Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 46 - Carolina Panthers Strength Coach Joe Kenn

Episode Date: May 4, 2018

We went live with the head strength coach for the Carolina Panthers, coach "House", Joe Kenn. Joe is an Award Winning Physical Preparation Coach and author of Coach's Strength Training Playbook & Push, Jump, Punch. He and his wife hopped on a phone call with us to share their journey that started on the west coast and eventually landed them right where they wanted to be in Carolina. Re-Watch the Live Stream here: https://youtu.be/WYf4IEbR8vk ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Stitcher Here: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play here: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud Here: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount Code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout to receive 15% off all Sling Shots. FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

All right, we're going live here in a few minutes with Joe Ken, Coach House, from the Carolina Panthers. He's a Carolina Panthers strength coach. Coach House has been a strength conditioning coach for many, many decades now. And he's somebody who's on top of his game. He's one of the most sought-after strength conditioning coaches in the world. But he doesn't have time to be sought after. He's got to work. He's got to put in work and he's got to get the Carolina Panthers on the map.

Joe has become a close friend of mine, somebody I associate with quite a bit. I admire him not as a professional in the fitness industry or in strength conditioning. I admire him as a man. He's 50 years old. He's still deadlifting 500 pounds. He's 50 years old. He's still deadlifting 500 pounds. He still trains very hard. He treats himself like a professional. All the things that he teaches his, um, his athletes to do, he's in there doing that. And then some, uh, he's doing all the stretches, all the breathing techniques, he's doing anything and everything he can to be the best that he can be. I don't know his personal life, but it appears that he's also an awesome family man.

You can only see what you see from the outside sometimes on stuff like that. But he's got some kids that are excelling in athletics and academics as well uh i admire that side also um i think it's great when you see posts from people that aren't always just about themselves when they're about the people that they love and they're about the people it's you know some of the posts are about some of the people that they actually care about that are in their lives as well and so joe can is that kind of person where he's throwing up posts of his son, getting new shot put records and all different kinds of things like that. Before we jump on a call, I wanted to also say that Joe Ken has had a very special impact on a lot of men. And I think it's a great thing as a coach. Everybody needs a mentor and Coach House,

Joe Ken, is known specifically for being that kind of mentor. He's known around the world for being that kind of person that shapes men's minds and turns them into men. One of them being Gigantor, the six foot eight, 435 pound world's strongest man, athlete, Brian Shaw. And another one being Kyle Kingsbury, just to name a few. Like these are just a few guys that come to my mind. But I remember in doing this podcast for many years now, I recall running into a lot of people where I say like, what motivates you? What's behind this? What's this drive? Where's this coming from? And they'll say, I worked with Coach House at ASU. Coach House was at ASU for seven years. He's been at the Carolina Panthers for many years now. And he's going to share his story with us today. Let's get him on the horn there, Andrew.

Hello? What's up, Joe Ken, a.k.a. Coach House? What's going on, bud? What's up, Mark Bell, a.k.a. Smelly Meathead Millionaire? Hey, man, I'm super, super fired up to have you here on the show. And I was just sharing with people the impact that you've had on people, not just as a coach, but as a mentor. We've had Gigantor, Brian Shaw on the show. We've had Kyle Kingsbury on the show. And they gave high, high praise for you. They were just like, man, I wouldn't know half the stuff I know today if it wasn't for Joe can whipping us into shape. What are you doing? What are you doing to some of these guys to,

to get, to gain that kind of a command? I don't know. I guess it's a gift, but, uh, when you have really good people who want to be the best, as you know, it's a lot easier to motivate the motivated. It's hard to motivate the unmotivated person. And fortunately for me and my journey and strength, I've been very blessed to be surrounded with people who have been highly motivated and just took a liking to my processes and the way that I would give them the opportunities to succeed. We were going to have your wifey on the podcast today, but she's a little under the weather. But I think that the family aspect of all this is important too. You know, being a, being a coach of any kind is extremely time consuming. How in the world have you been

able to make all this work? You've been a coach for how many years now? This is, I think, year 30 as coaching. Oh, my God. How old are you? 51. There we go. Oh, man.

30 years of coaching. Wow. If you need her to come up, she'd be more than happy to come up but a big uh she's she's the rock of the family first and foremost i'm extremely fortunate i tell every young coach that's coming through that it's very very important if you have a significant other that they understand that coaching is not your typical nine to five job that you're used to seeing your parents have where they're going to be at theypical than the standard, you know, live at your hometown, live down the street from your wife and you're looking around and the nearest relative is 3000 miles away. So it's extremely important. And she keeps it, she keeps it real a hundred percent of the time and keeps me grounded. I mean, she, she was the first one that

really set it to the point where, Hey, you got to leave work at, you got to leave work at work. And when you come home, it doesn't matter how tired you are. You know, you got to leave work at you got to leave work at work and when you come home it doesn't matter how tired you are you know you got two sons that need you and you better be there for them 100 just like you are your athlete so it's a it's extremely hard i mean there's no doubt about it and now at this point in your in my career my my kids are older but now i've got grandkids so they're but now i'm'm chasing around little grandkids around the house. So it's fun. It's a cool deal. It is extremely hard.

If anyone tells you a coach's family is easy, they probably have been very, very fortunate to be punkered down in one place for a long period of time and being able to establish themselves in the community to a point where it wasn't worth making the trips around the world trying to look for certain things and they're looking for the grasses, the grass is greener. And I think a lot of times that backfires. I've moved, but nowhere near as much as some other people I know. And then more than others, I just felt like in my career, the things that I wanted to accomplish, there were certain things and certain challenges that I had put in front of me from a career-wise that it was important for me to make certain professional moves to see if the things that I believe in can be transferred over to a totally different clientele or slash athlete. Well, you mentioned about greener pastures basically is interesting because that can come in so many different forms.

But when I'm talking to people and I'm telling them, hey, we're trying to put up points on the scoreboard, I'm referring to it in many different ways. And actually what I've learned over the years is that there's more than one scoreboard. You got your scoreboard at work, you're putting up points over there and that's where you buckle down.

You get tough with the guys. You make sure everybody's doing all their stuff. You're getting all your stuff done. Your staff is getting everything done. The athletes are in the shape that you want. That's you putting up points at, at, uh, at work. Those points don't transfer over. You can't, you can't take those points home with you and be like, Hey, I'm the man.

And, uh, when you get home, you don't have no longer have any responsibilities. You don't have to points home with you and be like, hey, I'm the man. And when you get home, you no longer have any responsibilities. You don't have to take out the garbage. You don't have to help clean up the kitchen. You don't have to help cook. You don't have to help get the kids to school. None of those points matter, right? 100%. I mean, it's funny you say that because my wife constantly reminds me sometimes when I come home

and you're walking around like you're still in coach speak, and she'll say, you're not with your cronies right now. You're at home. You got home things to be done. So, yeah, it's a crazy, crazy balance, and you can get caught up in it because the athletic, I mean, it's no different than, you know, you guys training at super training and guys are, you know, you're on a roll. Guys are PR and left and right to camaraderie's high.

You're all fired up. You're in that, like, meathead madness. And you walk home and you're trying to walk around with your chest out. Your family ain't worried about who set records. They want to know you're going to be their dad when you're eating dinner at night. Yeah, and something else I share with people too is, yeah, something else I share with people too is, you know, people want to try to make things complicated,

and they talk about quality time. I don't think it's about quality time. I think it's about quantity time, like literally just being there. Sometimes you're not doing anything. Sometimes one kid's off in the other room. your wife's watching her show, you're watching your TV show, and the other kid's taking a dump or something like that. It doesn't have to always be that there's this big planned out trip to Disneyland or there's this big thing planned out.

Just be everybody's just there. And when it's time for a 10 minute walk pops up, then maybe everybody goes for a walk or it's time for dinner. Everybody comes together for dinner. It doesn't have to be this big, uh, planned out thing. That's, um, so difficult, you know? And, and, and I'm like the king of that. Like my, like, uh, my wife sometimes, like I'm like, I'm one of those, I just need to be home around you guys. I mean, I can sit on the couch all week and just watch people run around me. Now I got, wife sometimes like i'm like i'm one of those i just need to be home around you guys i mean i i can sit on the couch all week and just watch people run around me now i got you know and i've

learned i have to do a better job of being more of a participant on things that you know if we want if my wife wants to do something it's a tough it's tough and she's um i tell people all the time i mean she's the rock i mean she you know she's the rock. She holds it all together for us. smart enough, I think sometimes to recognize what the woman has been doing all day long. My wife is, is similar to yours. It sounds like where she's a real task master. She can handle 10, 20, 30 things in a day. I can handle like two and then I'm done like, okay, podcast lift. I'm and I'm out cold by nine o'clock from that, you know? Yeah, it's, it's, um, it's unique. And like, for me, I always go back toclock from that you know it's it's um it's unique and like for me i always go back to when people you know like somebody asked me martin rooney asked me what my why was it and

i said i owe i owe a lot of people i owe there's a lot of people while i'm here and oh see mark you got such a good topic my wife just came up so I'm going to put it on speaker so you can hammer her just as much as you would hammer me. Hold on one second. Mark, you there? I'm here. I'm glad that you were able to make it on the podcast, Angie. Well, I didn't know there was going to be hammering going on. Hammering out some questions over here. That's what what we're doing we got them in the hot seat i'm basically what i was saying is uh when i say i owe the biggest person i owe obviously

and because no no one really knows our first story she was the primary breadwinner for the our first eight years while i worked at Boise State. And if it wasn't for her allowing me to pursue my dream to accomplish goals and aspirations in coaching, and your spouse or your significant other knowing how, how difficult it is and how the, how the world changes in coaching that it allows things like that to occur. Angie, what was some of that time like with Joe, like you know, his, his start in the beginning with like Boise state, him having to put in so many hours and not making tip-top dollar.

So I think we lost him. I'm going to get him right back on the phone. Oh, we lost him for a second. Sorry about that house. We lost you, buddy. Hey. His fat fingers hung up the phone. I was going to say he fat fingered it.

Yeah. Hello? Yeah. Hey, man, I think your fat fingers hung up joe now what happened was my son is throwing and she just tried to call us and i kind of screwed it up but yeah my wife will take over for that one yeah what were the early years like is that the question yeah basically what were the early years like you know when you were uh when you were putting in your work and, you know, he wasn't making a whole lot. Did you think that there was going to, you know, be someone who was

going to come down and say, Hey, we're going to, Joe, we're going to put you with the Arizona Cardinals or we're going to do something big for you. Like, what were those years like? Yeah. You know, I'm, I always say it starts way before that. You have to choose wisely when you start to think about a mate in life. And I always knew he would be successful. I never doubted it for a day because I could tell by the kind of guy he was on the playing field and all the dedication he put into that. So I never had a doubt. It never bothered me at all. I come from a really hardworking family.

And so that never was a problem. I am always surprised because today we've gotten away with some things that you could never have gotten away with, could get away with today. Like we had our first child, and my husband was coaching with my son in a baby bjorn while i was working i have no idea why boise state allowed that and it's been there were times when he was bing bonging around the weight room and those baby walkers he grew up in the weight room there's just no way they would allow that today for liability reasons.

But, you know, everything kind of came into play the way it needed to. I never had a doubt. It was just a matter of working it. And I knew the kind of person he was. I knew he wouldn't give up. I knew he was smart. I knew that he was always constantly driving to learn and do. Even in his sleep, you could see his cognitive brain going.

So, you know, there were hard times, but we are simple. We live simple. We never try to keep up with everybody. And so, therefore, we didn't put a lot of stress on ourselves. We drove the same car, a 76 Monte Carlo, had duct tape holding on. Not duct tape, athletic tape. I know, you used to tape on the training room. rear view the side view mirror we didn't care we were just you know what we we kept things simple we believed in each other we chose wisely we focused on the

right things he continued to get just more and more knowledge because that was going to catapult him forward and you know that's kept it strong and good for us. And my wife and I have lived a similar life where we've had, you know, we had this just old beat up minivan and I was having a rough day one day and I was just frustrated with about 97 different things. And I punched the steering wheel of our crappy van and the horn proceeded to not only go off but stay on as i drove down the freeway with two screaming crying babies in the back when i was uh left alone with them a wifey had to go do something that night and

i found out what an yeah what a nightmare it was to uh try to watch two babies not Not a lot of fun. He had a much better appreciation. Oh, absolutely. Joe told me a great story when he was at my house about going around the country and starting out on the West Coast and how he kind of made a promise to you about how he wanted to get back towards the East Coast. He kind of made a promise to you about how he wanted to get back towards the East Coast. What was some of that journey like, moving around, maybe shifting kids in and out of school and stuff like that? You know, I grew up really poor and was a single mom, so I was always moving, and that never bothered me.

Being stagnant bothered me. And I always felt like my kids' schooling wasn't going to get in the way of their education. And also, all those moves, as long as we handled it right, got them involved and got involved with the community, they would be able to handle those things and also be stronger, better for it. those things and also be stronger, better for it. So, though I didn't love, you know, it wasn't really the West Coast. It was one step in from the West Coast. So we went from Idaho to Utah to Arizona. I always knew I wanted to be back home where family was, and that was always the goal.

But we always seemed to just keep moving south instead of east. So we always, we got south and we never got east, and that's why, that was a big reason why when the Louisville opportunity came up, that was a, that was the decision that had a lot of positives from the professional standpoint, but it also got us as close as we'd ever been to North Carolina where both our families were at that time. So that made that decision a lot easier. It was a little tougher on our oldest son because he was in the midst of just starting high school, which is extremely tough as a high school athlete moving.

Yeah, he must have been pretty mad, huh? Yeah, it was an interesting time. But then we had to move him again because I wound up getting fired in two years. So it was an interesting little journey during that time period, the Louisville slash private sector business deal. Yeah, but we always really try to keep them in check. And, you know, we'd say, yes, hard, and I know it's hard, but you have to have some perspective.

One of your parents isn't headed to the Middle East to fight a war. You know your mom and dad are going to be around for the most part. You know, you don't have to worry if you're ever going to see them again. So have some perspective about what other people go through to make a living and to attain success, not only for ourselves, but for you also. And there are times I'm sure it was harder than we realized, and they've learned to adapt. But I think perspective was, we focused on them keeping a good perspective.

How have you guys made this work out relationship wise? How do you, how do you get some time? I mean, there's, you know, um, you know, with my own family having two kids. I have a very forgiving wife. Like I, I just let things, um, I am, I am definitely the head of the house. I'm the one head of the house. I told you, yes, I said that. Because I'm the one that's here. When you're the one that's here, you have to, even if you don't necessarily want to be.

But for the most part, I know what kind of person he is. I like him as a person. But we're not best friends. But we're not best friends. That's not. That's definitely not. I don't want to be his best friend. I don't want to talk about this thing all day long.

He doesn't want to talk about dogs all day long. We have our own separate worlds. But when we do come together, we're just forgiving. You know, there are some big deals periodically that will come up that you have to address and you have to say your piece or you have to make a stand but the little daily things you say you say a little thing here there and you go on you move on we just really don't carry a lot of that we just made a decision we didn't want to be those kind of people like people would say to me how can you trust your husband he's traveling all over he's a handsome guy and i'd go yeah i mean i feel like i don't worry that all the time if he's gonna do something he's gonna do something either he's not very good at being covert you know i know just about everything he does i'd find out

eventually and then you know that's not i don't think he's ever been willing to risk that and then i've always said told him so if you had somebody new you just can't be good for a while but let me just get the same old me again you just have another wife that you have to go through and break in and do all that it's not even worth it we just have always we like each other we knew who we were when we married each other we haven haven't changed from that. We've forgiven each other our little shortcomings, the big deals we work through, and we let each other go do what we want to do, and just, you know, don't get each other's way. Has he ever turned into the coaching monster that he is on the field with your kids?

No. on the field with your kids? No. He used to come home and say, hold on, he did not, stop it. He used to come and go,

why isn't anybody listening to me? Why won't anybody, nobody respects me. I'm like, honey, we're not your, we're not your, we're not your team. We're not your cronies.

We're not your, your groupies. We're your family, you know? Yeah, I got the same thing at my house. No one's scared of me at all. It's pretty bad. But, yeah, there have been a couple times I've had to yank him back from overtraining the kids. My son had 104 temperature once.

He was deathly ill. And then I'm looking for him, and I see he's got him out in the garage training. And I'm like, uh-uh, uh-uh. Arizona, 120 days. Yeah, it's not happening. Get back here. And then I'll tell you this, too, Mark. One of the things that my wife always said about our travels was that she really felt that that was a good learning experience.

Like my wife, like she said, I wasn't going to let school affect their education. The diversity and ethnicity that they got to see by hanging out in those weight rooms all those years, because a lot of times in some of the places we lived, it was highly populated by one socioeconomic type of person and they always got a real life feel of hanging out in the weight room and seeing a multi-diverse and ethnic uh environment and community right they got to see their dad treat everyone the same yeah that's that's huge and they can they can blend in anywhere they got my two sons they can you could they could be in a lot of different spots and they could fit right in, especially my oldest. They go to the hood at your friend's land helicopter in the backyard. They have no problem mingling and figuring out where to be

and how to act in each situation. So, Mark, you can ask my wife. She remembers when Gigantor wasn't the Gigantor he is now. He'd come to our garage and lift weights with us. Just a baby-faced little boy. That's how I remember him.

Just a very sweet, mild-mannered, quiet guy. And now he's the monster we all call Gigantor. I had no idea what was brewing underneath the surface, none. Joe, give me the background on Brian Shaw. How did some of that come to be? Yeah, so we can even give you the name. We can give you everything. So we were one of the first schools that really, I think, did a really good job at Arizona State of putting together a curriculum-based internship program for rising strength coaches. And it was a non-paid. It was completely voluntary.

And we were more stringent hiring interns than we were some of our paid coaches because it was a serious commitment. We're asking 15 weeks of your commitment where you can't get a job to make money. It's a 6 a.m. or earlier to 6 p.m. five-day-a-week position, and your goal is to acquire enough experience and hopefully, in the eyes of the people you're working for a couple of references to help you get a job so our part of our process was you had to send in videos of you coaching an athlete going through lifts so my my assistant at the time who was running some of that

josh storms is now the head strength and conditioning coach for the memphis tiger football team comes in and goes hey i think we got this is paraphrase hey i think we got a really good intern but i don't know what he looks like i go what do you mean you don't know what he looks like you got the video he says the's so big, his head's not in the video. He's some type of gigantor or something. And I said, well, we're bringing that guy in for sure. And the day he walked in, he was 325 pounds, and we nicknamed him Gigantor. He just morphed into that nickname quite well, I would say.

And I'll tell you this you you can see when you listen to him on on his podcast on your podcast on interviews how meticulous and detailed he is with his training and forget the fact that he's a freak athlete they're all freak athletes right you don't win what he's won numerous times without proper training and that goes all the way through through the nutrition and the sleep he would have been one hell of a strength coach there's there's just no doubt about it and in some ways he is now coaching his online program and coaching his training partners but if if he would have stuck with that career he would have been as successful

as he is as a strong man and but i in the end i will always say this about uh brian when we really first met him and ben hilger who's the head strength coach at virginia tech i'm name dropping now smelly um. He told us both. He was like, I'm going into strong, I'm going into strong, man. And I am going to be the world's strongest man. And that was the, I mean, that was what, 2000, had to be around 2003 or four, somewhere in that area, because Josh and Ben were still working with me. forward somewhere in that area because josh and ben were still working with me you hear a lot of guys talk that you hear a lot of guys talk did you kind of like were you a little taken back by that like oh that was weird or did you think hey man maybe he actually will be you know what i

didn't you know like anything else but here the guy is he's interning to be a strength coach he's talking about being world's strongest man and you're like but you could tell he was in it and then when he when he left when he left us to go back home for i think was a personal reason the next thing you know he's entering contests and winning everything he stepped into and i'm like oh crap man this dude is on a mission and then the next thing you know is what very first world's strongest man he was on the podium i think brian shaw wants to know how cleaning his van made him a better strength coach or cleaning yeah cleaning your van yeah here's why and this is what i tell everybody it's just no different than cleaning my shaker bottles as well as picking up my lunch if you cannot do little things meticulously how can i

trust you coaching athletes how can i trust you designing a program and i've got to put a team of 30 or 40 athletes entrusted in you that i oversee and i'm going to give you the ownership to be creative on your own that you can't do trivial tasks to perfection. I truly believe it. That's the way I, I mean, if a guy comes in and you tell, like,

if you told little smoky to go pick you up lunch and he brought in the wrong order, do you really think he's, he's listening hard to your consumers when they're calling him to place orders? No, he's probably looking on Facebook. He told me to bust your ball, Smelly, so I'm busting his. He texted me and said, hey, bust Mark's ball.

Let's bust Smelly. That's great. I'm going to have to have a conversation with him because he messes up my orders all the time. Joe and Angie, walk us know the process of you guys moving around the country like where did this uh let's just kind of back it way up to like how'd you guys meet oh that's an interesting here we go getting in trouble yeah he kept His friend was dating my friend and he kept asking to meet me and he every time we were

at a bar and it was a place we always went. Every time I went to go over and say hi, he was gone. He wasn't there and I kept thinking my friend's trying to push this guy on me. So after the third time I said enough, that's enough. He was hiding in the bathroom. Every time he would run to the bathroom and hide because I guess I was just magnanimous and just fantastic.

He couldn't, you know. Right. So then he wants to meet me another night, and I'm talking to him. And at least 30 minutes, he hasn't said a word. He's just staring at people playing pool. So I leave, and I go speak to my friend's boyfriend. And apparently that Adam Goodwin thinking I was talking to another guy and he just stared me down for about a half hour, inching his way closer and closer toward me. And then finally stood right in front of me

and my friend had to introduce himself. Because he was scared. in front of me and my friend had to introduce himself because he was scared and then my husband grabbed my hand and took me like a caveman that was about really that that's our love story right there never looked where'd you guys meet you like like what uh what state were you in what's the film yeah i was a what year was that 87 so i was a junior in college, and that's where she and her family were from. I got lucky that my good friend that I played with was dating the girl that he was. When I saw how people think things are corny when i when i walked in the club that night i did pass her and i was like wow and then who would have thought that like the woman you

see like that that right there that's special and then next thing you know you're married going on 29 years this june my favorite part of the story is coach house in a club that's my favorite part of the story is Coach House in a club. That's my favorite part of the story right there. I can't, hard time envisioning that. Let's back up. So there's, you know, you're from New York and I'm from New York. Yeah. So we're, and in the end, that's the city that never sleeps. Winston-Salem, North Carolina, you can call that the dead sleep city because that's the city that always sleeps. So when we were in college in the mid-80s, there was very, very little places to go in Winston.

A lot of times we would drive to Chapel Hill and hang out at Chapel Hill at the University of North Carolina. So where we were, there was one club, and then across the street was like this biker bar that just served beer and chili dogs, and we shot pool. That's where I hung out. And they closed it down, so I had to start going across the street. If they never closed it down, a man never met my wife. You'd still be eating chili dogs. Chili dogs and drinking bush light for a dollar and just eating pool all night.

So you played football at Wake Forest, right? That's correct. And then how did things progress from there? You went to school, got education, and then where do we end up going from there? Again, I was extremely fortunate that I had enough skills at that time to earn an athletic scholarship to go to college. If that wouldn't have been the case, I would have wound up being on the sanitation district number one with my dad. So I had really, really good high school coaching to give me the skills to really excel as a high school football player in the early 80s. The other positive I had going my way was my dad went to the same high school I did.

on my way was my dad went to the same high school I did. My high school coach played football with my dad at that high school that my high school coach actually dated my mom before my dad started dating her and got married. So they were extremely close. And it was, I couldn't do bad in school because my dad knew all the teachers and he had my grades before I had them. And he was not a super good student. So he wasn't going to allow me to be a poor student. And I was fortunate enough that with my grades and my abilities that I had, I got to choose where I went to school. I chose Wake for a lot of reasons.

I was fortunate enough that another Lawrence graduate is Lyle Alzado, a famous football player. And obviously, a lot of football in life, he came clean and took a big hit for it. But I will backtrack and say I trained with him several times. And we all know the positives and negatives of steroids, and it's more of abuse and use, and we can talk about that a different time. But no one worked harder than he did, and that was a big thing where we came from, was just outworking everybody else. So I picked Wake because it wasn't because of the academics,

although it's one of the toughest schools in the nation. It was I was going to be a big fish in a little pond, and I was going to the NFL. I mean, there was no delusion to grandeur at that time. I had a very good visit set up. Syracuse was a big offer for me, University of South Carolina, and wait for my final three choices. me University of South Carolina and wait for my final three choices. But when it was all said and done, it was like, okay, where can you go? Start the fastest, enhance your football career, and give yourself the best opportunity to play in the NFL.

Because I'm a big believer in, to this day, and a coach told me this in recruiting, if you ask a high school senior that's getting offered scholarships, what their ultimate goal is, if they don't tell you they want to be an NFL football player, I don't know if they're really prepared for what you're asked to do as a Division I football player. Now, obviously, we all know you get washed out. It's just the best of the best of the best play at the NFL level. And every year that I'm fortunate enough to watch these guys, the more enamored and the more just in awe I am of the capabilities that they do at this level. So for me, my delusions of grandeur got cut short because I blew my knee out as a freshman in spring ball.

And back then, the surgeries and the rehabilitation process were nothing like they are now so I wound up pairing an ACL and MCL and long story short I had many surgeries in the first three years I got very very fortunate that I was at least able to scrap scratch a career together and wound up starting my last two years as an offensive lineman after going there as a defensive lineman. By then, I already knew I was going to be a strength coach. I knew at 19 years old that this is my deal. I loved training more than I loved practice.

I loved being around the weight room. I just loved everything there was of it, and a lot of that's back when my high school coach, Rich Mallow, because we had an organized weightlifting as a high school football team in 1981 and 82 and 83. No one was doing that. So it just all kind of morphed for me. And so we knew we wanted to be a coach.

My wife was signed up for it she understood it and the great thing about it was my wife was one of my best training partners at that time she was committed to the fullest it wasn't a time that i didn't want to say hey let's go for a run or let's go in the weight room that she wasn't there right but she was my first real powerlifting coach to this day she is the most critical of my depth on the squats than anybody I've ever had. She'd walk in the weight room and go...

Accurately critical. Yeah, she'd be like, why are you letting him squat that high? I'm afraid to tell him. You can't be afraid to tell him. She would tell my...

She would tell my assistant that while we were at the boys' Nobody would tell him. I'd have to tell him and then he would get mad at them for not saying anything. So I knew right away I wanted to coach, and I got real fortunate. My wife does one of our best jobs ever.

So a former coach at Wake Forest got a head football coaching job at a prep school down in Fort Lauderdale, Pinecrest Prep. And after his first year there, my wife and I were getting married. I had just graduated college. I knew I wasn't going to the NFL. I was declared a medical reject. So I was like, well, I'm going into coaching. I'm not even going to try to attempt.

Blah, blah, blah, blah. It wasn't working. I'm going right into coaching. He offered us a position as dorm supervisors. And I went down as the offensive line coach to defensive line coach to tight end coach, long snapper coach, weight coach, head wrestling coach. And then my wife and I were dorm supervisors. So I didn't have any teacher responsibilities.

Just 7th through 12th grade. Yeah, 7th through 12th graders lived in the dorm. And this was affluent. Like princes of countries, people in the witness protection programs. It was crazy. But it was nerve-wracking, too, because as you know, Mark, you put yourself out there numerous times with a slingshot and things like that. So I go down to Coach Spring Ball, and here I am driving to Florida

in my 76-mining Carlo from North Carolina, and all I'm thinking of, I put all my eggs in this basket of coaching. God, I hope I can coach. I hope I have something that just resonates with these kids. And I'll never forget our first day of drills. I walked out there, and maybe it's because I had just finished playing, and we were a small two-way school. So I'm like probably one of the biggest guys they'd ever seen.

And it just worked. It clicked from the beginning. And I knew I was not going to be a grass coach. I call football coaches coaching on the grass. I knew that was not part of me. I'd seen what college coaches and now at the pros, it's totally different. My world has a lot more continuity and a little bit more organization than a football coach does. So I knew I wasn't going to be on the grass, but it was a great start for me

to learn how to coach, be around people, learn how my personality was going to be one of my saving graces with people. And then I got fortunate enough that I excelled in the programming of the weight room stuff. And I knew after two years, it was time for me to get back into the college realm. I was not prepared to go back to grad school right after I graduated college. Yeah, but you're moving, he's leaving things out. Like, he never stopped thinking and learning. And that first year that we were dorm parents, I go over to our desk.

We have this little apartment inside the dorm. And I go over to our desk and there's like a three-inch stack of paper, and he's written a book. I have no idea when he's written this book because I'm around him all the time. I'm like, what's this? He's like, I wrote a book. And I don't even know what your title did, but it was. Well, we brought it to us on the interview to Texas Christian that time. But so he's always going.

He's always thinking about it. He's always preparing. I always say even even when he lifts for the day, if anybody knew what that one lift entailed and I like to tease him about it. She wants to put it on.

Hey, Mark, this could be a T-shirt you give. She's got like 30 different things to prep. You'll love it. And I'm sure you do the same thing. Go ahead. It's like the day before the lift, right after he's finished the lift for the day, he starts to think about it.

The night before, when he's laying in bed, he's developing his plan in his mind. When he wakes up at 4.30 in the morning, he goes to the restroom. He gets himself cleared out. He wakes up. He preps his fuel for the day, his vitamins for the day, his blender in the morning. Then he has to lift. Then he has to meditate on it for a bit, like actual meditation. Then he will go and there will be stretching. And that takes like a half. That's why I can't lift with him anymore. Half an hour stretching, then prepping everything.

more half an hour stretching then prepping everything then he actually gets to lift after the lift there's more lift there's more stretching then he's got to debate it in his own mind then call some buddies and talk about it or all people live without telling her hey where are all these people showing up at the house oh i have been a deadlift party what were you going to tell me but it turns into like a four or five hour process. And I just have no desire to be involved at that length. But anyway, his entire life is like that. His entire life has been a prepping, a learning, a doing, analyzation, more prep. And even down to like the slightest little things there's not really

very much winging it from the hip it's all very methodical and i guess that's why we go home because i'm a fly by the seat of my pants kind of gal and he's like she'll say let's do something and i'll like well when do you want to do it and she's like right now i'm like well very hard weekend yeah it's very hard for him. He probably gets anxiety. We complement each other. He keeps me in line when I need to plan things out, and I make him be more free-spirited, and together somehow it works pretty good.

But anyway, he can continue the rest of his journey, but it's always very methodical with him. So then we were after and so when we got done with the high school uh here's and i love that job yeah it was a we were seven we were seven miles marked from the original fort lauderdale spring break beaches oh nice yeah yeah we were right we were right in the thick of things in fort lauderdale Spring Break beaches. Oh, nice. Yeah, we were right in the thick of things in Fort Lauderdale. It was really, you couldn't have asked probably for a better start in coaching than not only the fact that the kids were really great,

but the whole, like, the small campus environment. We lived on campus free. We had a salary from back then that was very, very good, and we had no living expenses. What a way to start off your first few years of marriage. And no pain in the ass kids yet, right?

No. We didn't have kids. We didn't have kids until... We counted the dorm kids as our kids, or at least I did. Some of them still write him to this day and tell him what influenced. We had dinner with one very successful young man who at the time... Thank you.

Thank you, Johnson. Anyway, he... His real name was Manky. That's actually Paul, I think. Yeah, but... Anyway, I love those kids. I still love them. I still, you know, I'd go back there in a heartbeat.

It was a great experience for us. But it gave us freedom to just enjoy each other our first couple years without worrying bills and stuff like that. So during this time, I don't know if you remember, but this was probably 1991. One of the first... Well 1991. One of the first, well, not one of the first, but that minor league or the accessory

league to the NFL opened up called the World League of American Football that people now will remember as the World League. And they would have an open trial and I'm like, man, I gotta try. I said, I know I can play in this league. Like, I just know it.

So I called my head football coach up from college and said, let him know what I was thinking. He goes, okay, we'll see what we can do. And I wound up getting an invite to one of the seven camps. Long story short, I did very, very well. And they told me, okay, you get to go to the next step we need you to take a physical so there's like 50 or 60 line in there and i'm one of like six that are taking a physical i'm like all right me and my wife are going to get a chance to go overseas and and i'm like i'm

walking over to the tent and i'm like i'm gonna flunk this effing physical and damn if i didn't flunk that physical and i was like like, okay, now I'm completely, completely got all that out of me. And now it's 100% all in to being the best coach. And that's what I was like. If I can't get there as a player, my ultimate goal would be to be a coach in the NFL. And I'm going to utilize strength and conditioning

and all the different avenues of strength and conditioning and all the and all the different avenues of strength and conditioning to put myself in that position so from there we start I go back to Wake Forest to work for my strength coach and my college coach at that time was Bill Dooley was still there and I and I'm over there and we and we were going to possibly stay there and work there as a GA, but Coach Dooley gave me some extremely great words of advice. He told me when I went and met with him, I said, Coach, I really want to stay.

I'd like to see about getting into grad school, a school in Greensboro, because the grad school at Wake I wasn't going to get into and work for you. And he was like, Big Joe? And his Southern Golf, Mississippi Southern Golf, he goes, you know everything there is to know about Wake Bar strength and conditioning. And he goes, I need you to go out and learn other stuff

so when I bring you back, you're ready to enhance our program when he said that I was like all right I got to look for a job somewhere else and we applied for a lot of graduate assistant positions we we actually got offered the job at Texas Christian and things didn't work out as far as graduate school and the requirements that I needed to get in. And Coach Yoxel, who was there at the time, who wound up going on to UCLA and Auburn, were two of the biggest schools he coached at. I was like, man, I feel like I need to help you. He got us connected with Ron Thompson at Boise State.

And we had about three offers I was going through. But the reason I chose Boise State, and at that point in time, I didn't really realize how far we were going, was I was going to be able to work with a large number of sport teams. The other places that I had the opportunity to go to would have been one or two teams with football, where at Boise State, it was just myself and Coach Thompson and 18 sports. So I'm going to be exposed to 18 sports.

And no budget. And no budget. River Rock. Yeah, I mean, it was. And I believe this. I know, Mark, I know you've heard it too because you're on the podcasting circuit. You know, a lot of people in this day and age in sports and athletics are really harping on the multi-sport athlete at a younger age. Don't specialize.

Don't specialize. Don't specialize. I really believe that it's very similar to what's happening in strength and conditioning where younger strength coaches, because of the way the dynamics of college are changed, are specializing as one-sport strength coaches too early in their career. They're not diversified enough in training multiple athletes, I really believe that they're doing themselves a disservice. That the more athletes and the more sports you can be involved with early on is going to make you that much stronger if and when the time comes where you're going to go into

a specialized, a specific sport type of strength coaching. So I think there's a lot of similarities between multi-sport athletes before specialization, as much as I believe in multi-sport strength and conditioning before specialization. A lot of people obviously tie me into football, but my wife can tell you, my first two years at Boise State, I was the gymnastics strength coach, the women's basketball strength coach, the women's volleyball strength coach. Those were my big three. In fact, we went to all the matches, practices. Those three coaches in particular were truly influential

in me getting the head strength coach job at Boise State three years later. I mean, June Daugherty, Darlene Bailey, and Sam Sandmeyer, they were big supporters to me. I thank them every chance I get in anything I do because they really allowed me to grow as a coach, grow as a person, teach me the ropes, especially June. June was very, very, she was from the Stanford tree with Tara Vanderveer when they were winning national championships left and right

in the early 90s in women's hoops. She held me to a higher standard. And it was a big, big help to me. You don't realize it, just like sometimes players don't realize what you're trying to accomplish with them. And, you know, the tough love, the hard coaching, and then they grow up and they're like, man, I can't thank you enough for keeping me in check. It's the same thing with coaches being demanding on you too.

They're trying to see if you got the sauce. What did you learn? Like what do you think the most valuable thing you learned? Do you think that you really need to know that sport? Or to some extent, is coaching coaching? Do you really need to know the sport really well? You need to dive all in? Or if you can coach and you've already had experience coaching some of these

different sports, can you just coach anything? Well, yeah, I think it's in between. I think you need to know this sport i think you need to know because every sports athletes have different personalities i mean like like i'll give you a great example i coach throwers and then i'm a big admiration of throwers because of their strength and power and if you look at if you go into a college weight room, there's no doubt that the male thrower should be the strongest athlete in the gym. More so than any football player because they don't go through the violence and the contact

and the body beating that a football player does. But on the other hand, their personalities are a lot different than, you look at a football player, they got that, a really good one's got that glassy-eyed look. Like, they're a little off. Like a good fighter, like an MMA fighter, they got that same look, you're like, ooh, this guy's not all there. But you look at a thrower, and you're like, golly, man, why isn't that guy playing football? And it's no different than, you know, like a men's basketball player.

Like, you know, you look at LeBron James, everybody's like, oh, he could play tight end. Well, you can look at Cam Newton and say, oh, he could play power forward. But that's not necessarily true. It's just, it's different. You learn different modalities. And I just think the more diverse you can be exposed to, it brings it all into fruition when you get into a specific group of people that have a lot more similarities than differences.

So you're coaching at Boise State and you're coaching 18 different sports. How long did this go on for? I was at Boise State for eight years. I was there the two years I was a graduate assistant. I got my master's degree in education. The next year, my master's degree was up. My GA was up. They kept me on for a year as an assistant.

And then I was elevated to the head strength coach. And I was there five years as the head strength coach. And it was just myself and a GA, part-time assistant. And then we were smart enough to delve into work-study money. And we had a lot of students who were work-study. A majority of our power lifting team we created were my work study strength coaches we started a power lifting club and we were really really successful had a national champ and collegiate national champ i'll give

you a story about so we had a gymnast who got into lifting she's actually a master's weightlifter in Idaho right now. She was 132-pound class. In a seven-day time period, she went to collegiate powerlifting nationals and won the title. She pulled a 341-pound deadlift on her last attempt to win. And then the next weekend, she scored a 9.8 on the vault to help the team win the Big West Gymnastics Championship. That's some strength. And he remembers how much weight

she pulled on that last tent. She was a 200-pound deadlifter. She benched 200, too. But that was a good experience because you had no budget and you had to be creative on how to get these kids engaged. He would take them down to the river, which was only a few steps from the weight room. Yeah, Boise River was right alongside the campus and the green belt was an activity

belt. And they'd get these river rocks and they'd weigh them on their scale and they would, you know, sometimes they'd be down by the river lifting i mean that was just a little time we'd run them down to the river and we'd just pick up rocks and start passing rocks around a different size and do an exercise so is that how you train how you train like 30 or 40 people at one time yeah just like what we call like on our freshman fridays when we were doing some team building stuff and we were one of the very first teams when mark philippe was at unlb

and i was at boise state mark was big you know was one of the best strong man and he was implementing strong man type of activity down in vegas and i started doing it at Boise just not so much as a variation but to get the guys out of the weight room and because we had no budget I could go down with a half a dozen t-shirts to the tire shop and they'd give me all the tractor tires I want because you know they got to pay those people to haul them away they'd like to give them to me for free so we had like 20 or 30 tractor tires on the field and we did a tire flip competition with our teams.

We brought in a lot of the alternative type trainings. Chris Doyle, who was at Utah. People weren't doing tug of war. Now, tug of war is like a staple in football conditioning. We implemented, we started all that stuff in 1990.

Like, I had a thrower. So you know how the mountains, you know, and Giganto are really good at, like, throwing heavy objects onto the bar? Weight for height? Well, back in those days, they used to throw the empty kegs, you know, 16 or 17 feet. i had a thrower who's now the

head coach at head throw coach at concordia college in oregon jared rome who's a two-time olympian he took an empty keg and threw it over a 20 foot high pole vault holy crap you can't you can't like bang that over it's got to clear right that was it and that was in 1996 we were doing stuff like that so we we we pride ourselves on always being innovative and at the forefront of stuff and and and bob alejo says it's the best now with all these scientific type strength coaches who want to take crazy stuff and give you these big mumbo jumbo words. Tell me what that is and I'll tell you what I used to call it.

What do you think about some of that stuff? There's a lot of apps and there's a lot of cameras on racks and stuff and tells you how much force output. Do you find a lot of value in this stuff for your athletes? I do like the velocity-based types of devices, but it goes down to this, Mark. If you don't have the staff numbers to actually effectively use that data, then you're just collecting numbers that tell people you have all these gadgets. But if you're not effectively putting them tell people you have all these gadgets. But if you're not effectively putting them to use to improve the athlete's performance,

then it's truly just a gimmick or a waste. We have several velocity-based units, but we don't use them with every player. We use them with the players who understand what we're trying to accomplish with them. So again, because everybody's training is looked at differently. I mean, some people know, hey, I have to train at this specific way at my level. At the college level, it's different because you have a lot more, you own the room. I really believe at the professional level,

everybody owns the room together. There's a lot more communication. It's a moral. We're trying to put together the best plan versus in college. I'm laying out the plan and then I'll figure out what

you need because you're not educated enough with your body and training to help yourself by telling me stuff it's probably a lot easier for you as a coach to get your message across uh when it's more of a we mentality especially on that professional level right yeah you if you build your your room and you build your philosophy like that, it's very, very successful. Because again, the ultimate goal for any athlete is to be at as close to maximal capacity on competition day. And I don't know what that is.

I've never played professional football. I have to learn from these guys. I have to listen to these guys explain to me what's going on, and then we help try to mesh the things that they feel are necessary versus the things that I think that need to complement that. Like, I always tell some of my guys, like, at the end, I have to be the voice of reason and what i need is i've got a couple of guys who are legitimately 365 days all in about preparing to be the best they could be

uh one particular athlete always says how she now they keep telling us you got to have a plan b you got to have a plan b he goes my plan b is to be so great at plan a i don't have a plan B, you got to have a plan B. He goes, my plan B is to be so great at plan A, I don't need a plan B. He's a guy who, you know, these are the types of things that you want to do. But like for me, they'll come in and say, okay, here's what I did last year. I want to add this, this, and this,

because I think I need to improve in these areas. And I'll go, okay, it makes a lot of sense, but what are you going to take out? And they go, well, what do you mean? I said, your gas tank's already filled. You've already got a 20-gallon tank. You're asking me to go to 24 gallons. It can't happen. So if we need to add these things, what are some of the things in the tank that you don't feel are necessary that we can remove to keep you at a 20 gallon tank? Because if you go to 24, now you're going to put yourself susceptible to overtraining and injury and a possible injury occurring because you just don't have enough fuel to attack what you're asking your body to do that is the main thought process on like if you're going to add if you're like hey you know i want my athletes to bench squat and deadlift i believe that this is the best best thing for them to do well you just have to account for all those things

and you're going to have to uh figure out what, what does it cost you to do those lifts and at what intensity and what kind of volume are you doing with those lifts? Because if you go in there and do five to five, a bench squat deadlift, your football players are now going to be waddling around like powerlifters. They're going to be very sore to be very hard to recover from those workouts. And that intensity will kind of sit in their body and it's going to be hard for them to open up their gate and run fast and do all these things that they're required to do yeah that's where like when some people go you know how strong is strong

i don't i don't want to set certain numbers like okay an athlete hits this number and that's good but there's different ways to get strong. As you know, as powerlifters, for example, we're great at bilateral squatting. But I know a lot of powerlifters who can squat an excess 6, 7, 800 pounds and can't do a 95-pound lunge. Right.

Where my athletes are better off cutting their squats at, you know, I'm just throwing random numbers, 450, 500, and being able to have an extremely higher level of single leg strength because majority of the time they're on, you know, in running 80% of the time you're on one leg. So it's a trade-off. You're looking at different ways to strike to strike trade

and plus here's the other thing people don't talk about and you know this as a business owner don't don't stress stress occurs in all ways like our guys get off on Tuesdays during the season for some of our our athletes who have young children that's, that's a harder day than practice. They're trying to do seven days of being a dad in one day. Yeah, that's got to be tough. I remember when you got us tickets and we saw the Panthers play the Raiders and I got to see Cam Newton up close, you know, to me, when I looked at a guy like that, it's just, I was completely awestruck. I've been around a lot of athletes.

I've seen a lot of big people and I just, I don't know. I mean, I've heard his dimensions before. I've, you know, seen video and stuff, but none of that does it any justice. I could not believe, you know, he looked like a thoroughbred, you know, he looked like a Clydesdale. It was, it was really unbelievable. And when I look at somebody like that, you know, it would be a mistake to say, well, who cares about his strength or whatever, but in some way, yeah. Who kind of cares like what he squats? It's more about taking him, making sure he feels good and probably progressing him along, just like you would with anybody else, right? His unique program is designed by my assistant, Jason Vangucci, but his strength lies in purely development of, you know, his core, like

the whole posterior chain and the abdominal region and the rotation ability, that's where he has to be healthy. That's where he has to be strong. Because what he's asked to do in a professional football game is unlike any other quarterback. His program is extremely unique because of his genetic capabilities. You could out-train him out of his position, which is going to out-train us out of our jobs. Right. So we are very, very conscientious of this.

And Kevin is extremely hard work. He's an extra guy. He led our team during the season in extra workouts. Wow. That's awesome. It's been tremendous to watch these guys now. This will be year eight with me, with watching Cam and guys like Luke Kuechly, year seven.

Ryan Khalil's in year 12. I've been with these guys seven. Thomas Davis is in year 14. I've been with these guys eight years. Just watching guys mature at this level is extremely impressive, how they can continue to endure in the longevity. And these are guys, people ask, how do these guys last so long? Because they come to work like they're going to get cut.

Guys who don't understand that, guys who think they've arrived, that's the reason to me. I really believe the NFL range is usually what two and a half to three and a half years it's not because the guy all of a sudden isn't good enough it's because sometimes these guys think they've arrived and they forgot what got

them there and then you get these guys who are year 12 and 13 and they're motivated with the fact that man they may cut me this year, even though they probably aren't, but that's how they come to work. And then you want to know why some guys are greater than others and why some guys who come out of college like this is the next great thing,

they don't get it. And you'd like to think they do, but it's hard. It's a hard business. Earlier you talked about starting out your career in a really good spot where you didn't have much overhead and you were being paid pretty well. You mentioned at Boise State there wasn't really much of a budget and you're managing a lot of teams. What was that like and is that what led you to move on somewhere else? Well, I think my wife could answer and help answer this too. I really believe

that the budget stuff, not necessarily. I think at the end of the day, I hit a dead end there. As a family, we were... But you also knew your value. Yeah, and again, there was only so much that they were willing to up the ante from a financial standpoint. And like anything else, I applied for a lot of jobs, got a couple of interviews, nothing. But I also believe you can't chase jobs. And when I was chasing jobs, I was sending out resumes left and right and nothing was happening.

And when I kind of hunkered down and I really started saying out loud, Boise State is going to be the best strength and conditioning program next to Nebraska, which when Boyd Epley was there, that was the creme de la creme. Everybody was trying to model themselves after Nebraska. I remember coaches saying oh you're crazy you can't do it here I said but that's what we're going to strive for then when that became my mantra so to speak and I stopped chasing my wife will tell you I got

more job calls that people recommended me for jobs than I did when I was just following the career lightly. And that's why I tell coaches now, don't tell me you're just an intern, because guess what you're always going to be? Just an intern. The job you have now is the greatest job in the world, and that's how you have to attack it. And for me, the Utah opportunity gave me a chance to, at that point point Boise State had just transferred over to 1A football it wasn't the juggernaut

that everybody knows it is now Utah was a top 40 program I was going to get to work with the basketball program there that had just gone to the final four it was a big step I was going to have a staff of strength and conditioning coaches that were that extremely challenged me because at Boise I was a big step. I was going to have a staff of strength and conditioning coaches that were,

that extremely challenged me because at Boise, I was a Piper. I didn't have full-time staff. Here I had three full-time staff at GA and several students, one of them being Marco Riyama. So that was a big move. And financially, it helped me accomplish one of my biggest goals was i didn't want my wife to work i didn't want my kids to be daycare babies anymore i just she had paid her dues she busted her butt for us for eight years she went to work two weeks after my first son was born that that's just not right and i i told her

the next job we get financially we're going to be able to have you stay home and you're never going to have to work you can work if you want to but the truth is we've been extremely blessed in our journey and her her we're not any more we're not any more blessed than any other person in the world i like to say that it's not like god just smiles on us no you have done all the steps that were needed we've worked together you've worked hard you've progressed you didn't sit on your laurels which is one thing i've always admired about my husband, that he will never just wait for it to happen for him. He makes it happen. It's always a continual process of who can he learn from, not just who can he know and who can he shake his hand, whose hand can he shake, but

who can I learn from? How can I apply this? And it's always a constant, constant process. How can I apply this? And it's always a constant, constant process. So it's not like, oh, you know, oh, we're just blessed. We're no more blessed than anybody else. You have just taken advantage of opportunities and created opportunities for yourself. And I've seen that in you and you're a good partner, so I'm along for the ride. But I think that's the key. A lot of people stop when they get uh resistance you know and i think uh the lifting that we do and being in the gym i

think it teaches us that over a long period of time you really get some great values from working out you get the resistance the stimulus that you need and we know that we can't run away from that like that's the exact spot that we need to be in. And sometimes you may stay there for multiple sets. You may do a set and it might hurt. It might not feel great. It might turn you purple. It might do all kinds of weird stuff to you. But you're like, once you do it, you're like, you know what? I need another set of that, or I need to add more weight, even though it was already difficult. And so I think lifting really ends up being a great tool for us. Do your kids lift? Are they into it too? So my oldest son,

he is a natural in anything he's done athletically. He could just do whatever he was needed. He could have easily have left athletics and been a competitive weightlifter. I had two weightlifting coaches who saw him that said what he's able to do with me teaching him in one day takes some of my athletes six months to do. And again, you learn a lot. And I don't want to use forgive, but my wife is my oldest. Here's a testimony to people when it comes to athletics and your kids,

especially if you're a coach. It's something that I had to learn with my first son, and I hope to have done a better job my second. Your children in athletics are going to have hundreds of coaches. They're going to only have one mom and dad. That line is very hard not to cross. And with my oldest, I crossed that line to a point where when your son tells you, I needed a dad once in a while, I didn't need a coach 100% of the time,

you have to reflect on that and ask yourself, what the hell are you doing? I don't see that. I don't see that. I mean, you use the tools you had, but it's not like you yanked him out of bed. No, I know, but I mean, it was... You know, you use the...

My husband is... It doesn't matter if my son, I know, but I mean, it was... You know, you used to... My husband is... It doesn't matter if you... If my son, like now he's in welding, whatever... If my husband will learn about welding to help him get as far ahead as he possibly can, like, did you know that there's this special school here or this opportunity there? Hey, I looked up welding jobs. It's not that you just wanted your children to live. Whatever they loved,

and I would pull you back periodically. Now, see, I was the opposite. I am the one who believes that I shouldn't go to every game you've ever had from the time you were five years old. You need to know how to conduct yourself, how to push yourself

without mom and dad. I agree. Breathing death, no, nonstop. So Mike, I went to about half of the events for my children. And when I was there, I was usually working the concession stand to raise money for the team. I've missed so much stuff in that end, but they knew I was there when it was an important time.

I was there. But these parents that you see running up and down the sidelines and yelling stuff, I always say the cream will rise. If there is talent and they have passion, it's going to rise. You cannot make someone have passion about something. You can give them every opportunity. And if they love it, it's going to take off. You cannot beat that into someone. And they have to have some independence. Are they just doing it because you're there? Or are they doing it without you there and learning new skills about how to take care of it without you always being there? How many times do you hear a parent say, my son, he loves football.

My son, he loves baseball and it's like your son is four you know like let's relax for a second we don't know what the guy likes yet you know yeah and that's the same son that when he's 12 is telling his dad i'm never playing any of these sports ever again yeah yeah pre- Free play. My husband will get a lot of emails from people. I remember this one in particular, maybe a year or two ago. The woman's like, my son, this and that. And you just thought he was like a high school senior.

He turned out to be like eight years old or something. She wanted just massive 50. And my husband said, yeah, just some free play. Have him go outside, climb a tree, learn to jump off a fence and take a landing without twisting your ankle, absorb some impact, learn, you know, free play is what your kid needs at this point. He doesn't need a professional weightlifting coach at five to eight years old.

Yeah, we need some perspective too, because like for me, you know, I learned a lot of my lessons in the gym, maybe my son and maybe my daughter, they're going to learn their lessons somewhere else. You know, maybe they're going to have a different perspective on life. Maybe they're going to have a different feeling about life. You know, I grew up way different than the way that they're growing up right now. All I can do is love them, show them that I'm there, can do is love them, show them that I'm there, try to make the best decisions for them as much as I can. And you can't really do much else. Neither one of my children are into sports and I'm kind of sitting there scratching my head. I'm like, how do I, you know, how do I teach them about like, you know, just hard work and pushing through because you get that activity a lot of times through something physical. And you can do a job and you can work hard and you can be on time and

you can do these things. But for me, it's been such a great experience with it being physical. I almost don't understand anything different. But now I'm seeing my son who's 14. He's with our next door neighbor, which is my pops, my dad. And he's over there raking leaves and earning money. I'm just sitting there going, would you look at that? Like he's figuring it out on his own. You know, he's figuring out, he's figuring, yeah, he's finding it himself. He doesn't need, all I can do is be there for him, tell him I love him and help him with whatever I can help him with. But I can't really, like, make him do anything that he doesn't want to do.

No, but you can stress this. To me, there's a difference between sports and doing things for your health. Right. Everybody should maintain a healthy body. Those are very important. You know, that's going to, you know, your quality of life as you get older and if you've ever seen anyone that you love deteriorate, deteriorate before your eyes. And then you see other people who are well past that age and it has come down to taking care of their health and being physical, which is different than sports. is different than sports. So some people just don't have that competitive, want to beat somebody,

but yet you have to help draw a passion about their health aspect. And it might just be hiking with your dog. Some people love, like I like to run. I like to run deep woods with my dog. My favorite thing to do. If my family comes, wow, that's a bonus. My husband loves to lift. Peter likes to throw. You know, everybody has their own little thing, and you've just got to find what they can be passionate about. But, you know, playing the cello can be very physical. Right. It's highly demanding in many different ways. Yeah.

So from... Yes, but love them through it. Right. From Utah, what happened from there? Two years in Utah, had success. And this is where the big, to me, the explosiveness of being able to have a platform to really excel from a national level. My last year at Boise State, Dirk Cutter did the head football coaching job. and able to have a platform to really excel from a national level. My last year at Boise State,

Dirk Cutter did the head football coaching job. We hit it off tremendously right from the beginning. He, again, came in from a bigger school, challenged me. At this point in time, I'd worked with five different head football coaches in five consecutive years. It was a tremendous amount of turnover. But as Dirk Cutter's

success at Boise was starting, my career was ending. It was time for me to move. In 2001, Boise State those last two years had tremendous success. Dirk Cutter gets hired at Arizona State

and asked me to come on to be his strength coach for the football team. So this was the first time I would take a job and specifically work with the football program. And that was a monster move at that point in time in 2001. It really helped catapult everything professionally. Personally, it was the highest-paid job I'd ever had. We're living in Phoenix, Arizona. We've got a pool in the backyard. Kids are still fairly young, so it wasn't a big move for school. And we wound up having a seven-year run, which we've been fortunate.

We've had some nice runs. We've had a couple of short ones, but we've had some really nice runs in our coaching travels. That's where my style of training became more nationally known. Again, you're exposed to more the larger school you get to, the more

utilization of funding you have. You have more available at your hands. We built a 16,000 square foot weight room that was put in sports illustrated as the best weight room in the country at the time we like we like to say that we kind of started this arms race of gigantic weight rooms in the college and university setting we hired great staff i mean mean, some of the, some of the tremendous strength coaches. And was that at ASU?

Yes. Who are some of the, who are some of the guys that are still, like how many people are professional in the professional ranks or even coaching on the college level that you mentored? Well, there's quite a few I mean there's there's a but the the group out of the top the top guys I know the guys that come off

so we have obviously a lot of guys know through me and you and Jesse Burdick and all our crew Mark Uriama who's with the Minnesota Vikings

right Ben Hilbert who's with Virginia Tech Josh Storms who's with Virginia Tech. Josh Storms, who's with Memphis. Leanne Blinn, who's actually one of the head coaches for Olympic sports at Arizona State now. She's a powerlifting fame. She's a multi-time IPF world champion.

Oh, wow. Well over 400 pounds. She competed in World's Strongest Women. She's a USA Powerlifting Hall of Famer. I think her best bench at the 80-kilogram class is like

424 pounds in competition. Wow. That's huge. She's back there. Some of our Utah guys, Jason Delcam's been in the NFL. We've got a former assistant of ours at UCLA. We've got a tremendous amount of people at the smaller, I don't like to say smaller, but like Division I and Division II universities, high schools, private settings.

We've got them all over. We've got world's strongest man. We've got director of optimization that's on it. I mean, they're all over the place. We, you know, when you were at Arizona State, there was this famous seminar that happened in Las Vegas, Nevada. And it was very rare for Louie Simmons to ever leave Columbus, Ohio. And at the seminar, which was like in the basement of, I think the Bellagio, was it? Is that what it was?

Venetian. Yeah, Venetian. This gem of a seminar popped up and it was Louie Simmons and it was Mel Siff, the author of the book, Super Training. And I went there. My wife was the breadwinner for our family for many years. And she surprised me with getting me this seminar. But she purchased me this seminar and the flight out there and hotel and everything.

I was super excited to go to it. I loved all the stuff that I ever saw come out of Westside Barbell. And I was a fan of Mel Siff, even though I had no idea what the hell he was ever talking about. So I go to this seminar and meet a guy that I was communicating with online, a guy named Nico Falciano, I think. I think that's how you say his name. Feliciano. Feliciano, yeah. And he introduces me to none other than Coach House.

And we went to this seminar that was like nobody knows about in the basement. And there was like five, six other stud strength coaches that were there as well. Yeah, well, that was what I think was, you had Nico, who just went for three days with a fanny pack and a toothbrush, didn't pack anything else it was me you that's when we met JL Holsworth was there yeah Mark Uyama Cheyenne Petrie Tom Vizlinski and Buddy Morris yeah it was like uh hall it was like hall of fame of uh strength coaches going on there it was amazing that's when you were just

starting your wrestling career you were about 220 yeah yep that was uh way way before smelly was smelly i guess yeah that was uh also you know at that seminar i uh you know was thumbing through at a little uh we had a break an intermission lunch type thing i started thumbing through um the book super training i'm checking it out. And Mel Siff walks by and he's like, oh, you're thinking about getting the book? I said, yeah, you know, I got to, you know, run to the ATM. I'm trying to think of an excuse. I did want to buy the book, but it just didn't have enough dough on me. I wasn't actually going to buy it, but I was interested to see what was in it. I heard so many people talk about it. And, uh, I closed the book and, uh, he goes, you know what? He goes, give me your hand.

And I put my hand out and he shakes it and he goes, the book's yours. He's like, I think it'll come in handy. I think you'll really like it. And I was like, oh my God, I really appreciate that. Thank you so much. And, uh, it was only a few months later, I think that Mel Siff ended up passing away and so when I had the opportunity to have my own gym and give it a name everybody's like well what's the name of the gym I said super training and the rest is history the story of super training gym that's right all right so you're at Utah how do we bop over from Utah to The story of Super Training Jim. The strongest gym in the West, man. The strongest gym in the West. That's right. All right, so you're at Utah.

How do we bop over from Utah to Louisville? So we're at Arizona State now. The Volg game. The Volg, yeah. We went to, how did that work? Holidayville. Oh, to Louisville, yeah. So after eight years at Arizona, seven years at Arizona State,

our last year there, there was a coaching change. We got to stay on. At that point in time, I would have been very fortunate. I was retained by every head coach when we had a coaching change. But again, as you know, sometimes it's time to go, and the Louisville opportunity came up actually while we were at the bowl game in San Diego at the Holiday Bowl. But a fortune teller, we were walking through the park. No way. And we don't do fortune tellers.

I'm going to figure out a way to meet up with fortune teller people. She stops us and starts to say, tell him some things and tells me he's got a big coaching change coming up. It's going to be really cool. Tell him the name of the two new bosses. She doesn't say where it's at. And we're like, okay, great, because you're having a great run at Arizona State. Yeah, I'm still busy. I might still be there.

And you're not planning anything. You know, it was really weird. Yeah, my son had just started high school. He had a brand-new school out in Gilbert, Arizona. He wound up starting quarterback, killing it. They're going to build the whole program around him.

I'm not looking to go anywhere. Get a phone call. We start talking. The lady got the names right? Yeah. The head coach and the athletic director. Wow.

It was very weird. Yeah. So we made the move. And it was, like I said, that was the time to get us closer to home, closer to family. Actually, our families were able to visit us more. And long story short, we didn't win enough games. And we got, first time I was ever fired. Just not retained, which means getting fired. Everybody else was fired.

And they let you... We were not retained. You know, that's a good lesson. That's a good lesson, I think. I think a lot of times people think if you just work really hard and you put in a great effort that everything's just going to work out. And we've seen that time and time again, that doesn't happen in the weight room. It doesn't happen with trying to get a better deadlift bench squat. And it doesn't happen in life. It's not reality.

You can work really hard and you can be dedicated to something and you can still not be able to hold onto your jobs in some cases. Your part, your part, I always say, you might not be the biggest part, but you're either part of the problem or part of the solution. Obviously, as well as our guys trained, and I will say this, in my 19 years as a

college strength and fitness coach, the two of our better years as a staff of training athletes occurred at the University of Louisville. But in the end, for various reasons, we didn't win enough games. We were all let go. When I look back at stuff and self-critique myself, there were certain things that I could have probably done

as an advisory role to the head coach and to other coaches and gave them more feedback into ways that we could have been more successful so i i looked at okay where where did i mess this thing up that we and that it might have not whether it would have mattered or not i i took it upon myself to look at what what could i have done better in my role in that leadership type of position that may have given us a longer run. In the end, as we know, it has nothing to do with the job you do. It has to do with relationships. And I did not have a relationship with the coach coming in.

So obviously he's going to bring in a guy that he trusts to be in that position. I have no ill will. Like everybody says, oh, well, you pissed so-and-so got the job. I go, he didn't hire himself. And it's like anything else. It's an opportunity. Generally, the opportunities arise when other people move on from that job.

And a lot of times, it's getting fired. And it sucks that you're replacing. So you might replace somebody you know. It's a very small world. It's a tough deal. I mean, there's only so many jobs out there, and you have to be, you know, understanding of that. That's like I tell people all the time.

At this point in my career, and with the support of my wife, I'm actually glad I got fired, because we know we can survive. Like, personally as a couple, we... It was hard financially. We had all the financial woes that anybody would have. How are you going to make this payment? How are you going to make that one? Where do you

cut corners? Who's going to suffer? The kids? But we never tore each other apart. We just kept working at it. And it, I mean, it was a good, I know that the relationship we built can last anything.

If we lasted through that without tearing each other apart. And we never did. We just always, we always, it just proves that. And again, it goes back to what I said earlier in the conversation. You, you have to make sure your significant other, spouse, wife, husband, whatever, they have to understand

what it means to be in this deal. Like, yeah, when it's all going good and you're at the bowl game, getting bowl gifts and hanging out or going to Super Bowls, that thing can change in a second. And you're packing up offices and turning in key cards. Right. I mean, when I got let go at Louisville, they had already had a registered letter to the house that my wife signed for that said I was terminated before I even got home on the same day. I mean, that's how it's cutthroat. That's the way it is.

The energy goes down that way. Yeah. And you can't be bitter about it. Yeah. You just move on. And we made a decision at that time where there were several coaching jobs that could have got involved in. But from the financial standpoint, we had grown as a recognizable brand and a recognizable coach

that from the financial, we were one of the better paid strength coaches at that time, and we had earned that. We had built up a rapport. We had built up a respect level across the country. We had built up a process of how we train athletes that I wasn't willing to take a job just to take a job. I wasn't going to start the financial climb again because I just felt like I was better than that. So we decided we're going to go all in on ourselves and start our own company, and I'll go into the private sector. We did that for almost a full year, and then the ultimate happened while we were in the private sector.

The job that I always really aspired to have an opportunity to interview for opened up. aspired to have an opportunity to interview for opened up and fortunately for us we wound up getting it and we are now in the nfl going on year eight wow what was that interview process like you know going from college into the pros like how do you get a job with the carolina panthers yeah so it's interesting. They were smart at interviewing you, I think. Yeah, they were a very unique interview process. I was fortunate because a couple of the players that played for the Panthers, I coached at Utah, and they were two of the better players

in the history of the franchise, so that helped. A good friend of mine who served as my agent was an agent to one of those athletes, so he was able to get my resume on the desk. And then I was working at Prolific Park, which is owned by Ricky Cole, who was a 17-year NFL vet that I played college football with. He was actually being looked at as a wide receiver position at the Panthers,

so he threw my name in the hat. And the interview process was the head athletic trainer came out and watched people coach on site. Like instead of just looking through resumes and bringing guys in suit and ties and doing the little standard interviews his preliminary interviews was to go look at the top guys that he thought watch us coach and then bring in the list to the head coach and the gm that who were going to be interviewed and fortunately for me they saw something in me during the coaching process and then during the interview process, which was, I wasn't nervous, but I was a little bit, I was really trying to think about how this was going to go because I had interviewed for a job and I couldn't remember because as I was moving up, people would just call and say, hey, you're interested in the job. No.

You're interested in the job. Yes, I am. Let's talk. So now I'm like, golly, I mean, I couldn't remember the last time I interviewed for a job. When I went to the Panthers and, you know, 100% walk in, say hello. Hey, what are you going to do in the offseason? Okay, off and running. You know, in the end, you...

But it started with someone smart enough to check out coaching technique and personality. I think that, yeah, for sure. And I thought we were in the very... The most unique way I've seen an interview process for a strength coach in the entire history of me being a strength and conditioning coach. Yeah, you mentioned to me that was like a four-hour process or something like that, right?

Yeah, the interview, I was in, when the athletic trainer came to Prolific Park, that he watched an entire movement and lift session. So that was about three hours. Those were, well, one was my oldest son who was training to go to college. And the two other athletes were Canadian Football League hopefuls. So you could say pro prospects

and an incoming college freshman. That was a good two and a half, three hours. And then we spoke for time after that. And then when I got to the stadium for the on-site interview with the head coach and the GM, that was about a three and a half hour process, which generally if things are going well, it's going to go a little bit longer. And generally, if things are going well, it's going to go a little bit longer. And I felt like I did the best I could at that time.

But obviously, I guess everybody else did. And it was like anything else. They go, okay, well, we're going to make our decision. We'll give you a call the next day, which I know enough to know that if I'm not getting a call that night they've offered the job to somebody else the call the next day is to tell all the other finalists we've made a decision and we're going a different direction

so we lived in Winston which is about an hour and a half from Charlotte I get back at this time we're living with my sister-in-law because we had just moved back and we had like what three house payments or a lot of bills. Yeah. So we're living with her in her basement that was unfinished. So you can literally look through the frame of one room into our son's bedroom.

Tell him good night. And within an hour and a half of my wife and I going over the interview, we get the call and we get offered that job. So I like to tell people on Wednesday I was coaching 10-year-olds, and on Thursday I was getting the opportunity to coach all pros. Wow. He has a huge transition. What's the biggest transition going from coaching college athletes and high school athletes to coaching pro athletes?

I'll be honest with you. That year that I was in the private sector, I thought definitely made me a better coach for the professional. Coaching the 10-year-olds really teaches you a process of learning that's totally different than the typical yell and scream at a college guy you got to do that because that's the way i said it's going to be done and i don't i don't even know anything about your weaknesses yet and i don't really care you're going to squat like this you know i mean you just you you will mature It's a maturity process. And you learn, like,

the hypedness of college, and it's a lot different now, I'm not even going to get into it, but you just learn to be a better communicator. You can't, you know, a 10-year-old, to get that 10-year-old to look you in the eye and you grab their attention

tells you you're giving off a vibe. You're communicating at a point where they understand you, and they're not looking around like most 10-year-olds when they're shooting baskets and trying to play soccer. They're really looking at you, learning how to do an asymmetric lunge. Yeah, that's a huge impact on a kid. And a lot of times, if you can get their attention, it's just of something that's tremendously valuable.

And a similarity between a pro and a kid is that the pros know that there's really not really, there's not any real secrets. But if there is a secret, it's in the details of all the basics. And that's where you're going to really catch their attention is showing them the importance of why we're doing this particular movement, why we're doing the single leg movement, why we're doing a particular squat. Then you're going to get their attention that much easier.

One thing I think too, what it taught me was even the most elite athletes, they want to be coached. They want to be corrected. I remember early on, I got it right before the lockout. So I didn't have a real first off season, but I got two weeks before they got locked out and just teaching him some

bait, just teaching a lot of guys. Like one of the first things I want to do is see guys squat. And just teaching them with 135 pounds and watching, you could almost see their eyes like eureka moments. Well, I've never felt my bottom. I've never felt it. I've never felt it like that at squat.

Because as you know, oh, he's a pro. He's good. You don't have to coach those guys. Just go squat. Well, I wanted them to see that hey i i know what i'm talking about i because i that was my way i had to earn their respect i wasn't i wasn't an ex-pro athlete i have to find ways to to earn their respect one of them is trying to show them what i know and simplifying that so they can get the return,

as well as also knowing when I don't know something to be truthful with them and tell them, I don't know that, but I know somebody who does. Let's find out. Because you don't want to try to snowball a pro athlete. Right. Because they know enough, and they know enough people, too, that they'll check you. And if you try to sell them with some BS, and they check you, and they know you people, too, that they'll check you. And if you try to sell them with some BS and they check you and they know you will be asking them, they're not going to trust you. What's the main thing that you had to learn to be able to survive for this long?

You've been coaching for 30 years and, you know, you've had basically a paid gig the whole time. What's been the biggest lesson you had to learn in order to keep making progress in order to keep these jobs? As a strength coach, you have to be a chameleon. You have to be the most adaptable person in the building. You have to change colors because you, you, or as a baseball, a baseball analogy would be, you got to be able to hit the curveball. Everybody wants to be a fastball hitter, but life's always throwing you curves.

And in coaching and in the strength and conditioning world, you're always getting curves, and you're getting last-minute curves. It's like that curve that just breaks down low right when you're getting ready to swing. You're like, how'd you miss? That is clear. You have to, how'd you miss? And, you know, that is clear. You have to be able to be adaptable. You cannot be extremely rigid. I think a lot of coaches who are very, very rigid in their programming

are giving their athletes a disservice because there's a lot of ways to skin the cat. And the more talented an athlete and the higher level you are, the more diverse your toolbox has to be, which my tier system was built that way to get a lot of variability. But then, as you know, studying the West Side, the conjugate method also promotes variability. So people are like, oh, man, you do a great job of, you know,

really being open to people's different ideas well yeah you may think i'm doing a great job but that's part of my philosophy it always has been to to have a very diverse toolbox and be able to streamline it and to fit the needs of certain athletes like i always give a very basic general analogy of like squat i you know we did big squat wednesdays since i've been started in 1992 people have changed it the guys that work with me squat different days but generally like in a college setting big squat wednesday for the whole team is probably going to be either a front squat or a back squat unless you're injured or possibly a quarterback.

Where big squat, late in the day, in our program, you might see four or five different variations of squats. You might see guys on a pitch-shark delt squat. You might see guys on a winning delt squat. You might see guys doing safety bar traditional squat. You might see guys doing safety bar traditional squat. You might see them doing safety bar front squat. You might see guys doing barbell squat. You may be seeing guys doing a two kettlebell anterior loaded squat.

You may see a guy do a barbell split squat. But at the end of the day, big squat Wednesday is still big squat Wednesday. It's just a different big squat Wednesday. What's up with this Friday pump session? Don't you have a training session where the guys get to kind of go in there and just blast out their biceps and stuff like that? Yeah, that's a Friday gun show led by our linebacker crew, Luke Kuechly and his crew.

We've got about anywhere between 15 and 20 guys on Friday. Listen, man, I got to get in on that training session. I got to get in on one of those jacked and tan workouts. We got to figure this out, house. The problem is they're trying to get jacked, but all of them got farmer's tan because they got to wear their jerseys. They got to understand the tan is 50% of it. Oh, I know. It makes you look twice as big.

I don't understand. The tan is 50% of it. Oh, I know. It makes you look twice as big. That's the fun session of the week because that's their session. Like, we'll give them a little direction, but they're in there just basically. I want them to be. Like, I'm a big believer.

You guys are trained to structure your whole life. All right. Go out and have some fun once in a while in the week. Right. What's been the biggest change? So I'll go out and have some fun once in a while. What's been the biggest change in terms of recovery over the years? I think that when I look at strength training, it doesn't seem like a ton of things have changed, but things have changed in terms of recovery. I mean, people are learning more all the time about hydration and their sleep and how we can better recover from these tough workouts. And in the NFL, man, how are you recovering from these games? Yeah.

As we all know now, more people, and the real smarter ones, I think the first thing the professional athlete learns is how much nutrition helps him recover. Like early on in your career, you know, you're living that, you know, you may not be settled down yet, so you're eating out a lot, and then all of a sudden, two years later, you're hiring a chef, and you're speaking more to the nutritionist. Sleep has just shot out of the cannon in the last what two or three years yeah everybody's talking about sleep but i you know then you have the modalities hot and cold contrasts

a lot of people now using the norma tech as a great way for excuse me uh recovery right a lot of guys do a lot of soft tissue work. You know, massage therapy seems to be high. You know, some people believe in the cryo units, the cryotherapy. Me personally, my number one go-to for just overall stress relief, if you want to call it CNS regen, is I like going to the float tank. Yeah. I've heard good things. I've never tried it.

What do you feel that does for you? For me, it's just, like I said, it's a complete one hour of me getting into a frame of mind and shut down, you know, sensory deprivation. I mean, the first time I went in the tank, I'm a little claustrophobic. I always had a panic attack, anxiety, couldn't do it. And now I use an open float room. But just my drive in there, I know, man, I'm going to be feeling great when I come out here. It's just a complete relax, a true sense of like you can almost feel like the weight being lifted off your shoulders. Because you're a person who is so structured with every minute of your day planned out a week ahead of time that to not have any sensory, that seems like that would be very beneficial.

Even if you wanted sensory, there's none coming in to interrupt you in any way. I think there's a lot of merit to that, yes. Yeah. And then in terms of training, that's what I try to share with people all the time, too, is we don't have to spend thousands of dollars and we don't have to spend all this time investing and thinking about recovery if we just train properly. We still have to recover from the workouts and nutrition and sleep. They're still important things.

But if we just don't train like an idiot, then we can take out at least that variable. say you're correct in that thing because since i've altered my training plans and then it become more diligent and just i don't want to say um you know like i call it meathead mobility and stuff right but that that's recovery in itself like one of the things i've learned at my age is i would prefer not to train in the weight room two days in a row. I need a day where I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to do some movement. I'm going to do some conditioning. I'm going to do,

you know, I might, I might do, you know, that, that in itself is, is, is improved my ability to recover from workouts.

I used to go into cold tub. I used to ice my knees. I used to go in the cold tub. I used to ice my knees. I used to do this. I hardly do any of that. My only real outside recovery is once a week if I can get it scheduled or once every other week, I do enjoy the flow type. But I used to ice my knees every day. I used to go in the cold tub contrast every day.

I do none of that. Most of my recovery is the day after a lift. I'm going to do some type of mobility work. I'm going to do some type of conditioning. I might do some soft, uh, self-myofascial release with some foam rollers and softball work. But for the most part,

my training is my recovery. Who's the toughest athlete you ever, uh, you ever worked with? Toughest athlete? Yeah. Is that question from Kingsbury? No, no, I'm just going to fire out a couple

questions to you. Is Kingsbury one of the toughest? No, but he was, Kingsbury was a good dude, man. He fought a good fight. When he, when he went through the walk on trial, we used to try to break fools off. And man, his partner did, his partner had a hard time, but he fought the good fight, man.

We kept him on. He was a good teammate, a good guy to have around. I'm very, very happy. Like, I really, I think he's doing a great job on his podcast. Oh, God, yeah. The Honor Academy is doing great. What a great fit that is for him to be with Aubrey Marcus. I think it's a

match made in heaven right there. Yeah, so toughest guy. That's easy. Steve Smith. I knew you were going to say that. Yeah, I played with Steve Smith at Santa Monica City College. Played football with him. And he crushed me, too.

He just absolutely leveled me. He blocked me. So what happened was a few weeks prior, he caught the ball over the middle. And I don't know what the hell is going on. I'm just like, I'm a linebacker. I'm at Santa Monica city college, my first year playing any sort of college football. And I'm excited. I'm like, Ooh, I got an opportunity to hit somebody practice. You don't have that many opportunities to really clobber somebody. And you know, his hands are over his head and stuff. And

I'm like, I'm, I'm going all in, I'm going to be aggressive, you know? And I nailed them, you know, I'm going all in. I'm going to be aggressive, you know. And I nailed him, you know, and the coaches flipped out. They're like, this is Steve Smith. They're going nuts, you know, and I'm like, I don't know who Steve Smith is. I don't even know what you're talking about. I don't understand.

I don't have any idea how good this guy is. I just, you know, just leveled him. Well, it was about, you know, two weeks later, our quarterback is scrambling, rolling out of the pocket, and,, he just, he leveled the ever living crap out of me. He just annihilated me. And I got back up and I was like, just kind of pretending that, you know, I was fine, but I was very like, very dizzy and woozy. And all the players loved it. I was the only white guy on the team. They all celebrated and continued to talk trash in a locker room one guy one guy was like uh my number was 52 like 52 loves having his feet up in the air when he's on the

football field i'm like oh i'm never gonna i'm just never gonna live this down you know but yeah he absolutely killed me and it was great to see him become a pro and become a hall of famer because now i can at least say hey at least it's somebody that's an amazing football player, right? Yeah, he, you know, I got, I was forced, I coached him in college and pro, so it was a very, it was very cool to see that. He, yeah, he was special. He's not big.

I mean, how big is this guy? Five, five, nine, 190 pounds. And every play was, every play was a fight, right? Yeah, he's not afraid now. He's definitely not afraid. He had the old Duracell commercial, I dare you to knock it off. Right. He had about a whole pack of Duracells on his shoulder.

That's what made him successful. His competitive fire, that was it, man. He was going to prove everybody who didn't think he was going to make it wrong every single day, practice or game. Best practice player I ever coached in college. And you can't teach that. No, you're not teaching that. I just so, so aggressive.

And even at that position, it's rare. You know, you don't, you just don't really see that from a receiver. And he played big. He played as if he was like 6'6", you know, but, you know, he's amazing. We played UNLV, was it junior year? In Salt Lake I saw him block a guy through the end zone and over

those like advertising pylons you know how they have in the end zone like a giant phone truck right over the top 15 yard penalty yeah he was he was not going to be denied in anything he did and and i and i and he is a hall of famer i hope when it's his turn that they give him a true evaluation on what he did

that position and his numbers are hall of fame worthy but the fact that he's you know he did it in such a unique way and in a stature that's not looked at as most of these six two six three type wide outs and he played six ten in his five nine yeah he wasn't flashy he played he played almost like very angry. You know, he just was fired up all the time. Oh, yeah, 100. But a great guy off the field, man. Great family. What about athletic-wise, who's the biggest freak? There's probably a couple of them.

Steve's up there. A couple of kids, guys wouldn't know we had a kid at arizona state named terry richardson who golly he was tremendously athletic boise state i had a couple i had a kid a tight end dace to helsley had a 40402 hang clean 650 squat wow 415 bench 38 and a half vert he ran the 40 and 453 and had a short shuttle at 405 oh my god that was in the early 90s so he he was a freak louisville i had a kid scott long who was a tremendous athlete, a wide receiver. Those guys stick out. Those guys stick out right away.

But, I mean, if I went through the rosters, I mean, but those guys. Terrell Suggs was tremendously athletic. Some of my big offensive linemen were tremendously athletic. But those guys, like when you look at, like, measurables, they stuck out in the weight room world as far as measurables. What's your kind of overall philosophy with some of these guys when it comes to, you know, people always just kind of think of strength, but it is strength and conditioning, and there's a lot to account for.

So, you know, what's kind of the overall picture with the Carolina Panthers in terms of what they're doing? I always look at the I always base my strength cycles off of what my goals in the running plan are. And it's very condensed in the the NFL because the amount of time we have available to us is so much less than the college setting where you have eight weeks of off season, six weeks of spring, 12 weeks of summer. We have five weeks to get them ready for OTAs and then they're gone for six. They've been gone for like two and a half months. We get them on site for about a nine week program.

Five of them are like spring football, excuse me, four, spring football minicamp. We'll have them for about five, and then phase two, our coaches will be available to them also on the field. And then they're gone for five weeks, then it's training camp. So it's a totally different model than I've ever had because of the small amount of time with them. But we always look at it field work first, strength work inside second, and try to build the components of the field work for that day to tie in with what we're doing in the weight room.

So, for example, on Wednesday, on the day we squat, we do no linear or lateral type of real running. That's more of a plyometric type response day. So we'll go through a thorough warm-up where we'll do an activation period, a core period, dynamic flex period, in-place mobility period. And then we'll go into, depending on the levels, like we break our groups up into outside the box, front seven, level two, and then front seven. So I'll have the interior, my assistant, Brett Knee Neighbor has the level two, and then Jason Bengucci has the outside the box.

And then they design their programs slightly different than mine because their athletes are different than mine. Right. So we can do low-impact, lower-body plyos, and they may do a little bit more demanding. And then we'll do a lot more uh upper body type plyometric type of deal so it's very it ties into what the we look at we look at from a conditioning standpoint versus strength or what i or field work is a better way to say it and we try to tie in the components the best we can so on tuesday which is our accessory day in the weight room, which is for guys who follow the West Side and those types of models is your week, your really day of weak point building. because it's a very light day in the weight room, so we can invest more time in standard type of conditioning modalities

to build up the anaerobic base they need to participate in the game. Who's been a big mentor to you over the years? over the years? Obviously, the people that I respected a lot were those who were the pioneers of the game. Fortunately, I got to meet a lot of them. And they were inadvertently mentors by the fact that they were willing to share knowledge

with a young and aspiring strength coach who was just looking for anything he could get his hands on. So besides the coaches that I was fortunate to work with, the two big strength coaches early in my career that I was really mesmerized with were Mike Gentry at Virginia Tech and then John Gamble, who was a world champion powerlifter and world's strongest man competitor. And he was at the University.S. at the junior at the time. One of the two guys that,

one of the first two guys that sent me their strength programs, and man, I studied those things meticulously. They just tried to figure out the exercises and why and the hows. Back then, that was a big thing to a young strength coach reaching out and trying to find his path and trying to find his journey and trying to establish himself and be a creative and innovative mind in the field that these people were willing to give me information just because I wrote him a letter telling him I was a young strength coach trying to get better. What's some advice you would give to a young strength coach in this day and age trying to break into the industry? Well, you got me here. I'm going to be slightly sarcastic

when I say this, but because I do, I do, I do believe that education is critical, but you got to get your heads out of the books. You got to get on the floor and learn to interact with people and learn how to coach. We have two men, like you talked a little bit earlier about the data, you know, we have too many young strength coaches who are extremely intelligent, but they're too analytical. They're trying to do things that just don't work when you're talking to an athlete who we have to remember, most of them in our world don't want to be there. They have to be there they have to be there right so you have to be able to communicate to them to give them the least sense that this is important to my career and i do like the way these guys are

doing things and they handle me and you know what i am going to come back tomorrow no nobody cares about a velocity-based training they just care that they want you to know. It goes back to the old saying. They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. If you just go out there and start bombarding them with analytics and talking like you're a programmed voice out of a computer, you got no shot at winning. They're not going to give two pieces of crap about what type of program you write if they

don't know that you're trying to do it for them. We had a kid show up here the other day and he brought a resume and showed up in a suit and he's like, I want to intern. I'm like, you know, we said, well, we don't really have, you know, interns. We don't need anybody to do anything like that. You know, he's just like, I want to learn more about strength and conditioning, you know. And so we're like, OK, well, that's fine. Well, you can work out with us.

The gym's free. Anyway, the kid keeps showing up and, uh, he keeps kind of hanging around us. He keeps asking questions and he's just, he's, uh, he's alert. He's paying attention to what's going on and he's, he's picking up information. So, you know, there's, there's other ways of going about doing it too, but, um, even just going to a gym, trying to learn from another weightlifter, try to learn from a powerlifter that knows what they're talking about. Try to learn some stuff from a trainer. Try to just whoever you can rub elbows with,

rub elbows with and in the process work on your education at the same time. Yeah. I mean, there's a guy like that. I mean, a guy like that comes in in a situation like that. You're almost like, all right, we'll find something for you to do.

Yeah, absolutely. If you can tell the guys, you mean the guys trying to figure out a way to get to a career objective and you know super training gym was the best available opportunity and you gotta you gotta appreciate that because i know as a young coach or or anybody who's expiring to do something in their career it's hard to come in cold. I mean, you don't cold call somebody. I don't care how old, even at this age.

Sometimes it's like, man, I don't know this guy, man. Do I really want to call him? Or, you know, nowadays it's a lot easier to send a text to break the ice, but there's nothing like face-to-face contact. Guy walks in like that, you're like, okay, let's see what this guy got. Then the guy keeps coming back. The guy starts to build some substance. Right.

What does this guy have to do with something to him? Yeah, he already has what it takes. You got another question, Andrew? Yeah, just thinking back on some of the best athletes that you've worked with, do any of them have any, like, habits in common? Like, you know, across the board, is there something that some of the best, you know, that you can kind of see a, you know, like I say, yeah, like some habits that they have, you know, across the board is,

is there something that you can kind of pick out or pinpoint and be like, Oh, Cam does this. And then you can think back, you know, Oh, so-and-so, Arizona state did that. Like, is there, is there some kind of common ground? Not afraid to put in the work the guys who are successful even the most talented somehow or some way they're putting in work now it may not always be like they're great weight room guys or or stuff that are directly relate to myself but their trade is their trade. Like I always tell people, and I learned a lot from guys like Steve Smith and Terrell Suggs who dominated on the football field. And they were, you know, marginal in the weight room because, you know, in some ways they

were like, well, I'm a football player. They understood it. They did the best they could, but you know, they were my two best players, but they weren't my two best weight room guys. And, but when it came to their trade, nobody was going to outwork those guys on the field. So, and it's just like anything else. You look at basketball players and with strength and conditioning. Kevin Garnett, Camp Bench 185, is one of the greatest players ever to play basketball. Why? Because he works his trade like no other.

There's merit to that. I've had a lot of great players who have worked extremely hard in the weight room too. I don't want to throw the weight room under the bus, but if you're looking at one aspect, the effort that guys put in and how they put it in. Some guys are going to expend more effort into the specific preparation of their sport. Some guys are going to spend more emphasis

on the general physical preparation of the sport. But at are going to spend more emphasis on the general physical preparation for it. But at the end of the day, when those guys show up, you know one thing for sure, it's 100% I'm all in to get better. Or they don't show up at all, because that means they're not 100% all in. And the guys who last have substance, but the guys who understand and have figured out how to maintain a certain level of excellence, it always has something to do with their ability to put in the work and the time. Especially because the draft is coming up, has anybody, for better or for worse,

changed their opinion based on their performance at the Combine? That's a good question because you you hear that the combine can't can't hurt you or help you but then yet you'll see guys jump up boards and you'll hear well he had a really good pro day workout or he had a really good combine. So in the truth, I would say, although people will tell you, yeah, the combine can affect you. I mean, you got guys, because now you have to go back and look at the tape and say, okay, this guy plays like this, but his numbers at the combine say he shouldn't play like this. So you start trying to connect dots.

Why is this? You see the guy who dominates as an offensive lineman, but he runs 5'8", 40, and bench presses 14 reps at 225. You're trying to figure out, wait, this doesn't match. So now this guy's going to get graded down because of combine numbers when he's flatbacking everybody out there. So I always go back to, and this was from a personal note, when my oldest son was getting recruited for colleges and we would send out tape, you know, it became a height, weight, speed thing with him. It was, oh, your son's a really good football player, but. And I'm like, well, what's the but?

Like, well, he's only 5'10". He's only run before this. I said, what happened to being a really good football player mattering when the goal is to play football? So as much as as a weight coach, you're all into the numbers and the data collection and, oh, this guy ran 4-4. I'll be the first one to tell you,

don't come to me in a recruiting meeting and tell me, hey, house, this wide receiver ran 10-100 at the high school track meet last night. Well, can he pitch? And can he change direction? Because at 10-100, he ain't going to do it.

Right, right. You ain't running straight ahead of the game. And if you can't test, it don't matter anyway. So it goes back to a lot of things like that. I always, I'm a purist. I'm going to watch the tape

and the tape is going to give me my answers. I think Peter is a good example of when you said, how do they work? Like, what is it? Work ethic. Because you... He is... We have one son that is...

just could do anything. You gave him any ball, he was already like a superstar day one. And then our youngest son was going to make himself one he had nice talent it's not like he was clumsy or anything but he just wasn't magic from the get-go but he was going to turn himself into what he needed to be and so I used to always tell my husband, you better keep an eye on that one. Don't sleep on fear.

He's going to do it. That sounds like a little Steve Smith-y right there. Yeah. When it comes to some of the training, you guys were mentioning being strict on the squat and making sure people are squatting below parallel. Does that always matter a lot with your athletes? Because, I mean, some people just have range of motion issues. Sometimes we're dealing with athletes that just got some really long limbs and it's difficult.

So what do you do with some of these guys? Yeah, we take them to their natural squat depth. Fortunately for us, ours is still pretty solid, and I think that's because we do a good job in our movement work. Right. You know, we're doing a lot of banded activation work. We do a lot of movement dynamics. And again, I think a lot of that happens because we do that before we enter the weight room.

You know, we go about an hour on the field to an hour in the strength room. So it's a two-hour process. But again, I'm a big believer in that. I've done research with Dr. Matt Ray on squat depth and transferability into athletic performance. You know, it's like anything else. Do you have to catch a clean with an athlete? Because catching a clean is part of a sport and squatting to below parallel is part of the sport of powerlifting.

And it's, it's, it's not really a prerequisite to being an all pro in the NFL, but I always believe that, you know, when you lose your ability to bend and move, that's when you'll lose your job in the NFL. You have to your ability to bend and move, that's when you'll lose your job in the NFL.

You have to be able to bend and move. So from an offensive lineman standpoint, obviously a guy who's 6'9", he may have some issues getting to what we would consider quality depth, but if my whole thing is the pattern, if the guy can open up his hips, his knees track in line with the shin, you know, we're eliminating butt weight, a very good spinal position and posture,

then I'm okay if the guy's not hamstring, you know, if he's hamstring parallel versus top of the thigh parallel. I'm envisioning solid mechanics. I think we could, I think you could improve. I mean, you know this, you can improve depth. Like I've noticed in my age, like as I, for whatever reason,

mechanics, body changes, wear and tear, who knows that. I prided myself on being a very deep squatter in competition that it pains me now for whatever reason with a straight bar on my back, I cannot break parallel or whatever. Maybe I need, you know, like anything else, I don't have any, I train by myself because I train at all crazy hours of the day. That's why when I'm around you guys, you and Jesse, I take advantage of professional power lifting eyes to help coach me. But yet, you change the lever like with a safety squat bar,

and the way that I rack it, I can break parallel. So it's something that I need someone smarter than me watching me giving me okay is it thoracic is it my hip you know is it my ankle because why why with a different lever position i can get there versus that i'm not smart enough to coach myself with that you just watch and take so that's where i think everybody needs a critical eye and you know if you're chained like to me i'm chasing stuff in my training that's way different than when i was trying to be as strong as i could as a competitive power lifter uh people go man what you competing still i go yeah i'm gonna do some odd was like, I was telling you on the text, I'm going to do an odd lift me. Cause I like to compete and I like to do things that at least give me some

sense of accomplishment. I mean, you know, you've been, you've kind of followed my path for three years. I was chasing, I wanted to deadlift 500 again. I wanted to deadlift 550 years old.

And everybody's like, Oh, is that your best? And I go, no, I pulled 600 several times. Oh, is that your best ever? I go, no, I've pulled 600 several times. Oh, then why is 500 important? I say, because it's important now.

Like, that's my now. That's my now strength. And I missed it. I missed it a year ago at 50, and then I came back at 51 and did it. And a lot of it was when I was out of California and got to work with you and Jesse and you guys being very helpful and giving me tips. And then listening to Ed Cohn send me tips and Matt Wenning send me tips and drills and this and that. And it all came together this past February that I got to do it.

do it and and now again my my windows of opportunity are very narrow because of my schedule and just happened that this odd lift meet is on a weekend i could do and i'm gonna go go mess around and do some odd lift training when you uh do your squats you have the bar kind of high you have the bar low where do you have it for barbell yeah yeah i was i was saying the low bar squat i tried high and i know i was i was getting better when i was out there the last time but like i said it's hard to judge where yeah i don't like my wife had watched me squat barbell squat in a while i just i don't know. I think it might be something with my right hip, but that's where I need a guy like Kelly Sturette to do some evaluation on me.

Yeah, to go in there and smash on it. Do you utilize box squats with your athletes? Yeah, as a matter of fact, we do a dynamic effort squat with my front seven. So they're actually doing a safety squat bar box squat in their training. What do you feel the advantages of a box squat? Well, obviously it could help with range of motion development because now you can set an athlete where he's at a comfortable range of motion and if you can build his mobility, you can drop the box an inch

and improve the ability to increase range of motion. Also, like Louie discussed back in the day when we first started box squatting, I think it's very conducive to break the eccentric and concentric chain because our guys are going to start in a static loaded position. Now, we don't necessarily teach the relaxing of the hip flexors

or you see people who rock back because our guys are never in that position. We teach what I call the cloud technique, that you want to be loaded and rigid and reach for explode out of that position. So the box is a cloud. If you go down too fast or you relax on the box you've fallen through that cloud without a parachute that's going to happen so if you if you barely touch the cloud the cloud will support you it will also put you in a position that if you held that in proper position and I removed the box,

you should still be able to hold a quality pause position. So ours is to get them into that position so that when the ball snaps, they learn starting strength, applying force through the ground as they would if they were in their stances. So we use that with our bigs primarily because except for our linebackers, our, our, our interior line and tight ends are in three point stances where they're going to be locked and loaded.

How do you utilize some of the products I shot out to you over the years, like the hip circle and the slingshot? Hip circles are frigging, they're, they're money we use the slingshot in cases I'll go first with the slingshots

because we'll use those for guys who are coming off shoulder injuries as a progression to get them back to full range of motion so we we'll use a board pressing and then we'll the first come back after shoulder surgery

where they're starting to do full range of motion, barbell movements, we'll be with a slingshot. Are they kind of like, what the heck is this thing? Because they get to lift more weight, they kind of get excited by it? Oh, yeah. We have not gone to that level yet where we're like, all right, we're going to go overload. My guys are freaky strong, and I'm not going to lie to anybody. I'm a little hesitant to let some of these dudes take off in that manner.

That's why we'll use it more for guys coming off injury or guys who are seasoned 10-year- plus vets that we just need to help save their joints during the season oddly enough i don't really use it for that purpose either i don't go all crazy in it uh all that often yeah i mean i see you guys use it a lot for i've seen you use it for like back offsets yeah they use it a lot for extra work extra volume and then uh the slingshot uh the hip circles are huge we use that for all types of lateral band work like we do we've done a a program to work on lateral mechanics and gluten and groin strength and flexibility where we'll do like a suicide shuffle with them with our offensive linemen in a pass setting situation.

So say, yeah, you're going to shuffle five yards back, kick slide five yards under the finish line, three yards back, one yard back, and movement patterns like that to enhance resistance you use that with a goblet squat or two kettlebell squat tremendous amount of activation in the glutes and hips and that's one of the that's a really good position for alignment especially offensive alignment because you can almost simulate hand position and you can work different range of motion and squatting patterns keeping the knees out track a huge amount of contraction of the glutes and hand excuse me glutes and hips while you have the kettlebells put your hands in a position almost like you're in a path protection position. Right.

Then, you know, the typical clam, we use them for all, the hip circles are extremely popular with our guys. A lot of our, what we call root, excuse me, reboot and activation work are done with hip circles. What's something that you learned, you know, over this long career? Like what are some words to live by or a great quote that you've stood by for a long time, whether you've learned it from your parents, your wife, another coach, just something that you can kind of lean on that always makes everything else make sense to you?

When it comes to the training, the best one is just you can't doesn't mean you shouldn't absolutely yeah i've always liked that one too and and the older i've got is you know it's okay to make fun of yourself i mean i just think you got to bring some, we're, our jobs are extremely stressful. They're, they're highly demanding and you gotta let people know you're human too. And like, like our, like when our guys, you know, like to rib us and you know, have fun. I'm, I'm fine with like, hey man, a dude just ripping you off. I'm like, yeah, well, you know, who cares? I'm shit. I don't, I was like, Hey man, a dude just ripping you off. I'm like, yeah, well, you don't care. Shit.

I don't, I don't mind it. I can make fun of myself. How dare they make fun of Coach House? Yeah. My, hell, my oldest son makes fun of me all the time. and my wife,

they're good at that. So it's just, you just learn that after a while, man, it's, it's, it's serious business, but it's not,

it's not serious. If that makes sense. Yeah. man, it's, it's, it's serious business, but it's not, it's not serious. If that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, something that we have an honor to do. And, you know, we live in a country that affords us to, uh, allow us to go play around with some weights for a few hours every day. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's like, I tell people all the time, you know, when you see, you know, you see you know you you you know the way our country structured i mean how do you not praise those people who fight for our rights absolutely we get to do we get i mean i mean come on come on bar i think i speak for you have you really worked through you know i haven't worked a day in my life right i mean it's like when you go to super training gym and train with all your crew

and that's your job like you know yeah you're you're doing a podcast and you're working on product development but you're working on product development that's part of lifting crew yeah just going around the world making a better place to lift you got everybody that ever knew you on 10 minute walks i mean my wife even does some 10 minute walks with me i mean but it's helped her out because i'll even take the dog out for a 10 minute walk now i get so happy you guys send me those videos i get so excited i'm like this is great like that's such a cool thing it's uh it's bringing people together you know it's insane to think that, but that's what happens.

Hey, let's go on a 10 minute walk together because it's easier to do things in groups than it is to just go off and do things by yourself all the time. Well, it's different than like saying, Hey, let's go for a 30 minute walk. I mean,

you hear 10 minutes ago, that's not that long. And 10 minutes always turns into like 15 minutes. What I always tell everybody is I'm always trying to, uh, like I, I, uh, super training and some of the stuff I preach is like church. Like once I get you in there, that's when I'm going to tell you what the real story is, but I'll do anything to get you through the door. You know what I mean?

Oh yeah. Gotta lure you in. I appreciate, I appreciate you guys so much thank you guys both so much for your time and Joe as a man I really have a ton of respect for you as a family man and as a professional

I love watching what you're doing I'm motivated and inspired by watching what you're doing the 500 pound deadlift got me fired up I love seeing it man just keep it going keep it cranking, my man. Well, keep on keeping on for you, Smelly. It's like next year I got to try to get out there in off-season training at the new gym

so little Smokey and Filipino Thunder can see me live and in action. Yeah, those guys have no idea what's coming. Thanks again, Coach. Where can people find you if they want to follow along with what you're doing? I'm at BigHousePower on Twitter and Instagram. And BigHousePower.com is my website. Awesome, guys. I really appreciate it.

Catch you guys later. All right. Thanks, Mark. I really appreciate it. Catch you guys later. All right. I'm not sure. Did she say she wanted to say something? Oh, no, I don't know. I don't think so. I hope not. Yeah. Hopefully we didn't hang up on her. Yeah. Maybe they'll call back. If it's that important, hopefully.

Anyway, guys, I know that that was long-winded, but that is one of the best strength coaches in the world. On top of that, I wanted to mention that I didn't talk to him about X's and O's. I didn't talk to him about three sets of three and ten sets of two and these different things. You want to look up stuff like that on Coach House. You can find it all day long. You can buy his book. He has a very successful book that he wrote years and years ago.

But the reason why I didn't talk about that is because that's not what led him to be the man that he is today. It's not what led him to the success that he has. A lot of people have knowledge. I've talked to a lot of smart people on this podcast, but it's very rare. There's four or five people that I've ever had on a podcast out of all the people I've ever had that really, truly inspire me and kind of pull me the way that somebody like Joe Ken does. So that's the reason why I talk to him more about his relationship with his wife,

his relationship with his kids. And to me, that's what I admire most. And I think when we look around and we start to kind of see what other people are doing, we're really enamored by the cars, the homes, the this, the that, the new gym equipment that somebody purchased and the new shoes and the new, like we're just, we, it's human nature. We're going to always kind of be jealous of what we don't have, but the things that we do have and the people that are already in our inner circle and the people that are already close to us, you know, I advise people to stop chasing after other people. And you heard coach house say he went into the private sector.

He went into just personal training. Coach Howe say he went into the private sector. He went into just personal training. And after all these years, his whole dream, his whole goal, his entire life was to be an NFL strength coach. That's what he wanted to do. He wanted to be involved in the NFL in some way. He stopped. He stopped coaching.

He stopped being a strength coach altogether and took that knowledge and took it into kind of a more personal training field. And then what happened? Then he got pulled up by the bigs, right? That's when he got a phone call from somebody at the Carolina Panthers. And so it's a good life lesson. You know, we're chasing after people that don't want to hang out with us anyway, or chasing after things that don't want to be part of our lives yet, or that we're not even ready for. These things will happen. And you do have to be proactive and you do have to be aggressive.

And yes, you do need to kind of forge forward. But just kind of be cautious on how you do it. Like there's reasons why these things aren't settling into where they're settling into yet. It's because you're not to where you need to be yet. You don't have under your belt what you need. If you paid attention to the story, and I know it's long-winded, but if you paid attention to the story, it was really about him traveling a lot. And his wife even said,

I wasn't going to allow the kids' education to get in the way of their knowledge. You know, you kind of think about that, like, well, they had an opportunity to learn more because they moved around more. That's something I think about when my wife is like, Hey, where's Jake? He needs, you know, he needs to take a shower. He needs to, he needs to get ready for bed. You know, what's he, what's he doing? I'm like, oh shit. Well, he's hanging out with grandpa. I'm not interrupting that because first of all, I don't know how many more years my dad, my dad's health is great right now, but I don't know how many more years my dad, my dad's health is great right now, but I don't know how many more years to be around is 70. And, uh, also like you, you can't get that time back. You know, Jake, Jake will figure out a way

to not be tired if he goes to bed an extra 30 minutes later. Right. It's not, it's not that big of a deal. What is a big deal is he's hanging out with his grandfather and he's over there like digging ditches because they're going to lay down some concrete because they got all these plans going on for for the summer. What's important is that they're together. You know, those those are the things that are important. So, you know, in your quest to strive to be better every day, make sure you're paying attention to the big picture and that you're not, you know, stepping over dollars to pick up pennies, as they say. Anything to add, Andrew? No, I was really inspired by, you know, them talking about their journey early on. And I'm not saying that I'm like, you know, scratching for pennies or anything like that, but, you know, I'm not quite where I want to be, but hearing them talking about like, yeah, we, you know, we, we sacrificed so much just to make sure we were okay. Like,

you know, we're going to sacrifice here to make sure that this side is okay. And, you know, it reminds me of like kind of what my girlfriend and I are doing right now, you know, like, and honestly, like when I first, you know, came on board with super training, she was instantly the breadwinner. She supported me. Yeah. You know, if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have been able to make it. Like, you know, so now things are working out better.

But it like hearing stories about you in the van, like I've heard that before, you know, hearing you and Andy, how you guys were, you know, you came up and then now you guys have had success. But, you know, it came up and then now you guys have had success, but you know, it's the same thing with them. That gets me way more fired up than, you know, whether it be the new gym equipment here or whatnot. It's hearing the struggle because like, I feel like I'm still in the middle of that. And I just like, you know, it gives me more motivation, more, you know, hope. And yeah, so I, I, I absolutely loved when they were talking together. Yeah. And you know, like this, uh, you know, this show, um, I don't think we'll ever turn into like love line or anything like that, but, uh, we, you know, I, I think,

uh, we owe it to people to talk more about relationships a little bit, because I think that it's helpful. And I think as men, we just don't, nobody ever wants to talk about it. Yeah. You know, I think, uh, even like Joe Rogan, he had his podcast for many, many years before he ever, uh, unleashed, you know, some of the shit that he went through as a kid. And, uh, Lewis Howe has a similar story where he was going on and on with his life and he was angry and he didn't know why. And, um, he had some horrific shit happen to him as, as a child and it affects everything that you do

and it affects the relationships that you have. And, uh, what I'm saying relationship, it's not always, um, husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend. Sometimes it's a relationship that you have with your dad, your mom, uh, even just your next door neighbor, your business associate, your, you know, person that runs your podcast, like all these different things you, our goal is not to, you know, just go in the gym and like lift better every day. That, that's kind of our fitness goals. And that's where we can put points up on the scoreboard when it comes to strength, when it comes to fitness, and when it comes to health. And when it comes to that kind of stuff, we need a sound body in order to have a sound mind.

The two things need to come together. They need to be in a relationship of their own almost. But when it comes to the relationships we have outside the gym, those things are really important to get us to where we want it to be in life. And those are ultimately, those are going to be the things that, you know, you look at Arnold Schwarzenegger, I was sharing with my son the other day, I was saying, you know, he had this heart attack situation or he had this, you know, extra heart surgery thing going on and it's really horrific. But all I could think about,

and I do think that Arnold has a girlfriend nowadays, but I don't want to speak out of line too much, but how much does that girl care about him in terms of his first marriage and where that was? And you know what I mean? So anybody that you pick up after your Arnold Schwarzenegger is not going to be, they're not going to care about you the same.

My point is, is that a lot of these people that we look up to, a lot of them are going to die in a very lonely way. Arnold obviously would have a lot of people by his side, but to not have a significant other there when you're one of the quote unquote kind of greatest people to ever walk the face of the earth. He is in some way, when you think of accomplishments and what the guy was able to do, obviously

there's great leaders and there's great doctors and people who've done all kinds of different things. I'm not downplaying any of that. I'm just saying that Arnold is definitely in that conversation. He was the governor of California for God's sake. And he was, uh, uh, an immigrant and all different kinds of things, you know, but he, I mean, he, anything he did, he did it to the best of his ability. My point is again, kind of going back to that relationship stuff.

Um, it's not easy to figure out. And as you're going through all these ups and these downs, all these ups and downs, it's easier to look outside. You know, like as his wife mentioned, his wife just said it real quick like that, but it made a lot of sense. He's like, you know, he could go outside the marriage, but then he'd have to kind of start all over again. And, you know, obviously you can just say that in passing because it doesn't hurt because it didn't actually happen. But, yeah, you do. You would have to start all over again. I mean, where is that going to end?

Are you just with different women all the time because it's fun or whatever? As you get older and older, there can be a point where you're like, man, I'd love to just have somebody to sit here with me while I'm watching this movie. Or if you get sick and you end up hospitalized or they end up, you know, whatever the situation is, it's nice to have somebody to be there for or it's nice to have somebody by your side. Yeah. But yeah, man, that's all I got. Everyone's who's listening right now on the live stream. We will be back with the greatest of all time. I just saw him.

He's in the building, Ed Cohn. Give us till about, probably about 2.15. There you go. I'll say 2.15 PM. We are on the West Coast, the left coast, the right coast. I don't know. Best coast. Best toast.

2.5 hours we went with Coach House, I think. That was awesome. That's like all time PR. There you go. All right, guys. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Bye.