Mark Bell's Power Project - Strength Gains For Youth Baseball - How To Throw Harder - Jesse Brudick || MBPP Ep. 1054

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

In episode 1054, Jesse Burdick, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about strength and conditioning for youth athletes and what young baseball players need in order to start throwing harder. Follow Jesse on IG: https://www.instagram.com/jesseburdick/   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below!   🍆  Natural Sexual Performance Booster 🍆 ➢https://usejoymode.com/discount/POWERPROJECT Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎 ➢https://emr-tek.com/ Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶 ➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject   🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!   Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained:      ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ UNTAPPED Program - https://shor.by/untapped ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza & Get Podcast Guides, Courses and More ➢ https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

What are some maybe tangible things that you've seen actually, you know, physically help somebody be able to maybe pitch a little faster? Gain some weight. I mean, most of the kids are, you know, skinny. Make sure we're pushing off the back leg. Make sure we're driving here. Hip turn, this, this. If they don't have the musculature from the functional side of fitness, deadlifts or squats, flat footed, et cetera, that that actually messes with athleticism. If you're strong, you can get into good positions and you can get out of good positions.

And you're going to be able to get out of bad positions if you're strong. To hear parents talk about like, ah, you know, once he has Tommy John, he's going to come back and throw harder. He can't play the sport that you say he loves. So is he going to come to the gym every day? Is he going to do his exercises seven times a day? He's 14. Hormones are kicking. Girls are there.

And you want this for your kid because he's going to throw harder when he comes back. I just like how pissed off it makes him seem. And you want this for your kid because he's going to throw harder when he comes back. I just like how pissed off it makes him seem. Because you think you're so goddamn stoic. And when I mention it, I just steam coming out of your fucking ears. Oh, God. I'm going to watch that podcast and just watch and see my you won't see shit you won't see shit

I know what to look for I'm gonna see a lot of shit that's what I'm saying the best thing is you can't even see us like he can't see us and he's talking shit right he doesn't know who we are, can't see us and he's talking shit

we're in the pantheon of It's just amazing. He doesn't know who we are, can't see us, and he's talking shit. Where in the pantheon of guests does he fall? I don't know. Time will tell, I guess. It was definitely one of the more memorable ones just because we've talked to abrasive guests but not that abrasive right and again jack knows a lot he's it was a fun podcast i learned a lot but again he was uh he was trying to push those buttons because he came out hot but like so did like dr batar but batar did it differently even though he still had kind of like the same thing like where he's like yelling at people but it was different no one ever came out hotter than mike dolce oh no one was safe he came

out swinging right out of the gate it's like whoa that was pretty uh monstrous after goggins too he's going after everybody damn everybody was in his in his way of destruction I guess did he just get to a point where he's just like fuck it or like does he even care is he just to a point where he just doesn't care Dolce you think

or why the turn because he never I don't remember him being that kind of why did he come out hit somebody with a chair when the ref was turning the other way he's not even supposed to be here tonight he had the famous heel turn i i think uh i think he's just tired of hearing it from people and i think um you know some people uh like try to get on this like moral high ground and he's like no i don't think so you

don't get to do that yeah you know and i don't whenever anybody does that i'm always like well why you like why do you you know what i mean like why do you get to judge or yeah i don't know why are you now the executioner yeah we're all pretty fucked up so i don't know i don't know if like judging people for their morals is like a great place to be i think think, you know, fitness wise and, and nutrition wise, we're trying to, uh, judge the information that you have. Right.

And that information can get muddled on how you deliver it as, you know, per Jack Cruz. Yes. Like, interesting. It's like hard to listen to it, but then you got someone like Andrew Huberman who's been,

um, like, uh, Huberman will explain stuff and then he'll maybe say like this is not my area of expertise. I want to repeat that. I'm not a doctor in this area. Right. But here's what I think.

And then he's so intelligent and brings out studies and information where you're like, oh, wow, this is really cool. And then I think that people tend to want to share that. It's a positive message, but not everyone can do that. Not everyone can execute that way. And so that's why I think we see so many different types of messages. It seems like if you're not the squeaky wheel and you're not figuring out a way to make some noise, then it's difficult to get attention via social media, which you're super prolific on social media. You're always updating your page. Yeah, I'm doing great. Tons of stunning information on your social media.

Thanks a bunch. Yeah, you must have a squad. I do. Lots of AI? Yep, all AI. It's not even me. Jesse Burdick is nowhere to be found on social media. He's on there.

I'm there somewhere. But you're coaching, you know, and that's something I've always appreciated about you is that you're actually coaching. And a lot of the coaches that we know are similar to that where, you know, a lot of the best coaches – there's a lot of great coaches that are online and that have a lot of great information online and on YouTube and stuff like that. But as you kind of peel back the layers deeper and deeper, that's not where they're spending the most of their time. Someone like an Eric Cressy, he's known online very well, but he's also somebody who's just knee deep in the actual work all the time. Yeah.

And I mean, that's what I, that's what I want to do. You know, I want to coach and I want to be able to watch someone get better and know that I helped them leave better. And the social media thing I think is great. I love it because I can kind of keep track of people and it points me into some directions that I'll look for more information and for learning purposes. And, um, you know, it's, it's a tool. And I think, you know, I, I thought I, I was, you know, a lot better with it and at it. And I always think like, I want to go back, but there's a couple of things that, um, uh, really colored my, um, thoughts on it, you know, when, when Katie was pregnant and she was doing some workouts like the hate and vitriol and your baby's gonna fucking die and like these things and i was just like man and then you know someone you know made comments about like oh the girls are looking really good and like then there's some you know they're 12 and it's and then you know during um covid and

black lives matter and the ge, all this other stuff. It was like, why aren't you coming out and say something? I'm like, because I'm not your fucking dad. And I don't really care what you fucking think of me. You know, my opinions are my own. If you want to know my opinions, like if it's you and I, yeah, we can talk about it, but everybody doesn't need to know it because I'm going to say something and it's going to get taken. However, someone wants to color it for me. And it became a, um, can't win, don't try thing. And it's just not worth my effort to really try and push things. And I have a guy who's doing a lot more video stuff for me. And we're kind of, um, since we got to the new gym and putting a

whole bunch of stuff together and we're going to try and push, you know, try and push kind of the athlete side of things and try and get more people in there. Cause it's really cool to get, to see these kids get better and succeed and in college and then in life. And, you know, and now I have, it's crazy because one of my first, one of my interns just, you know, he's a doctor of physical therapy. He came back from Iowa and saw, um, one of the freshmen in high school when he was my intern who was graduating and about to graduate

college. It was such a weird thing. He was just like, wow, you were my age when I was yelling at you trying to get you to do, you know, some sled work or whatever the hell it is. So it's kind of cool to see like those things kind of come full circle. And that's what I'm in it for more than, you know, views, likes, whatever. That's, I don't know. I don't know if I'm right or if I'm wrong. It's just, you know, how I kind of feel about it. And I always think, you know, I'd always like to do a lot more, but I would like to spend time with my kids even even more than that so it's it's just not high on my priority list of things to do do you still consume social media though yeah yeah and i mean it's you know i i initially uh thought of um social media as just like oh this is a sick way

to be able to just kind of keep tabs on people because i'm terrible you know i'm not i don't know when anybody's birthday is i don't like i'm really like legitimately bad at that and you know to get a reminder or someone saying happy birthday i'm like oh shit hey happy birthday you know and um you know those sorts of things to keep kind of tabs on people and putting up pictures of you know like like kids and doing some stuff and it's awesome and then you know and then it just gets you know and it's awesome. And then, you know, and then it just gets, you know, and then if you are lucky enough to have a lot of eyeballs on you, eventually it's just going to kind of get weird. Uh, but yeah, I still, I still look and I still want to know what's kind of going on. Um, I don't read any comments, so I don't know, you know, uh, Katie

does all the time and she, like, she cries, you know, over some of the hate and vitriol that you get all the time. She's like, I can't believe that he can put up with that. I was like, I don't think he looks at it. So, you know, it's also something to try to teach the girls because they're inevitably, you know, they're out there, they're consuming social media and posting and doing stuff and um trying to show them that it's not dominating my life and therefore they can live a life without it because they're you know in the high school scene it's there is just it's just so prevalent and it's just everywhere and it's all the time one of your daughters was on a podcast right yes she was it was really and you know what she didn't

even tell me she it like came up and i was and it was awesome but it was it's one of those end around like learning things right i'm like okay so the next time a weird guy a guy that you don't know from los angeles calls you and asks to be on a podcast can you ask me first so I can figure out who the fuck this dude is? Right. And she was just like, I mean, I guess I'm like, I just,

can you just to, can you just help me out? Why are you acting so overprotective? No, I know. People in LA are nice. Yeah. So it was,

uh, yeah, she was, and she, she, you know, and I would have, to her credit,

she did awesome. She crushed it. She did so good. She, and she was, she, you know, she is intelligent, but she came off very intelligent, very polite, and she did a great job. I was really proud of her, but it was also one of are kind of confused on like, you know, what should they kind of nudge or shove their kid into or when should they kind of back off? I think it's a delicate balance and I think everybody's going to have, everybody's kids are going to be different and everyone's approach is going to be different. But I always kind of go back to the, like, you know, at the end of the day, it's like, did you have fun? Yeah. Awesome. You know, and that, that's, that, that should be it. Right. And if they're not having fun and you're forcing them to do something because you did it, or

you're trying to live vicariously through them, it's never going to work out well. Right. And I was talking to someone the other day, he was like, you never want to be the best your kid to be like the best 11 year old in anything, because eventually that means they've probably already peaked and it's going to be, it's a long, hard road. You know, I always encourage people to try to play as many sports as possible, do a whole bunch of stuff all the time because it'll keep your kids occupied, you know, and they won't have a bunch of dead time and fill it with, you know,

going to, you know, parties in the middle of the forest or whatever it was. Um, and just, I, I tried to farm the girls out because I was like, I don't, I don't want to be that dad. Yeah. Like that's, that's like, probably like my greatest fear is like 20 years down the line they're crying you know to a psychologist about oh if my dad did like that's i really don't want to be that dude um and you know i don't want anything that i've ever done or said or anything to negatively affect them that that would be a nightmare for me so i tried to just give them to like Tiff and to Jeremy.

And then for a while they were working out with Katie in the garage. And eventually they were just like, hey, dad, can we just, and it just so happened to coincide with a bunch of like high school boys that were at the gym as well. I was like, can we come to the gym? We're like, yeah, sure. And what was really cool for them, they've been lifting since they've been you know born they're just really good at it so everyone's like what the hell why are you so good at this why are you lifting more than the you know sophomore you know a quarterback or you know linebacker whatever it's like i don't know i've just been doing this forever they're like front squatting

with the boys can't squat yes yes so in in sense of the words, it gives them a little bit of confidence and that's really kind of cool to see. But I really try to make sure, again, I treat them like I would any other athlete. It's like, Hey, you know,

how you doing? How we feel like good, good day. Yeah. Cool. What do we have? We have this, this and this for the week.

Yeah. All right. So let's try and plan out. Let's front load, back load the week and we'll kind of go from there. Let's not get too sore. Like, like hey remember this kind of hurts my shoulders like okay cool let's change this and that so i try to um i try not to treat them extra special i this sounds weird uh try not to treat them extra special but i try to just make sure that they

understand like look you're here this is what we do you know if i was look, you're here. This is what we do. You know, if I was a butcher, you're going to come to the butcher shop and you're going to, you know, like cut meat and shit. That's just, um, and this is just kind of what we do. And, uh, to their credit, they've kind of bought into it and they have, you know, sports recruits profiles, which is, um, a recruiting profile for like softball, volleyball and consistently their biggest the the videos that the coaches watch the most is when they're doing like heavy deadlifts oh wow which is for me i was just like i'm fucking right i told you motherfuckers right and um i didn't say that to them but you know just just generally all of you um i said that to you uh and you know it was really cool and they really liked it again because they're good at it and they're just like there's a coach was like you

are how old 15 deadlift you deadlifted for three what my college kids can't deadlift like that's amazing that's what you know the top that's the senior who lived i'm like oh that's great like well i've just been doing a long time. I've been doing since I've been three. And they're just like, that's awesome. That's really good. And it hasn't messed with any of that athleticism, has it? No.

It's weird. Yeah. I did make them muscle bound. They are still being asked out way too much by boys. They can sprint. You sure they can sprint? Yeah. Yeah.

They can move. That's, I mean, you know, for, they're both. You sure they can sprint? Yeah. Yeah. They can move. That's, I mean, you know, for, they're, they're both, uh, aspiring to play softball. Casey is committed to the university of Washington to play softball. And, um, that's part of their left-handed. And, uh, if they touch the ball and you take one half of a second, you have, you cannot make a mistake or it's a, it's a base hit for them. So it's pretty cool. And I mean, that's something that they rely on and are very proud of is how fast that they are so um yeah they can move

really well super cool yeah yeah uh i wanted to know that because like obviously you're hands-on with many athletes and we've had different coaches that have come onto the podcast whether it's from goda or atg and actually in a few months we we're going to be having, uh, now Diagler from functional patterns on, right. And some of these coaches from the functional side of fitness, um, they believe that like, you know, athletes doing these deadlifts or squats, flat footed, et cetera, that that actually messes with athleticism because of the spinal compression and the way that the impact on the feet, et cetera. is with athleticism because of the spinal compression and the way the impact on the feet, et cetera. But that doesn't seem to be what you've seen being hands-on with many high school, college and professional level athletes, right? Right. Why is that? I will forever and ever die

on the hill of strength with the sword of strength. And that's what I always come down to. If you can, you, if you're strong, you can get into good positions and you can get out of good positions and you're going to be able to get out of bad positions. If you're strong, um, the efficiency of movement might not be there, but being able to be strong and get in and out of stuff.

There are many people who off camera offline where I'm like, I'm right. Right. If you just get strong, then you can get in there like, yeah, okay, cool. So, you know, it, I'm, I feel justified in knowing that and talking to really, really high level people. And then also kind of seeing it where you can't be so dogmatic about what you're doing and just really stick to one thing with me.

We're like, no, we're only squatting, only benching and only deadlifting. Like, okay, I can see where that's going to be bad, but I feel like that is because I'm a strength guy and I'm going to die on that fucking Hill forever. That's what people think I'm doing. We're maxing out, you know, with bands and, you know, box squat. And it's basically, you know, it's days. Yeah, exactly. And it it's like that's not actually what we're doing you know there's there's you know it's very regimented and it's very very dialed back because i understand that that can happen if but it's just like like oh man it's i'd look like you if i started to lift weights like oh really like that's what would get you if If you look at weights, you get big, man, I wish I had that problem.

It's the same thing. It's like, ah, you shouldn't deadlift. You're going to get muscle bound and you're going to get discompression. Like, or maybe if you do it right, you'll be just fine. So I think, you know, in order to develop those problems, you have to be doing it either wrong for a very long time or long and probably too heavy for a long time. Or in isolation. Right. Because like all the athletes that you're working with, like they're athletes first.

They're on the field. They're doing the sprints. They're doing all this. And then everything that you're probably doing in the gym is supplementing their athleticism. And that's what I always tell the, you know, the dads. Like, oh, got to get her. Got to get her strong. Like, she's 84 pounds.

It's okay. What I'm going to do is try and help her be a better lacrosse player, track athlete, soccer player. Like if, when that has run its course and she wants to be a powerlifter, I got her to don't worry about it, but let's not put too much emphasis on her, you know, on her 18 inch box squash. It's, it doesn't matter. What matters is if can, you know, can she kick ass on the field? And that's what should matter. And if that's not when you're dealing with certain populations, if that's not your goal with that population of getting them better at their sport, you're doing it wrong. And I think too many people will think like, oh, you're doing it wrong because like, well, you can't punish me because there's idiots out there in the world. So I think, you know, but I also think that people need to

realize that, you know, people are going to pick something and they're going to, they're going to die on that Hill. It might not be the same Hill that I'm on, but you know, it's going to, this is what gets me attention. This is what gets me views. This is what gets me paid. That's cool. Like I respect that. And there's always something to be learned and more often than not when you talk to those people off camera you know you get to have a personal conversation with them like i know we we got to do all this stuff but this is my thing well you know that's great that's cool and i think there's so many more people who are we're in so much more agreement than we are argument most of the time i mean how can we argue you know nuts and bolts of things, right?

That's going to, it should make up 80, 90% of everything that's out there. The other, whatever's left 20%, you know, it doesn't even matter. Right. So, I mean, everybody needs to eat well, sleep, work out some way, be able to, you know, if you're an athlete, be able to spring, change direction, rotate, um, recover from it somehow, some way. And how you accomplish that oftentimes doesn't matter until, you know, until you get into a spot where it's like, Hey, this is a $10 million arm. Like, all right, cool. We're going to, we're not going to, we're going to really, really injury prevent here. We're not going to worry about these things because anything you do that, that's $10 million. You know, I think the big difference again is that you physically are working with people in person.

I know that you do some online consulting and stuff like that as well. But when you work with people in person, you can make different adjustments and you can talk much differently. It might be easier for us to have this kind of broad stroke and say, like, here's how I think everyone should train. Everyone should train in regards to, you know, throwing, running, jumping, you know, and say like, that's going to be healthy and that's going to be safe and so on. But when you're actually working with individuals and you see someone that might be stiff, that might already have the lifting side down, you're like, well, strength isn't really a big problem for this guy. That's when you can make an adjustment and say like, well, this guy's movement patterns aren't great. He doesn't need

to spend any more. He doesn't need to do 10 sets of 10 of deadlifts. It's just going to tighten them up even worse. Let's find some other things that are going to you know uh help this guy improve his athleticism things like that yeah there's i mean there's always other things to kind of attack and i had cressy who we talked about um he's starting to find kind of the the top end of things like okay look this guy just did 700 pounds on the you know axle or the um the trap, the trap bar, the trap bar deadlift. Like we're, we don't need to do any more than that. You know, that's a, we can peek up to that and that's that. And then you get cut off.

People are like, I want to do more. Like there's a, there is when you're dealing with this as a profession, a point of diminishing returns and the risk to reward ratio is just tilted one way or the other. And, um, but until you get to that, you know, you can, you can always find better ways to do stuff. Right. And I mean, like we were talking about kind of being, uh, you know, one arm dominant or, you know, kind of, you know, it's just kind of the way it is.

Right. And I mean, you can try to work yourself out of it, but it could also work to a deficit if someone has some sort of uniqueness to them and you work so hard to beat that out of them. Are they the same person and the same athlete anymore? Maybe they move different. Maybe that helps you. You have no idea, right? And it's just who you are. So you have to work with with and it is very difficult you

know um people like oh just wait till ai gets here okay it's like they're you know i get so much more from watching people walk in than anything else i'm just like oh okay like almost 80 i can like i know what i'm gonna get you from from you today and it's just because you know i know who you are i know how you walk i know your mannerisms i know you know how you're talking to me are you smiling whatever joking around with people or dragging your feet and it's like you can tell a lot and that's what a piece of paper can't do and um that's where kind of the magic happens and then it's also just like all right man let's go this is this is bullshit you moved that fine i know it doesn't feel good but let's go let's let's go so uh those are the cool things that you get to

do um in person and that's you know that's kind of the magic and that's the cool spot and that's what you know that's what i want to do that's what i really like to do and i and i feel like i'm really good at it too so that always helps do you think that's what I really like to do. And I, and I feel like I'm really good at it too. So that always helps. Do you think that there are any actual like drawbacks to the actual compression of like squats or the compression that individuals get from lifting heavier loads as athletes? Uh, the reason why I ask is because again, on the other side of things, that's one of the negatives that some of the functional individuals believe when it comes to squatting or deadlifting loads. They think like that, that compression on the spine isn't going to be good for the athlete. What are your thoughts on what have you seen? I would say I would agree with them,

you know, 90% of the time, right? But as a, as a coach, as someone working with people, you have to understand like if, if they can't do a bird dog or a dead bug or be able to hold a plank you probably don't have the stability and core trunk whatever you want to call it in order to stabilize that weight and you probably shouldn't do over whatever you want to call it 70 let's say because 70 you can still move pretty fast yeah You shouldn't go over that because now you're drifting into the, into water that this athlete hasn't been, is not prepared for. You have to kind of dance on that line in order to see what it is that we need to take care of and what we need to improve on, what quality of, you know, whether it's muscular movement, range of motion, you know, tissue quality, et cetera, have to find out what that is. And then you can kind of train that and get that better. But if you never get there,

you're never going to find out. And then you're going to get into a sport and you're going to do something. And, you know, I don't know how prepared you will be, you know, if you're not at least doing something hard in the gym, you can do something hard, meaning challenging, mentally challenging, a ton of reps, a big burn, you know, or just, you know, a sprint, something great. But I don't think anyone in this room is going to argue with me when I say a heavy deadlift in your hand, a heavy bar on your back, you have to go to a special place and you can only get it doing that no matter what you do.

And there's some magic in there. Now it doesn't have to be 99.99%, but you know, anything over 80%, you have to kind of get there to, to, to challenge that stuff. And, um, but I would never put anyone like my 84 pound, you know, soccer player, I'd never put two 25 on the bar and say, Like my 84 pound, you know, soccer player. I'd never put 225 on the bar and say, hey, let's see if you can squat this. That's just irresponsible. You're right. And, you know, if they don't meet certain markers, yeah, absolutely not.

They should not do this. Or, you know, whether it goes to trap bar or kettlebell or whatever it is. That's the stuff that precursors all that stuff. But it's not sexy. It's not fun. And it's not the stuff you're going to see posts on. But that's, everybody wants to get to that top, that top spot. And I mean, talk to Cressy about it all the time. He's like, I just won Max Scherzer's program for my kid.

It's like the 41 year old, you know, multiple Cy Young award winner who's had surgery and all this other, you want his program. It's like, uh, I think you should probably want the program for your kid, not the professional baseball player. No, no,

I want to do what he's doing so he can turn into that. It was like, but that's not where he started. He got to here by going through a lot of other stuff, but everyone wants that. Everyone wants to, you know, squat 400,

500 pounds as an athlete and do all this other sexy stuff. And it's just like you make your most amount of money doing all the other crap. So it's my job to convince parents and kids like, I know, I know, this sucks. But go drag the sled. Do this 10 movement pattern warm-up thing. And then I'm going to distract you over here and you're going to lift. And then you have to go do a bunch of other stuff and it's in a time situation and you got to go, go, go, go, go. And then you're like, Oh man, that was awesome. Like, what did I lift? Does it matter? I guess not. Cool. See you later. Right. And then,

but if you're focusing so much on numbers, then things can get weird. So, you know, it's irresponsible for people to not have a list of stuff, a warmup, um, and these markers in order to graduate into certain things. Um, and if you don't, you're going to hurt an athlete and that that's your choice. That's their choice. You know, if you're a good marketer, it doesn't matter because keep people keep coming in. Uh, but if you actually care about the kids and when kids have surgery and it's, it's horrible, it's really, really tough. You know, it's, uh, you know, to see, and it's really because I get to deal with a lot of baseball players, you know, to hear parents talk about like, ah, you know, once he has Tommy Johnny's going to come back and throw harder. It's like, that's a year. That's a minimum of a year. That's a really crazy, invasive, awful surgery.

And the success rate is not good for these crazy athletes who have millions of dollars. Not everybody can come back and be the same thing. You're going to tell me that your 14 year old is going to be able to come back and do this. First of all, does he have the mental capacity to not do anything for a year with his buddies? He can't play the sport that he said,

you say he loves, right? So is he going to come to the gym every day? Is he going to do his exercises seven times a day? Is he going to do the icing and do all the, you know, blood full of work, Mark pro stuff for a for a year he's 14 hormones are kicking girls are there whatever is going on

and you want this for your kid because he's gonna throw harder when he comes back is there like some positive adaptation after tommy john surgery so the whole idea is you know you're ucl like if it's lax stretched whatever right that so so you want, you're UCL, like if it's lax, stretched, whatever, right? So, so you want the layback,

but you, but you need it. So they tighten it up and your velo is a little bit better because he had a little bit of a, a better spring, like coming off the layback to throw, right? It's not one for one.

It doesn't always work as far as like the velo and everything, but you know, there's so many things that can go wrong. Right. I mean, who's a Felix Bautista, who was the Orioles closer last year had to have Tommy John and his timeline got pushed way back because when they're going in there,

there's also the ulnar nerve. So he, he had no fingertip feeling. So they had to go in and transpose the nerve and move it underneath or around the, you know, the tendon. So, I mean, there's so many things that can go wrong. And there's people who are cavalierly just saying like, it'll be okay. He'll be better afterwards. It's like, it's just not, you know, not reality. So you just have to, those expectations and those like thought processes are just so weird.

those expectations and those like thought processes are just so weird. Yeah. So, you know, I have, I try to have really hard, not hard conversations, but realistic conversations. Like,

I don't think you want that, man. Like, I think you should take a better approach to these things. And, um, you know, I feel like that's part of what I do really,

really well. And it's just like, yeah, let's focus on some low hanging fruit. Let's clean up our diet, sleep, stay off the phone a little bit, maybe do some rehab exercises, have a warmup routine before you throw. Don't, you know, expect to go from zero to a hundred right away all the time, no matter what a coach says of you or what they need of you. And oftentimes it's a lot of, it's the parents that you have to convince sometimes because there are people who are like, I don't care. So if it takes a couple of years, I'm fine with it.

Do you think he's ready to, I mean, he needs to throw like next week though. Can we do that? Wait, you said you're cool with it taking a year. It's like, well, but his team really needs him, you know? And I mean, I paid for the season already. So you said it needs to be faster pitching. So yeah, I mean, I would really like it if we could get him, you know, like next week. Okay. for the season already. Coach said it needs to be faster pitching. So yeah, I would really like it if we could get him next week.

Okay, good luck. Work your magic. For the month of April, you're going to receive 25% off all Vivo Barefoot shoes. And Seema, can you tell us why these shoes are so great? For years on this podcast,

we've been talking about the benefit of barefoot shoes. And these are the shoes I used to use back in like 2017, 2018, my old Metcons. They are flat, but they're not very wide and they're very stiff and they don't move. That's why we've been partnering with, and we've been using Vivo barefoot shoes. These are the Modus strength shoe because not only are they wide, I have wide ass feet. And so do we here on the podcast, especially as our feet have gotten stronger, but they're flexible. So when you're doing certain movements, like let's say you're doing jumping or you're doing split squats or you're doing movements where your toes need to

flex and move, your feet are able to do that and perform in this shoe, allowing them to get stronger over time. And obviously they're flexible. So your foot's allowed to be a foot. And when you're doing all types of exercise, your feet will get stronger, improving your ability to move. Andrew, how can we get the hands on these? Yes. And for the month of April, you're going to receive 25% off all of your Vivo Barefoot shoes. That is a limited time deal for the month of April only. So if you've been waiting for the perfect time to buy your Vivo Barefoot shoes, now is that time. Head over to vivobarefoot.com slash powerproject, enter the code for April, and receive 25% off your entire order. Link is in the description as well as the podcast show notes.

What are some things that you've seen that have really helped, like in terms of bat speed or in terms of pitching? It's probably not easy to say like lifting, you know, a stronger bench press or a stronger clean and jerk has helped, you know, a throw. But what are some maybe tangible things that you've seen actually, you know, physically help somebody be able to maybe pitch a little faster? Gain some weight. I mean, most of the kids are, you know, skinny and being able to put some weight on them.

Again, it's that kinesthetic feel that we were kind of talking about as well, where, you know, we can talk about these airy things like make sure we're pushing off the back leg, make sure we're driving here, hip turn, this, this. If they don't have the musculature and or the weight to kind of move around and make that a substantial like, oh, okay, yeah, I see when I squeeze my – when I push into the floor. I understand that. If they don't have that, then you can talk. If they're a one-percenter, you don't have to tell them what to do. Like, hey, just remember, throw – show up on time. Just show up on time in a uniform and that would be great. You know, those are – there are those kids.

Like Nolan Ryan may have thrown as fast as he's thrown without hardly any weights maybe i don't know but but i mean he he threw he he did throw hard but he he was on the forefront of um a strength and conditioning for the baseball world because for a long time yeah they're um what is it facing ryan i think is the uh the documentary it's awesome so so good it, it is so cool. And if you're a baseball fan at all, I mean, Nolan Ryan's God and to, to go through all his careers, it's pretty fascinating. Um, but he credits weightlifting with, um, and he was back in like the old, like Nautilus days. Like, so, I mean, like it could be, I'm looking at it going like, oh man, but it's still,

you know, that guy's a horse of a human being. And it said the way they, they used to test, you know, how fast the ball's going. Like if they were to test it now, it'd be like maybe like 110 miles an hour or something. I don't know. I'm saying that accurately, but it was just nuts. Yeah. It's like the, the radar used to be kind of behind the right the backstop but now they're able to figure out you know kind of shorten it up but yeah he in kind of in the late

he pitched into i want to say he's pitched into it was like 45 or something along those lines and you know the last probably 10 15 of his years he credits to being able to lifting and you know keep himself healthy and he figured out that he was breaking down and that helped him out and he worked out and he worked out hard i remember uh ventura uh charged the mound and he beat like this guy charged the mound in sema when he was older already too yeah he's in his 40s he threw a ball to like brush the guy back you know which is pretty normal and but the guy took exception to it and he charged the mound and then no one ryan got him in a headlock and beat the guy's ass it was amazing there was i mean he's he's a testament to just yeah this is oh that was

it yeah oh but i don't know if they'll probably yep there you go yep look how old school is that like his little brother just bink he was a savage and i mean he but you know he's a testament just to to hard work and just being an absolute monster and um it's a it's a that's such a good movie such a good movie a client of mine like he took 10 of us he's like we gotta go see this we're all going we're all going. It was in the theater. See, so here's lifting. Yeah. I think it's with a house. What's his, not coach house, but I forget the guy's name. Something house was his trainer, but yeah, he did a lot of, you know, he was on kind of the forefront of that, but I mean for, you know, in general,

what can help out weight gain for sure. Being strong for sure. Understanding mechanics is probably going to be the biggest thing, but you're not going to be able to accomplish that, you know, kind of in the weight room. Um, but just being able to get into the position that you need, um, and throw repeatedly at high intensity, you know, you need to be able to get into a position here, allow for some layback. If you have tight shoulder, you're not gonna be able to get into a position here, allow for some layback. If you have tight shoulder, you're not going to be able to get your shoulder blade back and allow that layback as well. And it's going to start to go elsewhere.

So we talked about, you know, not training the unique out of people, right? And there's arm angles and there's other stuff that you have to account for. But in general, having good mobility and being able to move around is a good thing. But then you deal with some of the pros and they're just like, is all i got i'm like okay hey we get it that much better it's that much better and that's okay uh you can't totally hope to change it because i mean the morphology of overhead throwing athletes is ridiculous you know i mean the bone density is different you know the the tendon quality tissue quality know, the hypertrophy on one side to the other. It's radical.

It's crazy. And then you add in a Tommy John surgery or a thoracic outlet surgery or a rotator cuff surgery or a biceps or a pec or whatever. Lats are now big because those are kind of the – among the biceps, those are decelerators of everything. So people are, who are throwing at these massive amounts of velocity, every pitch, their lats are like ripping them off because they can't decelerate their arm anymore. Yeah. Yeah.

They're tearing lats, which is remarkable knowing what a lat is and how thick and how strong the lat is. Can you imagine that? Ridiculous, right? So, you know,

keeping them injury free, allowing them to get in good ranges of motion, strong, and be able to understand how to produce force, you know, into the floor, I think are things that, you know, low-hanging stuff that you can kind of work towards. you said something about uh not training the uniqueness out of somebody um what does that mean can you give us some examples some of the athletes i know like jeremy is like extremely explosive um and he's got to be almost careful because he could like literally blow his whole body apart like because he's so explosive yeah i mean it's about that more i think that uh i think that initially kind of came from uh joey defranco when he was talking about you know he'd have his bigs little so he'd have kind of the from Joey DeFranco when he was talking about, you know, he'd have his bigs little. So he'd have kind of the linemen, offensive defense alignment, and then he would have his receivers. He's like, why am I going to make these people slower?

Like, I don't want these guys to slow down. I want their force production. You know, if he was on a 10-0 unit, I think back then, I don't know what he was using now. I don't want them to be slow ever because this is how they make their money. This is the job that they do. So I'm never going to slow them, allow them to slow down so much. And amazingly enough, you're able to use 70, 80% at a clip that's still fast in his range. So I think there's that aspect of things. And then the whole coach, the uniqueness out of people is, you you know somebody squatting and you're looking at him you're like well that's not how i would squat but that feels good for you yeah okay

cool jeremy um that's stupid what how high is that yeah that's almost as tall as he is that's to a box and then onto a box so mean, and you just have to understand the athlete and who they are. And for him, it is one of those things where he actually does really, really well when we forcibly slow him down. I think that was his 903. So him and even Kaler, like to a point where it's just like, you're just going so fast. And even Kaler, like to a point where it's just like, you're just going so fast and, you know, neither one of them can kind of control lockout. And Alex, who Boar sent me, is kind of in the same boat, where it's like we have to figure and just try to buttress everything else and help everything else move up and get stronger in the same time. You don't want to totally change somebody. You're like, well, I conventionally pull this. I'm like, well,

you're a sumo deadlifter now because that's how I trained. And you know, it's that idea of things. And I think that extends into sport a lot because people are like, well, that's not how we do it. Well, why do you do it that way? Cause that's how we always do it. That's not a good answer. Okay. You can allow this kid to be who he is and be successful. You just have to understand how to coach him, whether that's on the field or in the weight room. I think there's something to that because you have to allow the people, allow kids, allow lifters, whatever it ends up being to, to be themselves. Because after a while, it's like, why are people coming to you? If you're never going

to get it right. Right now, if your knees are collapsing and you, you know, you look terrible, it's like, look, you're just going to get hurt. So we need to do that. That's a good enough reason. But because, you know, this is how everything goes. It's like you can't give the same program to, you know, a five foot six kid to a six nine kid. And it's different. Allow it to be different. It's okay. Right? And you have to accept maybe some higher squats with a kid who's six eight, six nine.

And just be like, that's a long fucking way to go. I'm just happy you didn't collapse. That's awesome. Good for you. Somebody who's built a squat, you're like, you didn't collapse. That's awesome. Good for you. Somebody who's built a squat, you're like, ah, you know, it's like, cool. Good for you. Why does he get to use more weight?

He's like, of course he can. Like, and you can't yet. Okay. So yeah, I think it's allowing people to be different, right? Everybody's lift different. Everybody moves different. And I mean, I remember when I saw Dan Green pull for the first time, I was like, he's going to fucking kill himself. And then I saw him pull again. And then I got to lift with him. And I saw him pull again. I was

like, you're fucking amazing. You're pulling yourself into good position. It looks like you're yanking on the bar, like indiscriminately and, you irresponsibly like lifting but somehow that's putting you in a good position and that's amazing i hope no one ever lifts like you because no one's built like you and i don't know how many other people can do that but like people like kayla or people like jeremy you know a couple of other lifters have found a way to do that but they're fewer and farther in between yeah he's so damn big yeah he just hips and leg hamstring he just yanks and it's but he pulls himself into a perfect good position yeah right where a lot of other people who are like oh i'm gonna do that they're gonna get kicked out of position and then put them in put them in a spot where maybe they can't recover from.

There's also the issue of an athlete being unique in just their mannerisms and their personality. Yeah. And I think you do a good job with training people that have way different personalities. I've been to your gym before a bunch of times and seen the different personalities. And you have to treat everybody a little differently. and everybody does kind of need a different program. The same thing that's going to work for one person isn't going to work for another, not because scientifically it won't work, but because of mentally it might not work well for them or they might be bored to tears by it. They might not like it. Yeah. I think that first, and I always kind of come back to listening to Dave Tate talk about like the different personalities at Westside.

And you'd have to scream at somebody to get them motivated and then go and whisper, you know, and hug somebody and get them. And, you know, it's okay. It's all right. You'll get Mike, Mike Rogerio. I know I didn't want to drop the name, but that's sweetheart. That's the, that's, you know, exactly the clip that I'm talking about or whenever he was talking about it. And, and that has always kind of stuck with me because it is kind of, everybody's different and you don't know what they're kind of going through. And, you know, and then Shaco said it too, where he's just like, everybody comes into the gym and I always say, how are you? It's like,

good. And they go around and they say hello to everybody. Right. And it got to a point at the gym where it's this, like, it's this obnoxious, like hug fest and everyone comes in and does, you know, some people, you know, it takes them a couple of months to be comfortable with it. And other people are just like, you know, it's just, you know, everyone has different personalities. And I do, I want everybody to come to the one. I want people to want to come to the gym and I want them to know that they're allowed to be who they are and that there's no judgment. We don't fucking care.

We're only going to judge what you lift, right? And how you lift it. And if that's better for you, awesome. Great. And I want you to leave, you know, happy and better off. And the kids who are a little more shy, kids who don't talk, the lifter who's puts the headphones on and doesn't talk. And so like my goal for you is I want you to literally start walking into the gym,

taking your shirt off and just flexing in the mirror. And we don't even have any mirrors, but, uh, and you know, that sort of thing. Cause I want to try to bring out people's personalities. Yeah.

And once they know that they're allowed to do that, it's awesome. Cause they're just like, Oh, I mean, this is, Oh, I get it. I get what this place is Oh, I mean, this is, Oh, I get

it. I get what this place is. This is pretty cool. And, um, in all of that, you kind of get to know who they are and get to know mannerisms. And then it's just, you know, I know that if Jeremy is going to come up to me and he's going to say, so I was thinking about doing this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this. I'm like, great. You thought about it. That sounds like you put, I think that's wonderful. I think that's good. Other people need me to be like, I don't know if that's a, you know, and Jeremy has seven different reasons for everything that he's doing. It's like, great. I, yes, I think you should do that too. Cause it's super easy for me to, you know, he's like, I'm going to do this today because of these three things. Like, awesome. I didn't have to think at all. I just have to say yes. Other people like,

I was thinking of, I don't know, like squatting with a barbell today. I was like, Oh, okay. Um, it's a heavy day today. Are you ready? I mean, I don't feel great, but I feel pretty good. Like let's just do pretty good. That's awesome. Cool. Well, like how heavy should pretty good be? I was like, I don't know. Let's figure that out today. Like when you say, yeah, that's pretty good. Then maybe we'll stop there.

But that should, is that, does that, is that like three reps? Like, sure. Like, that's fine too. Like, let's just figure it out. Let's, you know, you got to allow people to kind of get to that. And I try to take a hands-off process as opposed to really kind of shoving people and trying to, you know, square peg round hole things. And it was like, if you feel good and you're like, I think I want to go up like, okay, well let's make a, you know, educated decision

on how we're going to go up. What we're going to do. Is this going to negatively affect the rest of your week? Do you have competition? Do you have anything along these lines? No. Cool. And I'm always like, hey, we want this to add something. We don't want to subtract from anything. This is all addition. Everything in here is addition.

If there's any subtraction or division even, it's worse. Worse. We're not doing those. If this is going to add to things and make better elsewhere on the field in life, awesome. Cool. Good. Go. Cool. Good. Go for it. But if you think there's any possibility that this is going to subtract, then the answer

is probably no. Or, hey, let's just make a smaller jump or whatever it is. Gotcha. There's a video I sent Andrew, and I actually wanted to kind of get your thoughts on it. And after this, it'd be interesting if we pull up the guy's page who this guy's making commentary on. But let's just watch this real quick. And then sound, yeah. Actually, pause.

I think I've seen this guy. No. You can probably turn off the music because it'll copyright hit us. So let's, yeah, it's just going to copyright us. So we'll replay it real quick. No music. If you just explain and see what's going on though. Yeah.

So JT Performance, this isn't his page, but this is a commentary he has on this individual who does a lot of athletic training stuff for athletes. here he has on this individual who does a lot of athletic training stuff for athletes. So like the movements and stuff, just like explosive, sideways stuff. Yeah, there's a lot of balance stuff going on. And actually, Andrew, if you go to the

bottom of this post, you'll be able to see the person's name. Not the post. You'll be able to see whose page it is. Right there. Oh, okay. And pull up their page because he has some interesting stuff on his page but i'm curious what you think about like some of this stuff that trains balance trains and athletes ability to maybe absorb impact like it was a dac performance as well? That we had on the show. Yeah, but Dak is, his stuff is, I think,

maybe somewhat different from this guy's stuff here. But you see, like, what are your thoughts on like some of this type of stuff for athletes? So, you know, for a long time, my goal was always to be the smartest person in the room. At one point, I had more letters after my name than I had in my full name. What I wanted to do was to make sure that I knew what I was doing. It got to a point where, not that I knew so much, but the percentage of stuff that I had learned and I had researched and I had spent such a huge amount of time building up, what I could use for the population that I was dealing with is incredibly small.

Now, I think if we're going to be honest, and this again is a buddy Morris thing, the best thing about this business is that everything works. The worst part about this business is that everything works. This sort of stuff. Does it have a place in the program? Absolutely. Yeah. Um, is it a program for my 84 year old sock 80 or 84 pound soccer player? 84 year old sock 80 or 84 pound soccer player, probably a tough sell. Is this guy a professional athlete? Maybe. And does that work for him? Cool. Is he in the off season? Is he in the end season? Is this guy just really good at doing this stuff and bad at some other stuff? And you're just highlighting the good stuff opposed to the bad stuff. I don't know, but the percentage of people that I'm going to be able to deal with and effectively use a lot of this stuff is really, really small. I think you can use a lot of that stuff. You know, balance is something that I've kind of, uh, end around it a little bit. Now I like a lot of the, like the slack board, um, there's slack blocks, um, again, kind of a bunch of the ankle rocker stuff, um know, and jumps in, you know, certain situations and, you know, absorbing force in different spots.

But that's for a smaller amount of population, right? All this stuff has a spot in training, but there's no way that this is how he trains everybody. Yeah. Because of the, the resources in the space that a lot of this stuff is going to take place in if he's doing it one-on-one. Okay, cool. But if you have a group of kids, it's going to be impossible, right? There's a, I'm not going to be chaos. Exactly. So there's one of my lifters is a strength coach at a high school high school just gets a bunch of um new coaches coaches are just hell-bent on i want every single one of my kids to have an individual program i want it based off of velocity you know the the jump boards and

all this other stuff and other stuff and he's just like come on into the weight room, three 30 on Thursday. And I want, and I just want you to watch 40 kids in less than 3000 square feet. Yeah. Chaos. 45 minutes of work. Well, yeah. If you're lucky,

if you're lucky. Right. And he kind of looks around and he's like, you guys are doing a great job. Nobody got hurt. Right. Nothing got set on fire. I think we did a really good job here today.

So who can we apply a lot of this stuff for, right? And how much can you control? Cal Dietz is probably one of the smartest minds in strength and conditioning, but he works with such a small select group of athletes that he can control. I mean, he has that moment, you know, he has got three or four different, you know, bio, bio trackers on them. And he's been doing this for such a long time that he can granularly look at these people and understand and know how to make them work and how to make them go and apply things like this. Um, I think there's stuff that you can use, but I mean, I don't know if I have a ton of people who could do that yeah i mean that's i mean how many people out there can do a copenhagen side plank really rigid and straight on for over a minute not necessarily a ton of people a small amount now you're going to ask

them to be active up higher, harder and shoulder stabilization. Look, if this works for this guy and certain stuff, there's a lot of stuff. Like I would, I like that stuff. That's great. That's a warmup. That's doing a lot of really cool stuff. And that's a kettlebell and a little bit of space. When, you know, I really think that people who are, who want to do all the sexy stuff that I, you can work up to some of that stuff, but you may never be able to get there because your athletes just aren't ready.

And by the way, there's, you know, there's a ton of other stuff that you're going to be able to benefit from. crazy like this or not that's not crazy that's just a lunch but something a little bit out of the norm opposed to me saying like hey um what'd you eat for lunch today let's talk about that so which one is going to get us you know better longer lasting results yeah he's probably talking about food and picking up those kind of small uh small rocks on on the way to some of the big rocks. But it's not like he's doing anything that's wrong or looks like he's getting hurt or could really hurt anyone as long as it applied to the right population. I just think that people get caught up in doing stuff way too fast. And the novelty.

Way too heavy, and it's the novelty. And then how do we progress this? That's the end level progression right i mean i off the top of my head i can think of 25 exercises before we get to that one right and it's great that's a really effective exercise it's creative i really really like that how do you set that up for you know know, who has 24 landmines? Yeah. Yeah. Who has 24 barbells? Right. Yeah. So, I mean, there's, there's a lot of things to kind of consider. And I mean, I think a lot of people want to, you know, um, I, I really think we got to give people, especially in strength and conditioning, especially working with multiple kids, um, in strength and conditioning, especially working with multiple kids and multiple teams, a little bit more grace, right? If someone's going to pay me my hourly rate of $250 and we can get up to

that stuff and I can be very awesome. But when I have 18 kids, right, I'm going to do the best with what I have and I know what I can do and I know I can get them better. Um, but we're probably not going to be able to get to that stuff. Um, and if it is a special situation, yeah, awesome. Let's do it. But you know, doing a bear crawl is just as effective sometimes. Yeah. I think what we're seeing, you know, sometimes with some of the stuff that's being shown on social media is you're seeing like highlight, it's a highlight reel. It's a highlight reel. It's also like I would say like they're professional athlete Instagrammers. Like they're not professional athletes usually. They're coaches.

And one thing I think to pay attention with with a coach is who else is in the picture? Who else is training? Who else is doing this? And when you just see it, it's just the guy himself. who else is doing this? And when you just see it, it's just the guy himself. I think you have a lot of your answers on who this is working for or who this is being used on. So the more that you just see the guy himself promoting the thing, I'm not saying that that's a telltale sign that it doesn't work, but it's a telltale sign that it hasn't been utilized and tested and maybe proven just yet on a lot of other athletes. Maybe

it's working for that guy and that's cool that he can do that. And I'm sure there are professional athletes and probably people that are just well-versed in movement that can probably go in and handle some of those movements and possibly do some of those movements even better than him. But I think it is something just to kind of keep in the back of your head of like, I think it is something just to kind of keep in the back of your head of like, who's this guy working with? Like one of my, you know, colleague, friend, mentor, Cressy, every time that you look at Eric's stuff, he's finding a creative way to dumb down an exercise to give to his professional athletes. And that's maybe a harsh, you know, look at what he's doing. But he's trying to throw novelty in there for the sake of not doing more stuff to get an athlete hurt. Because he's got, I got 18 high school kids. He's got like $40, $10 million arms.

Sheesh. They're not doing that shit. They're just not because how do you explain to the yankees that you did something to i won't say gary cole because he might actually be hurt um to to to judge or to soto or to something and then it comes out that it was because you were doing some fancy thing you saw on Instagram. Ooh, man, you're going to lose your job. And, you know, House always talked about that, right? When he got, I think when he got fired from ASU, they're like, ah, you know, got a lot of hamstring tears. And he's just like, pull them all up.

One guy tore his hamstring, you know know in an open field running you know with the ball or running after somebody someone else did it you know these are non-weight room lift you know things it you know getting blamed for that is gonna you know lose your job so i'm not telling people to not do anything and not challenge kids athletes etc but to a point you have to make sure that they're able to do stuff, right? And it's, again, about addition. Is this going to positively affect everything else? If you and the athlete are like, yeah,

then hey, I'm all for it. If you're someone that's taking supplements or vitamins or anything to help move the needle in terms of your health, how do you know you really need them? And the reason why I'm asking you how do you know is because many people don't know their levels of their testosterone, their vitamin D, all these other labs like their thyroid, and they're taking these supplements to help them function at peak performance. But that's why we've partnered with Merrick Health for such a long time

now, because you can get yourself different lab panels like the Power Project panel, which is a comprehensive set of labs to help you figure out what your different levels are. And when you do figure out what your levels are, you'll be able to work with a patient care coordinator that will give you suggestions as far as nutrition optimization, supplementation, or if you're someone who's a candidate and it's necessary, hormonal optimization to help move you in the right direction so you're not playing guesswork with your body. Also, if you've already gotten your lab work done, but you just want to get a checkup, we also have a checkup panel that's made so that you can check up and make sure that

everything is moving in the right direction if you've already gotten comprehensive lab work done. This is something super important that I've done for myself. I've had my mom work with Merrick. We've all worked with Merrick just to make sure that we're all moving in the right direction and we're not playing guesswork with our body. Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, that's over at merrickhealth.com slash powerproject. And at checkout, enter promo code powerproject to save 10% off any one of these panels or any lab on the entire website.

Links in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. I want to read this caption as this is going on. It's from Eric Cressy. And it's funny because it lines up with exactly what you're just saying. Exercise execution matters far more than exercise selection. As an example, on a rotational landmine press, you can simply lean and press, or you can put force into the ground with a triplanar hip loading and athletically transfer that force through the trunk. A good league leg block further facilitates motion into scapular upward rotation that delivers the arm and in turn the barbell. Every rep has a chance to get better, but not if you simply go through the motions.

Great work here from Pirates pitcher Quinn Priester. Right. But exactly. Yeah. You know? And I mean, this is very specific to an overhead athlete, right? So, I mean, and this is a thing that we can benefit from. But that's a single arm.

You know, that's, what is that? 70, 80 pounds that he's doing for multiple reps. You can tell this guy has worked extremely hard to even get to this point. Look at his disgusting sweaty shirt, right? He has been working his ass off. So this isn't something that he just jumped into. There was a lot of work to get to one of this and i can guarantee knowing eric that quinn has been with him for a number of years and he has had to work up to this he probably started landmine here and then lightweight got to a certain point where it's like okay cool now we do

push press now we're gonna you know lead leg block and then now we're gonna go scapular to upper rotation in you know in a with or with a turn in all these other things you can see how deliberate everything is everything is how much the guy is moving his opposite arm not the arm that's pressing but the other arm is coming down like he's clearly like almost like flexing that almost like activating that lat on that side right so. So I think there's just, there's so much to be said about proper selection. And I mean, there's so much that should go into it.

Is this a, where's this athlete in his competitive career in the competitive year? You know, he would not, he doesn't do this with everybody because there are a lot of pitchers who have a ton of, you know, their shoulders already raised. Now you're going to encourage scapular upward rotation?

He's not going to do that. What he's going to do is he's going to try to be able to facilitate being able to pull that scap back down and back in between because that needs to move in order to get to the range of motion that these guys need to get to. So this isn't something that you can just throw at all pitchers and get something out of, right? Well, I mean, probably to a start, there's a lot of really, really positive things about that, but this is something that this guy,

you know, has worked himself up to and, you know, but that is, that's a glorified shoulder press push press. Right. And he's trying to make it exciting enough for a million dollar arm to come in and do it.

And you got to throw a little, like, to me, that's extremely, that there's a lot of novelty to that. Yeah. Right. You don't need a bunch of other stuff. Right. I mean, and Eric used to be, you know, a power lifter and he used to be big on chain and big on bands and they're all gone. They're all gone. You know, very rarely will use any of it he uses chains

on deadlift and i think that's it nowadays but that's where he came from he was a powerlifter and that's you know he's he's heavy in the conjugate and if you look at his programming there's a lot of conjugate aspects to what he does um but you don't see him doing a bunch of weird crazy stuff why here's queen prester dude he was the number one draft pick for the pictures for the pirates that that tanks your whole that's it you're that's it yeah period you will never get anyone from them that agency will never send you someone else that guy is going to shit talk you for the rest of his fucking career because you ruined it that guy could that guy's next contracts could be a hundred million dollars yeah you have to start thinking about these things and if you overthink it it's you know paralysis

by analysis i get it but especially with someone who has any sort of possibility, I think it's 7% of high school athletes will go on to play college. And of the college, I think it's like 1% will be able to go on into any sort of professional sports. So you're dealing with a really, really small amount in general. But anyone who has aspirations, you need to foster those aspirations and take them seriously because it's part of who you are. Because if you do right by that kid, that kid's never going to stop singing your praises.

That dad's going to tell every other dad, like, well, I went to Jesse or I went to whatever, right? And it's going to be a never ending turned on faucet for you. You should approach those things that way. Not a man. I can't wait to have him do this exercise. Let's put it on Instagram. And I don't know what that guy's doing. Right. I think that again, there's a lot of really good, cool stuff that he's doing. But for me, the application is so small, so small, but I mean, this is just a cursory look. There's two things that I'd be like, oh, I could totally use that in a warmup or I could totally use something there.

Yeah. But in a warmup and also in just exercise selection, you have to be able to start somewhere and progress to something else that leads into something else that also leads into something else that can also be progressed. Right. you also need it because if you're dealing with a team or a bunch of athletes you need to be able to regress that yeah because not everybody can you know do the single arm um you know static hold uh kettlebell walking a bear crawl in a circle thing yeah you have to be able to say you just do bear crawls in a circle like okay cool we'll work up to the one leg or one arm right okay and then we'll work up to we'll do nine pounds and then 16 and 20 and like he had like a 56 pound kettlebell that's really difficult the kid can't hold a plank am i should i do that for no no and i know i'm sure that guy knows that

right and um again it's it's a highlight reel and that's awesome and it's saying like look look how much i know that's really cool that's really really cool but how much of that can you actually put out there probably a very small amount and that's okay you can be really really effective and do and you know stay in this business for a long time without you know having anybody do anything crazy yeah yeah people might see um even the things that like patrick mahomes does in training and he's got a trainer um he's got a coach he's got someone who's taken him through all these different movements but he's been with that guy since he was in like sixth grade right so like you you're saying i mean is first of all patrick mahomes one of the

greatest athletes in the world like He's absolutely amazing and incredible. So you've got to keep that in mind. But you also have to keep in mind he's been working at this for a really long time. So those drills that you see him doing, maybe it's not the best thing for you to go jump into haphazardly. Yeah. He's doing a lot of Proteus stuff, I think, if he does. I think it was on here. It's a machine that he's kind of pushing, pulling.

Oh, yeah. That force, right? That throwing thing, right? That the machine you're talking about? Yeah. It's Proteus motion. Again, that's one of Cressy's thing. But there's a lot of stuff.

Like, not all of, I mean, step back lunge. Face pull. I mean, this is all really basic stuff. Bear crawl, straight leg with, you know, some sliders. Awesome. It's all really, really good stuff. Easy stuff. You know, we don't have to overdo some of it. And this, you know, some of this stuff is going to be very particular to Patrick, right? Yeah. His coach will actually do almost like mile faster release while he's doing other stuff. That's actually interesting. Throwing like that towel. But yeah, he'll sometimes do like mile faster release, like in, like in an exercise. i've seen him do that before too it's super interesting but that's that's an extreme one percent that's 99th percentile of 99th percentile right yeah so i

mean and he he does stuff that you know no one's ever done no one like when you know i mean i remember steve you know this will age us but i mean, Steve Young was like one of the first people to maybe kind of throw a football sidearm unconventionally, right? And he would only do that every once in a while. And then you see Patrick Mahomes doing that like while he's falling down and flips it backward in your, like nobody else should try to do that because Patrick Mahomes is the only person who can do that. Switching gears a little bit. I'd like to get your take on this. I sent Andrew a clip as well. It's a current or a more recent clip from Nick Saban.

But with you being like a mentor to a lot of people, I'd like to get some of your take on this. He's amazing. I think he's awesome. That's Ted Cruz. That's not Nick. We're getting there. That's not Cruz. That's not Nick. We're getting there. That's not the old ball coach.

How much did the current chaos and state of the law contribute to your decision to retire now? Well, all the things that I believed in for all these years, 50 years of coaching, no longer exist in college athletics. So it's always about developing players. It was always about helping people be more successful in life. My wife even said to me, we'd have all the recruits over on Sunday with their parents for breakfast. And she would always meet with the mothers and talk about how she was going to help and impact their sons and how they would be well taken care of. And she came to me, you know, like right before I retired and said, why are we doing this? And I said, what do you mean?

She said, all they care about is how much you're going to pay them. They don't care about how you're going to develop them, which is what we've always done. So why are we doing this? You're going to develop them, which is what we've always done. So why are we doing this? So, you know, to me, that was sort of a red alert that we really are creating a circumstance here that is not beneficial to the development of young people. And I want their quality of life to be good. I think, as I said before, name, image, and likeness is a great opportunity for them to create a brand for themselves. I'm not against that at all.

opportunity for them to create a brand for themselves. I'm not against that at all. But to come up with some kind of a system that still can help the development of young people, I think is paramount to the future of college athletics. I mean, I don't know if you can say it much better than that. I mean, I think it's a tragedy. It's a tragedy that we're losing coaches like Nick Saban, that we're losing people to a lesser extent like a Bill Belichick or these people, these coaches who have just been around forever. And not only are they amazing at their job, but so many people have gotten better because of those men.

It's a dying breed. I have a client who is a collegiate baseball player. of those men. It's a dying breed. I have a client who was a collegiate baseball player at Minnesota, and then he transferred to Oklahoma. He went and saw Minnesota. I think they were playing Saks State or something. Coach is still there. Coach runs up, gives him a hug, says, oh my gosh, asked about his wife, asked about his kids. This is a middle relief guy who threw 30 innings for this coach 30 years ago.

And this guy remembered his name, remembered he was married. Remember he had a son and a daughter. Remember that his daughter committed to volleyball to a certain school, all this other stuff, those guys, those coaches are disappearing and it's a tragedy. And a lot of it has to do with the parents who have these completely unrealistic expectations for their kids and, or see these kids as their way out of the life that they're in for something um very specifically just kind of a little bit of a sidebar there very specifically what

nick or what coach saban is talking about is the name image like likeness stuff which allows so you you have x amount of um for anyone who doesn't know you have x amount of scholarships amount of, for anyone who doesn't know, you have X amount of scholarships per sport, per school. Not everybody has the same because revenue is different for schools. Not every sport has the same. Not everybody is maxed out. That stays the same, but there are now with name, image, likeness, there are these basically businesses that are starting up that will pay kids to come to your school. And you can rely on these people to help make sure that you have the recruits that you need to. I heard it earlier this year that a higher high level QB1, qb2 in the transfer portal it's a million dollars that's awesome for the kids good for you hell yeah that's awesome um but it turns college

athletics into something completely different it's now just a bunch of assassins who are coming in year one, year two, year three, year four. They don't care how much of a good person that you can make them, that coach Saban can make them. They don't care about the degree on the wall. They don't care if they go to school. They just care that you can pay more than he can pay. And I will pay, I will play for you. Now that presents problems for the kid that presents problems for the coaching staff that presents problems for the team because most of the college coaches aren't making a million dollars a year.

Yeah. So now you're a badass quarterback that just transferred in what the fuck are you gonna listen to me bitch i make a million dollars it's like what do you make i think our conversation is over i think you should just leave the weight room there's no i can't help right and i mean not every kid is like that yeah not everybody i mean it's not that hard to imagine that that's a situation that is going to rapidly approach and you know flawed as it is the the college system and you know the ncaa has made billions of dollars off the backs of kids who

didn't make anything right and might be working somewhere with a shitty back and um and all these other things and i'm not saying that that's right i think that this is a good thing but how they thought giving an 18 year old kid a million dollars is going to be a good idea is beyond me they just really there's no foresight there yeah right and um you know there, there's so much of that kind of going on. And there's, you know, the integrity of the kids and even the coaches, you know, if you're in the same, you know, if we're rivals and I steal your with that. But it's becoming harder and harder to deal with these situations because people are becoming so empowered in certain different ways and their expectations are so ridiculous. And I don't know. I hate to complain about it without any sort of a solution, right? And I'm not nitpicking. I'm trying not to be negative about it.

I think there's a lot of positives about it, but when you have people like Nick Saban who are like, you know what, this isn't the same. And the coach from the baseball coach from Minnesota is retiring. It's like, yeah, I don't get to do what I want. I don't have a baseball team anymore. You know, I got 20 kids that are here to hope that they get drafted or hope that I can pay more than whomever, whatever. And that's not what they signed up for. What's that? I'm just curious.

Is there, does that also mean like a high volume of really good athletes are trying to go to certain schools and not others because of that? It's whoever has the most. I mean, I don't know, you know, it, everybody's motivation is going to be different, right? So, you know, you're going to want to go to a place because so-and-so recruited you because you like the school because the facilities are awesome because it's proximity to your parents being able to come and watch you. And, you know, and they're going to, and they develop kids to be whatever you take a chance on that. Right.

I don't know the percentage of motivation of kids who are going to say like i'll come here if you hit my number but it's not hard to imagine that that's happening a fair amount of time um and that makes the whole recruiting side of things different and it makes the you know if you can you know think about phil jackson with you know everybody you know that's a lot of divas on a team to try to figure out now you're not managing game stuff you're not x and o's you're dealing with ego management and what if i beat you out and you're making a million dollars and i'm not what if you get hurt and i come in and I do better? It's like, now the coach is like, do we take his million dollars and give it to him?

Cause if not, he's going to leave, but he might leave too. But who's better? Uh, how do you, how do you deal with those things? Right.

And it's no longer like, you know, uh, it's, it's just changing the face of things. And, um, I think in some instances,

in some cases, I think it is a positive thing because it'll allow people to take care of, you know, some bills and maybe get out of a situation that there were in, but it's going to present a lot more problems. And I think this is indicative of when coach Saban and some other guys who've been in it for a long time and they're in it because they love what they do. Right. They're not in it for kickbacks from an agent or whatever, right. They're in it because this is all that they know how to do and they're good at it.

And it's, um, it's going to be coming. Those people are dinosaurs and it sucks because they're going to go away and, you know, it's becoming harder and harder, you know, dealing with it on the high school side of things. You know, there's a bunch of job openings all the time. And people just aren't filling them. And the reason is it's impossible. You can't coach a kid. You can't say something negative to a kid. You have to deal with these parents who think their kid is the shit

and you're a fucking idiot for not playing them. And they're going to take that up to the administration and get you fired. And you're making $2,000 a year. A year. I'm thinking right now in my head, I'm thinking like, if the coaches that coached me

weren't allowed to use negativity, they wouldn't have said anything. I don't think. Right. And I mean, you know, we're, there's some extreme examples in there. Right. And I mean, you know, you know, there's people who've had bad, like really, really bad, you know, get hit type. That's not okay. Okay. I'm we're, we're not endorsing that, but if you can't, if you have a style that's abrasive, I mean, Bobby Knight. Oh, God. There's no possible way this guy exists.

Dinosaur. No, he would have like some of his better players like just pay and buy him out and be like, I'm done with you. Well, I mean, no one would go to India. That's true. Yeah. Because no one would play for him. So I know like NIL deals, they're not coming from like one organization right like so every school has their own um i forget what they call it it's like a conglomerate

or it's the you know coalition or whatever the hell it is and the coach can't say andrew if you come here i'm gonna give you a hundred thousand dollars plus the scholarship plus all the other stuff it's like hey you have this here if you you come here, go over there, talk to Bob, Bob will tell you what we can do. And though, and you know, it's going to be somebody who's Nissan dealership and you know, some, someone's bagel shop or something that they're all kind of throwing stuff in and say, Hey, we'll, we'll sponsor you and we will sponsor you by paying you a hundred thousand dollars. And you do a commercial for us.

You do a couple of posts or whatever. we will sponsor you by paying you a hundred thousand dollars and you do a commercial for us. You do a couple of posts or whatever. I know, um, I don't know. I know a couple of athletes who have gotten like really, really small scale, like, Hey, it's $200 a month. Just put up, it was like a job recruiter site or something along those lines. And they were a president of a, um, whatever her major was. Uh, and she was out there, getting like $200. And that was the extent of her NIL money. Like, dude, that's awesome. That's, you know, taco money or beer money or whatever it is that you want. That's fantastic.

Good for you. But that's how they kind of get away. Okay. Where there's these independent things that are connected but not connected. It's just basically sponsorships from donors. Alumni and so forth yeah yeah it'd be sick to get a power project you know nil deal but uh well what i was gonna ask everybody wants your everybody wants money if you want to you want to influence uh santa monica city college brother but what i was gonna ask is like so again like like in the NFL, right? There's a cap, there's a cap space.

Is there anything like that with NIL deals at all? Because if there's not, then I would assume that, you know, cause like Alabama and some of these bigger schools that are like huge in football, like they had not a monopoly, but they're like, Hey, do you want to go to the NFL? Okay. Then, you know, you got to go get coached by Nick Saban. So they had like the upper hand. Right.

But now I'm imagining just better, wealthier areas are going to be able to get a shit ton of players. Yeah. That's wild. But I mean, that's the, you know, it's cool to be on the side that I am because I have a couple of kids who are

going to get to deal with that stuff. They're that talented, but to, there's a juggling act where you have to be like okay cool do you like the school yes okay do you like the coaches yeah okay i think that you know and they got good parents like that's gonna outweigh what they're gonna if we're gonna if we even get any nil money cool um they're gonna develop me into whatever. Right. But without parental supervision or someone who's really cares about your future, you might take a deal and you might end up somewhere that you fucking hate.

And then that's a year. And then you have to try and do it again and you have to try and do it again until you find the right spot. You know, I think, you know, I think Saban said it a couple of times where it's like these kids aren't learning how to be resilient and learning how to stick through things and, you know, learning how to, if it's not just completely given to them, you know, they're not taking anything. They just want you to give it to them.

Right. And they're not actually earning a lot. You know, they're earning stuff because they're talented and everything, but they have to stay on their grind in order to really do much better. But their kids, we call them four or five-star recruits. In three years, a true five-star recruit at a college probably over the life of his career is going to –'s going to be $2.5 million. That's crazy. It's craziness.

And as an 18-year-old, how do you turn that down? Right? Luckily, the kids that I get to deal with have great moms and dads. And they're just like, you don't go talk to Bob over there at the coalition. I'm going to go talk to Bob. I mean, it's just like, because they're going to be like, Hey, we'll get you one of these ones. Like not talking to my dad,

man. I don't know. And they go talk to dad and dad's just like, I don't fucking care about your money. Tell me about the degree he's going to get. And they're like, Oh, Oh,

okay, cool. So, I mean, there's, but then there's some people who are just like my son, you know, just like what Saban's talking about. It's like,

how much money are you going to give me? And like, we flew you down here. we're making you breakfast at our house and you're demanding x amount of money or you're not gonna you're not gonna come to the school like you should be kind of that's that's awesome that you got here enjoy it yeah that's really cool um and if any offers and you can play yourself into some more money that's great yeah you'll earn it because i mean you know where he's from alabama's just a you know they can do pretty much whatever they want but there's also other schools who it is really interesting there are schools who have and are throwing crazy money at kids but they can't get them to come because the program isn't that good or the coaches aren't at the level that they are.

So that's why you have all these. And now it's turned into a position where these coaches like the dominoes from Harbaugh and Saban retiring, like the coaching carousel is crazy, absolutely crazy. So when you have – and then that just disrupts everything too, because kids are there because of a coach or because they got recruited. If the coach leaves and the recruiter left, you are free. You can do whatever you want. They're trying to bring you there. But then the new coach is coming in, trying to get you to stay at the same time that it becomes a bidding war too. And it's just like, that's, it's much more of a business than it is a sport at that point and it's unfortunately you know not everybody is going to benefit from this right not all the kids

are going to be able to reap some of these rewards and some of these kids are still going to take it advantage of yeah which is the worst part about it which we're trying to get away from in having the nil in um to start with is just like, we got to stop doing this. These kids earn some money, you know, it's, it's great. Good. Fine. Um, you know, if you follow Johnny Menzel, they earn their money different ways anyways. So, you know, now you make it legal or legal, whatever it is. Uh, you know, I don't know if it makes it better. I don't know if the product on, you know, and you see the, just the separation of uh you know i don't know if it makes it better i don't know if the product on you know and you see the just the separation of you know top five schools to top 10 schools to

top 20 schools you know especially in football right you're like i was the number 14 gets blown out by 40 like whoa shit and that's just the way that it is and if you're not on that team then you're not going to get seen and then maybe you don't get sponsored so why would you go somewhere else yeah so i mean it it it just muddies the water a lot and more than anything it's a tragedy to see these these guys who are these these coaches these amazing people um just disappearing because they're just like this is what i signed up for this is is not this. My job description is completely different. Jesse Burdick, who do you coach and how can somebody hire you?

I coach anyone who wants to be coached. Anyone who I can help, I'm willing to do so. They can always contact me, Jesse Burdick, on all socials. My phone number is out there everywhere. Emails are out there and everywhere. And, you know, at this point, you know, I'm so happy to be able to do what I do professionally and to continue to be able to support my family and do the things that I want to do. And, you know, I try not to limit it to any one person in particular because I think that everybody deserves some help one way or the other. I'll answer my phone. I'll answer text messages.

I'll answer emails. Probably do'll answer text messages. I'll answer emails, probably do way too much for it for not enough return. But that's how I got to where I am because people answered the phone and, you know, I always want to make sure I can pay that back to anyone in any sort of way. But yeah, you can catch me anywhere. Not as prolific as I used to be on the socials, but I'm there. Trust me watching, not in a weird way though. You have a power lifting team as well, right? Yeah. We have a, we have a power lifting team, power on team. We just moved gyms over to CrossFit Pleasanton.

And you know, we're starting to, I think we have four or five lifters lifting in like two weeks, another four or five and another couple of months. So trying to build that back up as well. COVID really kind of hurt the, the power lifters, you know, everyone kind of scattered or decided that their power was over too heavy.

Yes. And you know, it's hard to, you know, besides like to sheer, right. Like how could you do that on your own in your garage? It was, you gotta be a special crazy person. Right. So you need a little bit more of a gym.

So some people have kind of transitioned and taken their fitnesses elsewhere, but yeah, we have, you know, we have the gen pop, we have the athletes, we have the lifters, you know, the afterschool athletes and, um, anybody that I can help is, you know, someone that I want to work with. Also, um, I just signed on to be the chief wellness officer of a, uh, a company in San Bruno. So I'm dealing with all their C-class executives and we're going to be able to branch out and do, um, they're going to branch out from the logistics and, uh, travel side of things, start to do executive protection and start to make sure that those guys are lifestyle and fitness wise taken care of as well. So that's kind of the new thing we're kind of dipping our toe into.

And it's been really cool and rewarding and fun to get to work with those guys. It's been pretty cool. Awesome. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.