The Tim Ferriss Show - #238: The Savant of Speed -- Ryan Flaherty

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Starting point is 00:03:16 and to dig into the details that you can apply to your own life. And this episode we have a treat. We do not have an entertainer. We do not have an actor. We do not have a military strategist. We have a performance specialist, specifically athletic performance. And Ryan Flaherty on Instagram, at Ryan Flaherty1, the number one, was introduced to me by Dr. Peter Attia. And those of you who've heard my episodes with Peter Attia know that many good things come from Peter. This is no different. Ryan Flaherty is the Senior Director of Performance at Nike. Prior to holding that position, Ryan was the founder and president of Prolific Athletes LLC, a sports performance facility in San Diego, California, where he trained some of the world's best athletes. His clients include, you may have recognized or heard of these names,

Starting point is 00:04:06 Serena Williams, Russell Wilson, the Arizona Cardinals, Marcus Mariota, Jameis Winston, and hundreds of other professional athletes. And while he's perhaps best known for dramatically improving his athletes, athletes, athletes, athletes, that's the right word, speed, more and more athletes and coaches seek Ryan out for his training and guidance on injury prevention. And we dig really deeply into that in this episode. Many of his clients have made remarkable recoveries from injuries and several NFL teams and European soccer clubs have sought out his methodology to implement into their

Starting point is 00:04:42 own training programming. Ryan developed an algorithm called a force number that is based on the trap bar deadlift, also called the hex bar deadlift, and body weight to predict speed, such as the 40-yard dash. This was a really fun interview. We got into the weeds. We got very, very nerdy. If you enjoyed, for instance, the Pavel Tatsulin episodes, the Charles Poliquin episodes, Dominic D'Agostino, or Peter Attia, then you are going to love this one. It takes us a few minutes, as it almost always does, to warm up. That's a limbering up round, and then we get into all sorts of stuff. We talk about exercises for reducing injury potential. We talk about the force number and exactly how he uses the trap bar deadlift. What do exact workouts look like?

Starting point is 00:05:27 Sets and reps, rest intervals, lay it out, start to finish from warmup. What does one of these workouts look like? We talk about glued meat exercises. Perhaps you saw some in Tools of Titans in Peter Tia's profile. That was directly from Ryan and variations. We get into all sorts of nitty-gritty details, how he helped Meb Keflezighi, I think it is, train for his stunning Boston Marathon victory. How does he go from sprinting to long distance running? How does he predict which athletes are going to get injured? So whether you are trying to become a better athlete, you are trying to become less injured or more resilient in any type of training, or maybe if you're a bookie looking to bet on different teams and athletes or bet short certain teams that are going to get injured,

Starting point is 00:06:14 there is something for everyone. So please enjoy my conversation with Ryan Flaherty, the savant of speed. Ryan, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Appreciate it. I have been hoping to connect for quite a few months now, and we've had a few actors behind the scene trying to connect us for a few months. And here we are. So I'm super stoked to dig in. And I thought we could just start with some basics. So you are very well known for saying that speed is teachable, coachable, but almost everyone out there says it is not. It is innate. So how did you come to that conclusion?

Starting point is 00:06:54 Sure. I mean, first and foremost, I think when I was a young kid, kind of a funny story, but when I was young, I was playing baseball, and both my parents were athletic, and so they kind of knew some things about sports and i i was you know hit it i was that bad i hit a line drive to center field and i got thrown out at first base and uh i can remember my dad yelling unhitch the trailer as i was running i was running so slow basically uh which is not a good thing for a young kid to hear from his dad um uh in third grade but um i was you know I was really a really slow kid when I was young. I grew fast and just couldn't

Starting point is 00:07:28 develop speed. All the kids were faster than me in my class and my teams. And so my mom actually put me into track and field when I was young, about fourth grade. And by the time I was in fifth, sixth grade, I was the fastest kid in my school. And what a lot of that was from was just me understanding and learning how to run properly and so once I did that it kind of opened my eyes to the idea that you know obviously it was not something I was born with in any way but it's something that was learned and it was a skill that I really put a lot of time into understanding and learning and you know as I've gotten older and I've I've been in the the sports performance you know training field for a long time. One of the things that I think is kind of funny to me,

Starting point is 00:08:08 as I point out to a lot of people and parents, is that if you can imagine if every sport played was in the swimming pool, one of the first things most kids would do would be learn how to swim. And yet every single sport on ground requires running, and yet we don't teach kids how to run. It's just kind of like throw them into the sport and they'll figure it out. But, um, that's one of the big things I think I've been trying to help educate people on is that the one for the most important thing you can do for your child is just teach them how to run properly. And then every other sport will kind of come easily to them. And I think, um, you know, over the years of, of more and more research

Starting point is 00:08:39 putting into this, I've, I've, I've come to realize quickly through, you know, just the research is that, uh, speed is actually a skill you can learn and it's something you can train also. And it, I mean, it seems to me like you have, just as you said, I didn't learn to swim speaking as someone who's extremely terrified of swimming and for a host of reasons, didn't learn to swim properly until early thirties. Uh, it is, it is incredible that anything on land that is dependent in part, whether it's NFL combine and you're doing something like shuttle run. I mean, the difference between first place and say third, fourth, or also ran is highly dependent on the technique, number one, but also certain attributes that you can develop.

Starting point is 00:09:25 And I'd love for you to share with us perhaps some of the experiments that you did at USA track to figure out how to better coach speed. Yeah, absolutely. So what I ended up taking, I needed a sample size that would, that, that, that are all like similar skill level and talent level. And so, um, I took 30, you know, Olympic a standard sprinters, um, and ran them on force plate treadmills. And so the Olympic a standard sprinters are spinners that have hit the required marks to, to qualify for the Olympics. Now in the United States, the difference is because we're, we're, we're such a high level that you, you have to be much better than, than just the standard, but in other countries and a lot of other countries, if you hit the standard you're in. Um, and so I took, if you hit the standard, you're in.

Starting point is 00:10:08 And so I took Olympic A standard sprinters and I test them on a force plate treadmill. And what I quickly realized was it wasn't about how much force they were creating or how great their technique was. It wasn't really until I realized that, and I think, I know you're familiar with the study that was done by Dr. Peter Wayand, which is mass specific force is kind of king. It's more than anything. It's how much force you can create over what your body mass is. So, uh, to use an example, it'd be like, if I told you go run a hundred meter dash as fast as you could with a 50 pound weight vest on and I, you know, and recorded your time and then we took it off and then we

Starting point is 00:10:37 recorded your time. You'd be much faster without the 50 pound weight vest on. Well, and firstly, if you were just to increase somebody's lower body strength by 50 pounds without adding a single pound of lean muscle mass you'd also have the same results with improving their times based on them improving their lower body strength to mass ratio and so quickly i you know through that the study of all the athletes i realized okay so so majority of what it comes down to for sprinters or for people to be fast is they have an insane amount of strength over what their body mass is. So an incredible ratio between that strength to weight ratio. Um, and so with every athlete I train now, whether it's Serena Williams on the tennis quarter or, you know, a football player that's going into the NFL combine, um, it's, it's about teaching them how to improve that strength, strength to weight ratio without increasing

Starting point is 00:11:21 any lean muscle mass. So, um, I think that's, that's the key. And then, and then secondarily that, you know, mechanics play a part in, um, part of those mechanics. If you imagine, uh, when you run, when you watch an athlete run from the side of their foot in their swing phase, when they're running, it looks like it makes, it's making a circle. Well, if you have a big circle, a big wheel that would cover a larger distance than a smaller wheel will. And so what I try to do is help them understand how to make larger wheels with their feet in order for them to cover more ground, which increases their stride length, which in turn helps them run faster times.

Starting point is 00:11:53 Like to give you an example, Usain Bolt takes 42 steps to run a hundred meter dash next fast guy in the world takes 44. And so ultimately what you're trying to do in improving somebody's speed is helping them limit the amount of steps they take to run whatever particular distance they're going, whether it's a marathon or it's a 100-meter dash. Which is also, in some respects, very comparable to Olympic swimming, right? I mean, you look at the stride length and efficiency of top swimmers, and there's a direct parallel. Just a side note, I guess, which I've always wondered, you hear a lot, say, in certain running communities

Starting point is 00:12:32 about striking with the midfoot and so on. How much attention do you pay to the impact point on the foot when you're trying to, say, increase the size of that wheel, does that naturally lead to more, uh, impact closer to the heel? Or is that, is that something that has been overemphasized? I don't think it's been overemphasized as much as it, as it is the placement underneath the pelvis. So I think more than anything, it's kind of like where the foot striking in relation to the center of mass is most important.

Starting point is 00:13:07 So when you're looking at somebody who's with a midfoot strike, so I do focus on midfoot strike, but more than anything, I focus on where that midfoot strike is occurring, whether it's occurring, you know, out, you know,

Starting point is 00:13:16 middle meters in front of the pelvis or directly under the pelvis or slightly behind. The goal is to get it as underneath the pelvis as possible. So you want the foot midfoot strike to happen under the pelvis, which is more of what I focus on in that big circle, the teaching of the mechanics with making that heel. If you can imagine the heel stepping over your opposite knee when you sprint is the goal. And then upon ground contact in the landing phase, you want the foot to be as directly under the pelvis as possible. And for, for sprinters, do you, how much do you think about stride rates? Uh, people have read born to run. There are many books and they talk about, well, you should go from say 90 and aim for 180 and you should use some type of metronome or, or auditory feedback so that you're increasing

Starting point is 00:13:59 your, um, your steps, footfalls per minute effectively. How do you think about that in the context of what you do, if you do at all? Yeah, totally. No, I absolutely do. And I think the biggest thing is, again, everything I'm going to talk about today, it's all about specificity. As you know, if you're training for performance and for a particular sport performance, then you're going to train a very particular way that we're focused on the minutia of those things that will best help that person perform better. However, when you're, when you're transitioning into more of like a, you know, a static runner, or just in terms of training for health, a lot of what I'm going to say may not always apply,

Starting point is 00:14:34 but it can apply in certain ways. And so I think with that being said, I think, you know, the way I look at it is stride length and stride frequency. The majority of the time are products of how much force you create with the ground of what your body weight is. So your mass specific force, your stride rate, stride rate and length is actually a product of that. So more than anything, instead of focusing on that, I'm focusing on, on, on, on one hand, the mechanics of sprinting, but I'm also focused on if I know if I can improve strength to weight ratio, uh, in the weight room, which I think we can get into a little bit more depth later, is I know for a fact that stride length and stride frequency will also improve. Those are byproducts. Exactly.

Starting point is 00:15:11 And so instead of focusing on one or the other, I just focus on the one that affects the other. So let's, oh, I'm sorry. I'm so excited to jump into this. I'm getting a little overzealous. Go ahead. No worries. And I think that's the biggest thing of all the research I've done, even in the weight room is I'm looking at the exercises that can have the greatest effect in a multitude of ways, not just in one specific area. So I think because athletes, just like human beings have, have a limit in the amount of time they have in a day, they don't want to,

Starting point is 00:15:37 they can't. And, and, and trainers can't spend the amount of time in the weight room that most people think they can, because they have all these other things going on, you know? And so it's, it's what can I get the most bang for my buck to improve the most amount of things in the shortest period of time is what I do with elite level athletes, just like I would with CEOs or recommended for, you know, other people in terms of that don't have the time to spend two hours in a gym. Um, you want to get the most bang for your buck. And so I've really focused on researching exercises that give you that in order for them to get the greatest improvement. Could you, and this might be a good place you tell me to segue, or it's not really a segue cause it's all very related, uh, force number.

Starting point is 00:16:16 Can you talk about what that is? Yeah, absolutely. And so, so when I was studying the speed and sprinters with USA track and field, what I, what I found quickly was that once the, Absolutely. And so, so when I was studying the speed and sprinters with USA track and field, what I, what I found quickly was that once the, once the sprinters hit a certain, um, distance right around 30 to 40 meters, they actually maintained and held the exact same split for the rest of the race. Uh, it was actually the athletes who ran the fast times, like the Usain bolts of the world were actually the ones who were slowing down the least, but really when you looked at their 10 meter splits, it was almost identical all the way through to the finish. Um, and so what I, what I,

Starting point is 00:16:48 um, what I came to realize quickly was that there was a correlation there between who could hold their top end speed the longest and who was winning the race. And so, um, when I was looking at that, I, and then, then inversely was looking at the athletes and measuring their mass specific force in the force play treadmill. What I realized quickly was, okay, there's relation to the athletes who have the high strength to weight ratio or the, or the force to a mass specific force, uh, force to mass ratio on the treadmill that also are covering the same, uh, you know, lowest splits in their 10 meter, the 10, they're flying tens in the a hundred meter dash that all of the athletes came to me after that. And we're like, this is awesome. This is great. You know, but like, Hey, how do we have, how do we improve this?

Starting point is 00:17:25 And it was, it was kind of a light bulb that went on for me really quickly was that I think what most researchers, scientists spend time looking into is diagnostics and assessments, but what most people really need is, is ways to improve it. So unless you come with a diagnostic that you can actually show them improvement and show them how to improve it, they're almost meaningless. Um, and so I, what I, what I spent the next five years doing was spending time in the weight room and, and, and, and correlating the data between every exercise. So I tested the same athletes in the weight room on with squat, power, clean, hand, clean front squat, leg press, leg extension,

Starting point is 00:17:58 um, RDL, everything you can think of under the sun and, and the, and measured their one rep max in those exercises in their body and their body mass and compared that to the force plate treadmill study. And it didn't correlate until I actually got to the hex bar deadlift, which is also called the trap bar deadlift for some folks out there. Yep. Exactly. The bar that you step into with the handles on the side of the body, instead of the bar being in front. Right. And then when I, when I started testing the same athletes with the hex bar deadlift or the trap bar deadlift max and their body weight, it actually directly correlated to the force plate treadmill study, um, at their max velocity and top speed. And so I realized quickly, okay, if this is the order in which they ran the a hundred meter dash time in by their hex

Starting point is 00:18:37 bar deadlift max and body weight, and I improved their hex bar deadlift max without increasing body weight, what I see the same improvement in their speed? And over the past seven years of testing that I have. If you have a not totally sedentary, but former competitive athlete who would like to use a protocol to improve this relative strength that we've been talking about, sort of pound per pound strength output using the trap bar deadlift or hex bar. What might the protocol look like? You know, for most people, I would generally start them with somewhat of a hypertrophy or strength phase for a while just to get them used to the lift and get their lower back strong enough to be able to get to the power phases. What would that first hypertrophy phase

Starting point is 00:19:25 look like? Yeah. So I would go, I mean, I would do probably three to four sets of eight of your 65% of your max for, um, one to two weeks. And then I would, I would, I would shift up 5%, uh, every week leading up to about 85, 90%, where I would go for reps of five or three. So based on the percentage of the percentage that you're lifting, so let's say it's 65%, you're going to be between six to eight range there. When you start to get 75, 80%, you want to be in the five to eight rep range. And then when you get above 85% to 95%, you want to be between two reps and five reps. So more than anything, what you're trying to do ultimately is with the amount of cross-sectional muscle fiber that your body currently has, you're trying to stress your nervous system to recruit the largest motor units possible. And to do that, you have to lift heavy.

Starting point is 00:20:11 You have to lift heavy weights in order to recruit the larger motor units because ultimately what most people do when they exercise and they lift weights is that they're stressing their body eccentrically, isometrically, concentrically, and they're adding lean muscle mass. They're also recruiting motor units, but they they're adding lean muscle mass. They're also recruiting motor units, but they're also, but they're also adding lean muscle mass at the same rate. But what we're trying to do. And the cool part about the hex bar deadlift is at the very top. When you, when you push away from the ground and you're in a standing position away from the ground, I actually am going to coach you guys to let go of the bar to drop it. So there's no eccentric movement in the, in the, in the exercise. So that way you don't tear sarcoma or add lean muscle mass. Um, and, and that, so you're stressing the nervous system to get stronger, recruit large

Starting point is 00:20:49 motor units, but you're not actually tearing muscle fiber down and adding more muscle mass. Um, and so I would go every two weeks, I would just adjust 5%, um, and, and go up 5% for about four to eight reps for 65%. I would say four to six reps for like 70 to 75%, four to five reps for 85%, and then two to three reps for 95 to 90% and just progress that way. And everyone, it's all relative. So it doesn't mean everyone's going to lift a 500 pounds, but ultimately what you're trying to get to is an elite level football player, like a four or five 40 yard dash, a four, four, 40 yard dash would be a 3.2 times their body weight in their hex bar deadlift to run that time. 3.2 times body weight. Yeah. And, and what I find is

Starting point is 00:21:31 in, in, in, in most like, you know, uh, healthy adults, they can, they can generally pull about, you know, anywhere from 2.2 uh what would you from the outset if you said in a in a year's time i would like to get you to x times body weight and does it differ for men or women or is it the same no actually you know it's kind of funny it's it's the same the funny part is is when i have like so right now I'm training a lot of the top NFL draft hopefuls, guys that just finished their college career. And they come in the weight room, they'll see, you and it immediately humbles them to realize what have I been doing for the past four years of my life? Uh, because those women over there are deadlifting a hundred pounds more than I am. Um, but it's pretty funny, but they weigh 80 pounds less. Exactly. Yeah. So no, no, I think, um, you know, I mean, I think reasonably over the course of,

Starting point is 00:22:42 so here's a question to how, like, what could people get to over the course of a year? Yeah. Or what would your goal for someone who's reasonably fit, but by no means a NCAA or Olympic sprinter, I think over two is an, is a great goal for somebody like that. Got it. And that is for one rep maximum or for, for a given rep range. Yeah. So I think over two times their body weight for a one rep maximum. for, for a given rep range? Yeah. So I think over two times our body weight for a one rep maximum. So, so to give you an example, let's say you're a hundred pounds, your goal is 200 pounds. Um, you know, for sets of five, you want to want to do, um, 170 pounds for five, that would be, you know, to get you to 200 as your max would be 85% of your max. Got it. Got it. So 85% times five.

Starting point is 00:23:30 Five reps. Got it. And when someone goes through the muscle building, general sort of hypertrophy base building, once they've done that and they're working on the relative strength and the neural drive and the recruiting of these motor units, uh, and focusing on that, how many times a week are they doing a trap bar deadlift workout and what would such a workout look like? Sure. Yeah. So, I mean, for the elite level athletes, generally I'll have them do it anywhere between one to two times a week. Uh, just depends on the amount of time I have with them, uh, for certain athletes like, you know, Serena Williams, when I work with her in the off season, I'll generally have her like in November, December. So I only have two months with her. So it's all

Starting point is 00:24:16 kind of ease her into it and build up to two times a week towards the end. But if you have a long period of time, I would go one day a week and then alternate with another complex exercise the second lower body day you do that week. But I think two times a week and if you're starting a hypertrophy phase, I would say four times eight at 65%. I like to pair it with some sort of plyometric to continue to recruit those fast twitch, those larger motor units. And then from there, I go into all auxiliary single leg unilateral exercises to help fix imbalances or train the body in a way that we're not working bilaterally besides that one hex bar deadlift. So I would do a hex bar deadlift with a plyo and then a couple of single leg exercises. I'd love to dig into some details. So let's just say, let's pretend since I need the, um, the pat on the head, let's pretend

Starting point is 00:25:06 like I'm an elite athlete, which I'm not, but let's just say I'm ready. I'm coming in to do this workout and my body's prepped for it. So I walk in, what does the warmup look like? And then when you get into the deadlifts, what are the sets and reps and rest intervals? Like walk me through the details of what that, and of course it's highly individualizable. You can just make up some, uh, we don't even need to get into the numbers. You could use percentages, but, um, what would the, the warmup and the whole thing look like? Yeah. So generally I like to do some sort of a dynamic warmup. So some, some sort of movement warmup, not just getting on a treadmill or on a bike and running or biking. I like to, you know,

Starting point is 00:25:44 do some walking lunges, some walking lunges with a twist, uh, some walking toe touches, some quad, you know, stretches, walking a skip, straight leg skips, that type of thing to kind of get some blood flow, um, and to help increase range of motion. You know, I have athletes start with a, on a foam roll, um, just to get again, blood flow, just to, to warm the muscles up a little bit. Um, uh, or a power plate, some sort of vibration plate, if you have that, access to that, and then a dynamic warm-up. And then I would then get into some activation. So I'd do some light glute activation, where you do some hip bridges or something like that, just to fire up the glutes. And I'd do some quad activation, which would be like some no-weighted step-ups.

Starting point is 00:26:22 You do like two sets of eight of that by itself. And then you'd get into the hex bar dead of the form up, which would be probably two to three sets that, you know, 50% then 55 to 60%. And then we were, how many, how many repetitions for those sets? Five and six. Okay. Got it. Five, five to six reps of 50% of your working weight. Correct. Yep. Yep. And, and then once you get to 65%, you'd start your, your, your, uh, your, your round. And so how many minutes of rest between the warmup sets? I would say a minute. Okay. Got it. Pretty sure. Yeah. Yeah. You're going under, under a certain, and those are full eccentric, uh, concentric eccentric, or you drop. Okay. Got it. So you're not dropping the bar on these? I am not, no.

Starting point is 00:27:07 Got it. All right. And then once you get into the working set, then it would go concentric only and I would go, and obviously you'd get right back into position. So it's stand up, drop, stand up, drop, stand up, drop eight times in a row. Eight repetitions? Yep. With what percentage of your one rep, Matt? 65%.

Starting point is 00:27:24 Okay, got it. Okay. Yep. For the first two weeks. So it Matt? 65%. Okay, got it. Okay. Yep, for the first two weeks. So it would be like in a hypertrophy phase. And then I would rest 30 seconds, and then I would pair that with like a level one plyometric, which would be like a basic squat jump, and I would do that five times.

Starting point is 00:27:37 And more than anything in plyometrics, what I think I really want to kind of get across today is that the goal of doing plyometrics in training, and whether an athlete or just, um, looking to improve, uh, you know, your human performance, I think the biggest thing you're trying to improve in plyometrics amortization phase,

Starting point is 00:27:50 which is the transition between your eccentric and your concentric. And so to do that, you've got to be close to or near a hundred percent. So I'm big on in between your plows resting to do it as hot, as hard and as fast as you possibly can to improve it. A lot of times I think you watch in training programming, you see where plyometrics start to become more of a conditioning training. You do it to a point where you're tired,

Starting point is 00:28:12 which is not going to help you improve what you're trying to improve, which is amortization. So I take rest in between. So I would do like five squat jumps where you're trying to explode as high and as fast off the ground as possible. And you're doing that in between these deadlift work sets? Yeah. So the superset would be a hex bar deadlift at eight, uh, with drop and then 32nd rest. Then you do your five plyometrics. Got it. Um, and you're trying to minimize ground contact in those plyos or how are you, what, what makes for

Starting point is 00:28:38 a good rep in the plyometrics? Uh, more than anything, you're trying to, you're trying to get to a depth that you, that you feel like is natural for you to jump as high as you can. So I'm just looking for somebody to, you know, in fight or flight, they're trying to jump as high as they possibly can. I don't really care what that looks like. Um, you would not, you would not like what mine looks like. I think people get too caught up in people get too caught up, you know, in jumping that stretch shortening cycle that occurs in our lower body when we jump happens in a window of 250 milliseconds. And when we try to perfect our, our technique and our squat jumps, we miss that window, which doesn't allow us to explode off the ground as fast as we possibly could. So it's more than anything.

Starting point is 00:29:13 It's just get down and up as quick as you possibly can. Kind of as if you, you know, if it was fight or flight and you had to jump as high as you can to save somebody or something. So that's what I'm looking for. And then after that, at 65%, I would go with somewhere around a two to three-minute recovery in between each set. And once you get to 85% to 95%, I think, as you wrote in your book prior, is when you get to the heavier percentages, you want to go to more of like a four to five-minute recovery between the ATP-CP, you know, phosphatidyl pools to regenerate to as close to 100% as possible. Sorry, my dog is allergic. My dog hates phosphocreatine. No, she loves it. She loves freaking out. She uses a lot of phosphocreatine. Sorry about that. So yeah, as you get heavier,

Starting point is 00:29:56 then you'd be taking longer rest intervals. And for those heavier weights, 85, 95%, are you still going to be say say, doing a work set, then taking, was it a 60-second rest you said before the plyos? Anywhere between 30 to 60 seconds. Got it. Yeah, so more than anything, you're just looking to recover to the point where you can jump it up as close to a full effort as possible. Got it.

Starting point is 00:30:18 Then do five, say, five jumps, and then rest four to five minutes or somewhere in that range and then do the next set. And you do that for, in the case of the hypertrophy. Now, we were talking about four sets of, say, eight repetitions. When you get down into the lower rep ranges where you're doing two to five reps at 85 to 95% of one rep max, how many sets are you still doing three to four sets? Are you doing a higher number of sets How many sets are you still doing three to four sets? Are you doing a higher number of sets? No, I'm still doing three to four. Okay. Yep. So we finished the deadlifts. What happens after that? Then, then I would go. So, so all the athletes that I, that I, that I bring in, I do force plate testing with them. So I'll do a combination of jumps, um,

Starting point is 00:31:01 on the force plate to give me an idea of kind of their, you know, what their rate of force development looks like, you know, eccentrically, isometric concentrically, their peak force, a lot of different factors. And I'll take that into consideration when I'm building their programming for the rest of the exercise. But to just give you an example, the rest of the workout will go somewhat unilateral. So I'll do it all single leg exercises. So the next group of exercises could look like a Bulgarians dumbbell Bulgarian

Starting point is 00:31:27 split squat. But for this particular athlete, for you, let's say I wanted to focus on the eccentric tempo. So what I would do with you is I would have you go, you know, lower down for five seconds and then stand up as fast as you can for one second. And you would do three sets of six of that. Um, I would then have you rest again, 30 seconds to 60 seconds. And then I would put you in, into a position where you're seated on a bench, um, sitting down with one foot,

Starting point is 00:31:50 an inch off the ground, the other foot's on the ground and do a single legs, uh, concentric plyometric where you would stand up as, and jump as fast as you can from a seated single leg position. So imagine sitting in a chair, both feet on the ground, lift the left leg off the ground by one inch, the right foot's in the ground and you jump off the right and land on the right only. Um, and, and, and I actually have Olympic athletes that I do this with where they'll actually go from a seated 90 degree seated position with one foot and they'll jump onto a 56 inch box. It's pretty remarkable. Yeah. And so, and so I think, I don't know if I could get off the toilet with one leg an inch off the ground. Oh, trust me, me too. I don't demonstrate because I'm so embarrassed in front

Starting point is 00:32:28 of some of them. I'm like, Oh no, you demonstrate, I'll bring your other athlete in. Um, but, uh, yeah. So, so working on, on creating power from, from a static seated position, right. Uh, very similar to how you would, if you were sprinting. Um, and so, so that's a good example of the second, um, uh second grouping of exercises that I would do for this lower body day. Got it. And then after the isolateral exercises... Then I would go into some sort of stability exercise, proprioception exercise, where I would go... I call them step downs, but imagine standing on top of a bench with one foot leg hanging off of the side, the other foot's on top of the bench and just lowering yourself slowly down for three seconds

Starting point is 00:33:08 and back to standing for three seconds. And I would do some somewhere around one to two sets of 20 of those. Um, more than anything I'm focused on, um, now that we've burned through some larger muscle groups, uh, in the lower body, I'm looking at now that some of the stabilization muscles, so VMO, glute med, it? Vastus medialis obliquus? Yep. And I guess one of the muscles when weak thought responsible for a fair number of injuries, it would seem, or at least I've heard. I think the biggest thing with the VMO that I look at, though, is more than anything imbalance. So I'm looking at asymmetry between the VMO and the rest of the quad. If, if you look at, and I have a great example of this with a lot of the

Starting point is 00:34:09 NFL guys I'm training right now, but when they come in from college is that they do so many core complex exercises that they, the larger muscle groups kind of dominate and some of the smaller muscle stabilizers don't, don't get recruited as much as you'd like. And so you'll see like a guy with a huge quad and a 12 year old girl scout size BMO. It's pretty unbelievable. And that for me is a big sign that a, you know, joint stability instability, but number two is they're at high risk and high probability for lower extremity injury. And so that's something we'll, we'll, we'll, you know, focus on a lot. Got it. Where could someone, uh, do you have any descriptions or any video, or can you point someone to any resources if they wanted to

Starting point is 00:34:52 learn how to do, because I want to learn this single leg step down in the way you're describing? Yeah. If I, if I don't already have a video up on YouTube, I will put one up there for you. And then also to, um, you know, I work with know, I work with Nike on their app that they have, which is the Nike training club, not to plug or anything, but that has a ton of the exercises in it. It's actually a great kind of resource for different exercises and things that I do.

Starting point is 00:35:15 That's, that's, that's in there, which you can pull from and it's free. So, so it's, it's, you know,

Starting point is 00:35:20 it doesn't cost anything. What is your YouTube account? Prolific athletes. Got it. All right. So we'll get on that. By the time this comes out, guys, we'll make sure something is up for you. Yeah, absolutely.

Starting point is 00:35:31 And then I'll finish with Seven Way Hips, which I think you know all about. You'll finish with what? Seven Way Hips, which I think... Can you describe it? Yes, I do know all about it. I gave the treacherous Peter Tia credit. Yeah. So Dr. Peter Tia, a mutual friend, of course, who I described, well, I shared a lot from Peter in Tools of Titans on pages 61, 62, 63.

Starting point is 00:36:02 And these are glute med, at least glute med primary exercises that you taught Peter. So that's the seven way hip. Yep. That's it. Yep. And I'd finished with that. And you would do that. How many times a week? We're only talking about the trap bar workouts, but let's say you're doing this once or twice a week is once a week enough for the seven way hip, or would you do it more? No, absolutely not. I mean, I think glute needs are one of the, uh, I, one of the muscles I think for most people causing a lot of issue, they don't even know about, uh, especially when it comes to lower, lower back issues, um, and under developed, uh, glute, glute needs. So I think one of the big things I would do is I

Starting point is 00:36:43 would do at least two days a week of it, but I have two different variations of it that more and more research is coming to find that you actually want to train the glute med as much as you can in closed chain. So I have some exercises too. I will also post that YouTube account to show you that are closed chain, which means feet in contact with the ground to, to, to folks that glute med and it will do. So maybe like, you know, seven way hips, one, one or two days a week, and then, and then a closed chain glute med and it will do. So maybe like, you know, seven way hips one, one or two days a week, and then a closed chain glute med exercise the other day of the week, I think would be perfect.

Starting point is 00:37:11 Great. Yeah, I know that Amelia Boone, who also appears in Tools of Titans, so three-time world's toughest mudder champion, does quite a bit of the closed chain glute med work. And I think videos would be super helpful there. So we'll make sure that's up, uh, as well. Now you did say that glute med, one of those muscles that when weak leads can commonly lead to injury, what would you say for not necessarily professional

Starting point is 00:37:42 athletes, but just athletes per se, right? Whether they're doing CrossFit or jujitsu or doesn't matter, tennis, fill in the blank, right? Someone who is a recreational athlete, what are some of the most common culprits in terms of whether it's imbalances or weaknesses that if you were to put down a short list, like the four or five that when neglected are most responsible for the injuries that you see? Would glute med be in that top four or five list? Oh, absolutely.

Starting point is 00:38:13 I think glute med would be in top two. Okay, what's the other one in the top two? Ankle flexion. Ankle flexion. That is my nemesis right there. Yeah, so now by ankle flexion, you basically mean that sort of dorsiflexion and plantar flexion. Yeah, And E and E version and inversion as well. So I think,

Starting point is 00:38:30 I think the biggest thing is major, everything happens from the ground up. So, um, unless you're a swimmer, obviously there's that, that's the one kind of caveat here is that, is that, you know, with your feet in contact with the ground as an athlete, or whether you're crossfitting or you're running or, um, anything really at the end of the day where your feet are in contact with the ground, the number one place you look is, is, is, is feet and ankle flexion. So I think that's a big one, especially with the majority of athletes I see coming out. Angle flexion is, is, is really poor and something we focus a ton on because ultimately everything's connected, the fascial body's connected. And so when there's an issue

Starting point is 00:39:01 in the chain at some point, other, other pieces up the chain are going to overcompensate. So whether it be, you know, more, more attention and, and, um, uh, on the knee joint or it moves up into the pelvis, it's going to always start at the feet. So that's where I'll, I think number one is, um, and then glute med, uh, number two, I would say VMO being another one, um, which is really hard to target. I think one of the big things about VMO glute med is pretty easy to isolate. VMO is difficult. And one of the ways that I do that is in some of your training, which when you're, when you're doing it, I think after you kind of burn through the quads, the glutes and the hamstrings, once your lower body begins to really fatigue is

Starting point is 00:39:38 when you can then go in and target the VMOs and you have to be able to target them through high, high reps because you're going with, you know, you're only using your body weight, uh, doing some isolation exercises for the VMO, like, like the step downs that I talked about, which I'll share a video and I'll share one more other VMO exercise, which is really, really good. Um, you have to go higher rep, high volume to be able to target it after you've already fatigued the larger muscle groups, because otherwise they'll overcompensate and take over the load. So, um, that's a big part of that, um, to improve. And is the, is the step down, is that, uh, also called the Peterson step down or is it

Starting point is 00:40:13 technically different the way that you do it? It very well could, I'd have to look that up, but, um, yeah, imagine like, like kind of a pistol squat on the hang with one foot hanging over the side of a bench, but you're only going down to like a 45 degree angle. Right. Yep. Yeah. Very cool. All right. We'll, we'll make sure that is up. So you have ankle flexion, glute med, VMO, any other, uh, usual suspects that you find in that list? Uh, you know, this one's not so much of a muscle as much as it's just, um, internal rotation of the femur. I think the big, one of the, the biggest impounds, the, one of the biggest things I find with the athletes I work with, number one is that they have minimal internal rotation of the femur, which is very easily,

Starting point is 00:40:56 you know, stretched and, and you can, you can find ways to, to, to, to kind of create equal external internal rotation of your femur within your pelvis. But I, but most athletes come into me, you know, really turned out really lack internal rotation. When you watch a lot of slow motion video, which I do a ton with the athletes that train, when you, when you're watching an ACL injury happen on the field of play, um, what you see is massive internal rotation of the femur. And that's where the rupture occurs. Massive internal rotation, internal rotation of the femur. So you see kind of the knee cave in, go into valgus. And then that's where your femur tries to internally rotate. If you have range of motion there, you can internally rotate.

Starting point is 00:41:34 You're going to actually avoid an ACL. I have a couple athletes that took some big hits, like Russell Wilson, the quarterback for the Seahawks this year, that played through an MCL injury. That hit he took nine times out of 10 would have been an ACL tear, but based on his ability to internally rotate, um, he was able to avoid that. It was an MCL sprain. He only, he didn't even miss a practice actually with it. Um, it was a pretty brutal hit, but that, that was because of all of the work we do. So like, like I always tell people is that I can't eliminate injuries with the athletes I train, but what I can do is bring that probability as low as possible,

Starting point is 00:42:05 um, which hopefully keeps them on the field, you know, for long periods of time. And for, for any given athlete, you know, I mean, the worst thing that could possibly happen is, you know, get injured. And so if you can lower that probability, I mean, that, that, that's the goal. What is a good way to improve internal rotation of the femur? And this, this is probably also best shown by video, but what would, if you, if you, if it's possible to describe the sort of best bang for the buck that you have found, what is a good way to improve internal rotation of the femur? Sure. There's a, there's a fantastic stretch you can do up against the wall that I will show a video of. It's really difficult to explain over, over audio, but I will, I promise you, I'll post all these videos up. So you guys have them, um, to see, but there's one,

Starting point is 00:42:48 you just basically back lying against a wall, um, that you can do that, that is really helpful. Okay, cool. So we'll get that in there. And then ankle flexion possible to also share any best bang for the buck there in terms of improving ankle flexion. This is one I really need personally. Yes. There is a fantastic tool out there called a pro flex. I have no association with them and they're going to be stoked that I'm saying this, but there's a, it's basically a pro flex, just like, like it sounds. Yep. It's a DCT pro flex. And basically it's a board. They created a physical therapist, created it. It's a board to be, to allow you to gain leverage with your, with your calf. And so you put your foot into, it looks like somewhat of a little boot, um, and you put your,

Starting point is 00:43:30 your, your foot into it. And then it allows you to stretch, um, your calves in multiple ways, whether, you know, it's, it's your tip or, or gastroc, but it, but it really focuses and helps you kind of get stretch and, and strengthen through the, through the full range of motion planner and Dorsey flexion. Um, unlike anything I've tried out there. Um, and it's kind of phenomenal product, uh, honestly, and, and really easy to kind of, um, to, to help you with, with the, that flexion. All right. Pro flex first one's free. That's on me. Then you can sponsor the next podcast. All right. So, uh So this is related to a mutual friend of ours. Told me a story about how you told him Robert Griffin, the third RG3, which I thought was

Starting point is 00:44:14 C3PO or a robot because I don't follow team sports, was not going to last very long in the NFL. And you said it very early on in his rookie season. How did, and it seems like that's going to be the case. So how did you know that he wouldn't last or how did you suspect that? So, I mean, you know, when you, when you look at, it's very similar to how a doctor would look at a patient. If they were really going deep into, into kind of understanding what's going on with them, they look into past history. So you look into family history, you'd look kind of into, you know, past 10 years of daily,

Starting point is 00:44:44 you know, habits, nutrition, exercise, all of those things. And when you look at athletes and you, and you get an understanding of in the past, what, what they've been exposed to and what they do, you kind of get a clear idea as to what a, they either need to work on or what they're going to be, you know, at risk of, um, moving, moving forward. And so, uh, one of the big things was with RG three coming out was that he was known as a really fast athlete. He was actually an elite level world-class track and field hurdler at Baylor. I'm all American actually. And so, um, when he came out, one of the things that I noticed quickly was that just based on looking at him, just from an eye test, you could see the

Starting point is 00:45:18 imbalances between not a power he could create, how fast he was. And again, we go back to VM on glute med and the type of training he was doing. When you're a linear athlete, like a track and field athlete, running straight ahead for long periods of time, and that's all you do in train. And then you transition to a sport like football where you're very, very fast

Starting point is 00:45:36 because you're a track and field background, but you can transition to football where everything's happening in different planes. You're moving sagittal, frontal, and transverse. And it's a lot of multi-planar forces that are put onto the body that you have to train in a very specific way to improve those. And a big part with what he missed out on was just training in order to absorb those forces in multiple planes that I knew would cause ACL injury. And so, and then watching his training,

Starting point is 00:46:02 he was, he kind of posted a lot about his training with like the heavy, heavy deep squats that he was doing. Um, a lot of that, I mean, ultimately he was fast enough. He didn't really need to train to continue to improve his explosiveness. The dude already wrote was a world-class hurdler. Um, he didn't need to improve that, but he needed to improve was his ability to prevent and possibly avoid injury. And, and so instantly by just understanding what type of imbalances track and field athletes have and then transitioning that to what football,

Starting point is 00:46:29 what stresses you're under in football, I could tell pretty quickly that he was at extremely high risk more than any other athlete I've assessed of an injury. And unfortunately, ultimately, it kind of panned out that way. But yeah, you can kind of get an idea of someone's kind of history and past of what they do and kind of some of their imbalances as to what injuries they're at high risk for. I have an unrelated question and a very related question. But before I forget, I wanted to ask you because I was recently, I've had exposure to hex bars for a long time, starting in college but I I was recently gifted my first personal hex bar and I have I have it in my garage in my gym and there are two height settings I'm sure you've seen this

Starting point is 00:47:12 where one set of grips if one side is up is roughly the I would say the same height as the the rest of the bar so to, including where you're loading the plates. And then there is one that is slightly higher. So my question for you is when you're doing hex bar deadlifts, how many inches off the floor or how high are the grips that you would use for your athletes? So I generally use high handle. High handle. Yep, high handle.

Starting point is 00:47:43 So there's a high handle, low handle. I generally use high handle. And the reason is. High handle. So there's a high handle, low handle. I generally use high handle. And the reason is because predominantly most of the athletes I'm working with are generally over 5'10 to 5'11 and they're anywhere up to 6'7. So I'm usually using high handle just because I don't need to, I don't need to put them in that type of flexion. I don't need them to be that deep. And they're not that strong at that depth.

Starting point is 00:48:03 And one of the main reasons why is when you look at the athletes on a football field, you rarely ever see them in those positions. So I'm not looking to strengthen that range of motion. We will work to improve flexibility and strength in different ways, whether it be manually to get them, uh, in those full ranges of motion. But when I'm training them early, it's more, I'm trying to increase the load as high as possible. When you think about the central nervous system, it adapts to stress. So if your lower body is capable of pulling from a high-handle hex bar deadlift 500 pounds, but in every other exercise that you do, you're only able to get to about 380, are you actually stressing your nervous system to recruit larger modi in it

Starting point is 00:48:37 if you're only doing 380 when you're capable of doing over 500? And what I found is the answer is no. And so with the high-handle, what you're able to do is increasing the degree of your femur and the position of your pelvis and your spine and spine angle and all that is that you're able to go heavier know, increase, you know, hip range of motion or anything like that. What I'm looking to do is stress the nervous system in such a way that it is, has to recruit larger motor units in order to increase strength, increase strength. So that's the goal. And so with the high handle, you can generally go heavier and that's why I use it. Got it. So even for a, a Hobbit like me, I'm like five, eight, maybe five, nine on a good day. If I'm like trying to put something on Tinder or something, but, uh, it would you say suggest in that case, I do have kind of

Starting point is 00:49:31 Tyrannosaurus arms though. So maybe that means I should also use the high handle. Would you still use that with the, uh, shorter athletes, people who are under five, 10, or would you take them to the lower handle? I may take you to the lower handle, but what I also may do is take you to the lower handle and maybe add like one of those, you know, 10 pound plates underneath it just to give you an extra inch. I don't want you too deep into it. Like you would see like in a deep squat, I want you to be in somewhat of an athletic, like jump position to where if you imagine like looking in the mirror from the side, if you imagine jumping and you go to the depth of your jump and that's where you'd feel comfortable, look in the mirror and see where that is. and then align the handles to that because that's the athletic position.

Starting point is 00:50:07 That's where I want you to be. That's where you're, that's where you recruit. You're going to recruit the most motor units. And I've, I've done more straight bar deadlift work than I have trap bar. Where should my hands be relative to my feet? I, in other words, slightly ahead of my feet uh directly in line with the side of my ankles where do you suggest the uh the hands be yeah so if you i mean the one reason you know interesting thing about the straight bar is that what i found when in testing it is that it had a lot more to do with your posterior chain um and and what i love about the hex bar deadlift is that because of the position the handles on the position of the handles on the side of your body, it's more of an anatomically correct position and it allows

Starting point is 00:50:48 your body to recruit more of its skeletal muscle to help you lift it. And so basically, you want that you grip the middle of the handles. You see the handles has some knurling on it. You want to kind of grip in the middle, but align your hands right next to the outsides of your legs. So they should be pulling you straight up through into your hips. So imagine drawing a straight line from your bent knee position from your ankles, shins, up to your hips. That's where you want to be. So kind of think more bar path than you do kind of start position or anything like that. Without weight, kind of go up and down a few times and kind of see the bar path. And that's where your, your, your alignment should be on the

Starting point is 00:51:27 ground. Got it. Right. So if you were to extend, if you were to extend your hands in the proper position and do sort of a high bar back squat type of straight down, uh, squat, your, your kind of middle fingers would be right at the bony process on the side of your ankles. Yeah, exactly. Got it. So that's, that's the kind of alignment of the hands. Cool. And last, last on the trap bar, how important is it to drop the weights versus lower them very quickly? And I'm not looking for a particular answer here. The reason I ask is that I've seen people drop in quotation marks, and I've done this too, bar quickly versus drop because it takes them less time to reset and do another repetition. But that may just be increasing the likelihood of injury with doing really rapid eccentrics versus just dropping the weight,

Starting point is 00:52:25 uh, assuming that we can do either where we're training just pretty easy these days with the proliferation of CrossFit boxes, love dropping shit and CrossFit boxes. Uh, what would your, what would your thoughts on that be? Yeah. You know, so it all depends. I think the heavier I go with some of the athletes, you know, the biggest limitation is their grip strength. And so a lot of times I'll use wraps with them to allow them to go heavier, especially with the female athletes I train when they can get up to the 400 range or high 300s. A lot of times their grip strength, this isn't capable of, of, of holding on to the bar. And I don't want them to like increase their grip strength because I'm not trying to add lean mass. So I add straps. So

Starting point is 00:53:05 with straps, I'll generally have them like, you know, drop pretty quickly keeping their hands on the handle. But for the most part, it's more about, you know, efficiency and energy expenditure. So I'm looking at if it's going to like require a lot of energy for you to like to go down with the bar and drop with it and try to get back into position quickly. I'm more looking for effort on every single rep concentrically than I am kind of, um, a fast drop. So really ultimately it comes down to you. If you, if you're, if you're good and you're really quick and can get back into position fast, uh, by keeping your hands on the handle and just dropping with the bar, then I'm fine with that. Uh, I've athletes that do that all the time. I think it's just more than anything. It comes down to kind of comfort level with it. And,

Starting point is 00:53:40 um, more than anything, not expending too much energy in the lowering of the bar. Got it. And do you have any preferred straps that you use or is just the old school? I love the old school cloth straps. Those are my favorite. Got it. All right. So I promised I would reel us back to what we were talking about. And we talked about ACLs.

Starting point is 00:54:02 So I recently had my first ACL injury. There may be more to it. I did get MRIs. This was about three months ago. I was hiking in Colorado with a number of guys, very aggressive terrain, 45 degrees up, 45 degrees down, lots of shale and so on and loaded backpacks. And I stepped up onto a log that was about a fallen tree that was, I'll say three feet in diameter, something like that. I stepped up and as I went to step off with my left leg, my right leg went through the tree and basically caught right below the knee and I hyperextended the knee. It wasn't catastrophic. I was able to continue to hike, but I had incredible pain for weeks afterwards and had trouble even walking downstairs or walking around. I kind of had to peg leg around. And we're three months out. I can do controlled deadlifts even up to, I haven't gone crazy, but I can get over 300 without exhibiting any symptoms of pain.

Starting point is 00:55:11 But I do have subpatellar soreness and this lingering concern about ACL. I have some plans to ski coming up in a few weeks, and I am concerned about it. This is the first time I've had knee issues per se. I've had a lot of quad issues where I've torn my legs apart, but knee, like structural knee issues, this is relatively new for me. So I guess there's, there's a short term question and a long term question. Short term is I don't feel like I have a ton of lateral instability, but I also don't really know what the hell I'm talking about because I've never thought about, I've never worried about it before.

Starting point is 00:55:47 So how would you assess whether or not I should ski or not ski would be short term. And then longer term is what are some, some good ways to minimize, uh, well actually to rehab an ACL injury. Yeah. So I'm not a physical therapist. So number one, I don't want to prescribe anything to you to, you know, without kind of a physical therapist getting their hands on you a little bit. But I do think, I mean, look, I think physical therapy is an amazing field.

Starting point is 00:56:17 I think there's a lot happening there that I think will become one of the larger kind of more and more performance will be going towards physical therapy than it will be going the old school kind of power lifting route. And so I think, you know, if you can get into a local physical therapist, I think that would be ideal. I think one of the big things is what I find is if it's not a rupture of the ACL, it could be, you know, some sort of a, you know, grade two, one or two sprain of the MCL, which, you know, is, is all kind of worked through by movement and rehab. So I think any type of, you know, non-weighted stability, um, strength you can do with the VMO and the quad would be ideal and also of the glute med. Um, but I would kind of, if best you can get under some professional guidance for that, like at a local physical therapist, if you have one nearby or buddy of of yours, that's one. But I think a good test would just kind of be lightly testing it with just some light hopping or some light jumping and landing on your single leg, like forward and back, and feeling how much pain you have there for the most part.

Starting point is 00:57:19 But I definitely just get it checked out. I think that sounds – I mean, hypere is difficult because it's again, what, one of the biggest things I'm trying to help the athletes avoid is, is non-contact knee injuries. But when you have something that's like, you know, that shearing force, that femur forward in the joint, which is probably what happened when you hyperextended it. Um, that's, those are, those are tough. Those are tough to understand kind of all the, all the different forces that went on to kind of cause that.

Starting point is 00:57:43 So I don't know. I mean, but if you're not in, in a, in a, if you're feeling pretty decent, you're still able to deadlift, you said? Yeah, I'm still able to deadlift. I deadlifted yesterday with like mid, mid three hundreds without any pain, but I was doing partial range of movement, pulling basically to just above the knee from the floor. There's a straight bar, uh, and dropping, uh, because I didn't want to risk uh any type of hamstring injury and if i lift to the top i'm probably gonna be lowering it quickly i just want to avoid the potential of eccentrically loading my hamstrings in some stupid way

Starting point is 00:58:16 so i was yeah mid 300s pulling to just above the knee and then dropping. And these were relatively, they were low rep range. So two, three reps and then longer rest periods. But yeah, no, for all intents and purposes, asymptomatic after that. Like I feel fine today. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, my gut's going to tell me

Starting point is 00:58:40 you just have a sprain, but I would get it checked out. Yeah. Okay, cool. Question. So we've talked about exercises that are high roi exercises that can help prevent injury we talked about the ankle flexion the pro flex we talked about glute med and the seven-way hip vmo and the step downs internal rotation of the femur and the weird, it's not weird, it's just hard to describe on audio, the wall stretch, which we'll get video for. If there are people who would argue,

Starting point is 00:59:13 I'm not one of them really, but that any exercise done properly can be done safely. That having been said, there are exercises that seem to produce more injuries than others, right? So if you were talking not about elite athletes, but just aspiring athletes or weekend warriors in general, right? You have a thousand people and you want to decrease injuries as much as possible. What exercises or machines or anything would you remove from gyms? 100% would be the knee extension machine. Knee extension. 100% that machine is, is the worst for you. You could possibly imagine. Okay. Good to know.

Starting point is 00:59:57 Yeah. They're, they're in every gym and I think it's kind of like they have to be, but I would never do a knee extension machine ever again. Got it. Okay. So knee extension out. So knee extension is out. Any runners up? In terms of machines. Or it doesn't have to be a machine. It could be an exercise. Any exercise that is just not worth the hazard or potential risk of injury? Yeah. You know, I've actually worked with a lot of Olympic committees all over the world.

Starting point is 01:00:29 And one of the one things I always do when I'm with them is I go and seek out the Olympic lifting coach and kind of just pick his brain and talk him to him. And, you know, kind of across the board, Olympic lifting coaches would tell you to not Olympic lift unless you're an Olympic lifter. And the one reason they would say that is because they take elite level Olympic lifters and take around two years to properly teach them the technique in a certain lift, whether it be the clean jerk or the clean, you know, whatever, overhead squat, whatever it might be. I think the biggest thing I would say in terms of that,

Starting point is 01:00:59 and I train a couple of CrossFitters and I've actually just started doing CrossFit recently just because the CrossFitters I started training were giving me so much crap that I've never done it that I was like, fine, I'll give it a shot and I'll, you know, whatever, because I can't, I can't talk trash about something unless I do it. Uh, so I I'm, I'm currently doing that. So I actually am enjoying it, but I would say with my background in, in, in actually science and training for so long, I'm, I'm, I'm competent in those, in those lifts that I feel safe. I can, I can do them, but I'm watching when I'm watching people doing overhead squatting, it just, it kills me.

Starting point is 01:01:28 Like it makes my eyes bleed. I can't do it. And I, I see so many people who are just waiting for some sort of injury that, uh, that it just kills me. So I would just say, if you're going to get into CrossFit, you're going to get into any type of Olympic lifting, really seek out somebody who's Olympic lifting certified that can help you, USAW certified, to help you learn how to do it properly

Starting point is 01:01:51 and take your time learning it before you jump into it. There's a lot of variations you can do. That's what I always tell the athletes I work with too. They're like, well, wait, we don't power clean. And I'm like, no, if I can do other exercises, get the same result, but pull back all of the risk of injury, why wouldn't I do that? I'm not training you to be a good lifter. other exercises get the same result, but, but pull back all of the risk of injury. Why, why wouldn't I do that? Like, I'm not trying to get you, I'm not training you to be a good lifter. I'm training you to be a good football player, basketball player, tennis player. I'm

Starting point is 01:02:10 not training you to be a great, you know, lifter. So, so more than anything, it's trying to try to eliminate the risk of injury as much as possible. So I would say, if you're going to go to Olympic lifting CrossFit, really learn how to do that lift and take your time to do it before you jump into the classes and just go for, you know, five rounds of, you know, 20 overhead squats. Um, and then the second would be the knee, you know, the extension machine in the gym is the worst possible machine you can, you can ever do. Besides the trap bar deadlift. And I know we've already mentioned a few, but besides the, the, the hex bar deadlift, if you had to pick one exercise to or stretch to have everyone do, if you wanted to one shot, one kill, try to decrease injuries across the board or as many injuries as possible for, say, a group of a thousand people, what would you have them do? Oh, that's a good question. I mean,

Starting point is 01:03:11 uh, I, I mean, seven way hips, the one you put in tools times, I think would be a really, really good one, uh, for most people to, to jump in and do. But if we're looking at like, not some, some exercise I, I, you know, came up with in my room trying to torture people. I think, uh, something that's common, I would say a Bulgarian split squat. I really like, um, I, I also really like box squatting. I think box squat is a great way to kind of teach somebody the proper sequencing and movement, um, without, you know, putting them at risk of, of injury. So, um, I think those two would be good exercises for people to, to, to go start with, um, and, and then see massive improvement in what height box would you have someone start with?

Starting point is 01:03:47 Generally, just you want to look in the side of the mirror, sit down on a box, and you're looking for a 90-degree angle. I got it. All right, so you're looking for 90-degree angle, meaning quads parallel to the ground effectively? Mm-hmm. Got it. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:03:58 All right. Now, so this is something I'd love to dig into, and this relates to a story of how you helped Meb, and you're going to have to pronounce this guy's last name for me. Kofleski. Kofleski, all right. Train for his incredible Boston Marathon victory. So can you explain for us, maybe tell the story of what inspired you to apply your sprinting insights to Marathoner and how you trained him?

Starting point is 01:04:26 Yeah, I mean, just really, really simply stride length and frequency is product of mass specific force. If you can help someone increase their mass specific force, naturally those two things are going to occur when you're a marathon runner on average, you'll take around 20,000 strides to run a marathon. Well, if I can increase your stride length because of increasing your mass specific force and your normal running gate by two, by three inches, let's say, right? So big increase three inches on every, on your normal running great in your stride length, three inches times 20,000 to 6,000 inches, which is around 5,000 feet, which is close to a mile. So you're a mile ahead of where you were the last time you ran that marathon, just purely by increasing your mass specific force. It's that simple.

Starting point is 01:04:58 Got it. And what, uh, how did your training differ if at all for Meb versus your sprinter? I mean, sprinters meaning track and field or football players fill in the blank. Yeah. So, so, so, um, majority of marathoners don't have a, don't have a kind of desire to get in the weight room and strength train. I think a lot of, you know, kind of for a long time thought has been that it can only go to, to hurt you and injure you or, or add size, which is what most marathoners don't want. And so the biggest thing was just teaching him that by hex bar deadlift, you know, training and

Starting point is 01:05:39 just the concentric zone only. So not doing no eccentric loading that he could again, stresses nervous system, recruit motor units without larger motor units without adding any, any weight. So he started 127 pounds, ended 127 pounds. And, and by just introducing that one exercise,

Starting point is 01:05:57 I didn't touch his running. I didn't touch anything else that he did in the weight room. It was just simply that one exercise once a week. It improved his, his, his stride length and his running gait and in turn helped him run faster. Love it. Love the simplicity of it. I mean, simple doesn't mean easy, but no, I like the elegance of it. I think, you know, one of the things I've, I've always kind of really loved about what you're doing is the same kind of approach I take. And you look a lot of people that, that, um, they're successful in what they do. I think they take that same approach as you look at patterns or you just look at what you're trying to do what you're doing. It's the same kind of approach I take. You look at a lot of people that are successful in what they do.

Starting point is 01:06:26 I think they take that same approach as you look at patterns. What you're trying to do is you're trying to look at the most important things you can actually have control over to improve. That has the greatest effect in the most amount of ways, but with the simplest approach. Just keep it as simple as possible. I think that really not only helps elite-level athletes, but it helps everyday people. I think that's the biggest misconception. I always have people ask me, well, they're elite athletes. When I started working with Nike, well, yeah, but take apart what you do with elite level athletes and apply

Starting point is 01:06:53 that to everyday people. What I always try to say is that there's nothing different. With the exception of they may be genetically predisposed to have greater talent in catching a ball or throwing a ball fast or running fast or whatever it might be. Um, ultimately their time in their day is the same as yours. Their, their ability to, and the, the, how hard certain workouts are, are the same as yours. Um, it's just that, you know, they're, they're maybe training for just a little bit of a different purpose. So they're still looking for the most bang for their buck and trying to, you know, keep it as simple as possible, even though they're elite, just like the everyday are. Definitely. Now, what do you, uh, you mentioned Nike, what are you working on

Starting point is 01:07:30 at Nike that you can talk about? I know there's some stuff that's probably off the table, but what, in general, what, what have you been recruited to do? You know, I think the biggest thing is just, is that the, the performance training and fitness field is it's it's growing you know really quickly i think um people are are really starting to understand how important fitness is for their overall health and and so i think what um my role at nike as a senior director of performances is to is to really help kind of bring a bring in and using like the nike trainer network or the performance council of some of the top minds in the field to help kind of funnel information and training um modalities and ideas and workouts

Starting point is 01:08:10 um into an app uh experience for for everyone to be able to to use and and kind of um as a way so it's a free app called nike training club which i'm working on is basically a personal trainer pocket so our goal is there's different technology or we'll be coming out with soon that we'll be able to give you really in depth assessment of, um, you know, where you're starting from your imbalances, weaknesses, those types of things, and then kind of prescribe a training program using algorithms that will be, um, unique to you and helping you improve whatever you're trying to prove, whether it's weight loss or, you know, strength gain or getting ripped or running a faster, you know, half marathon, or, or if you're a game day athlete at the high school

Starting point is 01:08:47 level, trying to make your football team, um, it's going to be, uh, you know, geared and unique for you based on your assessment. So, um, just kind of bringing together the best minds in the field that I, that I can bring together and that Nike can bring together to kind of deliver that through, uh, digital experiences is, is the goal. Cool. Can't wait to check it out. Yeah. We were talking, you mentioned earlier, your eyes bleeding when you watch people doing horrific overhead squat attempts, especially if they're trying to do as many reps as possible in a minute after they're already about to puke their brains out or something like that. Which by the way, people wondering a lot harder to do a proper overhead squat than you would think you need. Well, most people would need very good ankle flexion, really good thoracic

Starting point is 01:09:31 mobility so that they they're not completely destroying their shoulders. Besides that, what other things, and it could be anything, it doesn't have to be exercises. What other stuff drives you crazy when you see it at a gym? Good question. Besides, besides guys in like affliction t-shirts doing preacher curls while they stare into their eyes in the mirror. Besides that. Oh man. Um, I have a funny story on that. Uh, but you know, I think, I think the biggest, well, what, I hate, I hate people running on treadmills. That's number one. Why do you hate people running on treadmills?

Starting point is 01:10:08 Uh, just, I, I just think it promotes just, just, uh, bad running mechanics. I think it's, it's just, people kind of tend to like roll that way when they, there's a street right outside, they can just go run on. Um, and there's a lot of technology out there that helps them track. And I get an idea of exactly what they're doing on a treadmill just on the road. But, um, I think, you know know I don't know that's tough I think I already told you about leg extension machine that one kills me um what else uh okay well the good I can't go to a high school or younger bath game to watch people run it drives me absolutely

Starting point is 01:10:42 crazy like I can't watch people run, um, that haven't been taught how to run properly. And they're just, you know, doing butt kicks behind them, all backside mechanic that like just watching people not how to run, know how to run properly is my pet peeve. I think that, that one, I have a hard, really hard time or like when you watch somebody going on a run on the side of the road. And like, I really just want to pull over, stop and get out of the car and just work on their mechanics with them just for like five minutes. And it will save them so much pain and injury that, um, and most of it's just by over striding. I think the biggest, could you explain what you mean by that?

Starting point is 01:11:15 Instead of, oh, so when you're thinking, I talked about earlier, when you think about foot strike, when, when the foot strikes way out front in front of your pelvis, when your foot on ground contact is out in front of your pelvis, from when you're looking at somebody from the side, um, that's, that's over striding. And I think that's the number one cause of injury in static running. When you, if you talk to a lot of physical therapists, um, and so just that alone, if you could help fix over striding, that would help help eliminate a ton of injury in static runners. So that's, that's kind of a mission of mine. What are some of the tips that you would give in those five minutes to fix over striding? Is it more forward lean? Is it, I have no idea. I'm not a runner. Uh, but what would your, I know a lot of people who are certainly, what would some of the recommendations be that you would give that

Starting point is 01:11:59 person in your five minutes? Once you've convinced them, you weren't going to mug them or that you weren't completely insane. them or that you weren't completely insane. Well, that's the hard part I think is that it's difficult to do it. I mean, a lot of times I was just telling them my NFL combine is the other day they were, they were asking me, they're like, well, you know what you're teaching me, it feels so uncomfortable and awkward. And I was like, exactly. You're slow. So therefore being fast should feel uncomfortable and awkward. We're placing fast and it felt uncomfortable awkward. We'd have a problem because you're not, you're good. I think that's the hard part is that it should,

Starting point is 01:12:26 it should feel a little bit awkward and comfortable when you first are doing it right. So it's difficult to do it on your own without somebody watching you from the side, but generally it's just the feeling of your foot landing almost, almost behind you, like directly under you or behind you. And you'll know most likely it's, it's landing somewhat underneath you. So kind of get that feeling of foot placement underneath you or behind you. And I think that'll, that'll help a lot. Just don't reach out in front of you to run. Got it.

Starting point is 01:12:50 What, what do, well here, I'll give you two questions. You can answer either one. So one is what is something you believe, and it doesn't have to be limited to what we've been talking about, but what is something you believe that other people think is insane? Or what do you, if you had to pick one thing you believe that a lot of trainers disagree with you on, what would that thing be? It could be either. You know, I think, um, oh, there's, there's probably a lot. I mean, I think there's probably a lot. Let's get into it. Whatever you want to talk, whatever you can mention. Yeah. You know, I think the number one thing one thing is that my biggest frustration in the field of training and human performance is that I think everyone's constantly trying to be the expert and making things so complicated that you have to see a trained professional to understand.

Starting point is 01:13:41 I think my biggest thing is that it's not that difficult. It's very simple. And I think the more, the more, the simpler we can make it, the better it is for everybody. Um, including the one, those teaching it. Um, I think we try to get so complicated, uh, and, and, and, you know, kind of put our own spin into making it where the expert in certain things that, that it just becomes kind of, um, undigestible for, for, for most people. So I think my biggest thing is just make it as simple as you possibly can, whether you're working with elite level athletes or you're working with, you know, you know, sedentary adults, it doesn't matter.

Starting point is 01:14:14 It's just, just make it as simple as possible because ultimately you can only improve so many things at once. Just focus on, on whatever you'll get the most bang for your buck out of it. And I think start there and you can start to add things on. And, and I think that's the biggest, I think, you know, for me. I think it's just keeping it as simple as possible. And I think we try to make it a lot more difficult.

Starting point is 01:14:34 I think people always say, well, you know, how can you just predict, you know, someone's speed based on just expert deadlift and bodyweight? Well, you know, there's an algorithm that goes into it. And there's been eight years of data collected on, you know, thousands of athletes that, that, that helped me drive to that. It's not just, no, just do this and that. And it's, and it's, you know, there's a lot that goes to it, but, but by me just keeping it really simple by just saying, just increase your, your strength without increasing your muscle mass and you'll improve your speed. It's, I think it's more helping more people than it, than it is kind of, um, I can't sell that. So it's not that I'm trying to sell anything. It's more than anything. It's just trying to keep it as simple as possible.

Starting point is 01:15:04 So people's kind of remove the riffraff from, from, uh, you know, their daily thing, I can't sell that. So it's not that I'm trying to sell anything. It's more than anything. It's just trying to keep it as simple as possible. So people's kind of remove the riffraff from, from, uh, you know, their daily thing. I don't know if you saw the story, but there's a story today, uh, in, um, on ESPN about the university of Oregon. And there was three players from the university organs football team that were hospitalized due to rhabdo, which Jesus. So that's rhabdomyolysis. You want to describe what, what rhabdo is for people who don't know? Yeah, sure. It's basically caused by super intense workouts, overtraining to the point where muscle tissue breaks down, gets in the bloodstream and releases toxins and can actually lead to kidney failure. It's something you have, we haven't seen in, and I'm not kidding. I think like 80 years, uh, there's a few CrossFit gyms that occurs here and

Starting point is 01:15:43 there. Yeah. So, so there was the three players that were hospitalized. And basically, the coach that was training them was trying to break them down, basically. And doing certain exercises that just really, at the end of the day, he was just trying to break them mentally. And it was really for no reason other than that. There's no sports performance aspect behind it. But a lot of coaches out there, when I talked to a lot of high school strength coaches or a lot of college strength coaches when I go around speaking in different places, it's just that I think we get so caught up in kind of what we used to do. We miss out on ultimately what's best for the people we're working with and how can we be on the front edges of that, of improving it? I'm not comfortable sitting here today saying I accept where we are and as far as we've come in training that I'm willing to sit on my laurels

Starting point is 01:16:30 and just use what we have currently. I want to push the limits. I think we've barely even scratched the surface on human potential, and I think a lot of that has to do with just regurgitated information and not people looking and seeking out better ways to do something. I think that's my biggest thing is it's not so much that I never speak in absolutes. I don't think we've ever reached a finish line, especially in this field. I think you've got to always kind of focus on this is what I'm currently doing today.

Starting point is 01:16:57 I hope in two years I have a better way to train athletes than just the X-bar deadlift. I really, truly do. I hope the force number is obsolete in two years because I hope we've moved on to something that is better and safer and more people can do it to help them improve their performance. And then at the end of the day, my goal would be is if you can even the playing field of genetics and talent, and you can actually teach people how to be faster, that's just going to come down to who works the hardest is going to win. And I think that's what my goal is ultimately is to remove the veil of kind of mystery of what makes somebody elite and show, okay, here's, here's, here's what you need to do. If you could do these three things, do this over a long period of time. And it's just,

Starting point is 01:17:32 who's going to put in the most work is going to reach that goal. And I think more and more, you know, in other fields, we're seeing that. Um, but I think my goal with training is just to kind of continue to push the envelope and not accept kind of what is and kind of keep pushing forward. Which, which trainers or books have most influenced or impressed you? And the reason I ask, I have, uh, Charlie Francis's book on speed. Uh, it was amazing. And some of you may recognize that name because he was the trader, Ben Johnson. Now at that level, you don't have to comment, but I will say with a fair degree of certainty, not the only guy doping in that race. Oh my God. No, I mean, I think we've already gone back. I haven't ever gone back and seen that like eight of the, or seven of the eight people in that race were doping at some point.

Starting point is 01:18:21 Oh yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, I think that's the hard part with Charlie is that people miss out on the genius purely based on kind of the story with Ben and people thinking he's a bad guy because he did... It was just the name of the game. I mean, I tell people all the time, if you're sitting in a major league baseball locker room in the late 80s, early 90s,

Starting point is 01:18:38 and you're looking around and you hit 20 home runs the year before and the guy next to you hit 12 and the following year he hits 40 and you're still hitting 20, at some point you're going to go you know what i got to get on what everybody else is getting on otherwise i'm not going to be able to play very much longer and i think you know it's it's kind of almost it's it's it's they're the product of the culture it's not so much an isolated instant as much as people think it is so yeah outside of that note charlie

Starting point is 01:19:00 france absolutely was a huge massive influence on me um. Another three-time Olympian hurdler, a guy by the name of Tony Campbell, who was still a track and field coach, was a huge influence on me. Dan Paff is one of the, I think, brilliant minds of not just track and field, but training period. He runs Altus down in Phoenix, which is one of the largest kind of attended track and field centers in the world. Altus, A-L-T-U-S? Yeah, A-L-T-U-S. And Dan Paff, it's P-F-A-F-F. Brilliant guy and mind. But I study everybody, Tim, honestly. I've gone from Louis Simmons to Charles Paul and to all of them. I mean, for me, it's kind of like success leaves clues. And I think you've got to kind of study the best that have done it prior to you and see what, see where we're at and then see what we can kind of add on

Starting point is 01:19:53 to, you know, Buddy Morris, who's a strength coach of the Arizona Cardinals, a really good friend of mine, you know, phenomenal coach. He he's, you know, been in the game for a very long time as in his sixties was kind of a Louie Westside barbell guy, but has kind of adjusted to really evolve and he's doing some phenomenal things with them. But yeah, I mean, there's a ton of coaches that I, you know, you know, respect incredibly. I think, I think it's, it's been awesome. I think more than anything, we, we, as a field of performance coaches have to kind of, and what my goal is with Nike is try to bring us together

Starting point is 01:20:24 to kind of get, you know, bring all that information together, try to kind of come with some best practices and try to help move this field forward. What, is there anything in particular from, uh, Louie Simmons for you people who don't know who Louie Simmons is, you gotta look this guy up and I'm not going to say too much more. He's very well-spoken, very smart. A, check out his tattoos. A, read what he has to say about anabolic steroids. And then look at the athletes who have come out of his gym in the last 20 years and just prepare to have your mind blown. bands, uh, chances are they, they borrowed it from Louie Simmons or if they, uh, but is there anything in particular that you have, uh, borrowed or adapted from Louie that comes to mind? Yeah, absolutely. When I, uh, went to meet with him, you know, one of the big things he was talking to me about is that with all, and this was just recently, but all of his world record and, and, and, you know, world-class squatters that he has, he, he box squats,

Starting point is 01:21:25 all of them to improve their squat. So as basic of a lift as box squat is, he uses that to help them improve their deep squat, uh, and their power lifting, uh, competition. So that was one thing I started implementing more and more with a lot of my jumpers. A lot of my football players is using more box squat than, than, um, than, than deep squatter or any type of variation of squat. I use the box squat a ton, not only as a teaching tool, but just to help them improve their other exercises with minimizing the risk of injury and training question on box squat, just a technical nuance. Are you with your athletes when they box squat, how much of your weight, how much of their weight do you have them transfer from their feet to their ass on the box?

Starting point is 01:22:08 If at all, or is it just making contact and then reversing the movement? It just depends on the weight I'm using and also what I'm going for. If I'm using it to do tempo, so if I'm doing four seconds down controlled tempo, I may have them just touch and go. It just depends on where I'm at in the phase of training or what I'm trying to do to teach. Sometimes I'll, a lot of times with, with newer athletes to box squatting, I'll actually have them sit completely down on the bench or on the, on the, I'm sorry, on the box, um, kind of sit upright. So their spine angles is, is perpendicular to the ground and then lean back forward and stand

Starting point is 01:22:41 back up just to kind of get the understanding of the sequencing of the movement that I want. Um, from what I understand, that's what Louis does as well, is he actually has them sit completely down on the box. And so I kind of do a combination of the two. It just kind of bends on the kind of phase of the training I'm in. But for the most part of the listeners, I would say I'd probably sit all the way down on the box and then tilt your spine and go back forward and stand back up.

Starting point is 01:23:04 When you're working with elite football players or sprinters certainly i would imagine they're already they already tend to be very low body fat there there are probably exceptions depending on oh you'd be surprised. Yeah, there are probably exceptions depending on the position. But if we're talking about the, not ground reactive force exactly, but the amount of weight they can lift relative to their body weight, are there cases where you focus simultaneously or not on dropping as much body fat as possible? Since that would ostensibly contribute to their ability to run faster, right? I mean, you're just tweaking a different variable. No, a hundred percent. Yeah. I have a good example of that. Actually, a couple of years ago, I had two quarterbacks, uh, in the, in going, coming into the NFL draft, uh, Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston. And one came in at 207 pounds and needed to be 225. The other one came in at 260 and needed to be 230.

Starting point is 01:24:07 So I actually had one needing to gain 20 and the other one needing to lose 30 and had them at the exact same time. And so, yeah, this ultimately can work for either. What did you do in both of those cases? I know you could probably talk for hours about it, but if you had to do your best to summarize what worked best for those two guys, one trying to cut a fair amount of body fat and then the other trying to gain mass, what, what were the keys in those two cases? No, I mean, yeah, ultimately it comes down to, I mean, as you know, nutrition plays a massive role in it. And so blood testing, I mean, I do a lot of blood tests work with, with the guys. And so as you know, with high levels of insulin and glucose, it's really difficult to lose body fat. So understanding their diet from that perspective of trying to lower those markers as much as possible,

Starting point is 01:24:52 eliminating sugar and those types of things that have them lose body fat is crucial. But at the end of the day, that's the really cool part about a lot of this training is that a lot of it is going to get you to some sort of level of homeostasis. Your body's going to try to get to its natural state, somewhat of a zero based on all of this training. So whether you need to lose weight or you need to put on muscle, your body's going to adapt and do what it needs to do in order to increase its strength, especially when it's being stressed at certain levels with the hex bar deadlift. So with a guy like Marcus who needed to gain 20 pounds, I added a lot more eccentric loading into his training programming. So he'd do a lot more tempo, time and attention and focus on the eccentric phase of some of the exercises as, as well as, uh, the concentric. So in the hex bar deadlift, for example, I'd have him go up and down. Um, cause we're looking for more like cross

Starting point is 01:25:39 sectional muscle fiber. And then, and then with Jamis, it was, it was a lot of concentric only a little bit, eliminating eccentric focus from his, his training, um, and then just upping the intensity and also his cardio. So just giving him some, some more, uh, cardio throughout the day. And for him, a big part was just diet. I mean, a lot of these kids coming out of college, a lot of, a lot of people don't realize is that they have no idea how to eat right. Or what is, what is eating right. They've gotten away so much on talent up to that point that all of a sudden it comes to the point where, oh, wait, I got to really focus on what I have to eat now. So it's like, yeah, no McDonald's and KFC is not good for

Starting point is 01:26:13 you, which people, you'd be amazed at how much they don't understand that. But just helping him with his diet was a big part. So ultimately the training doesn't need to change as much. It's like when you look at CrossFit, for example. It's a great example. You'll see some people in the gym over 60 days that will put on tons of muscle mass and get stronger and bigger. And you'll look at the other side of the room and someone will lose 105 pounds. And it's like, how did them in the same workout, same program over the past 60 days get totally different, opposite results? And ultimately, it's just because the body's trying to find that, that,

Starting point is 01:26:46 that, that zero that homeostasis. And so it's whether it's burning, you know, fat cells or, or, or increasingly muscle mass, it's going to do whatever,

Starting point is 01:26:52 you know, distress is, is asking you to do. Right. What's a, just a, just a couple more questions and I'll let you get back to your night. But the first question that I always ask is what books have you gifted the most to

Starting point is 01:27:07 other people? These don't have to be sports related, but they could be. Are there any particular books that you've gifted to other people? Oh man, good question. I've heard you ask this before and I didn't think you were going to ask me and I should have been prepared for this, but I'm a huge, huge avid reader. I mean, I truly believe I tell every person I train is that I think one of the biggest reasons you are where you are, the difference between where you are, where you are and where you want to go is kind of knowledge, big and reading as much as you can. And so that's a tough question. I think the alchemist is a big one. I've, I've loved that book for a very, very long time. The Bible is a big one, but I'll give you a kind of

Starting point is 01:27:44 an off, off, off the wall kind of one, which is called the slide edge. Have you ever heard of that book? The slide edge, the slight edge. Oh, slight edge. No, I haven't. So basically the premise of the book is, is, and I give it to as many athletes as I possibly can. It's basic. The premise is what you, the small little tiny things you do, the daily habits you do every single day can lead to exponential kind of life improvement down the road. So it's basically talks about forming habits before they form you and what types of habits you want to form. So whether it's things like you talk about all the time, which is journaling, uh, nutrition, um, you know, relationally, like all those things that you, that, that, that will help you lead a greater,

Starting point is 01:28:22 fuller, happier life, kind of making sure that you do those, those things and where you do them religiously every single day. And over the course of time, like compounding interest, it'll add up to something great at, you know, down the road. And, um, it's all about just kind of forming those habits. And I, that's something I work with, you know, my athletes on all the time because ultimately they've all gotten to where they are, but what, what separates the great ones, the all time athletes and people from, from kind of the, you know, the good is I think those kind of this, you know, discipline daily habits that they do every single day that, that kind of,

Starting point is 01:28:53 you know, make them who they am, they are. And that's what separates them from everybody else. They know who they are. Um, they know that they can only do a few things really, really well. And they focus on those things and without fail, they do them every single day. You know, this, I'm so embarrassed. I can't remember the name, but A, I love the title. B, it reminds me of this anecdote or a story I heard about one of the most famous basketball coaches of the last century, certainly. And I'm blanking on that. John Wooden. Yes, John Wooden. And this may or may not be true. I think it is that he would sit his players down at the beginning of a season,

Starting point is 01:29:30 have them take off their shoes and then have them lace their shoes back on according to his instructions. And the point of the exercise, because people are like, why the hell are we doing this? This is ridiculous. Why do I need to change how I lease my shoes? And he said, improperly fitted shoes cause blisters, blisters cost points and points cost games. And the moral of the story being that it's the little things done consistently that make a huge difference that you have to pay attention to the details. So I love that. The slight edge Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. It's a redundant book. It just covers the same things over and over again. Um, but it's just, it's, it's kind of, you know, there's all those self-help books out there that kind of give you like breakthroughs in certain

Starting point is 01:30:15 things. This, this one is awesome because it kind of gives you the, before all of that happens, you've got to be able to do these things really well. Um, and it talks about like four or five things that you do daily that, that just will add up at some point. There are good habits that will, that will pay off, you know, you know, exponentially in the end. I love it. What advice would you give your 30 year old self? And if you could just place us, where are you? How old are you right now? I'm 34. Okay. Forget about that question. 20 year old self? Well, yeah, let's say you're 20 or 25 year old self, whichever one needs the advice the most.

Starting point is 01:30:49 And if you just try to place us where you are and what you're doing, 20 or 25. Man, I think, I think the biggest thing would be to, I'll tell you a funny story. My, so when I first started doing this, my, my dad would always tell people that, that I was, uh, let me mean, when I first started this, I started to figure out what I wanted to do in training. I mean, I even started out where I was like at a 24-hour fitness because I just wanted to get an idea of like what I wanted to do. And to this day, my dad still tells everybody I'm a personal trainer. I think it's pretty funny for multiple reasons. But I think more than anything, it's that whatever you, it's that whatever, whatever you're going to do, be, be the absolute best at it. And I think ultimately it always works out in the end.

Starting point is 01:31:32 And, and I would have never thought a million years when I was younger that like, you know, I thought I was kind of with not being an athlete and not being kind of, you know, I didn't know if I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon, but not, but not having none of those things really work out for me. I would have never guessed that I would reach the level of success that I have today based on what I was doing. But I took so much pride in, and, and, um, put so much effort into like helping every single person that I came across to improve, um, that ultimately it kind of started to

Starting point is 01:31:58 add up. And I think I just wanted to be the best, absolute best that I could be. Um, are you familiar with the author of C.S. Lewis? Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Yes. Definitely. Screw tape letters. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the big things he talks about is what's called the inner circle. I think when I was talking to the athletes I work with, I'm always talking about, you know, you're all, they're always striving to be within that inner circle, whether they see people like

Starting point is 01:32:20 Jay-Z or Beyonce or, you know, big time athletes that they like, you know, Tom Brady or whoever they want to be in that circle with those athletes because they see them, they're all hanging out running around. But ultimately those people in that inner circle, they don't even know they're in that inner circle. The reason they're in that inner circle is because other people that were amazingly great at what they did recognize their greatness in what they did. And that's why it's the inner circles a lot of times made up of photographers or actors or musicians or athletes or all these different types of people, because ultimately they're the best at what they do and other greatness recognizes greatness. So instead of focusing on getting into the inner circle,

Starting point is 01:32:56 focus on being great at whatever you're doing. And I promise you at the end of the day, you're going to look up and you'll be in the inner circle. And I think that's, that's for me telling my younger self that is that just, just be great at what you're doing. And ultimately you'll be recognized for that. Not, not trying to, you know, get into the inner circle in any other way, I guess, if that makes sense. Makes perfect sense. Uh, well, Ryan, this has been awesome. This is, uh, I'm really glad we connected and had a chance to chat. I'm sure we will have a million follow-up questions from listeners and plenty of room for a round two. So whether it's in Oregon or in San Diego or somewhere else, it'd be fun to grab a bite to eat and do some deadlifts. But where can people find you if there's a preferred

Starting point is 01:33:41 place on social media you'd like people to say hello or anything else you'd like to mention, where can people find you and more about your work? Yeah, sure. So, I mean, I'm still working at Nike now, so it's a little bit different. But I mean, I'm on Instagram, Ryan Flaherty, at Ryan Flaherty and the number one. And then by email, just Ryan at prolific athletes.com is my personal email. So you can send email questions there if you, if you guys would want. Um, and I'd be happy to get back to you as soon as I can. Um, I think those are probably the two probably best places to find me prolific athletes.com is still up, but, but, uh, because

Starting point is 01:34:18 I'm at Nike now that no longer really kind of operating that website anymore. So I would just focus on sending the email or Instagram. Got it. All right. Well, you may be getting a lot of emails, sir. So hopefully you have an autoresponder that helps you to ignore anything you really don't want to answer. But once again, man, thanks for taking the time. This has given me a bunch of homework and things to look into. And to people listening, as always, we will have show notes, links to resources, including the exercises that we discussed, whether it's glute med, VMO, step downs, internal rotation of the femur, etc. We will have these available and we will figure out the best

Starting point is 01:35:05 links for those and put them in the show notes. And you can find those show notes at fourhourworkweek.com forward slash podcast, or if that's too hard to spell, you can just go to tim.blog forward slash podcast, and it'll have the show notes for this episode and every other episode. Uh, Ryan, thanks again, man. I really appreciate it. No, my pleasure, pleasure tim thanks so much and uh to everybody listening as always thank you for tuning in and more episodes coming soon hey guys this is tim again just a few more things before you take off number one this is five bullet friday do you want to get a short email from me would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday

Starting point is 01:35:46 that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do.

Starting point is 01:36:08 It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to 4hourworkweek.com. That's 4hourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by LegalZoom. I have used LegalZoom myself for many of my businesses. And many of the icons on this podcast have actually used LegalZoom. For instance, Matt Mullenweg of WordPress fame, CEO of Automatic, which is now worth

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #238: The Savant of Speed -- Ryan Flaherty

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