Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #217 Cory Schlesinger

Episode Date: September 8, 2021

Cory Schlesinger is the man! He’s currently the strength and conditioning coach for the Phoenix Suns, and has worked his way there from many years and much experience in the field. We talk Easy Strength, fitting your workout regimen to your lifestyle, and much more. Please enjoy and if you do, feel free to leave a review or reach out to either of us on the gram. Connect with Cory:   Instagram: @schlesstrength  Facebook: Cory Schlesinger  Twitter: @schlesstrength  Show Notes:   Mark Bell’s Power Project EP. 216 Live - Cory Schlesinger Spotify     Apple  KKP Ep #208 with Brigham Buhler of Ways2well   Spotify Apple   Sponsors:   Higher Dose “Get high naturally!” Go over to their site… www.higherdose.com, check out what these mad scientists have cooked up and get their portable Infrared Sauna or PEMF Mat. Use code word “KKP75” to get $75 off your order. The Cold Plunge Trade up from your inefficient ice chest to The Cold Plunge by heading to thecoldplunge.com/pages/kkp and use codeword “KKP” at checkout for $111 off!  EightSleep Pod Pro Fully optimize your sleep with their wide range of programmable temps by going to www.eightsleep.com/KKP  and use code “KKP” for $150 off the pad or mattress. Upgraded Formulas from our boy Barton Scott!! Get your mineral levels figured out and head to www.upgradedformulas.com, punch in “KKP15” at checkout and get 15% off your order including the hair mineral test! Connect with Kyle:   Instagram: @livingwiththekingsburys   Youtube: Kyle Kingbury Podcast  Kyles website: www.kingsbu.com    Like and subscribe to the podcast anywhere you can find podcasts. Leave a 5-star review and let me know what resonates or doesn’t.

Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back, welcome back. Oh boy, welcome back Kyle Kingsbury. I just got back from Paul Cech's 60th birthday out at the Rainbow House, the Rainbow Ranch, the Rainbow Estate. I don't even know what you call that place. It is, the Heaven House was magic. This place is magic on a larger scale.

I think he's got 17 acres out there. What a beautiful, I mean, like the experience top to bottom, we did have a podcast and we'd dive into a bit of the experience there, but it was just phenomenal. I mean, just absolutely phenomenal. And I couldn't, I can't wait to talk about it. I'm not going to wait until his podcast release to talk about it. I want to talk about it now.

Incredible. It was so incredible to be around that many awesome people, Czech professionals, some of the people that I had met at the painting workshop. Just incredible. Obviously, I've been thinking a lot about health. This show is a lot about health and such is life. And, you know, on Chek's 60th birthday party, it was a couple of days before he turned 60,

we got a little workout in and he just wanted to move, you know? And so I'm looking at the ranch and the houses and just dreaming into that and seeing like, oh, cool, man. This is, you know, if I continue on the trajectory, I too will have a seat at the table here. And of course, well, I have a seat at the table with Paul for sure. But not that life is all about getting a big house and a ranch and all that shit. But I've been drawn to connecting to the land, to restore the land and have the land restore us and to live in harmony with nature. And I see that at Paul's place.

It's a palpable feeling. The energetic resonance there is one that you feel. Everyone talks about it who goes there. Party was awesome, but Paul wanted to lift and I was like, fuck yeah, let's do it. You want to deadlift? He's like, yeah, let's deadlift. So we're deadlifting and we're working up nice and slow,

doing mobility and core work in between sets, not going crazy. And I haven't lifted heavy in a while. lifting and we're working up nice and slow doing mobility and core work in between sets not not going crazy and you know i haven't lifted heavy in a while i've been doing easy strength and this isn't remember heavy is is uh subjective you know it's it's there there's some objective heavy right if you deadlift over a thousand pounds that kind of thing chris duffin thousand pound deadlift thousand pound squat yes that's heavy heavy weight but but heavy for me, you know, it's moving some decent weight. There's three plates on the bar, whether that's bench or otherwise squat deadlift, that's moving some weight. It's not credit. It's not, I'm not PRing at any point right now in my life.

I'm nearly 40. Paul turned 60, right? So we work up to 365 just to not go crazy, but move some weight, you know, something to get us a little sore. And I would think I pulled a couple sets of six, you know, and it really just stuck to that five to six rep range. Paul's doing sets of 10 to 12 all the way up at 60 years old with 365. He easily could have gone up to 405 and knocked out a set of 10 or 12 and not been pushing it too hard. Beltless, strapless, like, you know, for a power lifter, that's probably not a lot of weight, but for a regular as human being or for an athlete whose

sole focus is not deadlifting, I'm just blown away, man. I'm continually impressed. Every time I work out with Paul, I'm continually impressed by not only his physical structure. I mean, he calls me Adonis, but that dude, I mean, I want to grow up to be like Paul Cech. There's no two ways about it.

But enough swinging from Paul Cech's balls. I could do that all podcast. Absolutely love you, Paul. Thank you for having me out there. Got to see Mike Salemi, Shervin, Jeff Ferriar, and his beautiful partner, Jamie. So too many to list. Wade Lightheart, lots of guys that have been on this podcast, had incredible conversations with all of them.

And really dove into the important conversation around the world burning right now. Not on this episode, though. This episode is with Corey Schlesinger. And Corey is a guy I first heard from, from Mark Bell, another dope dude in the strength game, who's telling me about this strength coach who was the head strength coach at Stanford's men's basketball. And I was like, interesting. You're, you know, and Mark's a crafty dude.

He learned from anybody, right? That's a true testament to somebody who has some wisdom is they recognize that their holes in their game may be the things they're not looking at. Mark once said on this podcast, the best form of training is the training you're not doing. Meaning if you are very one dimensional in your approach to working out, that it's likely the things that you're not doing that will give you the most bang for your buck and the best gains. And then circle back into that. We really dive into that in that podcast, but Corey's been on my radar for a long time. And we had quarantine and all the bullshit hit. So that made it very hard to

get us on the podcast together. Since all this has transpired, he's become the head strength coach for the Phoenix Suns basketball team. Absolutely incredible, well-deserved. And he's working with a very unique sports-specific population on things, but it actually translates incredibly well. One of the things that, you know, I listened to his podcast with Mark Bell. One of the things that was curious to me was how much of this training actually does translate to common folk and, or the general population, right? Well, I use that term. I used to use it kind of funny, you know, like poking fun at the general population, but I am a part of the general population.

I mean, not like in a literal sense. I mean, physically, I look a certain way and I obviously have maybe a little bit more strong than most people, but very much so, I don't train like I used to. I haven't trained like that in seven years since I retired. I've been doing a lot of easy strength. I've been talking about that on this podcast. We dive into all of that stuff on this podcast. There are some very awesome takeaways from this that I think people will really be able to grasp and hold on to in terms of how you train the body for proper movement mechanics, how you stay athletic long

into your life, and how you get the most bang for your buck, the minimum effective dose without overdoing it. Because especially if you're a parent, a householder, as Emily Fletcher says, you really don't have a whole lot of extra time to just hang out doing 30 minutes of warmup with the roller and the hyper ice or whatever, hypervolt, whatever thing you've got, percussion instrument. People don't have that much time. I certainly don't. I got kids, I got a job. I have multiple jobs actually. And they're all great. I absolutely love it. I love my schedule. I love my life, but it is hectic and it doesn't leave a whole lot of time for me. So figuring out minimum effective dose has become a requirement

to make sure my body can stay in the game. And as long as my body's in the game, I'm operating my best mentally and emotionally as well. We get into all that stuff. Corey is an awesome, awesome dude. I picked up a lot from him. I will most certainly have him back on down the road. I know you guys are going to dig this one. So I will most certainly have him back on down the road Um, I know you guys gonna dig this one

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Love these guys. Love you all. Thank you for supporting our sponsors. And I love Corey Schlesinger. Just a great dude. So without further ado, here we go. Yeah, these chairs are nice. This is what I got accustomed to. They got the new table and the new chairs and it's like, oh, that's cool. But these old ones are pretty fucking nice.

Yeah. I feel like it's with a lot of things though, right? I feel the same way with strength equipment. Some of the old stuff, it's like the feel, it's always better. I don't know. I feel like they just had more actual strength athletes using them or building them back then than they do now you know now it's just mass mass mass

just produce as much as possible but like the craftsmanship back in the day it feels it feels like the people that actually made it

trained that's the difference you know yeah and maybe there was like some some etheric woo woo energy put into them

from all the badass dudes that picked up a dumbbell or picked up that iron carries the resonance of all the people who lifted it. I think even the machines. That's the crazy thing. The old pre-core machines in the 80s. Oh, my God. Some of the best machines ever.

And I never thought I'd be pumped about machines. That's right. I was just re-listening to you on the Mark Bell's PowerCast, which was phenomenal. It was like two and a half hours of solid gold. I'll link to, we'll link to it in the show notes. And you were talking about that,

how you got, how you're like, you know, I never thought I'd say this, but I'm really into machines, you know? And like, I want to,

I want to get in the meat and potatoes of all the training style that you're doing now. So much of it correlates with my trajectory from football, working with house, to fighting in MMA, overdoing it completely. Then like saying, fuck all that. I don't want to do anything hard. And then it was like, oh, but I get to train with Burdick. All right, we're going to train hard.

And then after that, coming out here and remembering Easy Strength by Pavel Tatsulin and Dan John. Absolutely. And like what you're doing with that, you know, the one lift every day. I was like, oh God, that's like Steve Justice single. So I want to dive into all that good shit. But first, I want to learn about you. I want to know what got you into strength training, strength coaching. And you know, it's funny because for strength coaches, like you being

passionate about being stronger and movement mechanics and things of that nature, movement mechanics for sure. Cause you're working with some of the best athletes in the world. But I wouldn't think like if I was going to be a strength coach, basketball players wouldn't be like, this is where I'll finish. This is my pinnacle. You know, like, sure, they are some of the best athletes in the world. But I'd be like, give me football players. Give me power lifters.

Give me sprinters. You know, like that kind of thing. Like Charlie Francis, you know, when you work with Ben Johnson, somebody like that. You want to train outputs. You know, you want to see those outputs,, somebody like that. You want to train outputs. You know, you want to see those outputs, which is lifting heavy shit and running really fast. I totally get that.

For me, it was actually my mother. So I grew up, my mom raised me and my brother, a single family home. And my mom is who got me into training. And it was, do you remember Nautilus equipment? So their manufacturer was like just down the street from us. So we you remember nautilus equipment so their manufacturer was like just down the street from us so we actually had nautilus gyms i don't know if you see the whole gym was not a whole gym was not it was called nautilus and everything so it was just all the like the chain like the bicycle chain link type machines and so it was like 12 13 years old

and my mom she trained like a savage. It made no sense too. I mean, we're in like, bumfuck, you know, Virginia, you know, like there's no, nowhere around. Is that what became 24 hour fitness? Wouldn't they used to be 24 hour Nautilus? That might be. I have no idea.

I'm sure the mind pump guys know that answer. For sure. For sure. But yeah, we're out. I mean, we're out in the sticks. And my mom, she's an artist. And so she, I mean, we really didn't have any connection necessarily with the community. So for her, she trained.

And that's who got me into training, 12 years old, my own mother. And so that's when I started lifting. And it was obviously for the aesthetics, right? Like, let's get on the machines. Like, let's do this. How old are you? Right now, I'm 34. 34 okay so you still got hit with the arnold era fucking stallone but like man the movies like back then were so awesome i even re-watch them now and i'm like yeah commando still hits it's still good it's still great i'm still here

um but yeah that's how I got into training initially. But it was really like the and one mixtape. That's what drew me to, I guess, the creative outlet. I loved just the flash and the, I guess, the theatrics of that kind of movement in basketball. And so I went all in in basketball from that point and was lucky to earn a scholarship to go play

at the lowest level of college basketball, like the absolute, I call it extra high school basketball, but it got me out of where I was currently living in Virginia and got me into Kentucky, which it's comparable. I was going to say, is that an update? I mean, it certainly is now, dude. I praise the fuck out of Kentucky and Senator Rand Paul. Thank you.

I'm bowing to you, brother. Thank you. Keep up the good fight. But yeah, Kentucky's different, man. It's the same, but it's different. But it was a cool liberal arts college. And man, all my blessings go to that place because they had the coolest system.

They had an internship program. And mainly that school's mission was for like poor Appalachian kids. So that was the cool part about that school. It's also known as the free school. If you Google free school people, like that's the one they refer to because there's no tuition there.

And so they just have great donations and that's how they keep the school afloat. And so the mission's obviously for poor Appalachian kids. And they have these internship programs that they actually pay for me to go do. Like, it ain't me just volunteering necessarily. Like, they support me to go do those internships. And, of course, they give you a little grade.

You come back, you do a little presentation. But at the age of 18, I got unbelievable experience in Division I sports. And I was able to go to Wake Forest University. That's where I met Ethan Reeve, who is a savage. A dude who was, like, to Wake Forest University. That's where I met Ethan Reeve, who is a savage. A dude who was like a national champion wrestler, but he's the godfather of density training, if you will. And so he's the one who introduced me to, you know,

your typical Olympic lifts, power lifting. And so I go back to Berea College, right? And at that level, we don't have strength coaches. So it's like, Corey, you've, you know, did an internship for three or four months. You're now the new strength coach. Now I'm the team strength coach, like a Jackie moon situation, right? So players slash coach. But every summer from that point, I got to do more and more internships. So then I got to go to university of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, obviously a notorious men's basketball program in college. And that's where I really took off as far as understanding what training

and like the foundation is for my mentor, Jonas Ration. Oh, all credit to him. I mean, dude's absolutely brilliant. And so, yeah, and then just bouncing around at that point because I didn't know if I wanted to stay in college basketball because as a player, I didn't really love the game as much as I thought I did. Like I really didn't like basketball when I was playing it. That was the shame. I thought I loved it and then I got into it. It's not that serious at this level and guys aren't taking it that

serious. I'm not going to take it that serious. Our culture really wasn't set. Then I found my way back into it and that's where my passion really started. And that's when I was like, oh my God, I love basketball. And so don't get me wrong, outputs are cool. Like seeing fast athletes and strong athletes, don't get me wrong, that little time that I had at the Olympic Training Center, it was the coolest thing in the world seeing those guys do stuff. But basketball, it's something that I resonated with. It's something that I initially fell in love with. And so to me, it just seemed up real nice. And so, yeah, then spent 10 years in college basketball after that.

So I was the director at Santa Clara University. I was 23 years old. Had no idea what I was doing. That was the ultimate learn by failure. That is super young. learned by failure experience. You know, so I failed tremendously well. So I gained a lot of experience because of my young failures. But after that, I got the call to go to university or excuse me, the University of Alabama, Birmingham, which I thought I lived in the South, like being in Virginia, but now that's

the deep South and Alabama is different, but that was probably the most fun I've ever had in my life. Like I love the city of Birmingham, but I was extremely fortunate. We won two championships in three years, was able to get a high major job at Stanford university. So we jumped ship, go to Stanford. And yeah, after there three years and the most unique, like brilliant setting you can possibly imagine. I mean, the people that you just rubbed shoulders with on a daily basis was insane. And the resources, now not financially resources,

but just brilliance. You know, you just walk by these professors. I mean, even the students, like you have 16 year old savants just walking around and you're just like, what is going on here? Even the players. I mean, that was the coolest part with the athletes were so brilliant that you're having conversations with them about quantum physics. And I'm sitting there just learning. Like I got my notepad out, just listening to them talk. I'm like, that's amazing. Um, but in all the podcasts I've done over the past 10 years, I think 90% of them always get asked the question,

would you ever do the NBA? And I say no every time. I never wanted to do the NBA. I didn't think it was, it wasn't a passion of mine. I enjoyed the 17 to 22-year-olds that I helped try to groom become men. And that was like the mission. We just use the vessel of strength and conditioning

to get that done because that's really what I needed I didn't have that in my college experience it was just we're just running around like chickens with their heads cut off just trying to figure it out you know so it was like me trying to train myself that's really what my coaching was like I'm like I'm like that that's me I'm that kid I'm that, that's me. I'm that kid. I'm that kid that's just immature. I'm that kid that just had no guidance. So it's like that was my driving force was literally I'm trying to teach these kids or coach these kids basically because I'm really trying to go back in time and coach myself. And then stars were in alignment and the Phoenix Suns call and it's different. It's another.

It's just that It's another. It's just that jump is significant. But I think the most beautiful thing about all of it is from low major to mid major, high major to professional sports, I never stuck to a certain philosophy. It always changed based off the population that I had, the environment that I was set in. And that's the thing that I think, if I can give any advice to any strength coaches, it's like, you should never have a set philosophy. There's some things that are set in science. Absolutely. Like tested since

the time of day, like lift heavy stuff, you get stronger. Got it. Right. But depending on where you are and the people that you're working with and the environment that's set and the environment you can create, that should be your philosophy. So it should always be changing. Hell yeah. I love that brother. Talk about some of the changes, you know, like Mark brought up the, the, the point that not, it's an interesting thing when you grapple with the fact that not everyone is about it. Not everyone's like, Oh, I can't wait to fucking strength train. I was scratching my head.

I remember being, because I walked on at ASU and sat the bench for two years, but I made travel squad. Hey-o. I loved it. And I loved strength training. And it really blew me away to see that some people would show up late. And if they showed up late, house would have a stew fucking up downs the entire time until they got there.

So they're five minutes late. It's five minutes of up downs. That's like the whole team suffered. Like we wouldn't let that shit go on, but there were people who didn't give a fuck, you know, and that was at the college level. And,

you know, I will not name names and we can probably connect dots, but you know, coaches that I had in college that went on to the NFL, spent a couple of them, also felt that resistance of like, whoa, I got to the NFL. Like, this is fucking prime time. There should be nobody that doesn't see the benefit of this. And wow, it turns out there's a lot of people that don't see the benefit of this.

And there's a lot of people that don't see the benefit of this. And there's a lot of people that have ridiculous God-given talent and it could be maximized, but they don't, they want to rest on the talent and they don't necessarily see the benefit of weight training. How has that changed for you? I mean, you just spoke a bit about it. I know I have crossover from this podcast to the PowerCast, but probably not a ton. And it's been a while since you were on that. Talk a bit about that.

What was it like in terms of the culture at Stanford? Was there buy-in? How did you get buy-in? And how has that changed now being with the Suns? Yeah, Stanford was different because, I mean, that's the ultimate form of compliance. You know, you had kids that to get there, what do they have to do?

They had to jump through every single hoop imaginable just to get in through the admissions process, right? And like, that's the difference between all the other schools I was at is they just got in because they're good at basketball. But to get into Stanford, that was a totally different animal in itself, right? Like we had guys that were Valley Victorians and had all these extracurriculars and they still couldn't get in, you know. And they were good at basketball. So that's where our selection pool is really small.

Thus, the kids that we brought in were pretty significant as far as they knew that for them, it's a process. A lot of people don't understand what a process even is until they're in a culture where there is a process to be built. So for instance, if you're coming in and you're just awesome at basketball, you can get like C pluses in school

and still get by, AKA me. Like now, once again, I wasn't awesome at basketball, but it was enough to get to that next level. But that's not a process, right? That's like you just hooping with your friends and having fun, right? That's just you getting exposure and you just have enough talent to get by.

And that was the interesting part about being at those other schools was, oh, we had to strip all that away. So you had to create humility. And you do that through, and that's the greatest thing about basketball players. Most of them have extremely long levers. So that makes them terrible weightlifters.

More than likely, that's why they hate lifting weights. So thus, if they hate it, well, how can I get them to actually enjoy the process? And that's where a lot of more unconventional training makes sense because these are the things that actually work for them. And it's like, I'm trying to make a seven foot dude feel like a five foot 10 guy. How do I do that? Well, hack field squatting is a great opportunity for that. Machines are also another great opportunity. But Zurcher squats.

When's the last time you've seen people go, yeah, man, I'm so pumped to do these Zurcher squats? No one. But you put the bar in a seven-footer's hand and it feels- I think we actually need to explain that to my listeners. For sure. I'm sorry. Less than 1% play basketball, but probably less than the basketball players listening to this

know what a fucking Zurcher squat is. I've pictured it in my head and I'm like, yeah, that's a bad-ass movement. I'm like, oh, wait a minute. They might not know. I don't think, I think we lost some people. You're right. It's a great squat. So a Zurcher is like, to me, it's like the most like brute strength squat you can possibly do. So what it is, you actually front load the barbell like you would see a front squat. The only difference is you put it in the cracks of your elbow or the crooks of your elbow. So imagine you're just basically doing a bear hug and you're squeezing onto this very small diameter bar, right? Which is digging into your arms like you wouldn't believe. And so thus, yeah, we can add cushions and we can add whatever we

want to make it more comfortable. But at the end of the day, I don't know, that's exactly what we want to create because we want to create some badassery, right? And you got to do that by being in uncomfortable situations. But if you're seven foot tall and you put a bar on your back, I mean, the sheer forces alone and the biomechanics that go behind that, it's like, yeah, that's uncomfortable enough. So once I can put that bar or kettlebell or whatever in their center of mass, man, it becomes a lot easier to do that type of pattern. So the Zurcher squat was perfect for that. And it builds a hell of an upper back, which is what 90% of the population suffers from not having enough of anyways.

So there, I'm getting a lot of bang for my buck as it is. So yeah, that's what a Zurcher squat is. You put the bar in the crook of your elbows, have it into your center of mass, your bear, hug it, and then you squat up and down. But yeah, like these things, I got to create solutions. And that's the, I think the most beautiful part about working with basketball

in the world of strength training is because you are constantly circulating for solutions for their problems, which is unbelievable leavers. Coordination in their training age is usually pretty small. So you can do a lot with them and get a lot of benefits quickly. That's the cool thing about it. Now, to me, to be a really good strength coach, I mean, to take strong athletes and make them stronger, that's a really good strength coach. To have like a hundred meter sprinter, like a world-class hundred meter sprinter, and get them to cut a 10th of a second off their hundred meter, you're a really good strength coach. To have like a 100-meter sprinter, like a world-class 100-meter sprinter, and get them to cut a tenth of a second off their 100-meter,

like you're a really good sprint coach. To be a basketball strength coach, you can make anybody stronger. Like that is so easy, it's ridiculous, right? Like it doesn't matter what vessel you give it to them in. My goal is to give them a vessel that is contagious. Like that vessel that I got to them is like, I want more of that. You put me in an environment that I feel like I can get better in.

I'm fighting this. There's a psychological aspect that I try to think, and this is where I got some help from some other things, but if you can put yourself in a state of mind where you had a 7'2 wingspan, just really imagine, okay, I got a seven foot two wingspan. I'm adding another forearm length to my forearm and let's bench press. What would that feel like? It'd be pretty awful. Do the same thing through femur. Like just add another femur length and then squat. Yeah, my back would hurt too. Like I would not feel comfortable in

that position either. So, you know, the ability to be able to kind of like jump into their body and feel and try to do everything you can to feel what that feels like, then yeah, you might want to find some other solutions. And that's where like trap bars come in. I think trap bars are one of those amazing tools, especially for long levered athletes. But these things are what you have to do, in my opinion, to be like a good basketball strength coach. Yeah, that makes sense. And you're doing so much more to create movement patterns and reconnect. You talked about basketball players are taught now to specialize such an early age that they've missed ever being on the ground. And you're taking them to the wrestling mats and jujitsu mats and you're getting them on the ground and you're doing tumbling exercises,

unpack some of that because these, these basic movement mechanics, like I, and check didn't create this, but he, you know, Paul checks a mentor of mine. He's been on this podcast more than anyone else.

He talked about that, you know, infant motor patterns and systems and movement systems that are just so in infant child development, so critical. And having two kids now, like I'm paying attention to all that shit. I'm like, oh wow, they're just doing it on their own. Like our little girl's one.

And she thinks it's really funny to sprawl and then push herself away from whatever she's facing. Interesting. And I was like, that's exactly what you do for takedown defense. Right, right. Most people just sprawl, but you know,

you're supposed to move away from the legs. And she even turns, you know, like people, for people that aren't watching this, which is most of you, she'll like zigzag as she pushes away. She's like changing angles.

She knows she's changing angles. What the fuck is this? Like, is this, is there like a jump that happens here? Like, is this in the collective consciousness that she's just born with the ability

to defend takedowns that I never had? I know she didn't get it from me. I didn't have that takedown defense, but like movement patterns like that, that are just inherent to kids when we give them an environment to work with that. But if you're, you know, playing on black tops and basketball courts that aren't necessarily

ground friendly and you're always lanky, it's probably not the best thing to be like, oh man, I want to get on my ground and army crawl on this fucking hard surface and cheese grade my forearms. I think that's the deal, right? I think environment shapes everything. Don't get me wrong, whatever we come out as an organism, it is what it is, but environment literally does shape everything. For instance, if we're just looking at ground contact times alone, if I'm running on grass, if I'm running on turf, if I'm running on hardwood, I'm running on concrete, I'm going to have different ground contact times.

And because of that, I'm going to create different adaptations. So my stiffer tissues are going to become more compliant, or my compliant tissues are going to become more stiff. And so, yeah, when these guys are playing on a hardwood surfaces and AAU tournaments all year round, and then they go and play high school basketball for a second, and then they jump into college, yeah, they skipped everything. And as far as, hey, this is actually how a good human moves, much less a basketball player. Now, don't get me wrong. All the things that they develop, those stiffness qualities help them from a reactive standpoint. And that's what makes them special. But at the end of the day, it's longevity is what's going to get you to the

next level. Like you got to be able to reproduce those efforts. And so for me, it's like, well, I'm not worried about you being a better basketball player. Someone else does that. I'm worried about making you a better human. So let's go backwards in time. And it actually started with Ethan Reif. When I first was at Wake Forest, I was watching warm-ups, and he had offense and defense alignment doing car wheels and tumbling. And I'm like, these are fat dudes with feet above their head, right?

And they're looking good. And I just thought that was wild. I was like, why is this like 350 pound dude, like one hand somersaults. And I'm sitting there like, are you kidding me? And then, so I pull them aside. You know, I'm stupid. I'm young, 18.

I'm like, so why is that necessary? He's like, Corey, they fall every play. Don't you think it's a good idea for them to be comfortable around the ground? I was like, absolutely. I'm gonna go walk away and take my notes and just leave you alone. And so noted. And then it wasn't until years later I revisited that mainly because in my head,

I was like, well, it's about bigger, faster, stronger. Like we just got to squat, got to deadlift, got to clean, got to snatch. And then when I got to Santa Clara, we did one drill. And it's when they roll the ball it's when they roll the ball, and when they roll the ball, you got to go dive for it, and when I saw these kids dive for it, I was like,

it's like them falling down a flight of stairs. You know what I mean? And I'm sitting there like, how do they not smoothly transition? I was like, oh, they don't know how. It's an actual skill. This is something they just don't know how to do,

and when you take charges, what's the first thing people do? Especially when they're not used to falling backwards, they put their hands behind them, which is probably the worst thing you can do. I mean, wrists, elbows, shoulders, just trashed. So they don't know how to absorb force without using their hands to support them. So then that's when I started realizing

I might need to start really taking, who does do that the most? And it's like I started realizing like, I might need to start really taking like, who does do that the most? And it's like, oh, gymnastics, wrestling, judo, jujitsu, like all these other types of forms of martial arts. So I need to start learning from those. And that's probably where more of my holistic approach really started forming was, you know what? Maybe just doing sports stuff is not good for them. Maybe I just need to steal from all these other disciplines. I've stolen from ballet. I've stolen from anywhere that you think where human performance can come from because, to be honest with you, giving them what they already do is kind of like just beating a dead horse. Like,

oh, let's jump basketball players more. Why? They jump already. They jump on hardwood. Like, why do I need to do more jumping with them? What I need to do is get them more degrees of freedom or more degrees of variability to be able to do the things that they already do. Just give them different pathways of getting the job done. Thus, and I hate the word cross-training, but taking some of these other disciplines and applying it to their training in some form or fashion. And so, yeah, that's when we started getting to the ground. And I loved Stanford because we had literally a half-court-size wrestling room. It was huge, and it had padded walls all around it.

The safest place these kids could possibly be, right? And vestibularly, we found out who's actually like with it or not you do about three somersaults and all the kids are about to puke and that's when i realized oh inner ear fluid is probably pretty solid vestibularly they have some things that they need to get like they haven't even experienced this i'm like that's going to that's going to be an automatic performance enhancement right then and there. And so then we started low-level pushing and grappling, just very bare stuff. Obviously, we're not striking or takedowns or anything like that. Last thing I need is a scholarship athlete or professional athlete getting hurt doing my drills.

You're fired. Oh, man, with the quickness. I'm very, very replaceable when it comes to that type of stuff. But I had this great, a great friend at Stanford. His name's Eitan Gelber. This dude's like one of the most badass dudes you'll ever meet, but he's actually sports medicine, which that's not where you think you'd get a badass dude, but this dude's legendary. But he took me down to the wrestling room. This dude was like an alternate team judo or for Israel and like Israeli special for like this dude's like legit but he took me through all these partner training drills and that's where I was like man

I'm super gassed and all we did was like push-ups on each other pulling and tugging on each other like all this just random stuff and I said like man this is all the work capacity a guy needs and I'm not beating up their joints because that's the thing I don't think a lot of people understand like don't get me wrong when you're yanking on someone's leg or you're trying to put them in a submission, of course that's yanking on their joints. But plyometrics is what's beating up people's joints. So if I can take them in a wrestling room and we can do capacity this way,

oh man, there's nothing more tiring than fighting someone. I don't care how many suicides you run. When you're pushing and pulling against someone, nothing is more exhausting and humbling than that. And that's where we always started. And that's what I loved about Stanford. We had that big weight or a wrestling room. And our first drill, you'll love this, is get no handed get ups. So essentially it was my assessment tool. And this is how I looked at movement proficiency. So I'd have them, all right guys, in the weight room or in the wrestling room, everybody take a sit. All right, now everybody have them, all right, guys, in the weight room or in the wrestling room,

everybody take a sit. All right, now, everybody stand up. All right, everybody get back down on the ground and stand up. All right, we're going to do that 50 more times.

And the looks on their eyes are like, 50 more times? All right, you just hear them bitching and complaining. Whatever, what are we doing? All right, guys, we're about halfway through. All right, no hands now.

Like, what? Like, yeah, you can do, just get up, just don't use your hands hands and then that's when you start seeing everything change oh they start dominating on one side so like one guy's got really good ir on his right hip but he doesn't like that on his left hip they flop down on the ground so they have no eccentric control they can they have no single leg stability these are the things i'm just picking up as they're doing it and they're getting a great workout. Oh my God, great workout. If you want just a workout,

like just to beat the hell out of you for no reason, just from a fatigue standpoint, just sit up and sit on your, or stand up and sit down without using your hands for 50 reps is pretty solid. But because of that, I was able to see a lot of movement proficiency or inefficiencies. So that's where movement assessment begins with me.

Yeah, it's such a big one. I mean, my buddy, Dr. Andy Galpin's posted a lot of cool things from his research, but just, and others, but like grip strength being such an important factor when it comes to longevity and our ability to get up and down from the floor being such a huge determinant factor. Obviously, you know, if somebody has got a hip injury from falling, things like that, if you don't know how to fall or don't know how to engage the ground, but it's even just the strength of getting up and down off the ground that matters. And it's, you know,

all of these things are traits that we can lose over time if we don't practice that. So if you go from your car to the couch to bed, that's raised off the ground to now you have this geezer fucking bathtub they put in that has a door in it. So you can sit there, you know, and you never actually touch the floor. That's a problem. But before we get there, you know, if we can, there's a couple of ways that we learn really important things. One, we learn from the best athletes in the world and we backtrack that. Also, we learn from the worst in the world, people that are about to die. And we backtrack that from like, how are these people dying? Okay. Like, don't do that. Oh, well, if we change this thing now,

we can get ahead of it, you know? And that's such a big one. I hate Turkish get-ups. I absolutely hate them. Of all the exercises, you know, I've done a lot of Pavel's training and even some of the Coach Sumner stuff, gymnastics bodies, when he was on Tim Ferriss' podcast back in the day. Great, great stuff. I hate get-ups, but it makes so much sense. And it's funny because like, if I haven't done jujitsu in a while, just break falling and coming back up is such a tiring thing. And that's how I know, oh, I'm way out of jujitsu shape. If I'm getting gassed in the warmup just from doing these simple exercises where I'll break fall, shrimp, shrimp, stand up, technical stand up, that kind of stuff.

If that's getting me, then I'm really not in shape. It doesn't matter how far I can run. It doesn't matter what else I can do. And basketball players do hit the ground a lot, you know, and it is physical. It's not a collision sport, but it's a contact sport. So learning how to hand fight, hit position, all that stuff matters. And it's funny, you know, we're talking quite a bit about basketball and obviously that's alongside strength and movement patterns, what your wheelhouse is. For people listening to this, like all of this shit matters to you.

And it matters because there are gaping holes in your training right now that will result in a problem, right? If you have hella mobility, like my wife, she could be a contortionist, hella mobility and all she does is she could be a contortionist, hella mobility, and all she does is train yoga. Right.

She's not making herself stronger, right? That can lead to injury, right? If you're stiff as Mark Bell and strong as an ox, but you are not doing anything to mobilize your body, that too can lead to injury, right? And then whatever, if you love yoga, cool. If you love powerlifting, cool. But whatever your love is, if that's taken away from you, that fucking sucks. I mean, I had my knee torn and for a year I couldn't, it was in jujitsu from an inside heel hook. I had to tell my

three-year-old, daddy can't run. I hurt my knee. And I'm like, I'm not being paid to do this anymore. What am I fucking doing? Like that's so stupid. And it happened. It was an ego thing. I didn't want to tap to this guy because he wasn't a black belt. I have the exact same story. And mine was a 10 year ego binge. And that's the part that I'm like, I'm looking into now, especially now that I made the jump to the NBA. And I was like, I made the biggest mistake. So I went, when I started, I cared about aesthetics. So I was like, I want to look cared about, you know, aesthetics. So I was like, I want to look the part, right? I got to look like a strength coach. So I got to bodybuild. I got to power lift. And then, oh yeah, you know, good strength coaches know how to clean and snatch.

And that's what you should do with your athletes. So yeah, I'm going to be really good at cleaning and snatching. And then, oh yeah, you got to sprint pretty well. But at that point, you've trained to be so big and strong. You trained to look a certain way that you just made yourself the most sagittal beast on the planet, which has nothing to do with sport. And so I go from when I first stepped foot on campus, I was 148. Then by the time I left, I was like 187. And then as I'm going through the ranks it's like 15 pounds 15 pounds 15 pounds so when I started at in the NBA I was 220 and I was like yo I'm here like I am the strength coach everybody else you guys are small right and I felt awesome and they don't need me for that and they're like Corey you play college basketball,

right? I was like, yeah. All right, well, come out here and do some passes and then, you know, dribble off some ball screens and pats. I'm like, oh, okay. And I'm out there like slapping the ball, like, you know, your football guy who's playing pickup. And I was sitting there like, yo, like, I got to show these guys I'm saucy, you know, but I've trained myself to be in such extension and then my feet to be, and my legs to be in external rotation just to create stability that when that fight or flight, like someone slaps my leg or I got to run real fast,

I go into those extension-based patterns. And that's great for stability. That is not great for athleticism. That's not great for speed and movement. So now I'm backtracking all of- You have all fight, but no flight. A hundred percent. I have all fight in right here.

But if you ask me to flight and then do something, that's a problem. It's a huge problem. And then my fight, I'm going to be wore out like that anyways, because I have no capacity. So that's when I started, I was like, oh my God,

I got to get back in basketball shape. And right before I came to the NBA, I tore my Achilles, which that was, I will take two ACLs over one Achilles any day of the week, any day. But because of that,

that's when I realized I was 220 then and I was playing pickup and that's how I did it. And I'm like, I have no supination and pronation of the foot. I just stay in supination. Like I got the hardest like arch you've ever seen in your

life. So I'm not allowing my foot to do anything. So it only has one strategy to accept force. And same thing going up the chain. And that's where I'm like, oh, I just became the sagittal beast. And now I can't move well. And when I do move, it has such a cost on my body. And then I think, yo, what's all the training I've applied to these guys for the past 10 years? I was like, now concurrently because of their training age, sure, I could train them like an asshole, like, okay, powerlifting, bodybuilding, Olympic lifting, and they'll be fine because concurrently they're still playing basketball and we're running and jumping and sprinting. So then I thought, oh my God, why didn't I do the same? Like, why didn't I at least play pickup two times a week or do anything

from a movement standpoint? But I was so focused. My ego was so focused on being the biggest guy in a suit on a bench. And it bit me, it bit me hard. And now I'm going backwards. Now I'm down to 207, but like a very frail 207. So I got to figure that one out. But now I'm dealing with my opposite Achilles because once one goes, the other one, it's coming at some point. So now I'm trying to fight that battle, but that's where like,

I think I got to get down to like a 193 and get as strong as I possibly can there and then just move really, really well. And that's where I went from, man, you got to look this way. You got to put off this facade. You got to be the strength coach to now I'm like, man, I'm cool just looking like, yeah, I think he can play pickup if he wanted to. So I had to remove that ego because that's what was asked of me.

And that's what I realized out of all of this that I tried to create for myself, I realized that all that baggage I literally put on my back was just weighing me down. And I'm like, man, I wish I can go back in time and just, why did I train like an asshole for so long? Well, it's fun to explore the extremes, right? There's no doubt about that. I had, when I finished fighting and I started training with Jesse Burdick and the extremes, right? For sure. There's no doubt about that. For sure. When I finished fighting and I started training with Jesse Burdick and occasionally

we'd have Bell come in town or we'd go up to him and occasionally House would come back in whenever they were playing the 49ers. We'd get to train with him and Uwe would come over

and it was awesome, man. I learned so much from Jesse and his surrounding guys and it was hard training. It wasn't like, it wasn't easy strength and I fucking loved it. And I put on good weight and I was still training jujitsu

and there was a beautiful blend there. And then when I moved, I just kept up with the heavy strength training and trained less on the mats, you know? And I remember rolling with Robert Drysdale and Drysdale, there are black belts and then there are there are black belts, and then there are long-time black belts,

like the OG black belts. And Drysdale would fuck me up under any circumstances. I'm not trying to say, Robert, if you're listening to this, I stand no chance. But I came in at like 238, yoked. Yeah, feeling awesome. Yeah, feeling great. He was breathing through his nose the whole time,

didn't break a sweat. I needed two rounds off and I was doing Wim Hof breathing on the sidelines. Like I was fucked up. I was so gassed and it was effortless for him. You know, and I was thinking about that. I was like, well, he can do that to me no matter what at this stage of my development, but I can also be better at recovering. I can also not

try to move this much mass, you know, which is just, it doesn't matter if I'm stronger than him in one direction. His technique's always going to beat that, you know, and how I move and how I feel in everyday life actually does matter to my quality of life. Like it really matters. And so, you know, there's a number for each of us that we find by being really strong or being really light and mobile and running, you know, ultras or whatever the fuck that is at the lightweight and somewhere in between where we get the best of both worlds. And, you know, that, that meant losing about 15 pounds of muscle for me. You know, like if I'm in the low two twenties, that's where I feel my best. I can do yoga. I can go for a 5k or a 10k run and

I'm not beat up from it. I can get on the mats and do jujitsu and not get tired after one round. You know? So I think that's, that's an important one. One thing I wanted to jump in on and tell you about since you're having issues with this other Achilles, BPC 157. Oh, a hundred percent. Dude. I did that for Achilles one. Yeah. It is so special. You can take that prophylactically. Oh, I didn't know that. Totally. Yeah.

And that will help any stickiness in your joints. For everyone listening, I mean, refer to the podcast I did with Brigham Bueller from Ways to Well. They're a telemedicine company that specializes in peptides and hormone replacement therapy and all sorts of goodies. But phenomenal stuff. But like the Achilles, the study they did, which is uber fucked up. They severed the fucking Achilles of rats.

The control group got nothing. Let's see how long it takes you to recover naturally. And then the people, the group that got BBC 157, I think they recovered six times faster. It was absurd. I forgot who said it but it's like the wolverine drug yeah that's what they call it yeah and it's this is the same amino acid structure as gastric gastric juice yep like it's not a foreign thing like it's not synthetic

yeah you know it's just yeah exactly and that's what i mean i think the world of peptides is really coming up it's going to be interesting how they regulate it but it's coming yeah but certainly i mean you think of things like that and it's like, and this is a whole topic we don't need to get into, but I certainly have seen, when I fought, it was a different era. It's pre-USADA. Post-USADA, a different game. But when you think about performance enhancing drugs, what are they actually enhancing? That should be a more nuanced conversation, I think. If it's going to enhance recovery, but not lead to strength gains or two tenths off your 100 meter,

then it might be, or if it's at least in the circumstance of injury, like, hey, you can't use this while you're competing, but to recover from a head injury or to recover from a blown out knee, we're going to allow it. I think that's where we should land somewhere in the future. But anyway, that's a side note. We don't need to wrap all that. I mean, I'll say this,

like the NCAA, it was like, yeah, don't take caffeine. Like what? Like don't take a coffee? Like there's certain things that I think, like if you got to the championship level, you actually had to like get tested for caffeine. I'm like come on man like when I was certain things out there it's like what are we doing what are we doing now you know silly silly shit yeah and

you know there there are pro athletes at that point like that's a whole another debate too but they're pro athletes like fucking let's put them on the pro athlete program when I was at ASU they had the wizinator 5000. I think the running back from Minnesota got caught with it traveling. It was a fake dick that came in seven different colors.

Oh, I get it now. I get what you're saying. It had like a fake urine pack you could put in. And he got busted with it. He got busted with it, but that's how I got through ASU. So that was a gold standard back then.

It was 200 bucks. They used to sell it at the weed shops. You'd go in, get a bong, get a whizzenator. That's legendary. We almost got caught because I let one of my teammates use it. He's half black, half white. So he's a couple shades darker than me, right? But he had my white fake penis that he was using to piss out of. And the guy looked over there from the NCAA and he was like, Hey,

I know that's not your dick. If you don't test clean, I'm going to say, this is the thing. And I saw it, you know, so that was, that was a funny little insider thing.

And I'm not, hopefully not. We're out of the, what is it? The statutes limitations earlier than 20 years, but let's talk, let's talk recovery because when people get hit, like I'm 39 now, the older you get, when you get hit with an injury, it fucking hits hard. It's not like you're a kid who breaks his leg and fucking two, you know,

eight weeks later, you're running around like it never happened and you're stronger for it. Injuries can really sideline people and BBC 157 and all the peptides aside, which is phenomenal stuff. I highly recommend it for people, especially upon injury. You created a really cool program to reverse engineer explosiveness, to reverse engineer, like what are the actual movement mechanics of deceleration and actually strengthening the body when you can't hit a triple extension. So talk about that because this is one of the things that drew me in when I was chatting. I don't talk with Mark Bell often, but when we do, we'll catch up. We'll spend 30, 40 minutes on the phone and we catch up once every couple of months. And he's always telling me like,

all right, Kingsbury, who should I get on my podcast? And tell me about the drugs that you're taking. I'm like, well, we call those medicines, but here's what I'm on. podcast? And tell me about the drugs that you're taking. Like, well, we call those medicines, but here's what I'm on. And he'll tell me about the guys he sat on. I remember him telling me about you and he was talking about the kettlebells. And I was like, I mean, I'm here at Onnit. We're making kettlebells.

And I'm like, how have I never heard of this? This sounds insane. This sounds so fucking cool. It's probably the most fun thing ever. And I got it from this uh amazing human being named tony and he has this kettlebell partner passing certification so you can at kettlebell partner passing um if you want to go through his process but he introduced it to me when i was at stanford and it was really for more like flow it was flow state stuff it had nothing

to do in my head with the performance enhancement aspect Like it didn't have anything to do with tissue adaptations But it was just it looked cool. You're literally throwing a kettlebell back and forth with a partner Like I thought that was dope right like who doesn't think that's cool like so that's how it started and then I forgot about it Like I was kind of like just all right That was cool kind of like the same thing with the tumbling with the ethan reef and then I tear my Achilles. And when I tore my Achilles, I'm like, oh my God,

like how am I going to get back? Because my goal is to get back as fast as any other human ever got back. And I played pickup five and a half months after my Achilles, by the way. So I felt pretty good about that. But then I was like, at that point, I didn't chance it anymore. But I had to think, how am I going to get jumping back without jumping? How am I going to get that type of eccentric load? So eccentric RFD. So that's the lowering phase of the jump because yes, the jump is important. Everybody wants to

train for the output from the bottom up. But what really sets up that jump for that to even happen is how fast you can load yourself. It's like pulling back a bow and arrow, right? How fast and how strong can you pull back that bow so when you release it, it's gone, or like a rubber band. And so I needed that rubber band part because I definitely couldn't do the concentric part. I couldn't jump. So then I was thinking, well, how am I going to get fast speed down? And then I remember the kettlebell partner passing, like to receive that kind of load, to grab that kind of kettlebell that's being thrown at you. I mean, that's absorbing force, right? Or however else you want to term it. So when I was

going through, I was like, oh, that's what's going to get my Achilles back, and sure enough, I, now, luckily, at Stanford, I had interns out the wazoo, so I got the, I had test dummies, hadn't, like, training dummies, you know, so I got to put them through the ringer, but luckily, they were awesome enough to go with my experiment. One of them's actually with me at Phoenix now with the sons. He's awesome. Anyways, we're, so this is kettlebell partner passing, so now we're actually throwing this. So it looks like a swing, but it's a little bit more squatty than what you typically see

from like a more hinge-like movement, like a swing. So it's like a mixture of a swing and a squat. But essentially, we are literally throwing back and forth at kettlebell. And so when I was originally doing this for flow state, because it takes a ton of concentration and it can be no distractions to be able to give your partner a good pass.

But then it became a training like tissue adaptation tool. And so then I started doing high volume and then me and my buddy who's with the Memphis Grizzlies now, he's the assistant, Eric Schmidt. He's awesome. We worked, we did, we call it a world record because we haven't seen anybody else do it. We took the 203. I think that's, is it 203 or 206? I think it's, yeah, it might be 203. The 203 pound kettlebell. And we threw it a hundred. That's the a hundred kilo, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. We did that 126 times unbroken. Damn. And we got it on film too. So like Guinness hit me, you know, cause I want that world record, but we threw that thing 126 times unbroken. But from that, and once again, I can't jump, I can't run, you know, I can't do the plyometric aspect. I can't do the elastic things that my Achilles hopefully will allow me to do again one day. And then all of a sudden my super fat torn Achilles like recovering from surgery started thinning up. And when I saw that,

I was like, this is it. I'm getting the eccentric load, but I'm not putting it at risk because I'm not actually like coming off the ground and then landing. So I'm getting all the benefits from landing without ever jumping. And so that's when I knew I hit something. And so that's when we started doing a lot of passing. And so my, I mean, holy posterior chain, like you want something like to me, nothing got me in shape faster and nothing got me stronger than that. Because after just doing that alone, I go back to deadlifting, my grip strength's ridiculous. And all of a sudden that five, whatever I hit like 526 or whatever it was, felt like I was riding a bike. And I'm sitting there like, yo,

I've never worked up to like be strong at a deadlift. But now I just picked that up, no problem. And I'm sitting there like, this is special stuff. But it's like, when you look at the power lifts, even the Olympic lifts, you're never catching it that fast. Like when you catch a clean, it's weightless at that point because it's up in the air, right? Unless you let that thing come all the way down on you, it's kind of weightless. Same thing with a squat. You're just grinding slower speeds. You're just grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind. You just create all these co-contractions. The most beautiful thing about partner passing is it's the same as athletics. It's contraction and relaxation. And when you have that simultaneously, then you have

athleticism. So now I'm not only learning how to turn my muscles on, I'm learning how to turn them off. And now I'm creating efficiency. And when you create efficiency, that's when you have movement. And so that was really, really special about this partner passing. And then to challenge ourselves from a vestibular aspect, we started doing one arm passing. And then we started doing chaotic passing. And then we started doing chaotic passing. And then it was like split lunging. So my favorite now to do self-prescribed is, or when you're by yourself, is a split lunge.

So basically you're taking a kettlebell, you drop as fast as you can, and you land in a split stance. Then as you come up, you flip it in the air, grab it with the other hand. And now cyclically, you're going one leg into another. So it's like an explosive walking lunge in place, but it's one of the best ways to hit your glutes by far, by far.

If you do that for a Tabata for 10 seconds on, 20 seconds off for eight minutes, you're walking away sore for the next three days. It's unbelievable because the amount of eccentric rate or the amount of eccentric load you are getting from that is way more than you'll get from any other means and methods, getting leg presses or heavy squats. It's way more in the shortest amount of time. So the efficiency of it, it's amazing.

Yeah, you're training gait, you're training twisting and rotation, you're training all sorts of stuff, grip still involved, hand-eye coordination, central nervous system fully activated i forget which book it was in but and it might have been easy strength but pavel was talking about a study he did at waterloo i think in canada where he brought you know his standard 23 or 24 24 kilo kettlebell um and he was he was on a metal plate that could gauge the force that he was putting into it.

Yeah, force plates, right? And he's doing swings with 24 kilos and it was generating over 500 pounds of force at his feet, right? That's how hard he's throwing and hiking that fucking kettlebell in between his legs. And his body doesn't know the difference. But that's velocity. Yeah, exactly.

He's training speed. He's training the on, off, on, right? Like, and he talked about that same thing you just mentioned. It's contraction relaxation. You know, it's accelerating and squeezing as hard as you can and then relaxing into that.

It's like a sprinter doesn't grind through the run. They go as fucking hard as they can and then they soften as much as they can. As hard, as soft, hard, soft. You then they, they soften as much as they can as hard as soft, hard, soft. You got it. You got a heavy squat. You got a heavy deadlift or else you'll never be athletic. Same thing. Yeah. I mean, so having, having that, you know, those things parallel in the sport so much, you know, and something that I've been doing for probably the last six weeks, I've talked about it on couple of times on this podcast, is the Easy Strength program, where you just pick five lifts.

You have a upper body push, an upper body pull, something big for the lower body, like a hinge or a squat, and then something dynamic, like kettlebell swing or kettlebell snatch, and then like the ab wheel. But you never go above 10 reps. Are you familiar with it?

Yep. Yeah. So Easy Strength is, it's funny you bring that up because you said it like three or four times now and I'm sitting there like every time I'm like, that's my cornerstone book. Like, I want to say that like that,

if I recommend any book to any new strength coach or someone who's an aspiring strength coach or just any human being who wants to be more awesome, easy strength is the best way to start, hands down. But anyway, it's a person. Well, it fits right in with the conversation. You're like basketball players are Q3 guys.

Yeah. A hundred percent. They break down the quadrants unless you're a specialist, like a power lifter or a discus thrower or a sprinter. Most people are not that unless there's some college athletes listening. Right. Q4, you have,

you know, your sport, but you also need size, right? So that's a football player that needs some hypertrophy work and things like that in addition to sports-specific training in addition to general strength. But most people are Q3.

Most athletes are Q3. Mixed martial artists, basketball players, and most people that aren't doing shit that want to get into shape, you're a Q3 also. You're not a specialist, right? Like you're, and you're not like, you're really not like you should be doing Q3 stuff. And if you have any type of householding demands, like you're a parent or you work 40 hours a week, like you fall into Q3.

So like the, how they break that down is such a beautiful thing. But when I remember when you were talking about Mark about, you know, picking that one exercise and just doing it day in and day out. Oh, microdosing. Yeah. The microdosing. And I was like, yo, A kudos for the microdosing call on it. You like that? I love that. But B,

that's a primer that doesn't burn somebody out. And that's, that's a, that's a huge, like when I first read that, I was like, wait a minute. And even at the end of that, they get into the even easier strength. And that's where Steve Justice Singles came in. And guys that have been deadlifting their whole lives can gain a hundred pounds on their deadlift by deadlifting every day.

And I was like, what? How could you deadlift every day? Like that'll fry your fucking nervous system. They're like, wait a minute. Not if we train at 50, 60% of our one rep max, then we're never hurting the nervous system. Right. Then we never do that. And if we move our 50% up, up 50 pounds, that might be 75 pound increase on our one rep max. Right. You know, and most importantly, we're never sore and that we can do the things that we want to do. Like if it's playing pickleball on the weekend

with our friends or fucking whatever, going to an ecstatic dance and not feeling stiff, whatever your thing is, to leave the workout with more energy than when you started, to not walk around sore because you got a six-year-old that wants to hang on your neck and do all this other shit, to have the ability to walk.

Like I walk from Onnit, sports performance, where I do this workout, across the street to 10th planet and get on the mats. And it's effectively warmed me up. It's a primer. When you talked about finishing with that before practice, I was like that, they should, you should, that's a special point to make. Like your workout is bleeding up to them actually being able to practice better. They're not walking from strength training into practice, limping into the gym, ready to get hurt. They're walking in on fire, nervous system ready, all muscles ready to go. And they're better for it in practice. I would love to think that I was a really smart person and was like, that's what I'm doing.

That's how I came up with this. But that was not even close to how the actual product came. How it came is it came from environment. And once again, being at Stanford, like the amount of stress that these kids go through on a daily basis. I mean, imagine as a freshman, I'm the smartest kid in my school. I do all these extracurricular activities.

My whole community thinks I'm awesome. And I'm great at basketball too. And then you go to Stanford and you're like the most irrelevant human being ever because you got like astrophysicist, you got like, you know, presidents of, you know, like other countries is just walking into your classroom. I mean, it's like the amount of greatness that's surrounded you can be so intimidating. So just the social aspect alone, super intimidating. So that's a stress for an 18 year old at that. Then, oh, you got to be good at basketball. Well, that's a big jump. All of a sudden you're going to high major basketball. So you're probably not even going to be the best kid on that team, much less you're the best kid your whole life. So now you're not

the best kid on that team. And then, oh, you're going against other competition who more than likely you're going to run into some freaks and go, oh, maybe I'm not going to make it to the NBA because every kid that comes to college basketball thinks they're going to make it to the NBA. Even the college I went to, I had teammates that were like, yeah, yeah, I'm just going to go to summer league. And I'm like, Jesus Christ. I knew pretty quick that I wasn't going to the NBA. But so once again, we look at stress holistically. It's like, wow, that's a lot of stress on a kid. And we haven't even lifted a weight or bounced a ball yet. So how can I take away that stress? Well, coming into the gym twice a day, one in the morning early for workouts,

then going to school all day, and then, hey, come back. I need to warm you up before we go into practice. Do a two to three hour long practice and then go to bed. I was like, that's a lot of stress. So I told coach, I'm like, coach, how about we just bring them in once a day? And then instead of me doing like this 10 minute warmup that everybody hates doing anyways, just let me have 20 to 30 minutes and I won't bring them in in the morning three or four times a week or two to three times a week. So now let's just lift every single day we practice.

And so boom, that was the birth of microdosing. So now every day we practice or play, we lift. And so just like easy strength, we pick one major lift. This is the one we're going to do. And it depends on the type of day we're having. So for instance, if it's a game day, then we are doing some very fast stuff. Cleans, snatches, trap bar jumps, things that are very potentiation or potentiated oriented, if you will, like things that get them primed and ready to go. So when they hit that court, they're feeling bouncy. Hey, it's going to be a long grindy practice. We're going to have a long grindy training session. What is a long and grindy lift? A heavy deadlift or a squat. So we are complimenting the stressors that they're going to have that day. So that's the idea is that it's a

setup. I'm setting them up for the day they're about to have on the court. And so now, once again, I take that usual 45 minute long to an hour lift in season, two to three times a week. And now all I did was just spread it out over five to six days. And so boom, microdosing. And then now I'm able to train them more often. So now I'm getting more motor learning. So now I can teach them more, which is amazing because if you look at the motor or any motor learning research, if you do anything for a long period of time, you lose retention rates pretty fast. So if I'm introducing new movements and for an hour long, I'm like, we're doing this movement, doing this movement, then at some point, there's no benefits. At some point, they lose those gains, if you will, from just learning. So now if we're hitting similar

stuff every single day, and then we go into our heavy lift. Well, now by the time they're done with their freshman year, they've done more lifts than a college senior because of just repetition, just from sessions alone. And so now then we go into the pros, it's micro, micro dosing. There are certain guys I train three times a day. It's crazy to think about, but if you look at a typical NBA game day, we have shoot around

in the morning. Then we come into the arena. They have their individual shooting time, which is before the game. So it's like an hour and a half before the game. Then they have the team meeting and they go into the game and then there's post game. So when you think about it, that's technically two, three, that's four opportunities to do some work. So now instead of having, hey, we're going to do a lift and steal resources away from what you do, which is play basketball, now we're going to, when you come in for shoot around, hey, this is going to be more core work.

And we're just going to wake the body up, get you out of bed. We just got to get you moving so you feel good for shoot around. So a lot of core, trunk, vestibular stuff, very simple stuff. Boom, going to shoot around. Then it's their individual shooting. And this is where, this could be a little controversial,

but I love a little Franz Bosch stuff. Now, Franz Bosch, he's pretty brilliant in the terms of what he's doing as far as he's making athletes more athletic without adding more and more load. So he's not looking at it from a tissue adaptation standpoint. He's looking at it from a degrees of variability in motor learning standpoint. So the more variability I have within a skill like locomotion, AKA sprinting, then the more stuff I get to do. So to give an example of some of the

stuff he does, you've probably seen aqua bags, right? Aqua bags, aqua balls. So these are like the water bags that are used for resistance training. So these perturbations, so for instance, I can take the bag and operate it like I'm doing like a clean. So when I move that bag and I land it, the perturbations of the water make it challenging to stick it. So now let's imagine doing that with like a lunge. So I'm doing a lunge, but then I'm catching it like the bottom of a clean. So now I'm single leg and that's really going to challenge my balance, which muscle spindles, GTOs, like my joint is going to be prepared for a lot of things. So that's when we hit some of those type of movement patterns before they go into their individual shooting. Once again, motor learning.

So now they're going into their shooting,. Once again, motor learning. So now they're going into their shooting, they're feeling free, they're challenging some new things they haven't done before, but they're doing it at lower thresholds. So now if you do that for 72 times, which is what we did last year, 72 opportunities, that's a lot of opportunities. So for 10 minutes for 72 times, you add that time up, that's a lot of time. And so that's when we're doing more of our software work. So that's probably the best way to put it is pre-game, we're training their software. And then post-game, all right, whatever left you got, we're doing eccentric training. We're hitting all tissues now. So it's like Nordics, it's reverse chins, it's heavy pushups,

it's heavy rows, it's all those types of movements, whatever they got left in the tank. Because man, we play 3.6 games in a week and we travel all around the nation. So there are off days I'm going to ask them to come in and lift. Probably not. And then how many, we have more back-to-backs this season than any other season. So those back-to-backs are pretty taxing. So thus we have to micro, micro dose their training just so that we don't have those negative consequences of lifting heavy for higher volume or for a long duration within one session.

So now I'm not beating up their bodies. It's like I'm constantly priming them. It's really what it is. And then the opportunity that I can gas them, it's already after their competition. And because it's after the competition, directly after, that's the longest amount of time they're going to have to recover before their next competition. And because it's after the competition, directly after, that's the longest amount of time they're going to have to recover before their next competition.

Perfect. So you get them already pre-waxed. They got the big break coming up. Exactly. You humor them a little bit. At that point, it's like, hey, right now you're about to get great food. You're about to get great rest. Cool.

And then that's where it's interesting because as an as a typical strength coach like my ego was like we gotta lift big we gotta have these long sessions we gotta that's my validation we gotta we gotta go through our running program and then after our running program we come in and we hit our power movement which is a clean and then after that power movement we gotta hit our strength movement which is a squat and then i gotta hit my accessories it's like why do i gotta hit that all in one session why can't I hit my accessories first thing in the morning? It's not that taxing on the nervous system. And then pregame, why don't I hit my power movement then? Because it's going to potentiate me. And then after the game, why

don't I just hit my strength movement? Because that's when I'm going to be, I mean, I'm going to be the most warmed up then anyways. So then at that point, I'm going to get all my benefits. Just spread out the stress. Oh, yeah, brother. Trying, man, trying. I love it. But that was all because of environment. It wasn't because I'm a smart guy. It just became like I'm definitely not a smart guy.

I'm just very observant. That's all. That's beautiful, brother. What do you see as things that have changed since college to now working with pros in terms of any aspect from recovery to the mentals of the game to anything that you think would translate to people at home? And the NBA is just a different animal

because it's like, these are the most special human beings on the planet that do a specific task, which is basketball. So luckily I get to watch the best athletes in the world 3.6 times a week. And when you watch them move up close, you start rethinking everything because you go, oh my God, these are the outliers. These are the outliers in life. But yet all of our preconceived notions about getting strong is with people that are not these people. And so everything that you think that you're going to apply to

these type of athletes from your essentials of strength and conditioning from your NSCA manual is not relevant. So you have to now truly run experiments and it's exploratory as can be. But once again, there's a few, like there's some time under tension things. There's some cellular biology. There's some physics that we're like, okay, we can't ignore.

Like these are, but I'm driving from those principles and now applying it to these very special human beings that at any given time, they're just like the best athlete in the world and on top of everything. And then contracts and negotiations and bad relationships and all this thing just goes to the wayside.

And so the amount of pressure and stress on these type of athletes, it's completely different than what you see in college. And so that's where there is a lot of just human connection. Like the amount of trust that you have to have with an athlete at this level, it's like, it's high because they keep their circles super tight. And this is their body. Like it's literally their livelihood. This is the thing that's could pay their grandkids, grandkidskids and you're coaching their entire business facts yeah facts it's like oh my god like when you look at it that way you're like oh my god it is a

business like this whole thing is just a business like if i if i overload him i'm messing up his money like and i'm messing up his potential lifelong earnings you know and these are the things you got to just heavily consider. And so when you're watching these guys and then you go, yeah, but these guys have never been studied. Hey, how do you, like looking at some of these guys and how they create movements, one, it's beautiful, but two, it's like, I've never seen a human being do that. And I've been in basketball my entire life. And it's like, how do you train that? How do I know the training methodology that I'm doing, that I've known for years and years to work is going to work with that particular athlete?

Because they are that much of an outlier to normal human beings. And so from there, you start real small. So if there's anything that I can take away from working with, especially at this level with these types of athletes is of course they're freaks, but like, regardless if you're a freak or not, if you just take very small things and then explore within that small constraint and then load, I think we go to load too fast. I think load, don't get on load gives adaptations, but there's intent. And I think that's the real thing that I'm trying to say now is the intent to what you do will drive adaptations and performance faster than you just going, okay, I just need to add heavy load and that's going to give you my adaptation.

So the small, starting with very, very small things and then just driving the intent marker. Like if I'm doing a split squat, what am I really trying to get out of this split squat? Well, I'm locked up sagittally. So I need to get a little bit more internal hip rotation because that IR of my front leg and that super, or excuse me, that pronation of my foot is going to allow me to be able to dissipate more force laterally. That's going to allow me to be a better athlete. I got to think about all that when I do a lunge, like that's intense, right? But if you're that, and that's the best thing about working with these level athletes is they are that in tune with their body. They might not can articulate like what the talus bone is doing in their foot. They don't need

to, they know what it feels like though. And so that's where it's so much fun because that's the exploratory part, but man, just taking, just driving intent more than driving whatever you think the end result's going to be. I think that's the biggest takeaway. I like that. Yeah. And moving small too. It reminds me of James Clear. You're familiar with him?

He wrote Atomic Habits. Phenomenal dude. He was on the podcast and he talked about Pat Riley when he was with the Lakers in the 80s. And they were my team. I'm from NorCal and lawyers are great, but I love, I love fucking, I love watching magic. I love it. And you saw Showtime, man. So I loved it. And one of the things that he was, he was big on was not, it wasn't mastery in any one particular thing. Like if a guy sucked at

dribbling, it wasn't like your whole focus now is dribbling or your whole focus is defense. It's your worst idea. It wasn't that. And it wasn't your best at, you know, three point shots. So that's what you're going to, that's what we're going to really focus on. Cause you're going to be our three point guy. He wanted everyone to get 2% better in every category. And he had five categories. It's like, we get 2% better in each of these categories every single day. And we just, that's all we're shooting for 2% every single day, you know? And there's a, an old, an old quote. I don't know if Lou Holtz came up with it, but he's old enough to, and, um, but it's, it's a yard by yard.

Life is hard. Inch by inch. Life's a cinch. I like that. You know? And it's like, it's just a brilliant thing, you know? Cause like whether we're starting, I not made these mistakes myself, like having competed at such a high level and it's like, Oh, I know what I'm capable of. I can fucking go in here and crush my body. And

it's like, well, I haven't done that in two months. Right. Maybe I just baby step it for a minute, you know, like, and even like running, like I've run a 55 K and I'm not built for that, but I can go out and run a 5K just fine. And I was like, oh, it's been a couple months. Maybe I go with Bear and I just run walk. The second he gets tired, I'll pretend I'm tired and walk with him, right? Because I need to ease into this.

Let me go inch by inch and not get banged up. And the more I listen to that and adhere to that, the less injuries, the less layoff, the more consistent I can be. And the consistency seems to be the deal, especially with strength training, right? That's like the brilliance of what you're doing and the brilliance of easy strength. There's so many little gems in easy strength too, like on a spiritual level or an optimization level where they talk about if it's worth doing, do it every day. If something's worth doing, do it every single day. And it's like, well, how do I fucking deadlift every day? Well, do it every day. If something's worth doing, do it every single day.

And it's like, well, how do I fucking deadlift every day? Well, oh, I can if I do it light. I can practice a movement pattern that trains the nervous system, but never taxes it. I can practice these things that actually translate. And- I love the movement every day, right? If it's worth doing, do it every day. And that's how I convinced my coach. I'm like, we're coming into this white collar program every day, right? If it's worth doing, do it every day. And that's how I convinced my coach.

I'm like, we're coming into this white collar program at Stanford, right? Like these are a bunch of like soft kids. So we're blue collar coach, me and you. Yeah, we're blue collar. So we got to do it every day. And that's how I convinced him. He's like, yeah, I like that. And I was like, yeah, I bet.

It's awesome. But in reality, it's to do less. Less is more. Absolutely, brother. Well, it's been fucking fantastic getting to meet you and have you on the podcast. I definitely's to do less. Less is more. Absolutely, brother. Well, it's been fucking fantastic getting to meet you and have you on the podcast. I definitely want to do it again. Absolutely.

I'll be watching you, man. I'm watching you already. But tell us where people can find you online. Yeah. Any resources you want to give out. Yeah, so you can find me on Instagram, at slash strength, S-C-H-L-E-S, strength. That's where I post most of my stuff.

But to be honest, I haven't been as active lately, you know, ever since I made the jump. But I need to get back on it. But I mean, that used to be my creative outlet. That was like my easel, you know, I loved. But yeah, as far as resources, you know, Masterclass. It's like my favorite resource right now. Like I get a nice little con ed budget. And the only thing I wanted to do was buy a subscription to Masterclass. It's like my favorite resource right now. Like I get a nice little con ed budget.

And the only thing I wanted to do was buy a subscription to Masterclass because I'm not even kidding you. Like there's a graphic designer that I was listening to and watching their series and how they design. And there are so many parallels to how I program and how I organize. And I was like, oh my God,

I can learn anything from anyone at any given time if you're the best at what you do I don't care what I don't care if you're the best janitor in the world how did you do it I want to I want to learn your methods because it's somehow going to cross pollinate with what I do fuck yeah beautiful brother awesome brother thank you so much this is fun yes sir Thank you. you