Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1180: Joe DeFranco on What Makes a Good Trainer, the Importance of a Structured Warm-Up, the Role of Genetics and MORE

Episode Date: December 9, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin talk with good friend Joe DeFranco. Why Joe refers to bad trainers as “slap dicks” and how he takes criticism. (3:08) The differences between his certification and all others. (5:00) The origins of building a certification course and how he was introduced to James Smith. (10:09) What are the real reasons why someone should focus on having a structured warm-up? (13:50) The breakdown between application and academia. (17:35) How do I know if a trainer is good or not? (19:22) Should we be training squats and deadlifts? (23:43) Why do we give a shit about how people eat? (26:35) Always listen to your body FIRST! (29:10) What is the value of speed and power training for the average person? What does a workout look like? (35:50) The risk vs reward of his athletes incorporating Olympic lifts into their training. (44:50) If you don’t use it you lose it. (47:30) The hidden benefits of the post-activation potentiation training method. (50:10) How do you break in and train your own clients? (56:00) Behind the curtain of the ‘freak of nature’ that is Brian Cushing. (56:51) How much of a role do genetics play? (58:30) Is Joe a big sports guy? (1:02:34) What is his favorite part about what he does today? (1:05:09) Featured Guest/People Mentioned Joe DeFranco (@defrancosgym)  Instagram Official Website YouTube Joe DeFranco's Industrial Strength Show James Smith (@smittydiesel)  Instagram Cory Schlesinger (@schlesstrength)  Instagram Brian Cushing (@briancushing56)  Twitter Related Links/Products Mentioned December Promotion: MAPS Aesthetic ½ off! **Code “BLACK50” at checkout** Visit CPPS Coaches for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “mindpump” at checkout**  Mind Pump 1035: Joe DeFranco Prime Bundle | MAPS Fitness Products - Mind Pump The Game Changers - Joe DeFranco Mind Pump 907: Cory Schlesinger “Behind the Scenes” – Lower Body Strength/Power Workout Joe Defranco’s Top 5 Ways To Develop Explosive Power Post-Activation Potentiation Post-Activation Potentiation: Theory and Application DeFrancosGym.com: Brian Cushing 64 inch Hurdle Jump!!!

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind up, mind up with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump, we interview one of our favorite people in this fitness space. In fact, we've learned from the sky when we were trainers, you know, 10, 15 years ago, Joe DeFranco. He's a world-renowned strength and conditioning coach. He's also the owner of DeFranco's gym.

Now, for the past two decades, athletes from across the world have hired Joe because of his remarkable ability to improve strength, power, speed, mobility, agility, and sports specific endurance. This guy is the trainer of trainers. He's one of the best. Now his trained techniques have been featured all over the place. ESPN, Spike TV, the NFL network, WWE network, Men's Health magazine, Men's Fitness magazine, and more. He actually was featured in a New York Times bestselling book, The Four Hour Body. His resume of clients is massive, but it includes NFL players from all 32 teams,

which is crazy. MLB and NBA players, WWE superstars, UFC fighters, Olympic athletes and high school and college, all Americans to the best. He's also a super cool guy. We love talking to this guy. He's a, he's very humble even though the guy,

his knowledge is just bar none, some of the best in this industry. One of the things we like most about him is his ability to communicate what he knows. He's a very authentic, real person. This is our second interview with the guy. We love the first one so much. We invited them to come down, hold a certification here. He does have a certification that he takes trainers through.

We think it's one of the best ones. And then we interviewed him again and had another phenomenal episode. We think you're going to enjoy this one quite a bit. Now you can find him on Instagram at DeFranco's gym. Now DeFranco is spelled D-E-F-R-A-N-C-O. His website is deFranco'straining.com. He has a great podcast on fitness called the Industrial Strength Show.

And if you wanna check out his certification, which we highly recommend, we think it's one of the best ones for personal trainers. Go to C-P-P-S, coaches.com, for the certification, by the way, we have a coupon code for that, use it mind pump and you can get 10% off. Now, before the episode starts,

I want to let everybody know that one of our most popular workout programs, Maps aesthetic, is 50% off. Now, this is a body building, body sculpting based program. It's a complete program broken up in the phases, about three months long. All the exercise demos are in there. We tell you how many sets and reps. Of course, what to do, where to feel each exercise. It's exceptional for people who want to just change

the way their body looks. That's why it's called aesthetic. Now, here's how you get the 50% off. Go to mapsblack.com and use the code black50, B-L-A-C-K A C K five zero no space for the discount Great certification class you guys had here at the studio What did you call bad trainer slap dick trainers? Slap dick trainers

That everybody rolling for sure Yeah, that got a nice pop from the crowd right there They were ready for that Little little politically incorrect but you got to you, but you gotta keep it light too. Oh no, I love it. It reminds me of Adam the other day did a very controversial post on Instagram and got probably the best insult

because we get people come after us and not super often, but they will. That's how you know you made it. That's it, and so some girls said he was a, called him a dick, but you're a soft dick. Yes, that's the best. I was like, I first I didn't like you, but now I like you, because that was like the best insult that I've had.

It's funny, somebody insults you, but it's a good insult. You're like, that's pretty good, right? Yeah, I was like, that's stung a little bit. Yeah, that was good. There are not too many people. You don't get too much of that, though. You're pretty seem to be pretty liked. Is it because you're so established now?

I used to get a lot more, like way more. And I'm almost, it's nice, but at the same time, sometimes I like question if I'm doing things right, because I'm like, wow, don't get as much hate as I used to, right? Maybe I'm, you know, I don't know, I'm doing something wrong, or I'm getting soft, speaking of soft.

But yeah, I also, I would like to think, like the information I put out is genuinely trying to be helpful towards everyone. You might get that one or two topics that people disagree with. I think we spoke last time I was here, like with some of the speed training stuff, some of the heavy sled work and heavy strength work we do, you might get some speed gurus and like purists that etc. That disagree with the methods and some of our programs. But like for the most part, it's not like

the you suck, you're a fraud, you're a piece of shit anymore. Yeah. A couple, but not as much as I used to get. Well, the feedback, because I came, you know, I wasn't attending the course, but my partner attended it. We have a couple employees that attended it, and then of course there were other mind-pump listeners in here. And the feedback I kept getting was just phenomenal. And the main thing that I kept hearing about your course,

because I would ask them, what's the difference? You told me it's awesome, but what's the difference between this and the other certifications or courses that you've done? And they said that you guys are so much more working on how you can apply what you're learning. You know what I mean? Like how, like, a lot less proven the theory of everything

and more like the real meat of a lot of these like various theories out there and like really like, you know, stacking them together in a applicable way. It really made a lot more logical sense. I think a lot of people get lost in just learning, you know, the overall science behind it. Well, a lot of certification spend half their time

trying to prove why they're method or who they are, it's better than everybody else, which that was what I felt like. And it's very black and white. It's this is our method, it's different than others, but it's right. And if you don't believe us, you're wrong, you saw, you know, it's just, and I think that's what we appreciate the most is, so like for this sort, we had close

to 50 trainers there, and I believe, I don't know the exact number, but we asked how many had previous certifications, and it was at least 40 of them have, at least another one or two certs. So it was a pretty good crowd that at least has something to compare our certification to. And like every one of them to a man said that same thing, you know, there's a ton of information in our certification. Like a lot, we go from 9 a.m. to 6.30 and we go hard. It's a lot of stuff that we cover. But it's all applicable. We've worked our ass off to really make it, you know, everything's context-based. Everything has context behind it. It's not just this is our way and you have to do this way, otherwise

it's wrong. If a trainer raises their hand and says, well, I learned it this way at another sir, will explain why or we might say, oh, that would work for a client that is dealing with ABC like the context matters and, you know, individuals vary. And that all needs to be accounted for. But unfortunately, it's not with most sort of. No, I loved it because I noticed right away, like what you guys had been able to extract from other concepts out there. And really I do the same thing when I'm listening to a certification course. I'm like, which parts am I actually going to use? Yeah.

And you guys literally like filtered that whole process for everybody. It was great. Well, everybody that I talked to was telling me how excited they were to actually get to work today. Yes. That's a big one too. It was cool to hear that. Like everyone was like, man, I can't wait to get to work on Monday or Tuesday and actually apply some of this stuff

because they picked up that much good information that they could go apply to clients right away. Yeah, and that's what they would tell us is, they'd attend a certain, they would get new information, but it would almost confuse them because it was, it contradicted maybe something else they had learned and again, it was so just black and white. It's this way or the highway.

And then they're scared to go to work on Monday because now they're like, oh, I'm not really sure what to do. I'm a little bit confused. This guy says this, but the new cert told me that where we provide a system for everything. It is a true like a systematic approach and templates for everything, but we give the trainer and the coach some freedom to make it their own. We provide the system and we help organize their thoughts

and make them feel way more confident going to work on Monday. But we also say, here's how you tweak the system. Here's the progressions and the regressions. And if you have a client that has been injured or an athlete versus a mom or a dad, like all that is factored in, just because Smitty and I have a combined 50 years in this industry, we've worked with pretty much

every type of client you could imagine. And we really extracted all the best stuff that we know the trainers are gonna deal with and that's what we present over the weekend. That's the biggest difference. That's the big difference right there because there's a difference between knowledge and information and wisdom.

And wisdom really is the application of knowledge and experience. It's a combination of experience. Cause one of my biggest criticisms of academia in the fitness space has always been that they don't have the experience of working with a lot of people because anybody who tells you this and I'll make this statement all day,

I'll argue it all day long, any trainer or coach or certification structure that tells you, our way is the best way in the only way. You know they completely lack experience working with people because there's always exceptions. And again, my biggest criticism has always been, great, I learned all this great information.

I'm not a better trainer, I don't know how to use it. I don't know how to apply. And what I got from, because I asked Jessica, who, you know, she's been training for a little while and she's got a few certifications, she's like, no, I feel like I'm a better trainer. I have to take a course, which I don like I'm a better trainer. I've been taking that course, which I don't necessarily feel from other courses.

It was great getting to meet Smitty too. And I was talking to you earlier about that. I'm like, where have you been keeping this guy? And I didn't even, I didn't know much about him in his background and everything. And he's just, he's a brilliant, brilliant guy, man. Yeah, he's been, I've known Smitty now for a long time like I was telling you, I was a fan of his he was a fan of mine but we never met you know we're in the industry

so long now it was like the internet was there there was no social media so you know I kind of heard of a lot of forms it's like you see he might have yeah he might have started a blog and he first he first started posting a lot of like strong man and an odd object lifting and I was working with a lot of football players and wrestlers at the time. So when I would research information on grip strength and hand strength because I was trying to you know I was always super like anal with my programming. I didn't want to leave any you know no stone left unturned type of thing. So I wanted to learn more about grip strength. And that type of strength for my wrestlers and football players and his stuff kept popping up.

You know, he was a guy who was like ripping phone books and decks of cards. We call him somebody to decks because he could take two decks of I wish I knew this before I met him. Yeah. He's got some odd odd odd object lifting strength and but he's way more than that but that's how I originally, what I originally knew of him. And then he ended up, I had a seminar at my first gym that I opened right after. I moved out of my storage closet, my original, a little 500 square foot facility

when I moved into my first warehouse gym. He attended the certification and I was like, oh shit, that warehouse gym, he attended the certification. And I was like, oh shit, that's the smitty diesel guy, like the grip guy. And then he was all excited that I knew who he was. He was like, man, I've been a fan of yours forever. And he was like a fan of my dad. So like my dad was at the seminar we met.

And then like a week later, he hit me up and we did our first project together, which was an Amp to Warmup DVD, which I think that was the first warmup product out there, because no, the warmup's not really a sexy thing to talk about. It's pretty much the meat heads either skip the warmup altogether,

or you have the real physical therapist like corrective exercise types that they feel the warm up should be the entire workout and it's overkill. And then you get a whole bunch of people again that are confused and they end up just not doing it or it's one extreme or the other. So we put this this Amped Warm Up system together that we didn't, we just felt like there was a need in the industry. We didn't put it together because we thought it was going to make a lot of money or, you

know, sell all over the world. We just thought, like, there's people, it's very polarizing when it comes to warming up. Let's put some quality information out there, show that there is a way that there's kind of that happy medium right in the middle where you could have a six minute quality warmup or you can go for a half hour and use more, you know, the warm up as a recovery type routine and we put a warm up system together, we shared what we're doing and with like no marketing,

we just, he put it on his blog, I put it on my blog and the thing sold, I think we sold in like 13 different countries and like every state in the like all 50 states, 13 different countries. We were shocked at like how popular it became and then that just led to a product on strength and then power and then speed and it kinda just, we ran the gamut of like proper programming in order

and then that pretty much became the curriculum for a certification course. But that's how it all started with warm-up DVD. What is the besides preventing injury, because I think that's obvious for why people would warm up? What are the real reasons why somebody should focus on having a structured warm-up? And what's the difference between just doing a few sets with lightweight versus doing something that's more targeted?

Yeah, I think that's a great question. I first, it's got to be more than just getting sweaty and getting warm. That's one aspect of a proper warm up would be increasing your core temperature and breaking a sweat. You should always have a sweat cracked before you hit your first set of any movement. But it's not just about warming up. There's so many different aspects to the warm up and benefits of the warm up. What a lot of people don't realize is besides preventing dramatically decreasing your injury

potential, it will increase your performance. Your muscles can't perform when they're cold or you... So basically, what we do is after warming up and just getting the core temperature up, you need to do some kind of soft tissue mobilization. Like, we... Some people are anti-foam rolling. We feel like everything does have its place, again, context matters. And basically, you're just trying to... You're trying to create this window of trainability, whether the effects of foam rolling last for longer than an hour or not, who really cares? If that could get me to move a little bit better and get into

better positions, that's going to enable me to have a better workout. And the more workouts I could stack up where I was in the proper position when I squatted or deadlifted it or et cetera. I'm going to eventually start moving and feeling better. So we're not just looking to prevent injury. We're looking to increase performance, but that entails increasing core temperature, mobilizing the soft tissue, activating muscles that are down-regulated and weaker. That's a big part of the warm-up. And then you want to rehearse the

whatever your first movement is, you don't want to just throw 135 on the bar. You should rehearse a couple sets of that movement and also excite the CNS. That's another big part of our warm up is always finish. We say finished with a sprint, a jump or a throw. And it doesn't have to be anything crazy, but just something to wake you up, fire up the CNS, and you're gonna get so much more out of that first exercise. Most people, you'll hear them say, oh, I, it's like towards the end of the workout

is where I really start feeling my best. Well, why not feel like that during, the beginning of your workout? So yeah, besides injury prevention, it's also performance, improving performance, longevity. If you're in this for the long haul, you want to preserve your body the best you can

and warming up is one of the easiest ways to do that. It's crazy listening to him talk about this right now because we wrote a program called Prime. Yeah. And that's the exact same thing that we saw and our philosophies are so aligned to the point that we in our Prime program we have what we call amp sessions. Oh really? So listen to you talk about it right now like fuck it's so trip. Yeah, it is a trip because it's we saw the same thing

There's not a there was not a lot of people putting a lot of emphasis on and exactly what you said either You were the physical therapy type or your whole routine was all mobility and corrective work and that's all you did, or you just skip the shit all together. And nobody was taking the time to what we call priming the body correctly to get it ready for the-

It's not only that, it's the warm up is people consider that general and then they consider the workout to be individualized, but the warm up should also be individualized. How I would warm up one person would be different from how I warm up another person to panel also based off of what exercises are. All that stuff, yeah, all that stuff.

But something that you mentioned that really highlights to me sometimes the breakdown between academia and application, you mentioned turning on muscles that are down-regulated, and there's been some controversy around that, right? Like, let's say you want your glutes to fire more on a squat and you do a primer like a hip bridge or whatever. And the studies show the glutes aren't getting activated more. When we attach electrodes to the butt muscle,

it doesn't get activated more. And it's like, as a trainer, I'll tell you this much right now, it's not necessarily that they're activated more that you can see with the electrodes, it's that the client no-nodes what to feel. Yes. And now they can move through the squat and feel the glutes more, but you wouldn't know this with a study. Exactly.

And that comes up at the cert. We were mentioned, we're talking about, you know, anterior pelvic tilt versus posterior, and somebody brought that up and just, they said, well, when my clients for them, they didn't know we throw these terms around as trainers and coaches, but they were saying how their client didn't even know their hips did that. Like they weren't aware that there's this,

you know, anterior tilt, posterior tilt. So when they did that and they just had them lay down on the floor and flatten out their low back kind of posteriorly tilt, the pelvis and then relax and have that natural arch and curve in your in your lumbar spine. Just doing a couple reps of that made the client aware and then they got so much more out of a hip thrust because now they know that movement exists. So again, to your point, whether that her glutes were more activated during

that hip thrust set, I don't give a shit either. The fact that she now knows what that movement is, she knows how to feel her glutes. Long term, that will be more beneficial. I don't give a shit of a study ever confirms that or not. That's how to. And studies typically are terrible, small sample sizes. Who's the ones getting studied, context,

that makes a big difference? You know, I make this argument quite a bit that one of the best investments somebody can make, the average person can make to help them in terms of increasing their odds of long-term success in fitness is in hiring a personal trainer. I think it's the best investment. I mean, we spend hundreds of dollars on supplements and equipment we don't use or whatever. A good personal trainer. A good personal trainer. That's right. I was just going to say that. A good personal trainer is excellent. One of the best investments, if not the best investment you can make. But then I always get this question. Actually Adam brought it up.

How do I know if for trainers good or not? We get that question all the time. Are there things that you communicate to people that you maybe can share with us? Yeah, with some of the things, one of the things we already touched on, I think how you know if a trainer is good or not, one of the first things you could do, ask a lot of questions. And if you don't get a couple of it depends answers, you probably have a shitty trainer. If every answer is, yeah, you're dealing with a slapstick. If every answer is, this is how you do ABC,

or there's no it depends, or they don't answer your question with a follow-up question that's a big red flag, or if they just answer, if they can't answer your question, I'm always shocked by how many potential clients, when we used to train a lot of high school kids and younger kids and their parents would come in,

I would want them to ask us questions because they would just say, well, how are you different? There's a gym down the street that says they do what you do, but they charge $20 less an hour. Like, why should I come to you? And I would say, well, go watch one of their sessions because I know they watch all my YouTube videos

and they just kind of copy exercises. Ask them why they're doing what they're doing. Like call them out. Why are you doing that exercise with my son? Why did you start with that? Finish with that. How come the warm up was this long? Question them.

And if they don't have an answer and if they can't explain it to you in terms that you understand, you're in the wrong gym. And I know I have a reason and purpose for everything. We call it the window and the mirror effect. We start, I'll even share this with your audience. We start our certification with this. And one of our top trainers, Mark and his came up with this. I was just telling Justin, he was our very first sir.

And he ended up coming to the next seven in a row. And now he's got super successful Jim, one of our top trainers. But he called it the window and the mirror effect. He said he after he took our sir, he started doing every session. As if Smitty and I were peaking through the window, watching him. So he was like, I, I wanted to make sure if you guys were looking at me and then you came into my gym and you called me out and said, why are you doing that with her? Why did why did you do that? Why didn't you do this? I would have a reason and a purpose and even if I'm feeling tired at the end of the day and it's a long day and that last session comes and I feel like I want to sit down and

drag ass a little bit. I pretend like you guys are watching me telling me like treat every session like it's your first session because it's your client's first session. So that window effect and then the mirror effect is to be able to convey your message and talk to your client in their language. So then when they do eventually have to go train on their own, they are, remember that they are a mirror image of you and your training techniques.

So that client represents you. If I meet someone that says, oh, I trained with Sal for 10 years back in the day, and then he's doing everything wrong in the gym. I'd be like, oh, damn, Sal might be a fraud, but I would expect that client to be pretty damn good. And we know maybe it's not gonna be perfect like if we were there, but if you work with someone

for a number of weeks, years, whatever it may be, they should be of the mirror image of you. So I know that's a little bit of a tangent, but I feel like that's every good trainer should kind of have that mentality going into a session. I think every good teacher looks at their students regardless, coach, teacher, parent, you look at your kid or student as a potential reflection

of you and there's some response, you have some responsibility, especially if they've been with you for a long time. So I completely agree with you. You know, Joe, the fitness space, it can be quite tribal at times, right? You know, a camp over here, kettlebells are better than dumbbells over here,

you know, free weights are better than machines. Oh, no, you should get trained slow, no, you gotta train fast. And it gets squatting in deadlifts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so what do you think about that? There seems to be like this, and it's weird that I'm hearing this,

this like, you know, squats and deadlifts, you don't need to do them. They're not as great as everybody says they are. What are your thoughts on that? Even that one, it's, it's, it's, and, uh, it depends on the, it depends because here, I'm, I've gotten, like, I guess you would call it typecast in the beginning of my career as a strength guy, even though I was working with a lot of athletes and we were incorporating speed training and plyometrics and I was always into mobility and, you know, warming up properly because I was born with some low back issues and I always had to address those things. So I wanted to make sure I didn't have a choice.

I was born with a tumor in my sacrum, and I've had to deal with a lot of shit because of it. I would always take responsibility and say, if you were born healthy, I'm not gonna be the one to make you deal with low back pain or whatever it may be. I'm certainly not gonna contribute to that. So I'm gonna do everything in my power to,

not only, yes, I'm going to improve your performance, but I'm going to do it in the safest possible manner. We're going to get you better while doing no harm. So with that being said, I always found it funny because squats and trap our deadlifts were always a huge part of our program. But I could name five NFL players off the top of right off the top of my head without have been thinking that I've trained that never never did a deadlift in my gym and they've trained with me for over 10 years because they didn't like it. They had back issues, you know, they just mentally they had something. And with athletes, while I think squats and deadlifts are great exercises we teach them at our certification

as core fundamental movements. No single exercise is the be all end all. I think yes, you should train the hinge pattern. Yes, you should train the squat pattern, but it doesn't have to be with a barbell on your back or off the floor with the barbell. It might be a goblet squat. It might be a trap bar deadlift, it might be an RDL. It's more about strengthening your body

via certain movements, and that's a big part of our cert we teach fundamental movements, progressions and regressions, but then leave it to the trainer and the coach to pick the specific exercises. The specific exercises aren't as important as the movement patterns and how and where they are programmed over the course of a week, a month, a year, etc.

Very well said. Now, the most tribal part of the fitness and health space is gotta be diet. Diet's gotta be the most, you know, people get the most heated over. Did he just do a review and game-tune? Yeah, I was just gonna say. So, so. That was just, that was so ridiculous. Well, Joe, so, Joe, I was gonna say, so I've been, I haven't been in this space as long as you,

but I've been in it for over 20 years. I've never seen, I've seen diets be tribal. I'm keto, paleo, low fat, low carb. People get pissed off. I might diet better than yours. But I've never seen a diet get politicized like this this plant based or vegan diet. It's actually getting tied to the climate.

It's getting tied to politics. It's becoming a they're using it as a moral compass type of deal. What are your thoughts on that whole deal? It's it's same thing like first there's there's I to me I I'm baffled by how much people give a shit, how other people eat. Like, there's a part of me that cares a lot because I'm in this industry and I got into this industry like we all did

because we genuinely enjoy helping people and providing information. But I don't give a shit. However, if you wanna if you want to be vegan and you say you're healthy and you feel great, like I'm all for it, like I'm, I'm happy for you, but I have the problem as soon as now, you tell me, I have to eat that way or she has to eat that way.

And if she doesn't, she's stupid, she's done, you know, like it's just, it's, it baffles me. Like I really have, I'm, really have, I'm tyrannical. Yeah, I almost can't comprehend it. Like you really care that much, like what's why? And even it's just such a waste of time to argue because we could all find, yes, we could find a vegan who performs well, but you could also find a meat eater

that performs well. And a guy that's eating carnivore and the key to like, there's exceptions to every rule. There's the clearly different diets could work for different people. We're all individual. I think it's find the diet that you enjoy that that your your health, you know, as long as you remain healthy, you could sustain it. That's that's the diet for you. Yeah, I mean, sustainability is the big one,

but as you guys know, it's like, I know I'm so sick of the before and after pictures. Oh, look at my 30-day transformation, 60-day transformation. I always say, come back to me in five years. If you're still doing that at five years, then I'll kinda, you'll peak my interest a little more, but your 30-day, 60-day transformation, I'm kind of, you'll peak my interest a little more, but your 30-day, 60-day transformation, I'm kind of bored by it.

Yeah, so because my biggest issue is this, and I saw this happen a couple times when Keto was all the rage, and everybody was talking about how was the best thing since sliced bread, and I would get messages from people who would be like, you know, I've been on this Keto diet for four months,

and I'm constipated and I have really low energy. Like, and I'm like, listen to your body. And the reason why they weren't listening to their bodies because they were fed so much propaganda. Well, with this vegan push, the propaganda is so much stronger. And I fear there's gonna be a lot of people who are gonna go that direction. It's not gonna be the right diet for them

because individual variance is dramatic when you count your physiology, your microbiome, the emotional connection you have to foods, like your personality. You throw everything in there, it's a fingerprint, but now you can have a bunch of people who are going to go a particular way because they think it's virtuous and they're going to ignore the signals of the body. They're going to totally ignore that's the thing that I get worried the most about. And it's not to get off track, but I think it's similar as far as just like listening to your body is such an important point that so many people neglect, which is crazy, we

had a coach this weekend that when we were going over the squat, we taught it a little bit differently than another trainer coach that he learned it from. That is a very well-respected coach, but he said, and he just happened to be the guy that we picked out to demonstrate the squat, and we nitpicked a couple things, and we felt like he was sitting straight down, and his knees were coming a little too far forward. So we had him kinda hinge a little bit more than he was normally used to doing, which felt uncomfortable for him.

But he was like, man, that was the first time even just like with a barbell that I feel my knees didn't hurt when I was squatting. So I was like, so why were you squatting the other way? And it was, and it's super smart and intelligent, dude. But he was just like, well, that was how, you know, I was taught by another coach who was a pretty smart dude. And someone that I even respect,

and he was like, it was just kind of bothering my knees, but I just kept doing it. I feel like this will be way better for me. And I'm just like, yeah, like that's, I don't care. I said, if I recommend something, and it hurts or it doesn't feel right to you, by all means, always listen to your body over me, over Smitty, over you guys. Like, I think we would, I'm not offended at all. If I give you some advice and you go, add that bothered me a little bit, I'm going to do it this way instead. That's how,

I give you some advice, and you go, add that bothered me a little bit, I'm gonna do it this way instead. That's how our certification was actually born. It was that happening enough times over the course of 25 years that you start to hear from so many different coaches and trainers that you start accounting for those exceptions to the rule and the individual variances.

And then that's how our teaching style came about. But it just baffles me how many people are like, yeah, I've been doing it this way for the last year. It hurt, but I was taught that way, so I tried to stick through it. And whether that's your diet, your squatting technique, whatever it may be, always listen to your body first. Yeah, such an important point,

especially like we see all, the coaches out there having these different turf wars in terms of like which Modali has it like figured out the most and then the the person that hurts is the person that like applies this and it's not working for them But they're hell-bent on making it work. Yeah, yeah, not having that flexibility, man You know, I'm any so, I'm in this industry. So I always say, when I had the two, it was during my very, very early years, but when I had the tumor growing in my sacrum, but I didn't know it was the tumor,

it was misdiagnosed for five years. So I have this severe excruciating pain in my back and nerve pain shooting down my legs. The amount of people who told me like, you gotta do, you have to do reverse hypers. That cures every back problem. And I'm like, and I have a reverse hyper in my gym, think it's a great piece of equipment,

but I tried it and it would make the nerve pain a million times worse. I didn't go tell everybody that's a bad exercise, but nor did I continue doing it myself because Louis Simmons, who I, a guy that I respect and grew up like reading and listening to, I continue doing it myself because Louis Simmons, who I, a guy that I respect, you know, and grew up like reading and listening to, just because he said it cured his back problem.

I was like, I don't know, man, I got something going on that when I do one rep of this exercise, I'm in severe pain. Five years later, they go, oh yeah, you have a tumor growing right in your sacrum, and that's why that movement pattern would aggravate the hell out of that. So if I would have just blindly listened to everyone, you know, it just, it would make

no sense. Like there's, that's where individuals matter, you have to listen to your own body. I always feel like the job, the ultimate job of a personal trainer at the end of the day is to teach their client how to listen to the signals of their body and how to train, exercise, and eat for their optimal health. Because also, here's the thing that something you need to consider, that people need to consider, is that what's right for you now is not going to be right for you maybe next year. And so if you don't learn how, if you, you may get the right routine, the right nutrition with your trainer or, if you may get the right routine,

the right nutrition with your trainer or from you went online and you researched, and you might figure it out right now, but if you still haven't learned how to listen to your body, when that stops being right, you may, and I see this all the time, you may hard-headedly stick to,

well, this worked for me before. I'm just gonna keep doing this. So actually now, it's not working for you. Yep. Your stress is different, your life is different. This is not where, so I always felt like that was the job of a trainer. It was like,

Well, this is also one of the things that we're battling even with our own marketing team, right? We were just discussing this before, Joe got here, that they want things so dumb down and so simple that we can sell to everybody, and that's obviously their fucking part of the job for us, right? And sometimes we're like, okay, well fucking part of the job for us, right?

And sometimes we're like, okay, well, one of the things we do really well is simplify really complicated things. But we also don't want to treat our clients and our people like they're stupid and educate them and teach them. And so I think that's the fine line of being a really great trainer is how do you take and filter or disseminate some of this information that's really high level for the average person, but then at the same time too, not treating them like they're stupid

and just pointing them to do this, do that, right? And that's what we're always trying to juggle ourselves. Because then they just become order takers. And if you want someone to have long-term success, they have to be able to learn how to read these things for themselves, otherwise it's always gonna be listen to the next person, in which case, oftentimes that information, you know, may be wrong. Joe, one part of your certification talks about performance in the terms of speed and power and

that kind of stuff. What is the value, if any, of that kind of information or training for the average person. Like should the average person worry at all or apply any of the things that can contribute to them getting faster or more powerful? Yeah, 100%. And I actually started my power presentation with that because as we had close to 50 people at this sir, but I think when I asked how many of you work

with athletes, there was like five or six only. It was really, it was more of a general pop trainers that work with general pop. So I wanted to make sure they knew the power stuff that I'm talking about, where a lot of times I refer to athletes, but this is all stuff that to a lesser degree, this should be incorporated into your average Joe's training as well, because we actually are

ability to display power. I say, you know, power is like the ability to display your strength quickly. That quality we lose faster than any other quality, that kind of speed power the ability to move dynamically. And as you get older, you think of it more in the context of maybe slipping, falling, or even just something as simple as wanting to play with your kids, when they're growing up, you wanna be able to go outside and play with them

without blowing out your hamstring or an Achilles or something that you got to end up rehabbing for, you know, a year, how many people do you know that are like, man, I used to be able to just go out on the basketball court and play and then I did it this time and I blew out my Achilles. Like, yeah, you're 47 instead of 7 to have to add them silent. I feel like that was a fucking How long ago was that? We're on what year two or three now. Yeah, but so we fully recovered so what happened to me? Was it actually basketball? Oh my god Teen is the entire picture. Hey, it's a good you we for the team. You helped prove No, no, no, it's it's actually point. And shit, when it happened, I was what, it was 35.

And I've been, I would consider myself an athlete most of all of my life. And I probably went on this strength training stint for quite some time and bodybuilding. I was doing that for a while. And I wasn't playing sports as much. I was used to always being the guy who even up into 30, I was playing in intermurals all the time.

And what happened was I came off of bodybuilding. I came off of my testosterone, decided that I was gonna completely quit. And I was actually having a really hard time being motivated to go to the gym and work out. So I thought, well, you know, why don't I get back to playing ball because that's a love and passion. And like an asshole, I went out there, and I remember the first day, I was like, well, you know, why don't I get back to playing ball because that's a love and passion. And like an asshole, I went out there and I remember the first day, I was like, let me

just kind of fill it out and like smart the first day, you know, warmed up, kind of took my time. And then a second day, it was just, I felt good, you know, and I was playing, was playing well, making my shots and just, it was maybe 15 minutes in. And it was over, it seemed like nothing. I was just, I just made a layup, was sprinting back on defense and that I pushed off to go back and there it went. Oh, man. God. But then I didn't do any proper training to lead up to that. And that is was such that

I knew right away, like what a dumbass. Like that's what I get for thinking I could just jump on the core of the play still. And I didn't put any, I didn't lay any foundation to be out there doing anything explosive and my justification of going, oh, it's a pickup game, I'm not gonna be going, but I know better, I'm an athlete, I don't have different speeds, it's either nothing you're all asked for.

I think it's so, that's cool that you even share that because that helps so many people because you as someone who is a professional in this industry, it's not uncommon, you did it. It's very common for someone to do that. And you made a really good point earlier about, even if you don't want to, because I'm probably not gonna go play

a pickup game of basketball, I could give a shit. Yeah, I'm not gonna go whatever, but I've had situations where I remember it wasn't, this was, let me see, my son's 14 now. So it was like 12 years ago where he was at the top of the stairs and he started to stumble. And I just, you know, I grabbed the railing and yanked on it and reached up and jumped up and grabbed him

and pulled the entire left side of my body. Now I got them, but that was a time where I needed to call upon my- Yes. And I was fit, I'd worked out, I lifted weights, it wasn't like I was at a shape, but I'd never trained, or I never at that point, I hadn't trained any kind of speed or power training.

It was all traditional strength training, and then there was a situation where I had to call upon it, which, I mean, you could be walking along the sidewalk and just step off the curb wrong. Exactly. And now you got to call upon it, and so you make a very, very good point that I know I neglected. Now, what does that look like for the average person?

So, yeah, so here's the thing, and it doesn't have to look like one of my NFL guys to work out. So, you know, it doesn't have to be the major component of your program. But something as simple as you could get some of those benefits of dynamic effort or power training right in the warm up. If you do your soft tissue work, whether that's a little foam rolling, you get a lacrosse ball, mobilize those tissues,

do some mobility work, then you activate the weaker muscles. And then during that CNS activation phase, which we've, I feel like everyone, regardless of your, you know, thoughts on warming up, you should finish your warm up, which something that excites the CNS. And that could be any kind of a MedBall throw variation, a jump variation, a short sprint. You don't have to go running 100 meters, maybe 10 yard sprint or a 10 yard prowler push and just build up like same thing.

First day you incorporate that, you don't have to do a 100 box jumps. Nor should you. It should, when training for power, it should always be quality and speed over quantity. Because once you start incorporating those type of movements like a box jump or a short sprint or a med ball throw, here's the thing. The exercise itself doesn't determine the adaptation. So you could like a box jump is considered an explosive movement, but if you program it like an asshole like CrossFit, hello CrossFit, you know,

I tried to bring that up, but you know, and tell someone to do a hundred box jumps at the end of their workout in the shortest amount of time possible. Put the box away. Do jumping jacks. Yes, now you're not improving your power potential or you're not developing power.

You're just the only adaptation is fatigue basically. A sloppy box jump isn't going to help you. Like you said, when you have to slip off the curb and you have to call upon those fast twitch fibers, those faster movements, that's not to help you. Like you said, when you have to, you slip off the curb and you have to call upon those fast twitch fibers, those faster movements, that's not gonna help you. But quality five sets of three box jumps or 10 total box jumps at the end of your warm up with a couple of seconds or 30 seconds rest

in between each jump, quality jumps, sprints, MedBuff throws, incorporated and added over time, increase the volume over time, work your way up, that's gonna help. I don't even do that much. I'll give you like a, you know, so my squat warm up is pretty similar

every single time I get into it. I do my 90, 90 variations, get my hips all nice and warm. I do my wall test stuff, which is to get my shoulders in a good retractive position. I do my combat stretch to get the soft tissue work going on in my ankle mobility. And then I do two rounds of three explosive jumps.

That's it. I'm ready to rock and roll. Yeah, that's it's depend, it's again, the goal. If you're just using the power movement to excite the CNS and prime yourself for a squat workout, the same thing I would say 10 total jumps would be fine. Anywhere from five to 10, so two sets of three,

three sets of three is perfect. If you want more, like we have some full dynamic effort days with our athletes where we might finish finish the warm up with an explosive movement, but then run a bunch of sprints or do a bunch of med ball throws and then finish with some accessory strength work. But again, it's dependent on the goal and the individual. But bare minimum, I think for your average Joe, they would see tremendous benefits just by twice a week, two, three times a week at the end of your warm-up incorporating some sprints jumps in that book.

Now, I talked to you a little bit about training professional athletes. And also, I remember we had Corey Slesinger on another great coach that was talking about risk versus reward. And also, with these power moves and also like a power clean or a snatch or these like really sophisticated movements, how valuable do you see those in terms of like training these professional athletes? Or is it something that you kind of reduce it down to the

actual like nuts and bolts of what you should be focusing on? Yeah, I've had in my 25 I, I've had, in my 25 years, I've had like two or three athletes incorporate Olympic lifts into our programs. I tend to steer away from them not because I think they're bad at all. They could be amazing if coached properly,

but just again, practical experience taught me that they just take too long for athletes to be able to, you know, handle. You got to remember when I'm dealing with athletes, they're playing football or playing baseball. That is their number one priority. And that takes up a lot of energy reserve, mental capacity. The the weight room is just a thing. A lot of them don't even like to do it. They just know that it's helpful towards their sport. It'll help it, you know, decrease their injury potential and improve performance. So it's

they don't look at it like we do. For us, it's a hobby. We love, we live in the gym if we could. A lot of pro athletes are just doing it because it's part of their job. So you don't have that intense focus, you know, that a lot of outsiders think you may have. Also, with me, I don't have a lot of time. A lot of times in my profession, you know, I made a name for myself early helping guys prepare for the NFL Combine, which I would get them for six, eight weeks if I was lucky at the end of the college football season and I would need to prepare them for all these events at the NFL combine. And they're coming to me right after the season, not a single football player ever came to me healthy, like every single one of them. They're not teaching a snatch in that amount of time. No, no shot. Like I got six weeks to get big time results and make a change

in this guy's body. Am I going to teach him a snatch or can I have him hold dumbbells and tell him to jump on a box, you know, or run some sprints or throw him at ball. I could start making changes in that athlete's body. Day one, get an actual training effect. Day one, as opposed to, are we going to snatch a broomstick this week and then we're going to do the barbell.

I just don't have time. You know, that's really the only reason why I don't incorporate them more. What you're saying about speed and power training is really, you know, a few times on the podcast where I hear something that really turns on a light bulb for me, but it makes perfect sense. It's something I should have known and I tend to learn this lesson or relearn this lesson over and over again through my own career of working out and training people.

But the old adage, probably the oldest, most widely known, you know, saying in fitness is you don't use it, you lose it. And totally true with speed. If you don't train it, you can do all the strength training in the world. You're gonna lose some of that ability. It's so funny, Joe, this morning, no joke. Sward of God, it's a true story.

This morning, I go across the street to get some water. I'm coming back to Cross and MJ walking, right? So I'm going, there's no crosswalk. I'm coming back and a car's coming at me real fast. I sprinted, I'm not exaggerating from here to the door. That's it. Boom boom. Oh shit, my hamstring.

And I work out my legs. Almost pulled the ham. Three, four times a week, you know? And I was suddenly, guys. Well, I would argue that someone in your case is probably almost at more risk than someone who's completely deconditioned because you've trained so much more strength. How have more output than you sprint? Yes.

But you don't sprint. So it's like, there are like Olympic sprinters pull hamstrings and muscles way more than your average fat chubby kid running sprints at gym class. Right. Because their outputs are so low and they're so slow, they could run 10, 40 yard dashes and be fine. But have you seen bolt run 10, 100 meter dashes and be fine. But have you seen bolt run, you know, 10, 100 meter dashes back to back like he's going to pull something. It's just his

muscles are so explosive and the outputs are so high, you know, those contractions are so fast and violent. It doesn't matter how well trained he is. That's just stressful on your body. That's part of why I think my killies went was I had just came off of all of this power and strength training. Yeah. And I had done nothing no none of my mobility athletic work at all Yep, and I think I just I didn't think it was much. I didn't think I was exploding that hard But that's just it is just you've been training so much that it does not take that much and you combine it I just I just compared Salda you say in bulk I don't know if I'm gonna. I'm not gonna go with that one too.

I'm almost that fast. Too much. Too much for Ziga. You also came off the testosterone when you did that. Yeah, that also increases the risk of you. Yeah, no. No, it was for sure like the perfect storm and it's such an asshole move.

But like Joe says, and the reason why I share that is like, hey, I have all this knowledge. I know better. And I still, it still happens to me, you know, so stressing that to everybody else, how important this is. So, Joe, you think for the average person or let's say for someone like me, incorporating, you know, two or three sets and of course, progressing and being appropriate with it, but doing two or three sets of some type of speed or explosive type movement appropriately,

a few days a week, probably yield, would probably yield me tremendous benefits. I would imagine. 100%, I would almost guarantee it. And here's the other hidden benefit, which I feel like nobody ever talks about. If you are just like a meathead, someone who listens to this podcast

that's more into training for aesthetics, and I think I'm one of my early podcasts I might have talked about this, but like the dynamic effort method for hypertrophy, most people just think it's exclusive to athletes. Like at Westside Barbell, Louis Simmons really popularized, doing like 10 sets of two reps in the squat

with 50% of your max and just working on that speed or eight sets of three with a barbell bench press, with 50, 60% of your max and just working on that speed or eight sets of three with a barbell bench press with 50, 60% of your max. If you're, even if hypertrophy is your only goal, incorporating that type of training, if you did something like that, because I've done it, if you normally start, you say you start an upper body workout or a chest workout

with a barbell bench press, if you started with six sets of three dynamic effort benches, so if you could bench 300 pounds, put 150, 165 on the bar, warm up first, obviously go through your warm up, but then do three reps as fast as you can. And anywhere from five to eight sets, you take about 30 seconds rest in between each set, then rest a minute or two, and then go into whatever your normal hypertrophy bench press sets were.

Guarantee you will either, you'll lift heavier and or more reps than you would normally lift with a given weight, it's almost guaranteed. So you could actually put on more, pack on some more muscle by incorporating some down. I would agree. What do they call it? Is that post activation potentially?

Post activation potential. Yeah, and that's a proven thing. Yes, 100% proven thing. Normally when they talk about the PAP, it's more doing something heavier and then lighter. So like a heavy squat and then pair that with a vertical jump, an unresisted vertical jump. But you get that same type of effect

by doing something dynamic, because you're CNS, you want it to mimic the movement though that you're going to do. So if you were gonna squat, I would do, I would do some jump training first. If you were gonna do a barbell bench press, I'd do some dynamic effort, barbell benching, which is lighter weights.

And if you had bands, like the most I've ever, I always wanted to bench 225 for 30. I was never a big endurance guy, and that's a combined test, even though it's a bullshit combined test. It's one of the things they have to do. But I've done it twice in my life,

and both times is when I warmed up with dynamic effort, benching first with bands. I love you because when we a while ago, when we talked about how to incorporate an explosive movement with a traditional kind of grinding strength movement, that's exactly how we communicated it, do the explosive movement first.

And then we actually had some pushback because people will say, no, no, no, no, P.A.P. as a reverse. Yes. As a reverse. And we said, actually, you know, we've noticed a benefit. Yeah, they both, they both, I know that's another, it's another dumb thing.

People argue, do you do the heavy lift first and then the unresistant movement or the dynamic lift first or the dynamic movement and then they both work. Yeah, I've done them both. They both work. They're benefits for sure. And do you apply that in the the combine like if you have your

athlete going there, do they do like some kind of PAP beforehand? Yeah, because here's the the combines like it's like set up for the athletes not to do good. Like you guys they they keep these guys up for interviews. They'll they'll interview with teams until two through 30 in the morning and then they wake them up at five. No breakfast. They have they have to go through a full body MRI, even if you don't have any injuries, you got a lane in MRI machine and they take MRIs

to your shoulders, your low back, so to make sure you're not lying about any previous injuries. So imagine, you know, no sleep, then you got to go laying in it, you sit in a doctor's office for an hour, then you're in an MRI machine for an hour, then they take you right to the Barbell bench press. And this is after performing the previous day,

and you gotta do the 225 bench test. And the last couple of years I worked with guys, they just had one warmup bench set up with 135. So I would try to figure out a way to hack that, because I always, the trick we initially used was work up to 315 for one or two and then go back down for your 225 test. Just low reps working up higher

to get that post activation, potentiation effect. But then they only allow 135 warm up. So instead of having that my guys go up there and just do what you'll see most of the athletes say go up they do 135 for 10. And then they go do their 225 bench test. I told my guys, just jump in every other guy, do a set of three as fast as you can.

Then let the other guy go jump in three, jump in, so do dynamic effort. Try to, if pretend like there's 500 pounds on the bar and just do three rep sets, get your nervous system all jacked up and Then 225 won't feel so heavy after going from you know 135 and I had the like Brian cushion. We've had guys that had the best bench at the NFL combine a number of years Using that technique you were with Brian. Yeah, I've been working with Brian since he's 14 Oh, what a sad time fine. Yeah, I've been working with Brian since he's 14. Oh, fuck. A lot of time, time, time.

Yeah, he's one of my best friends. He's a system strength coach with the Texans now. I'm a nerd. I'm a nerd last year and now he's in, it's cool because now he's in this industry. But yeah, he was like, I, a lot of the trainers were asking me yesterday like, you know, how do you break in and, you know, how do you get your first client? And Brian's a great example because I, when I first started, I trained three kids

from Bergen Catholic High School, which was my old high school, which Brian went to my high school. Obviously, he's a lot younger than me. But when nobody knows who you are, like, I was like, listen, you have to go out there and do shit. Your people aren't gonna pay you before they know who you are, like I was like, listen, you have to go out there and do shit. People aren't gonna pay you before they know who you are, you have no reputation, no experience.

So you're gonna have to do stuff for free in the beginning. I trained a bunch of kids from Bergen Catholic for free. They all transformed, you know, kinda did great with me, started telling all their friends, then they happened to be friends with Brian. He came in one day, loved it, and I ended up training him from his sophomore year

in high school through a nine year NFL career. So tell me, when you see someone like Brian, because he's a freakish athlete, do you know right away? Can you tell? Yeah, him I did, him I did. But he, he, you know, at 15, you could tell, he was a freak, but then he also, you know,

grew like three, four inches from, you know, a sophomore year in high school to junior year, and then you're like, oh, wow, this dude is like like a lot of it. His work ethic is was, is was unlike anyone I've ever trained to complete savage in the weight room and training and meticulous with his nutrition. Like he was very into everything, but also there, that genetic component where like he was very into everything, but also that genetic component where like he just, he was like a little safety his sophomore year in high school and then he grew four inches

and he became the number one rank linebacker in the country as a high school junior and senior. So was it you then who, so I don't know if you guys know this or not, but I believe he was the first ever to do this. I at least I remember the first I watched almost every NFL draft and I remember they highlighted this when he was drafted, ever to do this. I at least I remember the first I watched almost every NFL draft and I remember they highlighted this when he was drafted,

jumping out of the pool. Was he the... No, he was someone else did that. Did someone do that before him? Yeah, because I put a viral video up of him doing at 250 pounds, he did a 64 inch hurdle. I jumped over the hurdle. Yes, that was my gym.

That was my gym. Oh, shit, I remember inch hurdle. Over the hurdle. Yes, that was my gym. That was my gym. Oh, shit, that's, I remember watching that video. No shit. Yeah, that's my gym. That was the highlight of the draft. I remember that. That was his big, that was like a big viral video. Someone else did the pool jump that I can,

I remember it, but I can't remember who it was. But Brian was the hurdle, though. Oh yeah, I remember it was crazy. That was, it was something ridiculous. 64 inches, one step, one step at 250 pounds, which makes it more impressive. That doesn't make any sense. No.

Because you have access to, or you've worked with, I should say, some of the highest performing athletes and in various sports, maybe you can explain the difference that genetics plays. I know training and nutrition plays a big difference, but we'll get questions where people will be like, well, you know, if I trained real hard and took all the steroids,

would I be able to be Mr. Olympia or would I be able to, like how, it's almost like there's different species of humans almost. Yes, I've had a lot of tough conversations with parents, trust me, that bringing little Johnny and say like, he's gonna be the next Michael Jordan or the next Brian Cushing at my facility and it's, and I am all for, you know, don't take no for an answer, you know, work hard, don't

give a shit what other people think, but when it comes to professional sports, there are, and there's always a couple exceptions to the rule. But it's fun, even some of those exceptions that they'll say, like, oh, this guy's really small. He's undersized for the NFL. There's usually something more to it. Like, if he's short, if you see the dude in person, he's probably one of the most jacked guys you've ever seen. You know, there's always something that,

and that's a great way to put it. They're just a different, it's just like, yeah, a different freaking species of human. Like the NFL lineman, their joints are bigger, their hands are bigger. You know, I would have kids come in and be like, oh, Dave Diel plays for the Giants. He, I could bench more than him, but I'm like,

yeah, all right, that's one thing you can do better than him. He's six foot seven, three, and just reaching pounds. Like, and you might bench more than him, but I'm like, yeah, all right, that's one thing you can do better than him. He's six foot seven, three, six, six pounds. And you might bench more than him, but if he literally touches you, he will launch you across the room with his leverage and his skill. So yeah, like genetics are the one thing that none of us could teach, you know, none of us can improve upon it. We haven't figured out a way yet.

And that does play a huge part. Because it's working. You're trying to some time, there's no reason. There's no reason for us on this way. I've worked with some, man, more than I could even mention or remember, but like kids that worked their asses off,

worked way harder than any pro athlete I trained, but they still didn't make it, you know, like, and you wanna see them make it, but they're like normal humans like us, and they just don't have that genetic factor, which is a real thing. I remember what I used to do, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and I did it for a while,

and then I remember this new guy came in, and he was 320 pounds, six foot four, big dude. And he was a pro Canadian pro football player. So we played for the Canadian leagues or whatever. And I remember this big dude, new no jiu-jitsu, no thing about Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, all you did was play football. This guy was doing cartwheels and fucking flips.

And then at one point, we were laughing about how athletic this guy was. We went out to the parking lot and I to watch a 300 and something pound man run faster than anybody you've ever seen run before in person. No, it doesn't make any sense. Justin was there when we closed down the Sanatrisa Coddle gym and at that time. Yeah, that was back when Isaac Sapoaga was playing for the Niners who else was there? Manning lost I'm trying to remember all this but they had five guys and I think only two of them were starters that came down

I had to cover Isaac. Yeah, yeah, I had many loss and right who caught an alley hoop over the top of my head and dumped it on me But you watch the part that was crazy by where they were there were there were five football players and being a basketball player You can just you could see the way someone plays if if that's their sport or not and you I could tell that this Was there basketball? Yeah, they don't play their basketball. It wasn't pretty But they were so fucking athletics that they just destroyed us Yeah, and I remember watching a lineman, you know, that was 300 something pounds Sprint at the court faster than me catch ball, and then go up and dunk it, and just being like, holy shit, this is crazy.

And then shoot a three-from-half court, you make it. They're just playing with us. So, Joe, do you, are you, because you train so many professional athletes in your round that, are you the type of trainer who, because of that, you kind of like, you don't really watch too much sports, or are you just as fascinated? Are you like a hardcore football fan?

Are you watching sports like crazy and into who's what? Yeah, I think the biggest difference once I got into the industry was more, I would watch the players not so much the game. I'm not watching the game hoping the giants win or lose as much as I'm rooting for the players on the team that I've trained. that was the biggest difference for me. It's weird. I grew up 10 minutes from giant stadium and but I grew up a redskinned fan

I for whatever reason they were good when I was young and I just got really into them and I was die hard redskinned fan. But then when I had my little storage closet gym, I had one guy from the giants come and then it was two and next thing you know at one point I had my little storage closet gym, I had one guy from the Giants come and then it was two and next thing, you know, at one point I had like 11 or 12 guys from the New York Giants training in my little storage closet gym. And that's, you know, it was just weird because I went to watch a giant red skin game and I'm like, how do I root for the red skin? Like train the new or giant.

And so that's, that was so that's like 2003, the shift was made of, now I just watch and see how my individual guys do. When you see, I've been watching sports since I was a young kid, and it fascinates me how much the evolution just in two decades has been watching these athletes. I mean, I don't know if you saw the highlight of Tyree Kill from last week.

He was like behind, you know, maybe 10, 15 yards behind somebody who picked the ball up and was running the opposite direction caught up. Yes. It was clocked at like 25. Freaky. Yes. That's fucking insane to me. Yeah, it's insane.

And that's why I think one of the most annoying things since I got into this industry training more pro athletes, and I don't like going to the game. I rather just watch from home is like hearing the people in the stands yell like you suck or I, it's like, you have no freaking idea how much more you suck than players on the field. Yeah, like I don't care if the worst performance ever

by a quarterback or the third string quarterback comes in Everybody's yelling that he sucks and it's like that kid who's probably all-American in high school the best athlete You've ever seen in your life You're up here drinking a beer and eating a hot dog You're the one who sucks. It's like I went when I go to I would go to UFC fights and I hear him in the crowd. Oh yeah That just throw a punch and I hear him in the crowd. Oh, yeah, that. Just throw a punch.

Yeah, just hit him. What are you doing? Just get up. Oh, yeah, that's all he's got to do. He's just got to hit him, right? Yeah. So what's your favorite part of what you do? You've worked with athletes.

You've certified hundreds of thousands of trainers now. What is your favorite part of what you do today? I think seeing kind of living vicariously through those trainers. Like I mentioned, the trainers that took our original certification course seven, eight years ago that were working at the second or third trainer at a commercial gym. And now that they own their three facilities of their own. I mean, we have a couple screenshots on our CPPS website of one of our coaches that took a picture of his first gym

and he said, hey, open this gym after, it was a picture of his gym and it said after taking CPPS level one and he had started his own business, opened his own gym. And then there's this picture of this beautiful house and I was like, what the hell is that? And he said after taking CPPS level two, finally of this beautiful house. And I was like, what the hell is that? And he said, after taking CPPS level two, finally bought my own house.

And I was like, I still get goosebumps, even just saying that. Those type of success stories, it used to just be the Brian Cushing's of the world, a high school kid that I trained and then you watch him play in the college and then you watch him get drafted to the NFL and make $50 million.

And it's like, wow, I had not taken credit at all, but like some little, little small, small, you know, piece in the background. I kind of helped that kid achieve his dreams and help change his life a little bit. And now we're able to do that with the sir. So whether it's a client that I train or a coach or a trainer that we help kind of fulfill their dreams.

That's the rush that I get. And now that I've been in it longer, the really cool thing for me is these guys that are, they might not be multi-millionaires, but super successful and happy with 1,000 square foot like garage or warehouse gym that there, but they have a hundred clients and they're training them and the amount of people that have come to me and said, dude, I didn't know it was possible to make a living like in a garage or a warehouse

until I discovered your YouTube videos. When I was 12 years old, I remember watching you training all these pro guys in this dungeon of a gym thinking, holy shit, I didn't know that was a thing. Like I could do that. And now they're like adults with kids that are making a living doing something they love.

Like to me, you can't beat that. Well, we firmly believe that trainers and coaches are the backbone, the real backbone of the fitness space are the ones that are, we call them the soldiers. They're the ones on the front line, actually really doing the real changes, really helping people in real long-term ways. So we really appreciate what you've done

for as long as you've done it. I know you've helped us. We do it before we ever start a mind pump and you're continuing to help people out and do the right thing. So we appreciate you Joe. Thank you appreciate you. Thank you for letting us hold the cert here man. That it was one of our best classes of the year and we owe it to you guys. It's it's available and you let us know if you want to do another one down here. We'd love to take you up on it. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks guys.

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