Mark Bell's Power Project - Strong AND Mobile: The Secret to Building Functional Strength - Chris Chamberlin || MBPP Ep. 1130
Episode Date: March 3, 2025Discover the secrets to building functional strength and staying mobile in Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast, episode 1130! Hosts Mark Bell and Nsima Inyang are joined by Chris Chamberlin to dive ...into advanced lifting techniques, the power of heavy kettlebells, and incorporating dynamic movements like Bulgarian split squats and rope flow exercises. Learn how to improve strength, coordination, and body awareness while applying these principles to both gym training and everyday life. Tune in now and get inspired to optimize your fitness journey with practical tips and expert insights.Follow Chris on IG: https://www.instagram.com/erodingweakness/Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.liveJoin The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qNSubscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUwSpecial perks for our listeners below!🥜 Protect Your Nuts With Organic Underwear 🥜➢https://nadsunder.com/Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 15% off your order!🍆 Natural Sexual Performance Booster 🍆 ➢https://usejoymode.com/discount/POWERPROJECTUse 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 POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 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/powerproject1Pumps 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/markbellspowerprojectFOLLOW Mark Bell➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybellFollow Nsima InyangFollow Nsima Inyang ➢ Ropes and equipment : https://thestrongerhuman.store➢ Community & Courses: https://www.skool.com/thestrongerhuman➢ YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=enFollow Andrew Zaragoza➢ Podcast Courses and Free Guides: https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz/➢ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamandrewz#PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject
Transcript
Discussion (0)
You have kettlebells that I don't think anybody else even has in the whole world.
Yeah, 363, I think.
How did you get that?
Well, I know a guy.
Have you tried like a standard deadlift or overhead press?
I do things cold.
What I was doing was every morning at the beginning of COVID,
I'd walk into my garage cold and then I would just rip 500 pounds off the ground.
Every morning I went in there and I did it like five in the morning.
I just ripped my PR and then I started adding weight to it.
My goal right now is to put a 400 pound sandbag to my shoulder and I'm a buck 75.
Another big thing you notice is that you're very good
at moving through space with weight.
I don't always have to make every lift like move
and shift and all that, but ultimately the thought process
behind why I'm doing it and the progressive nature of it
would lend itself to have some sort of traveling component
to it or some sort of weight shifting component to it.
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Welcome to the show today, Chris Chamberlain.
Hey, I'm excited.
Thanks for coming in.
This is maybe like what, your third time or so?
I think this is second.
Second time being on the show?
I think I did the last one with Dave, I think.
Cool, well, we're digging what you're doing.
We see the Instagram clips and we're always just like, oh my God, like, what is this guy
doing with these crazy weights?
You have kettlebells that I don't think anybody else even has in the whole world.
Yeah, I try to do that.
Yeah.
There's a couple other guys now, but.
Thing like 370 pounds or something?
Yeah, 363, I think.
How'd you get that?
Oh, well, I know a guy and I like, yeah, he hooks me up.
So yeah, and he's actually, he's a, so it's Colin.
I think it was Great Lakes Gira Pro was originally what he was.
I think he might be changing his brain right now to tactical strength supply or something.
But he makes, he calls them tweener bells.
So for those of us, there are quite a few of us now that are liking to swing over that 92 kg.
He's making two kilo increments,
two kilo, maybe four kilo increments,
all the way up to 460 pounds.
Super hilarious, because you remember,
someone would look at a hotel gym or something,
and they'd be like, oh, this thing sucks,
all it has is 50 pound dumbbells. Or sometimes commercial gym, people thing sucks, all it has is 50 pound dumbbells.
Or sometimes commercial gym, people are like,
all they have is 100 pound dumbbells.
And now you're kind of swinging around
with one arm sometimes.
Yeah.
A nearly 400 pound kettlebell.
Yeah, I mean I'm flipping the 92 kgs,
a 200 pound kettlebell and all that.
And what's your body weight?
I'm buck, you know I think I'm a buck 75 right now.
Yeah, so I'm pretty happy with where I'm at.
I think I just dropped like 15 pounds
probably in the past year or something.
And I've kind of like in the past month or two,
I've been really like seeing that I'm able to retain
some of the strength I had with that 15 pounds,
like really hitting some weights.
Yeah, me throwing shit.
You know, I don't know if there's a kettlebell
that was about to pop up in this one.
Oh, I sent a couple kettlebell clips, I think, to you, Ryan.
Me flipping.
Well, you know, an interesting thing is when somebody
does go down and look at your Instagram page,
I think one of the first things that people are going
to ask for is, what's this guy training for? The second thing they'll notice is that you move extremely well, but then they'll also ask themselves
How the hell would I train for all this is so what are you training for dude? Yeah, so to be honest
I love I pride myself in being a teacher. Okay, and really all I'm trying to do kind of at this point is to
Explore and experience as many modalities and things in
movement as I can.
So I can embody that myself and that I can give that to other people.
And that's what I'm really after.
And I mean, I was a coach, I've been a coach for like 18 years now.
And I mean, the first 14, 12 of that we're working with just normal people and trying
to help people in normal
things in life and just to enjoy life.
And the more I can feel within myself, the more I'm able to offer something to other
people.
And then in the position I am with like Dave at Wek Method, like I work with my peers and
I work with coaches and I want to do things that are aspirational that excite them so
that they want to understand what I do underneath of all that so
They can pass that on to more and more people. So what does uh,
What does the kind of strength that you have
What does it feel like when it's applied to something like something like sprinting?
Something like jumping and I think you've been doing some jiu-jitsu and stuff like that as well. Yeah
so basically what I've noticed
with a lot of what I do is that I can come into something,
something new with a decent amount of power or strength
in it or I can do well at it without maybe
good technical proficiency or something out the gate.
So if I care about it, then I can put time and effort
and develop a practice behind the thing.
But I tend to be able to kind of pop in
and do something well with it.
Like when I met Dave, like I had a,
I was a pretty strong guy and I was fast,
but I didn't really sprint a lot.
But when I did, I could run like a,
I think I ran a 47, 400 or something like that,
which was pretty fast.
Yeah, that's fast.
I moved to California like, yeah, which was pretty fast. Yeah, that's fast. I moved to California like 10 years ago
and a couple of guys I worked with at the gym were sprinters
and they were like, you're not fast,
I bet you're not fast.
Like let's go into the track.
And like, I went and like hit the track with them
and they were like, they were looking at me,
we timed it, we were like, what?
And they were like, you just looked terrible running,
which is always the thing with me when I first,
I just, I ran like a penguin,
but I just had a lot of fucking like butt to me.
You know what I mean?
Just like work hard.
I like working hard.
So, but the same comes with my jumping technique all the time.
Like I kind of-
It's a little different.
Yeah, I do some bad habits sometimes.
I can, I'm improving on it,
but like I just don't always care about that specifically.
I just do what feels sort of raw and natural a lot of the time.
And I like to trust, a big thing I'm trying to kind of get
a crutch to like my coaches and stuff is like trusting
your intuition a little more and not always going on the like,
it's gotta be this way or that way.
And like, if you just have the raw effort
of like an external task and just getting it done and just see how your body does it
and then sort of build off of that thought process
and see how you felt doing it and all that.
I think there's just a lot of room for, yeah, what is this?
I think this is really cool too,
just seeing how you're using a dumbbell there,
seeing how it's working into your rotational patterns.
That's-
Yeah, essentially everything I do
and like we're working on is I'm trying to help develop
a language that sort of defines that all movement is rotation in some component.
You know what I mean?
So even the bilateral like sagittal stuff, like I look at that as a form of rotation.
And we, we talk about that being this torsion principle.
Dave throws out the word external internal torsion a lot of the time.
So it's this idea of like working about a center line
and pulling through it or around it.
So a super simple thing that somebody could do
and you do it and you have done it before is make your bed
and take the sheet and throw the sheet over the bed.
And you're going to move between the two torsion lines
essentially.
And you can learn to do that like very fluidly and effortlessly and easy.
And like you don't even think about it doing that.
You're just getting the task done.
Or once you start to understand it, you can start doing drills like isometrics
and things that you can start really associating the lines
and maybe all the tissue that's involved in it.
And then take that and then start moving,
call it like an isolated transition where where you try to do something,
where you're trying to stay in one of them,
which you'll start seeing people sort of shape,
their body shapes will change based on that.
So, like fighters, they tend to be kind of like that shoulder forward,
and they're like always ready to grab and grapple and go.
And there's somebody I would refer to as being like a very internally torqued athlete.
And then maybe like an endurance athlete, like a sprinter or something,
they might be sticking out a little more, a little more upright, but sticking out like,
they would be like an external torsion athlete type of thing.
So you'll see the shape of the body change a little bit based on things you emphasize.
And it starts making you kind of like question, like there's not like a right or wrong of stuff.
You just start looking at things as that we're like adaptive and like I just want to adapt
to the thing I want to adapt to and this is what's going to happen to my body as I do
it and then certain cues and things like that just won't associate to me any longer like
when I'm going through that process and that's where you get all that like oh that's wrong
or right type thought.
Have you randomly tried to, like over the last,
you know, maybe a couple years when you started
to develop the strength with the kettlebells
and these different capacities,
have you tried like a standard deadlift or overhead press?
Is there anything where you're like,
oh, that was pretty interesting
because I haven't done that in a long time
and I was able to do a set of three out of nowhere.
Yeah, so the biggest one with me for deadlift,
I don't have like a crazy deadlift or anything,
but I can't, what happened is right at the beginning
of COVID, I had just been diving into the torsion stuff
and really trusting this idea of this internal torque stuff
and coiling and everything me and Dave were working on.
And at the beginning of COVID, I just locked myself
in the garage with my barbell and I was ripping deadlifts
because I've always loved deadlifts.
And I said, I hit a 500 pound deadlift
for the first time in my life.
Like that was big for me.
And it's like something I always wanted
in my strength training forever.
Every associate to that.
What was cool is I do, I call it Jaguarian,
is I do things cold.
So like I don't do a lot of preparation or even like-
You do this on purpose, right?
Yeah, yeah.
I don't do a lot of preparation in regards to like,
I'm warming up for the thing, but also in the like,
I'm building up to actually accomplish the speed of strength.
So what I was doing was every morning at the beginning
of COVID, I'd walk into my garage cold.
I would, I did march on a bozu for like two minutes or something like that.
And then, and then I would just rip 500 pounds off the ground.
And this is a lifetime PR at the time for me.
And then I was like, yeah, I'm going to do that every day until this whatever this stupid
thing is, is, is done.
Like I'm, and I was like, I'm locked in this garage with my bar.
You know what I mean?
So every morning I went in there and I did it at like five in the morning.
I just ripped my PR and then I started adding weight to it and I was ripping another PR
and I was ripping another PR like every day for me.
And that was like a huge deal.
And it's because I started sort of just trusting instead of thinking of all the stuff I had
to do walking up to it and getting ready and all that, I just scratched all that.
And I kind of went more with the feel
and associated to some of the feel
of what we were talking about, the torque stuff.
And I started to, if I thought of anything,
I started thinking more about how I was picking up
a sandbag or a stone.
Because I'm pretty exceptional at picking up a sandbag.
I don't care what anybody says.
So I'm like, my goal right now is to put a 400 pound sandbag
to my shoulder and I'm a buck 75 and I've done 350.
And that's a big deal.
I think that's pretty nasty.
And I started thinking of a bar more like a sandbag
and more of like it having a center line
and how that should feel wrapping around that
and my shape changed in order for me
to accomplish lifting it.
You shape for around the deadlift changed?
Yeah.
How?
It just, I, cause like maybe when you look at it, you're like,
oh, that's fine technique or whatever. But like all that internal, like what I'm thinking about
when I'm doing it, everything I'm hearing somebody tell me to do, like how I'm perceiving,
like a cue, I did, I noticed this big on, I never had like good strength coaches or people that like
really knew what they were doing, teaching me stuff in my lifting career. And like a lot of the cues I would just get heard thrown
around. I was hearing them and I was trying to apply them to myself. And when I started
noticing some of the way I would apply that cue was actually opposite of the intention
of what the person said. It's because that's how I perceive the cue. Like I just thought of it differently and I never think different or whatever, but I never actually
was applying the cue appropriately, but I was applying it.
So like opposite.
And I feel like it was making me not be able to tap into my strength.
I think a good example of that on something like a deadlift is that what you're trying
to do on a deadlift is you're trying not to allow your back to move a lot from where it is
in the start of the pull.
So you start the pull and maybe you round a little bit,
but the idea is to not excessively round
a whole lot more than that.
And I think that sometimes in the communication,
you might've heard, okay, I gotta keep my back flat.
And then because you're trying to keep your back flat,
you're trying to like arch your back.
And now you go to pull on 500
and it doesn't feel like you have any leverage there.
Because maybe for your body type,
especially being so good at the sandbags,
maybe if you're rounded a little bit,
maybe that just feels a lot better for you
and you have way better leverage.
And now you go to pull 500,
able to rip it off the ground.
But yeah, some of the idea of some of that
can get lost in translation.
And I love what you're saying about,
like kind of screw what you're supposed to do.
Let me just see what it's supposed to feel like for me.
Let me experience that.
And I think anyone that wants to really try that,
I think it's a good idea to probably explore that
with a little bit lighter weight than 500 pounds.
Of course, yeah.
But you do learn a lot when it is 500 pounds,
because there's only one way
to lift those near-maximal weights.
Yeah, and then I want to throw something out on that,
because it wasn't like I was like,
just scratch everything.
I was actually, what I'm thinking there too is,
we say tools are the teacher in what we work on.
And what I was doing is I was reflecting on another tool that I was learning and experiencing
something from, and that was stones and sandbags.
And what is unique and special about those, not that they're just odd and I get around
something, but they create like, you have a tactile experience with them.
You have things touching your body as you're going up and you're learning from all of that feel.
So like now, instead of just always having this dead space when I'm lifting something,
and I don't know what it feels like to pressurize or engage myself if my spine is going to flex a
little more. I have learned from the stone in the sandbag, like, oh, like, I know at this point, this is what
my body typically does when I have something to wrap and touch and feel and learn from,
now I can just apply it to the other thing. Yeah. So it was like a, like a take best of
this and bring it to this type of experience.
So by the way, why did you call it Jaguar? Oh, I call it Jaguar. So I call it Jaguar
because it's just like cold starts.
It's like you're dead, you know what I mean?
Like five o'clock in the morning, it's freezing cold outside
and you just got to pick some shit up type thing.
Like that Jaguar like...
Like an animal.
Yeah, it's going to run out, it's going to just catch the thing,
run up a tree and eat it up in the tree.
So it's just this maximal effort to get what it needs.
There's no warm up to go.
Yeah, there's no warm up.
Yeah, so I love that.
Yeah, and I always love the idea of like,
a jaguar is up in a tree usually.
So I like the idea of catching something
and running up a tree.
It's like just more effort to it.
It's not a cheetah.
Where'd the 500 pound deadlift journey,
where did it end?
Because you were adding weight progressively for a while.
I see, so I want to say,
I kind of was at like a 415 thing for a long time.
I found out I was having a baby and that jumped up to 465.
I just, I rode that adrenaline of that.
Yeah.
And then, and then from there, that's where I got to the 500 and other thing.
And I think on that little journey during the, the pandemic, I think I got up to 525,
which was a, from a 465.
That was huge.
And I wasn't deadlifting.
Like I would deadlift maybe twice a month periodically.
So that felt really big to me to be able to do that.
I was actually, at that time, a lot of what I was doing
was I was teaching our courses for WekMethod.
And they were like these three day events.
And the most part I'm using ropes,
I'm working on bozu balls,
and I'm working with clubs and pulsars.
And like that's what I was doing,
like that was the bulk of my work, you know?
And like I was taking all that and carrying it over
to things that were making me stronger, so.
The reason why I love that you mentioned that though,
is because I think we were literally,
who was the coach we were just having a conversation with
where we were talking about that you don't have to keep
spamming the same movement to get stronger at that movement.
Who was it?
Was it just a few days?
We talk about it quite a bit, the capacities, you know?
Yeah, but we were just talking to this coach
because he was talking about strengthening deadlifts
because he works with all lifters and a lot of lifters,
actually, I was talking to him with fitness FAQs,
a lot of lifters when they're trying to get a stronger deadlifter squat,
they'll just keep doing that movement into perpetuity,
and maybe they'll do a few accessories that still have to do with that movement.
Without realizing that, if you go and strengthen other capacities
that may have to do tangentially with that,
you can still get stronger at the movement without doing the movement, right?
So, you know, you're spending time not deadlifting repetitively, but you're doing other things
and boom, you come back.
The skills you've built still help you deadlift more weight.
Yeah.
Cool.
Yeah.
That's what you want, man.
Yeah.
And not have to be repetitive on things, I think is awesome.
I'm not like trying to get good at the gym.
I want to get good at life.
Yeah.
And get good at the idea that I can go pick up things at a decent ability at something, so I'm not useless.
You know what I mean?
So.
How'd you start to come to some of these conclusions
on lifting like more unconventional?
Did you, do you have a lifting background
where you were more conventional?
So my history, the biggest thing in my history
is I grew up like, my dad's a blue collar.
I worked with him and my brother and we were carpenters
and we would like build
houses together and do projects just the three of us.
Me and Seam are out. We do real man stuff.
Yeah.
At least on our own.
I mean, I'll kick you the fuck out. You got to be able to fucking put the thing in the
truck.
We'd be so tired.
Just on that real quick, a funny thing is like sometimes like with a sandbag or something
like that, I'll be like, just like, I need you to put this in my truck right now.
Like, you'll just pick it up and put it in the fucking truck.
We don't have to talk about how you're gonna pick it up
and how you're gonna do all this stuff.
Like, get the job done.
Yeah, like you-
You pull your pants up and look at it a couple times.
Yeah, sometimes you gotta just do stuff like that.
All right, so like, I love that kind of mentality.
Sometimes, at least to let somebody get over
that mental barrier, maybe them holding themselves back.
So we can get the technical lifting stuff too.
I'm cool with that as well.
So I'm going to say it's just so funny
and keep on with what you're mentioning after this,
but it's so funny as I post more Sandbag stuff,
I get so many comments of people being like,
just go out and do a job.
Just go out and do a labor job.
Like, why are you lifting like this?
Go out and work.
Yeah.
I did that for a while.
You don't want to do that. It's all right, you learn from it. It's a good skill to have, but you you don't wanna do that.
It's all right, you'll learn from it.
It's a good skill to have, but you don't wanna do that.
Conventionally, so most of my, I would just say my
intuition to how to move weight and stuff and myself
came from that, like practical external things I had to do.
Like they were just terrifying things I did
as a carpenter with my dad.
And I think the scariest thing I've ever done in my life
was I did like eight, like this,
they have like eight stories
and they had this custom wooden staircases
that we were building that were pre-built.
And I think they weighed like 1200 pounds.
It was like just me and my dad fixing these things up
because they're pre-built and then you gotta nail them in.
And the first one, it was kind of fine,
you're on flat ground, but then when you're on
another set of stairs on a rinky-dink ladder
and your dad lets go of it so you have to support the weight
while it's being held up, you're like,
I have to rely on just being a fucking mutant right now
to do this.
So yeah, you kind of get that fear
in you to be strong and be efficient.
That was a big thing is being efficient.
Like my brother is like six three and two 50 and all state tight end and like I'm
bucks 65 and like five 10.
Like having to keep up on with people that are bigger than you, I think is a big
thing. But conventionally I football,
we would do some weight training, but it was just awful.
I always felt really terrible.
I had a really bad experience with it.
My brother had just kind of left school as that big guy.
I came in and like they were looking for the next Chamberlain to kind of like step up and
they were pushing me and just wrecking my body.
I did not feel good.
So I kind of ditched all that.
I didn't even care about fitness anymore.
Fucking hated it.
And then I got into kettlebells.
That was sort of the thing that pulled me back in.
And very cliche.
It was the 300 movie and the Jim Jones guys.
Mark Twight, the little 300 workout,
it had one kettlebell left in it.
The single arm clean and press.
And there was one kettlebell in my entire county, one gym that was 60 pounds, so way too heavy. And
it was like jagged and nasty, but I had to get good at it. And I got obsessed with that
piece of equipment because I got to learn it myself. It had a little skill set to it.
There was room to like develop something with it. It wasn't just pumping out reps. You kind
of had to get a feel of it and
the nuances of it. And I think that tool really sort of like catapulted me into like loving
movement again and lifting again. So yeah, no. And back then, like I know kettlebell guys,
it was always like the 48 kg, the 100 pound was always like this big, like,
feet of strength to be all accomplished
in the kettlebell world if you're familiar.
And now we're just like,
there's a bunch of us just throwing around
big motherfuckers, so.
I think with a dumbbell,
I'm sure you could probably figure it out with a dumbbell,
but you don't really get,
you tend to get like a little bit more collision
with a kettlebell, and then it's a little bit more traditional, although you could do this with a dumbbell all
day long too, a little more traditional to swing a kettlebell around kind of one at a time,
which I just think, you know, just, it just presents movement in many different ways.
And then the distribution of the weight is just so different.
movement in many different ways and then the distribution of the weight is just so different. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Working that grip too because usually a
kettlebell handle is like pretty thick. Yeah. I can also mention this I think one
of the big things and I think if anybody then just goes and watches you work out
another big thing you notice is that you're very good at moving through space
with weight. It's not just and there's nothing wrong with just lifting weight
and like by curls, presses,
deadlifts, but when you're doing a lot of these movements,
there's a lot of other movement going on
and you're building the ability to move through space
with mass versus just being stationary moving it,
which I think is a skill in of itself.
Yeah, and then that comes down to like everything
that I preach and teach.
Ultimately, there should be some sort
of locomotive aspect to it.
Our goal at Wek Method is to get every step stronger.
And I don't always have to make every lift
like move and shift and all that.
But ultimately, the thought process behind why I'm doing it
and the progressive nature of it would lend itself
to have some sort of traveling component to it
or some sort of weight shifting component to it.
This is like that head over foot thought Dave throws out,
right, the idea of getting the weight to shift
through the core or through the feet,
like through the actual base of support.
Is it a theory of yours kind of that you think
that most people should be able to get into some pretty good exercise without much of a warm up?
Yeah, absolutely. I think human beings are fucking incredible creatures and we just don't give ourselves enough credit for that.
We're really fucking capable. We do not have a lot of reasons that we need to be in great shape anymore, unfortunately, and fortunately, all at the same time.
Like that's like, that's kind of like, you don't want to feel like everything has to be a fight.
And like, we have to work really hard for everything.
But like, I think I'm very fortunate that like I had to work like an actual job,
like hard working labor job, because it gave me that like, just ability to be in tune with that thought.
But I think everybody should absolutely strive
for things to feel comfortable and easy
and not have it be this big ordeal.
And not have to feel like you just have to dedicate
so much time to it either.
It should just become part of your life.
And so you can spend time with your kids
and spend time with your family
and spend time doing the things you love.
And I really love that idea that like, we say like every step stronger because realistically,
like every little step I take is a rep and that's making me feel like I'm accomplishing
something that is making me better at the next thing I'm going to do.
So when I walk in the gym, I'm already ready because I took 2000 steps to get here today.
Like I've been prepping and I'm, I recommend like developing like a body scan. Like everybody sort of probably
has things that they sort of pick up. If you're into moving, you sort of do things for yourself
that you kind of are like, yeah, I think I'm ready. Like I'm ready. Like finding things
that are just quick, that feel systemic, that tell you if you're ready or not. Not like, you can be a little off of it,
it doesn't have to be perfect,
but like, you're good enough,
you're not gonna hurt yourself, like, it's fine.
You think some of that comes through your programming?
Like, you know, perhaps when you're doing
some of these movements that we see on your Instagram,
perhaps there's not a lot of sets to these.
There's a good intensity,
but I'm just imagining maybe you're not doing like,
sometimes a bodybuilder might do six to eight sets
of a particular exercise,
and then they go on to another exercise
that works the same muscle group.
And so from that, we can kind of extrapolate the fact
that the bodybuilder might feel super sore
going into a workout,
and that's why they think they need
or feel that they need so many sets
because they've broken down so much muscle tissue,
but maybe the style of training that you're using
where you got your intensity is high,
maybe your volume's not crazy.
I'm just.
No, it just, it honestly really depends.
Typically I actually try to hit all layers of volume
and intensity maybe in a set.
I'll do things that I think would be maximal effort
and expression for under a certain amount of reps. I usually say like under 20 reps,
I'm going to do things like I usually traditionally I'll throw balls at walls. That's kind of my thing.
I'll do like with just full intensity. I usually do three sets of six and then I'll move into
something where I would do maybe something like like a six by six or an eight by eight of certain things. And I just might, this is where I'll get to how I make sure I feel good with it.
And I sent you Ryan one video, I think I called it rotational ratio.
It's like an old one, I got mohawk in it, and it's not the best one for like weight
training, but it will demonstrate a thought process.
And the idea is that I teach this ratio of rotation.
I like to say everything is rotation at this point.
Like I don't look at anything otherwise,
you cannot not rotate in my mind.
And what I do is if I like a traditional thought processor
set rep scheme, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take
like a squat pattern would be an example.
And I'm gonna do like, I'm gonna do a bilateral squat. I'm gonna do a coiled squat, and I'm gonna do take like a squat pattern would be an example. And I'm going to do like, I'm going to do a bilateral squat,
I'm going to do a coiled squat, and I'm going to do a rotational squat.
Which means I'm going to...
And what that does is that makes it so I have to do a coiled squat on right and left.
I'll hit the center and then I do the RMT or the left to right.
And that will give me this sort of walk it off feel.
So that might look like a Bulgarian split squat on the right,
a Bulgarian split squat on the left. I'll do a back squat and then I'm going to do walking lunges
across the room. All things you love and probably I've already done, it's just I organize it in that
way specifically because the coil, the side bending will allow you to have more stability
when you're doing like a Bulgarian split squat. You'll tap into a deeper, like range of motion, especially in your spine,
that you'll be able to feel and gather and get like just that
little morsel more of getting the bar down your back when you
go to hit a back squat. So I learned from the first skill,
it's prepping me for the back squat. And then I'll do that
RMT or that walking lunge, which will have me switching or
shifting my weight, which brings it back to that locomotive thought process. And like now I'm, now I'm walking out that
back squat and I don't feel stiff and I don't feel like locked up. And I don't care what
the intensities are that you could prioritize. I want to be like working on that back squat
and I'm chasing weight, but now I'm like, I'm mixing in accessory work around it and
you could, you could do whatever you want with that.
You know what I mean?
The Bulgarian could have just been an isometric
that you just did enough of it to feel comfortable
and feel ready to do the back squat.
It doesn't have to be like 20 reps or something like that.
So, yeah.
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Oh, go ahead.
I like what you mentioned there because like even because I still do back squats.
I think there's like the ability for you to load that up the compressive benefits for
the body.
There's benefit there.
But in between sets of that, I'll be I'll obviously do some rope flow between sets because
for some for me personally, when I do too much of that type of work, I just feel way too compressed. Right? And doing rotational work in between allows
me to almost like, I feel as if I'm able to work that compression out. I feel normal again, I feel
poppy again, and then I can go back and do that other type of movement. So your program, like you,
you have specific movements that allow you to then do this thing, but then right after it,
you have something else that allows you to feel poppy again.
Yeah. Yeah. And it can, like, with all the stuff we're doing too, it could be like,
I like rope flow. Like, that's the tool I want to use in between.
It's the thing that I associate it to as a person to get that sense of it.
Yeah.
But it can be anything that you like. That's what I really love about, like,
I'm trying to, like, help define every type of movement you do to sort of like associate like to that RMT thought,
because that would be the RMT, it's RMT rope,
rope thing, like that's ours, right?
And that practice is almost gonna,
it doesn't force you to be RMT all the time,
but it will put you there.
It's easy to do it with it and it's super easy.
It's a soft practice that can become intense
if you want it to be, but it tends to be soft, so it pairs really well
with somebody that wants to do something
that's super intense, if they're trying
to intermix it into stuff.
What did that, I mean, I think there's some video
of like your preliminary practice with the rope flow,
but how long ago did you learn it?
And what did it do for you with your background?
Yeah, I mean, I learned it from Dave,
I guess like six years ago.
That's I think when I came on board with Wek Method.
And I was right at a point that I was starting to feel like meh, like with my body.
Like at the gym, like I'm moving, I would always feel good the whole time I'm there,
but like going home and hanging out, like I just kind of feel like, if I don't
feel like what I'm feeling like at the gym, why don't I feel that way all the time? Something's
not clicking here. Like this is supposed to be making me better. And that practice in
particular when I learned it, it was real clunky and wow, like I'm trying to download
it. I think there's a video of my start of that, or some of my earlier videos of me roping.
But I noticed that like my way of thinking
was the first thing I think I got.
Like that cross symmetry, like that brain harmonizing.
Like it wasn't flow at that point.
You know what I mean?
I was just rolling this rope and like,
I could just, I just felt really good
and susceptible to learning new things,
which happened to be I was gonna digest
and download all that.
I had actually just gotten off a juggling course as well
with a juggling guy, which I got a lot of that
kind of work from that, but there was a lot of-
You mean like classical juggling with like pins and shit?
I got to pins actually, I got to three pins.
And I was doing four ball and three pins.
And it was like for this little movement culture
like group I was part of and we would all like
try different things together for like months at a time
or whatever.
But I'd just gotten off that and then I got on the rope
thing and what was great about it is I got a lot of the same
like stimulation from it.
But I didn't have all that room for failure.
And like somebody's not gonna wanna pick up juggling maybe per se, like some people will, but it didn't have all that room for failure. And like, somebody's not going to want to pick up juggling,
maybe, per se, like some people will,
but it has a lot of room to drop the ball
and feel like shit about what you're doing, you quit.
I don't want to do this.
It's stupid.
Like, what am I getting from it?
And I was like immediately getting
all the same sort of like stimulation from the rope.
And like, you couldn't really mess up.
Because even when you mess up, it wasn't really a mess up.
It just kind of keeps going.
Which is really nice.
So if you care about it and you think there's going to be benefit, you can just mess up because even when you mess up, it wasn't really a mess up, it just kind of keeps going. Which is really nice.
So if you care about it and you think there's going to be benefit, you can like, you can
just like download it pretty quickly.
Yeah.
And then I like, I went from being a little clunky thing and now like I can, I can move
just athletically now.
I would say I wasn't, I didn't feel like I moved athletically and like the athletes
coming in and they're like, wow, you like move exactly like my sport.
And I'm like, oh, okay, cool.
I couldn't do that six years ago. Yeah, so that's pretty incredible and a lot of it comes from this because
Looks like you're trying to get away from a bowl or something. Yeah, so technically what I'm showing here
So this is really advanced if you're just getting into this practice have you've heard about it
I what I usually demonstrate on in my practice is I drill and I, because I know the foundation so well,
I don't flow and I don't really care about the practice
in that regard.
I'm looking for nuanced things that aren't being done yet.
And something I'm doing here is with most swinging
implements, like I think you're throwing along maces
and stuff a lot now in SEMA, you're gonna notice that it,
like it carries that mill sense to it.
Like it's going one way and it like, to get it to turn, you have to stop it
to change the direction of it.
Or you have to deviate the line of the tool
in order to get it to change directions.
What's really unique about that rope is,
in those ones specifically, I was changing.
You'll notice the rope was going this way.
And then I'd use a single effort,
and I'd get the rope to turn this way. And then I use, I do use a single effort and I get the rope to turn.
So like it, it just sort of like,
for like weapons work, that would be like real dope.
Cause you'd be able to like fight people from all
of the space or whatever.
But with, with like, like immediately,
I'm not like turn, turn, turn, turn.
I got you now.
You know what I mean?
You can just make that quick adjust type thing.
So, but yeah, that, that, that practice has evolved a ton. Uh, the
biggest things I noticed is it's just, it just opened. Biggest thing is I opened my
mind up to learning new things and I like learning new things. It made that easier.
Do you mean more, do you mean figurative or literally?
Literally. There we go. Yeah. Like literally. Yeah. Yeah. Like I just felt like, like everything
that comes out of this guy's like Dave's mouth, you could just understand all of it the more and more you do.
And I just started feeling like this athletic competency, like I could just start pulling
things off I'd never done before.
And I was pretty rigorous about it.
I probably spent four or five hours a day doing it right away.
I would kind of obsess about things when I get on it.
I go through like these little phases
of like downloading information
pretty aggressively like that, movement wise.
And it's one that has stuck like forever since that.
We see it happen quite a bit in just nutrition space
and in fitness in general.
Like when people lose weight,
when people lose like excessive amounts of weight
and they hold that new body weight,
the way that they view things,
their interpretation of everything changes drastically.
So there's like a learning process
that ends up happening as somebody gets healthier.
And I think what happens with the rope flow,
I mean, someone could maybe study it
or something like that,
but I think because you have the left
and right side
of the brain working, a lot of eye things are going on.
There's a lot of stuff going on with your eyes.
I think that it's really opening up your brain.
It's almost in a way is like making the math simpler.
Like that's the easiest way I could probably put it.
That's a great way.
But it's like the matrix a little bit.
Like just everything's gonna, not everything,
but a lot of things are gonna make a lot more sense to you
after you do that.
You know, someone could show you a layup, right?
You do a layup from the right side, the right side,
the right side, left side, it's terrible.
Like I don't understand the left side,
I don't understand the left side.
And potentially, when you do something I'm not saying
it's gonna all of a sudden make you proficient at
doing a layup, but it's probably opening up
more things like that that maybe you aren't currently
proficient at.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah, and that, if you're listening to the rope, because like that, you have that
cordage between the right and left hands, like you're communicating to that left hand,
right?
We did the Tim Cam turn.
I think Dave might've done it.
If I'm talking, I'm taking my dominant hand and I'm sending information to that non-dominant hand
and I'm letting it learn and feel patterns
and accumulate an ungodly amount of volume.
Just an ungodly amount.
Like I say, you gotta get your 10,000 reps in
and that sounds like a lot of reps,
but you can just like knock that out
if you do 10 minutes a day for like a week or something.
Like whatever it is, like two weeks or something.
Like you just all said,
you got 10,000 reps under your belt of something.
They're like proficient at it now.
Especially on your weak side.
Like really think about that.
And if you're listening, go ahead.
Oh no, no, go, go.
Yeah, if you're listening, just really think about like,
you never throw anything on your left side.
You usually don't, if you're a right-handed person,
you never rotate on that side.
Now you're getting in those healthy repetitions on that side
and making it catch up to your dominant side.
That's like transfer to sport or transfer to anything.
That's massive.
That's just good.
It's just good for you.
It's good for your health and your wellness.
And something I will throw in there as well
is a big thing is this rope flow,
like it started with us, it started with Dave
and it's moved on a lot.
It's blowing up everywhere as we we're seeing it around the world.
And a big piece of our practice still,
and what I push on it,
if you come to learn from us directly,
is it's also the rotational movement practice that we do.
It's the learning how to actually root that flow practice
to your core and the spinal engine,
and how your weight should transfer and shift between it,
because that tool also, it allows you to,
I think I did this with you with the staff maybe in SEMA.
We haven't done staff together yet.
No, we didn't get to staff yet.
Yeah, what you'll see with the rope is that like,
I can sit here and do these like figure eights
in front of my body and my thumbs can stay up
and like, yeah, I'm getting it done.
But you like, if I put a staff in your hand
and you're holding it like this
and you try to do a figure eight in front of your body, it's just, it's flat. It's,
it won't move. You have to learn little behaviors like turning both thumbs down and things that
start to make you coil from left to right. That like is a huge piece of our foundation
to the practice because I can have somebody sit there because that joint on that rope
allows it to just make up for things you're maybe not quite ready for or don't understand that are a piece of that practice.
And I feel like if you don't end up tapping that, if you don't, if you're not feeling
that component of it, you might like step away from the practice or you cause like maybe
something you're like, I don't know what this is.
Like I'm doing this figure eight thing and stuff.
Quite what I want it to be.
And it's when you start feeling like your weight shift and you get that like locomotive thought
Behind it that it really starts to like click and do something for you. Do you think some of this is a
So helpful because that you know humans are probably designed for some dance
Yeah, I mean cuz you kind of dance a way to dance without like feeling like a klutz feeling. Yeah
It's like a systemic coordination like and we're designed to hold things and feel things and tactile experiences are huge.
You learn from those and like putting a tool in your hand is always going to make you...
Give me a drink.
I'm going to talk better here right now.
I'm having something in my hands can make me feel comfortable.
You know what I mean?
I forgot my water.
But like that experience helps you learn more and like even going out on the dance floor that can be
nerve-racking for somebody because like there's
empty space between me and you and like I gotta figure out how this body is meatbag works in this you know
I mean, but if you put something my hands you give me an instrument or something
maybe I can feel like a little groove to it because I can I can I have something to hold on to and work with so
I think having having a tool is essential.
So like what you end up learning with that is just like
every tool is going to have specific feedbacks
and like things that it amplifies.
And it's trying to milk as much out of that specific feedback
for each tool as possible.
Like just do it.
That's why I said all tools are great.
Tools are teachers.
Please make more random ass fucking fitness gadgets that seem like they're dumb because they're awesome because there's probably something in it
That's worth a while to like gather something from and it's up to you as a human being to like go
Oh, that's it. Like I'm gonna milk that out of that and then like don't use it for anything else
so
What do you think some of the main movement practice is that you guys are trying to?
What do you think some of the main movement practice is that you guys are trying to communicate to people?
Because some of what I see when you talk about the coil and things like that, I see a lot
of, there's a lot of rotation, but there's also just like, I guess, like a dipping of
like a shoulder.
Like there's one collarbone high, one collarbone low, something that happens when you go to
like throw something and you end up with some, you know,
twisting and stuff like that.
So yeah, how would you sort of define
some of what you're trying to help people improve?
Yeah, so that thought, like,
you'll see a lot of the extreme positions we do,
like the extreme range of motion of it.
We call that the end range of rotation.
That is the coil.
That is when we have that like aggressive, aggressive,
high elbow or like high shoulder, low shoulder.
And that's, that's to, we do a lot of isometrics
and that, so I try to do a lot of long duration isometrics.
Even hike one hip up a little bit, right?
And you can like chase that, yeah, so they meet, they like.
Yeah, you kind of compress one side a ton
and then maybe that's opening up the other side.
Yeah, opens the other side, which would leave room for breathing a little differently things like that
But and you'll notice like if yes screen cap a bunch of different sort of like positions in sports
You're gonna notice that those like events those moments
You'll see that shape pop up a lot. All right, and it's usually as you're moving through something, right?
So a big a big task of ours is to open up that range of motion and let everybody
know it's okay, because it's actively been said that it's not okay, but we all do it,
right?
So-
Certainly don't do it any weights, ever.
Yeah, yeah. And I put my own body through the ringer on showing that you can do all
this with heavy, heavy, heavy weight type thing, or heavy enough weight, like I was
saying, like moving with weight in places you don't typically see people move with weight. Yeah. And then, yeah, like once you open that
up, it's to recognize that like, if I have this side and I have this side, I have everything
in between. And then it's okay that it doesn't have to always look like this. Like it can
be this. And like when I'm working with somebody, it can be like scissored and like it's recognizing
based on the task.
If I can tap more of the verticality of it, I think there's more efficiency, but the task
may not always dictate that.
You know what I mean?
I brought up like, I've talked about me being a carpenter and a big thing that I really
associate to understanding why that mattered was when I carried plywood.
When I was building houses and I built a lot of custom cabinets and you get under the weight, you had to feel yourself coil
and then get over it.
So under and over something.
And it's keeping you from wanting to be in the center
because it's a huge sheet of wood on the side of your body.
And you have to traverse the terrain with it
and move and do something with it.
You can't just stand here with it.
So you have to create a long side and a short side,
and then you have to go through the gait cycle
to be able to get it where you want it to go.
And then you really quickly start noticing like,
I need to do this on my left side or my right side,
like, because you start to feel like a major imbalance
from doing that.
What do you guys call that?
Side, something side?
Quite, that's, being on the side is quite.
But you call it like side by side or something.
What's the term though?
Side, side, center we say.
So if you have the right side,
you have to do the left side and that educates the center.
All right, so right, left, I have everything in between.
Right, that's the best.
So I've seen you run where you're like on one side.
Oh, the same side, yeah.
Same side. Same side.
Same side, yeah.
Same side, yeah.
And what you'll start noticing is that like,
I like to look at things as like,
movement is about strategies.
I don't look at it as like right wrong.
It's about why is it happening and when can I use it and things like that.
And like that same side thought process is really good for like mountaineering, downhill
stuff.
Maybe carrying up like luggage up a flight of stairs.
Yeah.
So you just dump everything to kind of one side.
It's kind of what you would do.
Definitely downstairs.
Like any mountaineer will tell you like you got you got to like get into the, like you're
picking a side so you're not like flying down the hill.
Yeah, this would be the same side stride.
So you can just see I sort of lock into that position there.
That would be if you, not that I shoot guns or anything that often, but you could imagine
like rifling.
So if you had a rifle, you kind of have to pick a side to keep a vertical displacement
from happening.
Would that be a good idea to utilize on a track?
On like a 400?
Like leaning into that 400?
Yeah, that's what I was going to say is I did this with a...
Barefoot.
Graham.
Yeah, Graham.
I'm like, I can't think Graham's name right now.
But basically, the way I use it around the track is I run normal or like the left right,
this RMT up to the corner and then you use it to lean.
You drop into it. It's kind of cool.
You almost feel like you torpedo.
So you accelerate into the corner like you would like in a bike or a car.
Like you're going to accelerate into the corner and you get to kind of get this sort of internal experience
of feeling like you're accelerating in the corner and it's staying in the corner rather than this,
like, wanting to shift back and forth.
Like I'm committing to the idea of it. And yeah, I've, I've smoked some people around
the corner on the track, which is pretty dope. So, but, um, yeah. So I think, uh, yeah, just
getting this idea of side, side center and that they're just all going to work hand in
hand with each other. So some of the video there, you had the propulsors going
and I like David's vest and stuff that he made
and it's just amazing what having a cue can really do.
Like, so you're talking about running with a stick
or doing different things with a stick
and then having the rope is a tool.
And I think it's a great idea because now you have
some sort of like, you got some sort of feedback.
Kind of hard, like you just go out and run,
running's fun, running's great.
And I would say a proficient runner
probably has tons of feedback.
They maybe don't even have a whole lot to worry about.
They probably have been exploring it for a while.
They run fast enough to where they're probably feeling
a lot of cool stuff.
They get the runners high, they end up with a lot of stuff. But for a lot of other people
who are just starting with some running, I think it's a great idea to, or even just trying
to be more athletic, get some of these propulsors in their hands.
Yeah. I know in my early, like when I first got into fitness, I went on a rabbit hole
like, well, I got to be barefoot and minimalist and I need to start running barefoot and all
this stuff. I got into my little foot thing early on. And what I noticed rabbit hole, like, I gotta be barefoot and minimalist, and I need to start running barefoot. And all this stuff, I got into my little foot thing early on.
And what I noticed is that I overthought all that,
and I had terrible mechanics running,
and I hurt like hell trying to run barefoot all the time.
And then I started associating it to running barefoot.
That was the problem. And that wasn't it.
And it was that I had too much to think about.
I was trying
to control something that is just innate to you too heavily. And what I have found is
just again, having tools that are designed to provide you something to think about because
you want to think you're trying to work on something. But it's you can focus on that
and let all the other stuff just kind of roll behind it, you know what I mean?
So that taking the person out of the,
what's supposed to be happening and into the task.
I'm trying to run and I want to run with this thing,
not how is my foot supposed to strike
and how is all this supposed to happen?
It sort of, it helps time up and make that work out
for itself type thing.
And you sort of meet your body where you're at.
And I'm really big into that.
Anything that, any tasks or tools that can amplify a task
by like taking you away from the actual task,
like at hand and focus on something else
that kind of carries you along.
Let me ask you this then,
like when it comes to something like the RMT clubs,
you know, you have the ropes you guys use,
there's the propulsors, there's the clubs.
So what have you found to be like powerful
about the way you use those?
Cause like if we have to pull out any video
of you using them, you don't see many people
using them in that way.
And obviously it's because you're very proficient with it.
But what have you found to be great
about that piece of equipment for yourself?
So that piece of equipment,
I've been working with like clubs Mesa since I was 17.
Right when I got into kettlebells, I made my own homemade clubs as well, out of steel
pipe.
And what's really cool about that one is it has that same sort of steel shot in it, just
like the propulsors.
And so it gives you an audible feedback.
And it also allows you to sort of spike the force in it.
So using the four pound one we have is like enough.
And I swing on a hundred pound club.
So a four pound club is good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
All right, yeah.
It has its own little meat to it.
But basically what I've loved about that is it,
it creates an experience where somebody can learn from it
via the sound.
So when I'm doing a lot of the traditional, like legata club, Indian club, all that stuff work,
people don't always know if they're like fully tractioned, if they're in the right place at the
right time. And that thing will make a little shutter at you. It makes noise when we're doing
a lot of that fluid type movement, that circular sort of strength. It becomes quiet. So we can give
a person a task like, hey, we're going to try this move, but I need you, it becomes quiet. So we can give a person a task like,
hey, we're gonna try this move,
but I need you to keep it quiet.
And they will find sort of those safe spots for themselves.
And what I have seen a lot of people do is like,
when they're first learning that stuff,
people might be telling somebody to be very like long
and elongated when they do it,
but that may not actually feel good in a person's body.
And they may make sound when they do that.
But if they're sort of like a little tighter
and a little off and you think they're not maybe getting what you want
out of it, it's quiet and it's perfect. And they're like, wow, this feels really good.
And the shape of it looks different than like just traditional cueing maybe on the task.
And it allows the person to trust their own intuition on what they're experiencing. So
like in that group environment or something that somebody's trying to teach somebody and they're trying to blanket a cue or maybe even two or three,
they're a coach that feels like at least they can offer a couple different solutions, but
you don't have all the solutions. The person is experiencing it right then, right now.
And they should be, you should be trying to help somebody to develop a trust in what they're
experiencing and how to like, how to wield that and then change shapes
and understanding of a movement from there basically.
And that tool, any of these audible feedback tools,
like that's a whole special category of stuff
that I think like we're tapping into pretty heavily right now
is just things that you can hear.
And it gives a tactile experience to something to feel
when it's being done correctly.
So.
I really like what you mentioned there,
because again, you're gonna be working with people
with different types of tissue quality,
different types of mobility restrictions.
And it's like the way that they move that mace,
the way that they're able to potentially let it track,
it's not gonna be the same as somebody else,
but they're gonna be able to do what their body gives them.
And over time, that will get better as they practice it.
You know what I mean?
So instead of trying to make it look like perfect,
you make it be perfect for them at this point in time.
And they'll get that, it feels good for them
because we do still have the consistency of like,
mine's quiet, yours is quiet.
So we're both, we both are doing something the same.
And that's awesome.
And it feels like, yeah.
I love the idea of trying to like move like somebody's feeling.
I've gotten that from like a lot of dancers.
Like a dancer where like they want to see...
Like you can watch somebody when they're dancing
and they're doing it like methodically,
the technique and you're like...
I mean, that's really awesome and you're incredible,
but like when somebody dances with feeling...
Who popped up in your head in the...
I didn't see mine.
Nobody. Nobody popped up in your head in the, I didn't see mine.
Nobody, nobody popped up in my head.
But that like inspires you when you see that
and you can sort of like, it gives you maybe
something you might feel, Caton.
But yeah, I think that's,
Nah, I feel, I know that.
I think it's important to think the same thing
is like when you have a client
or somebody you're working with or just like,
like you
should be able to, ideally it's good if you can do the movement, but if they can like
try to like, try to feel like what maybe you think I'm feeling in this or something too.
I think that's kind of a cool little way to associate the stuff.
How do you interpret pain? Like an ouchy, a soreness.
Yeah.
You know, you, you, let's say you did a bunch of work yesterday
and my right ankle feels a little, that's interesting.
What is that?
Yeah, so like pain and all that.
I've been fortunate not to have like too many
like major aches and pains in my life.
I do get them.
A lot of them come from like contact-y type things.
So like hitting something on my body,
that would be the normal.
You should listen to pain and you should work around pain. And if you can find strategies that
help you get out of it, that's wonderful. And like something you're probably going to
have to do is walk, you know what I mean? Unless you have something, some major structural
damage you just got that you need to chill for a little bit, but it's like, uh, how do
you deal and work around the pain?
And then how do you then get it back to something
that was consistent prior to the pain?
Because like, you're gonna build a lot of compensations
through it and stuff.
So, sort of love about having strategies is like,
if we just take walking,
it's traditionally a right left thing,
and I'm shifting weight,
all of a sudden I hurt my left ankle.
You're gonna get a little bit of a giddy up to you.
Something's going to happen.
And now I have a strategy that is reliant on one side,
like same side walking or something like that.
So I can actively commit to a strategy
that I very clearly know why I'm doing it
and what is happening so that as my ankle
is getting less pressure on it,
I'm feeling a little better, everything recovers,
I can then actively do that side
and sort of make up for all of the imbalance
maybe I was doing and then get back to my left right.
You know what I mean?
And I could actively get myself out of the hole
in regard to that.
Yeah, a lot of the ways I like to look at it
when something hurts after a particular day,
obviously there's like, you know, tears
and other things that can happen,
but just kind of minor aches and pains.
I'm like, oh, that's just, that's an adaptation.
You know, we've been messing around with these mace things
with our hands and wrists and stuff.
And after you do, you know, and plus I was doing
a bunch of myofascial release on the elbow
and the forearm and the wrist and stuff.
And man, just this whole arm just was super sore.
But I was like, oh, that's just what it needs.
It needs to go through this process
so it feels like this side.
Yeah, dude, I think we're just like totally adaptable
and like everything is just like,
if you're putting a new stimulus in there.
So yeah, you're gonna get all that,
like that kind of stuff to it, of course.
And if it's something you care about,
you'll commit to it and that will go away.
But I like chasing all that stuff.
And I like looking for something that's consistent that I can take to that new experience.
So like for me, the second I start that, like I'm so like that coil has become like a body
scan for me.
And it's a consistency that I will feel through my movement.
You say it's a body scan.
Like what do you mean enough?
So like I can be at the grocery store and I can go like, ah, and go like, ah, everything.
Like, I can feel everything connect.
I've built a systemic connection to it.
So that little contraction, that spike I get there,
I can like, I recognize how that fluidly moves
to my hands and my feet.
So if I do that and like, or I don't feel it
when I go to do it, something's off.
And I'm like, oh, like, I'm gonna actually get a massage
today.
Like, I would never do that, but something's off.
So can we talk about this for a bit, this, this ability to have a good body scan, like
developing a level of awareness. I think that's something important that potentially sometimes
when you don't have certain full body movement practices, maybe you miss out on being able
to really tell how good do you feel, right? So how would you, what would your suggestions be
for somebody to build an awareness of their body
and be able to check in to know when,
yeah, I can go about this, today's a good day,
or I should back off.
Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing there is like,
if you're somebody that does not have
an intuitive sense of yourself, you have to develop that
and you've got to develop it around something.
And if you're not going to drive yourself to it,
you have a coach and the coach's responsibilities
to help you do that. And a lot of coaches don't maybe even know how to do that for somebody.
And for me, that is what our entire movement strategy is about. It has an end range thing
that has to do with weight transfer and a systemic thought process. It's a coil.
That is the solution for me, for anybody that will ever come to me, to start at that thought and feel that contraction and then work from there.
They don't have to be perfect at it, but that would be the start for us.
And we have free everything on how to do that with somebody,
like right out the gate. You can go to WekMethod
and there should be a royal coil tutorial or something like that.
You can just start there.
Dave, we say WekMethod starts on the wall now.
And it's just this little wall stretch.
It's literally a lot of people do it like a suspension trainer,
something like a QL stretch, where you're just like holding the TRX
and lean in or something.
Like anything like that will start associating to something.
A feeling is what I'm after.
It's a feeling and a position.
And then work from there, basically.
And can you describe when somebody who is not used to coiling,
when they go into a coil
for the first time, what's mostly the feedback
that you tend to get?
My back feels better is usually the first thing I get.
Yeah, they're like, whoa, I felt something I never felt,
which was crazy that I even got that experience
when I first fell.
I was like, what the fuck?
I've been moving my body like crazy.
Like, how did I not even feel this feeling yet
from such a simple concept?
It's wild.
Yeah, yeah.
And then, yeah, people, it's usually just like,
wow, like that felt really good.
Like they'll tell me the back feels a little better.
Like they've never felt that.
And then I usually get the big smile
and that's usually when I'm after.
I want to see somebody happy while they're doing something
and trusting their experience on it.
So I try to not even be too handsy with people anymore when I first expose them.
I try to kind of guide them without it so that they can develop their own experience
on it and trust themselves.
That's a big piece of that journey of somebody developing a body scan is trusting their self,
their own instincts on something.
And the gym, there's a lot of, that's not the right way.
I do it this way.
I did it. And like the person's like made the honest effort to fucking get to the gym
and try something for themselves without help. And they're, they're sometimes shut down immediately
or told it's not right or yeah, like I don't want that. Like, cause it could be totally
right for you. And I don't fucking care what anybody says. You know what I mean? So that's
a big piece of is that developing that intuitive sense of self and how to do it. And you gotta, you
gotta give people legs up and wins as much as possible. Right? So like walk for 10 minutes
a day. Preach that, right? Like just get up, get off the couch, walk and like trust that
experience and like it doesn't have to be 10 minutes. Maybe it's seven and a half minutes.
Like maybe that's when you're like, you know, my ankle's starting to feel low. I'm gonna go sit down. But like Mark said 10, like, no, just seven and a half minutes. Maybe that's when you're like, you know, my ankle's starting to feel low. I'm gonna go sit down.
But like Mark said, 10, like, no, just 7 and a half minutes.
Like you fucking got up and did it.
Like, and you listen to yourself,
it was 7 and a half and not 10,
and that's like, that's fucking money right there
that you're learning from yourself and trusting yourself.
So then you can move your practice on.
What's it like working at the lab?
It's an experiment every day, right?
Yeah, that's what it's about, man.
I mean, it's exploring things.
It's trying to push the needle forward.
Get a lot of really awesome, bright people that come in,
incredible athletes to get to just experience
and see how they move and see how everything applies
and cross references between different things.
Being able to work with a UFC fighter,
work with an Olympic swimmer,
and like work with field athletes
and like all be saying the same sort of thing
to each of them and seeing them improve,
like just across the board like that.
And then even, and like,
cause I have an aggressive practice and I like to move,
like being able to sort of like take on
some of those experiences with them as well.
And like feel for myself what it feels like to do those practices so
that I can better relate to those people and give them things that mean more to them, like
in a way that speaks to what they do.
You know, I mean, that's the hardest thing is like, there's so many different things
we can adapt to and niche ourselves out into and they get their own lingo that like, we
can sometimes say the same thing in a different way
and it won't click.
So it's trying to like experience things
and figure out that feeling.
Cause there's always that feeling.
Like I'm getting huge in this.
I don't know why I just got to this,
but the sounds we make being a cueing structure
I use right now.
So like, well, specifically with the fighters,
there's a lot of like,
yo, two, five. Like big sounds. You know what I mean? When they're trying to put
that perfect kick or punch in. And in the gym, what I've been doing with all them right
now is like, I need to hear that sound immediately. I don't want it on set six with rep seven,
like, because now you're warmed up and you think you're in it and you're starting to
feel the juices flowing. I want it on one of one, you know what I mean?
And I want you to start tapping into that,
like, because that sound usually arises
when everything is right for that person.
And everybody sort of makes their own unique one.
So if you can parrot yourself and sort of mimic it.
So I'll start like trying to be able to parrot somebody's sound
and start being like, say, like, countin' a rep or like,
hey, be here.
I just go, cha, cha, cha.
Or bing, bing, boom is one of my guys.
It's bing, bing, boom.
And if I say bing, bing, boom,
everything just lines up
and there's a little more heat
behind the next rep or something.
And I'm loving that because...
Wait, his sound is like bing.
Yeah, he goes, bing, bing, boom.
Bing, bing, bing, bing, boom.
Like if it's a boom, then it's a boom.
And that's, internally, he's saying that.
You know what I mean?
So like, if he's saying that, that means something to him.
And there's an, there's a experience behind that.
And it all lines up when it's a boom.
So if I say boom, if I say boom, it all lines up.
If we're doing a snatch or something,
like he's never done a snatch, a dumbbell snatch.
Like I don't even do that all the time,
but maybe I want to do one with him
today it's a fucking boom and it's like boom and he just hits it yeah which is a
cool thing to explore and I think a great place for it's trying to the thing
I'm trying to do now is trying to get somebody to get to the sound now quicker
because not everything usually has it like kettlebells we always say it was
like when you do swings it was like a like you make a big exhale at the top and
certain lifts have stuff.
But it's trying to find that for somebody and then put them in someplace they can experience
that.
And I do, I really like throwing light med balls at walls and like keep them light, like
under six pounds.
What's that do for you?
So big thing I do with it is I develop sequencing with it.
So I get somebody to relate to the position, a coiled position that we do.
There's a couple different sort of variations of it.
But I get them to trust that.
So it's light and they can bounce between different sequences with stuff.
And they'll
That's a heavy one, yeah.
Yeah, that was, yeah, I did it.
I did the same sequence light prior to it and then I did a heavy one.
But you'll just see, I just sort of hit like the left,
right, left, right, like this constant,
like all I'm thinking about is this little contraction
in my side bend on my body and like that's all I think
about or my sound or whatever it is.
And then yeah, it's like a 500 pound deadlift on nails.
I do, that's a weird little feat I do.
Okay, why the nails?
I've done a 700 pound deadlift on nails.
Standing on nails barefoot.
Yeah, yeah. It feels great, man. I don't know, it feelslift on nails. Standing on nails barefoot. Yeah, yeah.
It feels great, man.
I don't know, it feels good.
It feels great.
It feels incredible.
I feel like actually when I do that,
it's like the best thing I've ever done for myself
when I do that.
Really?
Yeah.
Is there a danger of your feet getting punctured?
Not, you know, only when you misstep on it
and you step on like three nails instead of the whole thing.
But I have not, I am, I guess when I did the 700,
I do think the nail board stuck to my foot. three nails instead of the whole thing. But I have not, I am, I guess when I did the 700,
I do think the nail board stuck to my foot.
But it was like, like crummy dead skin.
I don't think it was like, I wasn't bleeding or anything.
But yeah, the med ball sequencing,
I usually, I start with something simple
and I try to get them to the vocalization
as quick as possible.
And then I over three or four sets,
I try to establish just, I add sequencing to it. So new way, like jump one way, face the other direction,
whatever it be, but it's all the same position.
All right?
Trying to think if there was a...
And this is like, what, a two something?
That's 180, 176 right there, I think.
Sheesh, shush.
Yeah.
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 by 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 the 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 they get the hands on these?
Yes, head to vivobarefoot.com slash power project
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Again, that's at vivobarefoot.com slash power project.
Links in the description, as well as the podcast show notes.
When you have, you know, you got a lot of great athletes coming to the lab, but you
probably have also have a lot of great coaches coming through.
Absolutely.
That's the thing I pride myself in the most is teaching coaches.
Like we do courses almost every month.
We have two levels of education we do.
We do the RMTS rotational movement training specialist.
And it's like an inch.
We do a little introduction to the tools we use, but we also just start the movement language
with people and start establishing that. It's like a six to eight
hour event. And then that leads right into our WMQ. It's a two day thing. And we teach
more tools and just get into more like concept, like into the torsion theory. Cause I kind
of, I kind of really want people to understand how to coil and start establishing a language.
And then I want to show you how to lift with it. Like I'll teach you how to lift sandbags
and I'll apply all this to the power lifts
and just show how all of this works and that and how you can make a bench press
carry over to sprinting and why not?
Like, cause you can absolutely do that if you look at it a different way and you
associate the volume that you're going to do on it a little differently.
But like you mentioned earlier, it's like, sometimes it feels good to be under
that pressure.
People need to experience pressure
I think that's something that most people are missing as they've never experienced it
Like I take that for granted now that I kind of had that growing up
But like man like usually if I have something feeling off in my body
I need to go do a back squat like my body just wants to pressurize again real quick and I feel great
Right after that makes you feel stronger
There's a lot of emotional shit that can come out of it too,
but there's something about that,
just being able for your bones just to feel all that,
like stack up right on it, everything's working out right.
So, and I'm really big on pin lifts,
so quarter lifts on everything too,
especially because I retain a low body weight
and I'm not chasing the lift itself.
I'm chasing the experience of the weight.
I want to feel that on my bone structure and how to handle it and manage it.
And then I'll do some still heavy stuff, full range of motion,
but I think there's just a ton of benefit in that.
I love that you mentioned that because that's something I'm going to start bringing back.
Like just walking out, not squatting 600 or 700.
Just walk out?
Just pressurize, feel, hold.
I just want to do that.
I used to walk, I had this one rack at one of the gyms I was at.
It was like a six foot walk from one side of the rack to the other.
And I used to just walk like 700 pounds across to the other one and rack it.
I needed to just do that back and forth because yeah, it's just no, yeah. It was just safe, easy, felt really good on your body.
Yeah.
I got to start using the yoke again.
I just realized right now, like,
why don't I just fucking use the yoke?
Don't need a fucking rack, just get a yoke.
Yeah.
That would be simple.
So yeah, I think carrying is really important.
Anything that gets you moving on that,
like something I felt was really interesting,
you guys know Donnie Thompson?
Yeah, absolutely.
So like he came out and he did his tempering thing
with us at the lab and he just kind of was like
talking at lunch or something.
He was talking about like his time
when he broke 3,000 or whatever.
And he was talking about all the prep work he did.
Cause I think he was mentioning like,
there were definitely other guys
that should have done it back then,
but maybe they just like got hurt or weren't feeling right
or just shit happens like that at that point. But he kept, he was like speaking so
highly about all the like conditioning he was doing, the accessory stuff he was doing.
And like nobody there really cared about lifting maybe per se. So I don't think people were
paying attention, but man, I was just like dude, I was just fucking like locked in on
what he was saying about his accessory work. And he was talking about doing hand to hand
kettlebell swings, which is this RMT. That's that walk it out thought process Sam. He was fucking like locked in on what he was saying about his accessory work. And he was talking about doing hand to hand kettlebell swings,
which is this RMT.
That's that walk it out thought process, Sam.
He was dragging stuff and he was pushing stuff.
And it was just all this stuff that just got back
to that idea of like making it locomotive,
like walking it out,
walk out all that shit that you're putting on your body.
And like, he just felt like that was the thing
that made him feel fucking good
and like allowed him to do what he did.
And I don't know, I took that to heart.
That was a huge piece of accessory stuff,
because accessory stuff could have just been
same-sized stuff or a similar pattern
and lighter in the middle or something.
But that idea that it became alternating
and repetitive, I think is huge.
Yeah, Donnie Thompson would do,
in between his sets of dynamic effort squat work.
He would do kettlebell cleans and kettlebell snatches.
Yeah, which made him it was doing like a single side thing.
Like, I just love that idea of like...
Yeah, it was every... So, I mean, he wasn't resting that much.
And he'd have... He would train with no belt.
He had like five plates on there.
He would do sets of three. I mean, he did it at my gym.
He stayed with us for a few weeks
as he was kind of working on trying to break
the all-time world record, or not the all-time world record,
but break his own world record and break 3,000.
And it was just cool to see him like,
I was in awe because I was like,
this is a big guy.
But he's in tremendous shape.
Like his conditioning was through the roof
because he was barely resting in between these triples
that he was doing with 500 pounds on the squat rack.
And in between that, he's hammering out this kettlebell work.
And then when he was done with that,
he did a bunch of speed deadlifts.
And he did like eight sets of three reps
with like five plates.
And just interesting perspective.
He felt that on that particular day,
the intent of the day,
which I think is really important
to try to have an intent of your training.
And for him, the intent of that day was to move fast
and to be conditioned.
And so that's why he didn't wear a belt.
Cause he's like, if I throw a belt on,
he's like, we're going to stack on more he's like, we're gonna stack on more plates.
And the intent is gonna be ruined.
So I really thought that was interesting.
Yeah, awesome.
Huge guy.
Yeah, cool.
So you guys do multiple courses like every month?
Yeah, I think I have them all lined up right now.
I at least have options all the way up
to December of 2025 right now.
I usually do like a three day weekend. It's our level one or level two, sort of back to
back. I like for people to be able to get like that full immersion in it if you're into
it or you can kind of a la carte them and do them how you want.
And people are learning how to use the rope and everything.
Yeah. So level one we do, yeah, we do all the foundations of like the rope, how to start
utilizing pulsars. So audible feedback training. And we learned about limit force elastic.
So how we use elastic bands to sort of like,
we pull them apart to the limit to sort of help people
establish positional work, which is the coil.
So like that's our positions before transitions.
It's like learning to like feel the position,
get this huge tactile experience.
It's accessible to everybody.
Everybody, we do a half inch band.
Like you can pull that thing apart
and absolutely everybody in the room can find their level
that they need with it.
You can take it with you everywhere
and you just start developing the position.
And then the rope sort of becomes this perfect little segue
into like expressing between those positions.
And that's where I said,
if you're starting to get really interested in rope flow,
a huge, I've really just, everybody that gets into it, I always try to get them to come back and like sort of come through
us. So you get the weight transfer component to it and you start recognizing the coil component
to it and where we want you basically. And that, especially if you're looking, usually
if you get in a rope, you're going to want to get in the maze or Bulgarian bag or something
else that has a rigidity to it. And you need to be out of your own way when you get to that practice.
If you want to do similar patterns and that idea of getting over one side of it and coiling,
sorry, opens up the, that ability to swing a mace on one side.
Or if you imagined it was a sword and there's a blade and something that can cut the shit
out of you, like you want to get out of your own way.
So you can't stand in the middle here and do all this stuff. You need to like get where you need to be and slice up vertically
and things. So you're not cutting off your own Achilles. I mean, so.
Is that an area that people maybe mess up a little bit when they do the rope? Is that
their-
See, I wouldn't even call it a mess-
Where you're not really concerned.
I wouldn't call it a mess up because like we, I don't think we showed my, I don't know,
maybe it wasn't paying attention. My attention, some of my early rope ones,
I'm literally like sidestepped out of the way.
Everybody would do that because they're stuck
over themselves and I'm stuck over myself at that point.
I didn't know how to let up.
I didn't even know it was okay to walk with it.
But there's kind of like no wrong way
because you're going to correct that at some point.
Naturally, so all I would say is like,
get your 10,000 reps and you'll start noticing
you'll want to do the next thing
Yeah, and that's what I love about their pranks. It will evolve itself if you have no direction
That's what happened with mine. Yeah, so like you'll see I sort of like sidestep out of the way and I'm like feet together
I didn't even know how to do this move. Yeah, like I pivot on my heels. I don't you know what the fuck I'm doing, but
Yeah, it's just like
It's just a start. Yeah, you just start. That's the thing. It doesn't matter.
Like, you'll just... Everybody, you like...
Who cares what it looks like and all that? You'll just start like...
You will start feeling something in your brain,
and you are just like,
God, I have got to do more of this.
Like, something about that feels so good for me.
There's definitely nothing wrong with moving your arms around your body
versus moving your body around your arms.
No, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.
It's okay.
It's literally irrelevant, right?
But as you chase the efficiencies
and wanna just feel like the possibilities with it,
that's where you'll start seeing like,
that kind of stuff will open up room.
Like if you're hitting yourself in the head,
you're like, why do I keep hitting myself in the head?
It's because you gotta get out of your way
and like be thankful it's not a blade, it's a rope.
It's not a mace, it's not a staff, like the bow staff.
A lot of the patterns would be the bow staff or n nunchuck, or lots of other little tool wielding weapons work or things you might want to do.
So...
One thing I do love though is like, you know, before using the rope,
I never really used a mace, but becoming proficient with the rope,
once I picked up a mace, it's like it just came naturally.
Because all those patterns just line up.
Same patterns. You get to rely, you take one tool and you educate the other tool with it.
And then ultimately you're the tool, right?
You're fucking tool, Encima.
You're welcome.
But like wield you and have a strategy behind you
that goes to the tool, the tool, and the tool.
You just keep passing it on.
And you're all learning from all of it.
Is there anything new that you're like,
because I know you're always working on different stuff,
trying new things.
What's like captured your interest the most recently?
Recently, I was getting into BFR training.
We talked about that a little bit.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, the cuffs.
Yeah, I've been really liking that.
I used the Saga Fitness Brim.
It's a blood flow restriction.
Yeah, blood flow restriction.
Yeah, and sort of what piqued me on it
is I just put some
rubber bands around my arm for like a photo shoot we were
doing for the hybrid rope that we sell.
And like, I just wanted to make my veins look a little
little poppy.
I was like, yeah, I'll just throw a band-aid on real quick.
Like, I don't make it look like I was working hard or whatever.
To be honest.
And I was like, holy shit.
Like, I'm getting a fucking pump right now, man.
I was like, I don't mind chasing a pump.
I'm like, I'm roping.
Like, I can get a pump.
Like, let's do this. And I was like, oh shit, I used to see like Duffin do blood flow all, man. I was like, I don't mind chasing a pump. I'm like, I'm roping, like I can get a pump. Like, let's do this.
And I was like, oh shit, I used to see like Duffin
do blood flow all the time, I feel like.
I was like, oh.
It's big in bodybuilding when you get injured,
BFR so you can maintain a little muscle, yeah.
Dude, so like I just got, I just like,
yeah, I'm wearing some there.
I just, dude, I just got hooked on that.
I've been doing that like almost every day
to be honest with you, I love it.
It's feeling good? Oh, it feels so good.
I'll sit down.
I do it 80% based on whatever it says it is.
Because, I don't fucking know.
It says 80% occlusion.
Even though it's way up on your tricep, elbow, shoulder,
does it make the elbows feel good and the rest of the forearm
and stuff?
Or a lot of pressure in there?
No, I don't get a lot of pressure.
I feel really good in the arms.
I love it with the arms so far.
I'm like a huge fan of that.
Roping with it.
I've been getting fighters to shadow box in it a little bit.
It's like a, I've been doing like three minute rounds
with them and stuff.
I think that's been a real big thing to help out.
And you're able to get those on yourself and everything.
Yeah, these are super easy and they inflate them.
So these are the digital ones.
So they like inflate via an app.
That's what I said, I don't 100% know what that means,
but like it's up there.
So you say you do 80% on the upper body?
I'm doing 80%.
Because I did 60% and I am like, oh.
Dude, at first, dude, I'm up to like 80.
And then like I'll just actually use normal weight I use.
And like I'll go for 30 minutes.
And like I feel awesome when I do that, strangely. I was just doing the 15 minute. I think they recommend like 15 minutes a day traditionally at like 50% in the arms
I'm sure it's just like a safety thing. Good. I'm happy to hear you do that
I'm gonna end but up but it's been it's it's pretty amazing doing it while you use the rope because like you get an insane pump
while doing rope flow, but I'm just like
Yeah, I think like in the context of somebody,
let's say it's somebody who doesn't do a crazy amount of resistance training, right?
And they're just in this zone of doing all this rope stuff,
maybe they can still get some aspect of hypertrophy.
That was what I was excited about, man.
Yeah, it was like, oh, it's like just a little tip like that.
And I love that the...
I keep seeing people use it and it's usually done in like a, like a I hurt myself way
and everything's real like basic and sort of simple.
And I was like, dude, that's like a super complex
movement pattern.
I wanna wear these to really complex sequencing
and things like that.
And what does that do to me?
Cause that's, cause you're getting like the,
what do you get like a systemic growth hormone from
and all that and whatever the fuck else it's doing for you.
But you know, like.
The blood all pulls here, it doesn't go back.
So you're just getting all this blood hanging out here
while you're continuing to do rep after rep after rep.
You know?
And then if you're messing with it too
and you're not just roping in it.
So I was doing sets of like,
I'd do a set of 15 or something
and I would rope in between the thing.
And I noticed I felt more comfortable the whole time
when I did that.
Like if I sat there and only did like sets of 15,
and like took a minute, like I said, and then 15,
I felt terrible, like it was, whoa.
But if I just pick up the rope and went in between,
that like changed the whole experience as well.
So I think that's really cool.
I've been boxing a little bit lately.
I'm not good at anything.
I'm kind of fiddling with that right now.
I'm enjoying that process right now,
but I've never felt like I was good at striking.
I'm way more into grappling.
I like, that's why I like a big heavy sandbag
and grab the shit out of it and do something with it.
That tactile like wrestling around
feels way more natural for me, but it's been fun.
I'm like improving on that pretty rapidly.
Probably get back to getting an actual coach for it so I don't pick up any bad habits.
Quick question about sandbags.
Because you kind of touched on it earlier, you're pretty fucking strong, you're prolific
with sandbags.
You're almost out of 400, right?
Are there any, because I think a lot of people when they start lifting sandbags, it feels
a little bit unsafe for them.
Maybe they tweak something when they last tried to lift a sandbag and
they're like, you know what, fuck this, I'm not going to mess with this implement.
What are some keys of being able to progress with that type of implement and understand
it safely?
Yeah, cool.
So I have two things I'm trying to push with people right now.
One would be like elevating the bag, so just having it up.
So maybe the lower end of the pick is probably the hard part for somebody.
And then the second thing is I actually think
most of the bags are too tiny.
So I feel like you can't get enough surface area
to actually experience what the fucking lift is.
So you don't really get that till you get to the bigger bags.
So what I really am trying to recommend to people right now
is like get a big bag and fill it with different media.
All right, so get a 300.
Honestly, I think the 400s tend to actually be, if you're like my size, like that 400 feels a little too big.
And I think that's the thing that helped me back when I was really chasing it. Excuses.
Eat that shit. But, but I think like the 300 bad pound bag just made sense. Like I could
have a consistent lift with it. I like the weight of it. I like the size of it.
And if I just, if I could start putting like steel shot in that and getting it to be a 350, get that to be a
375. Like I just want to put a fucking sandbag to my shoulder. I don't fucking care the shape of it.
Like it gets substantially bigger when it goes to that 400. It's weird.
So I think people need to probably get like a 250, like an average person starting and like fill it with crumb rubber, like rubber mulch.
Yeah, like rubber mulch from Home Depot.
You can get that stuff.
We just fill up the 400 right now.
It usually, when you stuff it,
it's about 100 to 150 pounds.
And then you got this nice big bag.
It's great for jiu-jitsu, by the way.
It's almost better than some of the grappling dummies.
Like having that 400 pound bag at 150, it's nice.
Okay, okay.
Having the 400 pound bag, filling it with 150 nice. Okay, okay. Having the 400 pound bag
filling it with 150 pounds of rubber mulch.
Yeah, you just stuff that thing.
It'll be, depending on the brand,
it's probably about 150 pounds.
And then I'm trying to come up with
like a consistent solution
to trying to get more weight in it outside the crumb rubber
and still have it be full
because you want the bag to be like full.
In the gym, I think we have a 125 or so med ball that's pretty big, right?
You get those XT3 ones.
Yeah, those are kind of neat.
They're sick. Yeah, I just have those.
Nice shape, you know?
Yeah, I love that brand. I had them up to 150 for a while.
But I'm trying to think of like trying to find a way to suspend weight to the middle,
like a cylinder or something that could go down in the bag, like a, probably like a cardboard pipe,
rather than like a PVC pipe,
but something like that,
that maybe could sit in the middle of it,
and you could start loading sand through the cylinder,
so you get it to be like a 175,
because there's sand in the center,
and then rubber around it.
Oh no, I gotta figure that out.
That's a bag we could make, maybe.
That's a, yeah, that's a bag.
Pretty cool.
Yeah, yeah, but yeah, I think a lot of people
would enjoy the practice more if they started with bags
that looked way too heavy for them, that felt great.
Just like those balls, those balls, they're big.
That's their 21 inch diameter, I think.
Yeah, even the 50 pound one's huge.
Yeah, it just makes that, now it feels like
what it's supposed to feel like
when you're actually picking the stones. Yeah, it just makes that, like, now it feels like what it's supposed to feel like when you're actually, like, picking the stones, right?
Where, like, the little actual concrete stones, you can't do any of the mechanics you do for
the big stones.
So, it's like I got a stone of steel from Mark Bartos, I think is what it is.
I got one of those bad boys.
So, I can load that thing.
I got PR 315, I think I did, like, I picked it and did some shit with it.
So, that's nice having that, like, big stone that you can just, like, it was 100 pounds if it's unloaded and you some shit with it. So that's nice having that big stone that you can just like,
it was a hundred pounds if it's unloaded and you can get it heavy.
Let me ask you this.
I don't know how long you've been working the sandbags,
but have you noticed a carryover that it has differently
than working with just like the same type of weight
or more weight on a barbell?
What have you noticed there?
Oh, dude, you're just like a fucking animal doing it.
Like way more.
Like, yes, there's just so much more going doing it. Like, way more. Like, yes.
There's just so much more going on you're reacting to
and it's not the same lift every time.
That would be the big thing for me.
It is a very different lift every time.
Every lift's probably a little different,
but like there's just, it's a different situation.
And I like taking something I've learned
and bringing it to a new situation
and seeing if it applies and learning
from that new experience.
So I think that's what bags sort of offers.
Just like constant learning and adaptive
sort of nature to stuff.
So bags-
And there's many ways to lift it.
That's one thing I love.
Like you can lift it in a lot of,
you can do the classical strongman type of lift,
but then if you want to lift it more explosively,
there's a lot of ways to get that weight off the ground.
Did you send him the video of me doing it with my feet?
Yeah, yeah, he pulled it up once, but.
Did the.
The sandbag.
It'll be there again, but that was.
The clean and throw.
Yeah, yeah.
With my feet, with the hormones.
I love the different setups that you have for stuff.
I saw the tire was attached to the rubber band and stuff.
Yeah, a good friend of mine, he showed me that.
The guy actually introduced me and Dave together.
That Sandbag says 150, by the way. Oh, shit.
You jumped up, you kicked it up in the air and then caught it.
Yeah.
Caught it in that position.
Handled that weight, then brought it up and threw it overhead.
Yeah, it's like your back like, ugh.
Let me ask you this too.
I think a lot of people would see stuff like this and they'd say,
well it's dumb, but too, how can your back handle this?
I was doing some sandbag stuff on my Instagram.
I posted up and people were like,
how can you lift the bag like that?
How's that good for your back?
And I'm just like, what are your thoughts there
after exposing your back to all these types of stresses
over the years?
Are you scared at all?
No, seriously, that's actually, that's immediately something you're gonna have.
Don't fucking like fear stuff.
What a block to fuck up your whole fucking body, man.
Like, that's what I'm saying. It's like just trusting.
It's getting rid of those little fears of doing things wrong
or not trusting yourself and all that bullshit.
That's like at every layer of anything, competitive or anything,
you gotta fucking trust it.
And like, just the general person, like, constantly feeling you gotta fuckin' trust it. And just the general person,
constantly feeling like they can't trust themselves.
Yeah, you're gonna.
Start with a lighter weight.
Yeah, do a lighter weight and just like,
have fun doing it, number one,
because FYI, that was after me sitting at my desk
for six hours writing emails and doing a bunch of bullshit,
and I was, my back was not feeling good,
actually, from sitting at the desk.
And I was like, and then I saw a buddy of mine actually kinda did that, and I was like, I was not feeling good actually from sitting at the desk. And I was like, and then I saw like a buddy of mine
like actually kind of did that.
And I was like, I'm gonna fucking do that
cause he's like way bigger than me.
And I was like, I'm gonna do it the same way
to see if it's not heavier.
So I was like, fuck that guy.
Yeah, I have little weird competitions with myself like that.
So like, I'm like, you know what?
I'm a Jaguar and this shit too.
So I fucking got up and did it.
Yeah, like who cares?
I like, I'm really intrigued by like classics,
Strongman and Circus Strongman from back in the day.
And just like showmanship.
Like the Instagram is fucking wonderful for that.
And like everybody thinks it's fucking Cuckoo
and Circus X, but fuck yeah, man.
Circus X are fucking awesome.
And that was like a fucking art back in the day, man.
Like I'm so like impressed with all that stuff.
And like, like who doesn't love somebody's dad
that fucking just does random bullshit?
You know what I mean?
Like when you go over to their house
and they had a couple too many
and do something fun and big and strong or something.
That's cool, man.
I love that.
Who are the mutants that you're checking out on Instagram?
Oh, Tom Toguli.
That's my guy, for sure.
He's a fucking monster.
I saw this guy, I don't know exactly
what his Instagram handle is,
but it was something Hercules,
and he's been doing these crazy one hand on a barbell,
or on a chin-up bar, and then just holding
a crazy amount of weight.
Oh yeah, yeah, maybe, yeah, yeah.
I used to do the LC hang Hang, like clean and press.
I think I got up to like almost,
I think I might have done like three bits.
And then there was a dude the other day who gripped.
So.
He's a mutant, by the way.
I watched him like grow too.
He's incredible.
World's strongest man, Wade Hooper, posted a video.
He said, he's like, no one in the world can do this.
And he took the 70 pound plate,
that big plate that I have in the gym,
and he flipped it and he tried to catch it
and he just can't catch it.
And then some other dude showed this huge guy
and the guy was able to actually do it,
it was pretty wild.
Fuck, see I just love it.
I just think that's cool,
just see if you can just pull something off.
What's this guy's name again?
I'm sorry.
Tom, Tom Duguie.
Yeah, show a couple of videos.
My buddy Alex Canellas,
he was my co-head coach at Wech Method.
He does land mine university.
Yeah, he was doing heavy land mines.
Yeah, so he's our heavyweight champ in the land mine games.
Land mine games are coming up at the end of the month, January 24th.
That was sick.
I didn't even know it was a thing.
Yeah, this is the second one we've done.
It's pretty cool.
Down in San Diego.
Yeah, he comes to the lab, he comes back to home base and everybody, all the mutants come
out and we lift some heavy, I think he did five plates, I think think is what he set the record on last time, which is pretty incredible.
Um, he does a strong man now, I think, or he does like a bunch of competitions, but
I think he did strong as well. Um, yeah. Who are some of the other people?
Uh, Edward choice is one of my coaches. I think he's incredible. He has come a long
way. He's flipping monster bells. The guy couldn't be pick up 50 pound kettlebell
I feel like when I met him and he's throwing around same weights as me right now on the bells
And he is like the embodiment of our practice
So I love one scene somebody can pick up rope kettlebell every single piece of the practice and apply it for themselves
Be successful and coordinated with it and have huge huge growth. So it's not just coming from us
I mean, he's one my head coaches now, but but I mean he's really earned that spot in that regard.
Alright, strength is never weakness, weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.