and it's actually unique in the sense that it's the only major sport in the world that doesn't have a players association which is something that they're trying to fix so you know there's a ton of improprieties between like the atp and the players itself but from like you know getting into the clinical side of it like load management is very like it's very touchy-go there's like if you are big into exercise programming do not go into the concierge space and be someone shadow on tour because programming goes out the fucking window like you can have a general idea of like stuff you want to achieve relative to competition but like if you you know if you were to play into like a sunday into a championship

there are times where he will have to get the only way to get to the next city to play into a Sunday, into a championship, there are times where he will have to get... The only way to get to the next city to play his first match of the next tournament is a private jet. You need to turn around the next day and get into a city to play the early rounds of the next tournament. They literally bleed week into week into week into week into week. And then you get into a Grand Slam that's going to run two weeks long. So having a plan or a general overview

or like you know maybe some kpis that you're going to want to see on a semi-frequent basis is great but the idea of having a program on the road like that is like that just goes that's a rookie move right if you think you're going to come in with your fucking clipboard and your excel spreadsheet and you're going to be using tendo things and and it's so much of it's psychological like again load management becomes stress management if you know how to like play the man right because kpis are not like bar speed anymore the kpis like what song is this listening to in the morning right like oh he doesn't want cheerios today that he loves cheer cheerios like we're not training today he didn't eat cheerios like this is a bad day like he needs to shut her down or like yeah there's a lot of a lot of it comes down to like

what we talked about earlier some of that intangible stuff like what you learn when you're not paying attention wow do you like do you look at patterns or do you like have certain parameters that you measure or like how do you know just being around them trend that's it man yeah it's it's literally like it's just trends you know you start to correlate i think ultimately you're correlating off their performance right so we need to like kind of monitor what we can consciously in the the days leading up to an event and then depending on how the event goes you can retroactively look at the events of the days prior and be like okay that he's playing well

what in the last couple of days could maybe attribute to that he's not playing well what in the last couple days could attribute to that right because the training becomes almost tangential because there's so much volume like it's a very old school sport in the way that they train like they they want to be on court an hour and a half a day even outside of competition which is nuts like you know you're seeing serves get up to like 230 kilometers an hour and they're rolling those over hundreds of times imagine going down to east texas and telling a 15 year old kid that he's going to throw you know he's going to do more than 100 pitches in a day right that's unheard of especially this day and age like they'll just go clip his ulnar collateral ligament now and just

give him tommy johns at 14 yet these kids day over day over day for like decades are on the court because they that's what they've been told so it's a it's a pretty old school sport when it comes to the you know the the sport specific training side of things yet it's very new to the strength and conditioning world it's very new now in the last couple of years that guys like me are getting phone calls and you see it on tour like most of you know the top 10 top 20 guys who can afford to bankroll having someone in their corner on like the the clinical or uh strength training side or in my case both are going to have someone on their staff because it's an absolute monster to navigate from from both ends from a clinical perspective

you know and from a strength conditioning perspective like how do you build a more robust system while trying to make sure the system you have doesn't break down dear laura feels like you're like a pioneer then with with such a sport yeah it's new right like and i think concierge strength conditioning mixed with the concierge medicine is you know i think lebron is probably the first athlete who really kind of came public it was like i spent like what one and a half or 1.6 million a year on his, his own personal team and athletes who see the investment, they are jumping suit, right? Like if this guy can extend his contract or can extend his playing career

another year or two, another five, you know, dropping some money into someone like me is, is a, is a really easy investment. Cause hopefully the return on another year two or five is you know 10 times 100 times over but yeah it's definitely a sport like that it's

coming around and now the interesting thing is it's a very european dominant sport right so being from france being from uh germany spain these are the real dominant countries when it comes to uh professional tennis. And they're not countries that are known for strength and conditioning, right? Like there's some American guys that were on tour. And I would say of the people I saw in my capacity, they were usually on tour with an American just because it's in the culture, right? Everyone knows LeBron James. Everyone kind of sees the return on the investment.

You have high school strength and conditioning coaches and stuff like that but the europeans or you know even some of you know there's a couple russians on there and like you get like the team of like four guys and they're training them like it's a russian training hall it's like dude he's 145 pounds yeah like relax with the the color-coded jumpsuits Like we don't need it. We're in like, we're in a sandals resort right now. Like what, what are we trying to achieve here? So yeah, resources are limited and scarce.

It's, it's going to come a long way. I think a lot of it will actually, a lot of the change will come with, with the development of their players association because they are left on the hook to take care of so many things. And they're the assets, right there.

Well, they're what people are showing up to see. And they're what makes the tour tons and tons of money. And right now they're not being protected by the ATP at large. So as you see that players association starting to develop, you'll start to see some pretty big changes. But for now, yeah, it was wild west out there. Like you're literally, you know, you're in hotel gyms

or you're booting it into central london on a in the tube for an hour and 15 minutes to get to a decent place to train like it's it's not like we have it here in north america especially for like a big sports basketball baseball and football yeah this is you intentionally moving into the world of tennis or this is just you you happen to you happen to be um you know very friendly and and working with uh one or two high level people and so you're you're interested and familiar with tennis at this point or are you moving into the world of tennis on purpose um it's a it's a clapper uh uh no i just it just gonna happen i was in uh

yeah i was in tampa bay doing running a camp for the Alabama football team, and I got a phone call from an agent, and the agent had heard of me through the grapevine. And next thing you know, I was off to a job interview in Canberra, Australia. And that went well, and we just wrapped for the year, and the phone rang two weeks ago. Another agent, American player. So we're in kind of early talks of that and just kind of weighing out if I

want to do another 20 weeks on the road. So yeah, it's just all by happenstance, man. Like for really my strength and conditioning meet, meet clinical experience has been deeply rooted in, you know, gridiron American football for the last

like six or seven years. It's kind of been, and I'm not a football player, but I just got pulled into that. And, and one thing kind of led to the, uh, to another. And, um, but yeah, so by no means like the tennis expert, but you know, the weekend week out on the road this season was, it was super interesting. Yeah. I would love to know what is, what is like the balance on the road this season was super interesting. Yeah. I would love to know, what is the balance on the road? And tennis is such an interesting sport because somebody could be in New York in August playing a four-hour-long match and have to turn this thing around in 48 hours

and go play another five-set, six-hour-long battle. What is the strategy as far as recovery and progressing while you're living in an airplane in hotels and then while you're actually on the ground playing potentially just getting the crap kicked out of you for two straight weeks yeah a lot of it comes down to constraints um so like restraints on recovery or constraints on recovery constraints on training uh you know i never want no one should ever just go light and so having like a have being able to fluctuate exercise selection on the fly given the performance of the exercise and how it's being performed in front of you i think is

like a really big asset that allows you to manage load through exercise selection. Like I see a lot of people, you know, like they'll, they'll succumb to that. Oh, you had a five hour match yesterday. We're just going to do the exercise. We always do, but we're going to do it lighter. And that's true of high level strength conditioning coaches. That's true of general population, personal trainers at your local 24 hour fitness. Like, oh, you just got off a work trip. We're just gonna go light today. It's like, no, you regress the pattern, you don't reduce the load, right? You regress the pattern to a less loadable exercise. And you kind of meet them where they're at with like a less complex, less loadable exercise that they can,

that they can perform at a high level of subjective difficulty. But that high level of subjective difficulty might not equate to demand and recoverable fatigue, right? So we still want them working hard whenever they're training, but we have to toggle between the movements that we are using based off of how they're performing so that they can work hard without, you know, dipping into that, that account too much. And then from a recovery standpoint, constraints are really like, hey, give me your top five recovery modalities that you like, right? And the usual suspects,

like we have Normatech boots, maybe IR. Some guys are into like cold plunge. Some guys will do like percussion stuff or Cairo or list them. And then on weeks where we have a bit more time off, we're not going to use your top three.

We're just going to use your bottom tier ones like Norma tech, Norma tech boots usually come in at the four or five spot. And then when we're a week into a tournament or into a slam and you know, we need to really turn up the jets and try and get as much active or passive recovery as we can. That's when we start to introduce the ones that you really like, right? Cause I think a lot of people,

and this is true of any sport and how I model constraints, like off season NFL, we'd have our five. Look, I don't want you to touch whatever your top three are. I don't want you to touch IR sauna or whatever for the entire off season. Cause we're going to pull those off the bench at week 12 or week 13 and that's going to help help us through the season so that those are two things that you

know or that's like an overall thought process that i use is just like a constraints based model like put them in a box where they can you know they can still run sort of speak as far as like really exert force or or exert effort in the gym while you're training them um but they're not digging themselves into too deep a hole uh and a lot of it just comes down to their performance like if they can if they show up on the day and you know in some days the subjective doesn't really matter like i'm tired of so it's like well it's moving well right like you know the the coach's eyes like well you know the bar speed looks like it's moving well the technique is fine let's keep pushing because you do want to you do especially for younger athletes you do want to get them stronger in that window of the career when they're younger

right because you want to talk longevity and sport one of the biggest issues i think right now is people are that they don't respect the increased recoverability of someone who's in their early 20s right so i see a lot of guys on tour who are younger who are getting nerfed by their strength coaches because they are afraid to push the needle while they're on tour it's like no no you want longevity in a career longevity in a career is going to be more about building tolerance to acute stress in the short term now when they're young and recover from it and they build this buffer of function that they can ride off into their 30s and hopefully their 40s but if you don't build that reserve now your longevity in your career you're going to fall off a cliff in

three or four seasons right so like understand that you know especially when dealing with younger pro athletes it's you you do want to really and some of it has to do with your appetite for risk but like you do want to push these guys you do want to build and some of it has to do with your appetite for risk but like you do want to push these guys you do want to build them strong because people look at longevity in the short term and they go oh we're going to use the pink dumbbell it's like longevity is actually using the heavier dumbbell right because if we build that buffer high enough and we can fly that thing close enough to the sun we keep them stronger he's going to remain incrementally stronger as everyone's strength depreciates and they start to fall back onto like their game iq or their

court iq as they as they as they age that's a brilliant i feel like you got that one covered bud say what so i feel like you got that one covered i yeah i just feel yes i've got the that built up but it's just crazy to hear someone say that about tennis. I feel like that concept is like, I've never heard a coach really actually say that to build that, you know, to build that, you know, capacity early instead of baby them early. If you baby them early, it's a rat in their thirties. You're not going to build it. But I think that concept should be anyone listening should probably take that

to note more than anything you said on top of that though. Like what do you work? Like what types of movements are you looking all the planes rotation or are you just trying to get them stronger like you know what is your strategy there yes i mean with with moving patterns it's predictable in the game of tennis like you know you're going to be looking at sort of across that sling from right shoulder into left big toe so that's something from you know we're always systems checking that from like passive active assisted active active resisted high endurance high intensity high velocity then you get into like maybe more timing specific stuff when you get on the court and then you're looking at uh you know once you go through that then it's like okay sagittal frontal a transverse plane

so you know there's the system of checks and balances that always spirals out um you know once you go through that then it's like okay sagittal frontal a transverse plane so you know there's the system of checks and balances that always spirals out um you know usually from that your right hand overhead position or across you know the back and the front into the opposite hip uh and then from there it's just like can you build can you build just general qualities of strength and agility and can you do it in those planes so yeah i mean planes of motion is a big guide rail for me if i need something more simple or if i need something simpler we're going to move it either from transverse into frontal frontal into sagittal right like if fatigue is again this and this is part of the constraints based model and how like you can progress and regress something quickly it's like can I move an exercise that's high velocity? Can I either, I'm either going to move something high velocity to

higher intensity because velocity is a greater training stimulus than intensity, or I'm going to move something that's high velocity in the transverse, leave it high velocity and move it into the frontal plane. Both of those are regressions from transverse to frontal, less, less muscular co-contraction involved and down the ladder. So transverse, I need to regress it. Transverse goes to frontal, right? Or if I want to stick in transverse, high velocity goes to high intensity or high intensity goes to high endurance, right?

So it's like if you just, those two things alone, and then you taper in like passive, active, assisted, active, active, resisted, and you understand like the general physical properties and like range of motion, stability, and strength that you're going to need in these planes like it's fairly easy to troubleshoot and that's all

training really becomes can he attain and maintain these positions in these planes at under these training stimulus usually velocity is not one we touch too often in training in the gym because they're already doing it right right we can throw a med ball for you serve 230 yeah i know how fast you're doing a fucking med ball dog right i'm gonna have to reinforce the wall you start hucking that thing at 230 so and that's like a problem with strength coaches is like i talk about this principle it's a robotics principle called the uncanny valley which is like kind of this graphical representation of a human being's likeness to things that look like us but aren't us so like yeah if this if this square was a graph or my little screen was a graph like if you think of like wally the animated character

the disney thing it's like a microwave on mars it's like slightly anthropomorphized but it's still a microwave like yeah okay cool it kids like it and then you think of like minions it's like people go nuts for minions little orange things or yellow things like the eyes in the center of the head they're like more answer they got like legs and shit but they have like one of them has one eye and it's like okay they're definitely not people and then you trend up to like the simpsons like people fucking love the simpsons right marge but they're not people marge her blue hair is all the way up here and then you get to like x mackina you guys ever seen the movie x mackina yeah with like the robots and shit and like that chick looks like a chick but the back of her head

is like a fucking like a like a pc modem you're like jesus christ that's terrifying not a human yeah not human we don't like that at all that scares the shit but then we see people like real people like oh we fucking love real people and that's the highest strength and conditioning is a lot like that where it's like and most strength best analogies right most strength coaches fall into this uncanny valley of doing things that look too much like the sport that aren't the sport, right? So what are you doing? Build a general physical property. Somebody has like a weighted tennis racket. Oh dude, I've seen it all. Oh yeah. I love the old look matrix. God bless. Whoever makes his equipment

has a cable stack. And one of the attachments they sell is the golf handle beautiful right just chop a tidalist carabiner on the end of the three wood shaft you've ripping john daly style like what the fuck who told you thought it's a great do more golfing yeah really love yeah and so it's like you know i try and hit the simpsons peak like i'm in the gym it's just general physical properties planes of motion kind of know some joint mechanics that's like shoulder hip and spine know some like acceptable end ranges know where your client's gonna have like way more er on his serving arm like that's fine maybe we answer over that arc a little bit we don't want to give him

more ir we just want to take that whole fucking arc and swing like it's it's it's really it's not basic it's sophisticated and you got to know all these things and know what you're looking for and know how they're going to compensate but a lot of coaches are like landmine punching who are you fighting who is you're fighting your weight class dog like this person is way too tall for you to be fighting it's not gonna help you find it not absolutely insane how much time are you spending uh kind of focusing on the the natural imbalances that happen uh with a right-handed serving person who has like a 12 inch circumference forearm on their right side and then like a two inches on the lid yeah like i i actually watched uh andy roddick i was like front row at leg mason and the the difference between his serving arm

like his forehand uh to his offhand was you could see it from anywhere in in the stands it was so you're not gonna be able to do much about that i yeah, I mean, as much as we think if, you know, we like to quote Louie Simmons, like weak things break. Right. So we'll look at, you know, we'll look at unilateral versus bilateral for accessory movements. But if I'm looking at things like arm training to me on arm is a conduit to the shoulder. Right. So like, you know, a rod was, a rod was sick cause he was one of like, probably other than like maybe Jack sock one, put on a ton of weight,

but he was probably the most jacked tennis player there was. I remember covers of Muscle and Fitness magazine with Andy Roddick. Now, John's holding a ton of muscle mass to lead for a long career. It's like, there's a line there, and there's actually some pretty good research. Aaron Wellman and Chris McClellan, Aaron Wellman's the strength coach for the New York Giants, about skeletal mass structure in relation to overall body weight and drawing some pretty neat ratios there but venus serena jack yeah right bigger than like

she could eat carlos alcaraz and he owned the dolphins now what the hell is that good that sounds good uh yeah so it's like do i know i think there's physical imbalances when it comes to like muscular development on sides they don't need rarely is that an issue um or rarely does that turn into a big rock if we're at the point where that's a big rock we're doing really really well and frankly like you just don't have enough time to focus on stuff like that um you know if you trying to, if you're trying to instill a change in someone's game that would require more strength in a particular plane and a muscle group, you're going to have to lay that strength down as a foundation first. So like, you know, I'll use it in comparison outside

of tennis. It might be a little bit easier. Like, you know, I work with some professional ice hockey player and you can analyze someone's game. Like some guys are very stop and go powerhouse, get their ass low to their skates and just stop, go, stop, go. And they're, you know, low end high torque. Like they're not going to take the circuitous route, right? They're going to take the straight line.

They're not what we'd call like East to West players. They're North to South players. Like, Oh, P puck's there now. Slam on brakes, go. You're usually looking at strong guys with a big ass, low center of mass, and huge fucking legs. Now, they're not work. They're sagittal plane monsters. These are your guys that are stepping into the gym squatting 500, 600 pounds at 200, 180 pounds as hockey players.

Like 5'10", not really really physical specimens but you look at their legs and ass you're like jesus christ the only way you're going to get that guy to be a east to west player and start maybe you know being more energy efficient start taking shorter loops rather than just hitting the brakes is you need to give him frontal plane access and frontal plane strength right so when it comes to these asymmetries and we're looking to build a more uh you know maybe a more fitting game style having these conversations and understanding the demands of the sport like if someone wanted to i don't know have a two-hand backhand and now we're looking at the non-dominant hand factoring into it sure we might want to leave that trail of breadcrumbs for their nervous system to follow through a path of least resistance that has some tissue tolerance in it but if we have no aspirations to really switch

up their game it's not going to be in our focal point but that's not always the case in other sports outside of tennis where you might look at a player and be like look he's too north to south we got to get him east to west or he's too east to west we got to get him we got to get some power we got to get him some speed we need him to be able to slam on the brakes and accelerate quickly. Then we're going to be like, all right, in the gym, you know, this guy is going to,

and it's a tie break. Like this guy gets two bilateral lower. He's going to get a trap bar and a front squat this week where the east to west, the north to south guy already is going to get a front squat and he's going to be moving lateral

something with a kettlebell or a sled drag or something like that. And that's really what it comes down to is like, you know, these little tie breaks, these little decisions, they don't add up, they multiply. Right. So in a case of like changing someone's game style, understanding the planes of motion, being able to leave like a trail of breadcrumbs for them to follow so that they can on the ice. And you'll see it like, you know, they'll start to put these pieces together if they have that option. Essentially, like specific variability is what we're always after. My God, this is the most like realistic use of being actually someone who understands strength conditioning versus like, you know, someone who tries to pretend and they start using all these crazy exercises.

Not naming any names. Not going to get in that game, but like, this is, you know, you understanding movement and applying very basic concepts that will get yield the best results, you know, based on science. This is so refreshing to hear. I think everyone would agree. Just wait till I get my yo-yos out and it's going to get really wild. Whoa. I don't know about the yo-yos. I don't know.

What are people doing these days? I don't know, man. 90 degree training, right? 90 degree eccentric. Or slightly above 90 degrees. That guy's winning though. He's such a, he's just a meme of himself. I've never, you know what?

I refuse to say his name. Yeah, I will. What is he, Voldemort? I'd like to see the P&L on his ebook sales. Yeah. No kidding. Well, the only thing in the loss sheet is his soul, but if you're willing to give that

up, then good for you, I guess. There's clearly... The guy has zero shame. I'm always impressed with his ability. Yeah, but that depreciates in year one, and it's all profit from there on out, man. Yeah, but there's something to be learned from it, though. I mean, we can't stop him, and trust me, I'd love to bring a lead pipe to his knees at 90 degrees and see how they hold

up to it but it's like what can we learn slightly above right that's just i just amazed at his ability to keep a straight face like good for you is he really a phd every day like i don't know i can't believe he's really a PhD I want to see that degree I didn't learn anything right now right now you don't even have to be here that's why I'm not saying his dang name

I know I'm going to stick Lane Norton on it dude it's already been done what's his name Zach Tellender just annihilated him for like the 17th time and he's still selling eBooks. I probably just went up in cells. I know.

I can't even watch the annihilation videos anymore. It's too much. I know it's bad. Like even the annihilation videos are played out. Yeah. I go, I just can't do it. Yeah.

People are making careers though. And like chastised others. That's a whole nother thing. But yeah. Jordan, man, it was awesome seeing you again, again dude where uh where can people find you uh yeah it's a good question um i mean if you're you know in a plane yeah at 36 000 feet um i'll be in i'll be at swiss uh in a few weeks in columbus ohio i'll be... We're hosting a Prescript Level 1 course in Dubai, December 1-2-3. It's a three-day course.

And then we're hosting another one in Melbourne, Australia, January 13th, 14th of next year. So if you guys are in the neighborhood, stop on by. Tickets at www.predashtrip.com. Instagram at the underscore muscle underscore doc D-O-C. Love it, dude. Coach Travis Smash. up pre-script.com instagram at the underscore muscle underscore doc doc love it dude coach

travis smash a few weeks i'll be in australia as well i wish we were there together i'll be melbourne canabara i know i'm butchering these names because they say it way differently um there's four different places i'll be but you can go to dimware.com to see all that or mashley.com, let me tell you that normally I listen to a podcast to laugh or I listen to learn. This is the first time in a long time I did both. Great job.

That was a lot of fun. I'm putting that up on my LinkedIn profile. I said I'm smart and funny. That's the most long time. That was great. Thanks, man. That's the most long time. That was great. Thanks, man.

I appreciate it. Look at me. I'm like sweating. I'm red from laughing so hard. Doug Larson. Yep. I can parrot that, man. I really enjoy getting thoughts on training

but also just fun to hang out, man. It's been too many years. So good to see you, brother. You bet. Yeah, likewise, man. We'll see you guys soon. 100%. You can find me on Instagram, Douglas E. You bet. Yeah. We'll see you guys soon. 100%.

You can find me on Instagram, Douglas E. Larson. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. And we are Barbell Shrugged, Barbell underscore Shrugged. Make sure you go over to RapidHealthReport.com. That's where Dr. Andy Galpin and Dan Garner are doing a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis that everybody inside Rapid Health Optimization will receive. You can access that over at RapidHealthReport.com. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.