Weights and Plates Podcast - Ep. 111 - Finding Your Voice: Music, Family, and Friendship

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

In this episode, Robert shares lighthearted banter about self-deprecating humor, musical pursuits, and the joy of performing with family. Dan Francis, a guest known for his singing talent, discusses his band and the musical abilities of his children. The conversation touches on the camaraderie built over years of friendship, including missed opportunities to see each other perform live. The episode wraps up with a playful nod to YouTube culture, encouraging listeners to subscribe if they enjoyed the show.

You know, I've been watching a lot of shows, and these guys don't, like, introduce the show. They just start talking. I know. I actually kind of like that. Yeah. I don't know. So that's how we're going to open this episode. Sure, man.

We're just going to change shit up. Right. Because I'm getting kind of the whole, I guess, AM radio thing where you introduce the show in a fancy radio voice. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. RIP does it. But he also is probably the best one doing that.

What does he say from the... From the home of... I forget what is... Something. Wichita Falls. Yeah. Well, he used to do that. He was a radio DJ.

Yeah. Yeah. No, and I can hear it. In another life, I would have done that too myself. Yeah. I wanted to get into it when I was, uh, when I was nightclub DJing. Yeah. So the guy who mentored me, he got into radio too and was doing that end of it.

And he just never, it never came to pass. And when I was, the radio program at the school I was at, they weren't, they weren't, they weren't really into that. Yeah. So. Yeah, I wasn't, I liked music and audio and all that stuff, but it was purely something that was self-taught. Like, I didn't like get into groups with that, you know? It's a lot of it's by feel.

Yeah, I agree. You know, that is one. I mean, obviously like with gym stuff, like you can, you can F around in the gym to some degree, which you did for a while before you kind of got into the starting strength ecosystem. So there's a bit of distance you can get with that. But like that's really, you know, something where you need mentorship. Yeah. For sure. At some point you do.

Yeah. I used to just, so, when I started DJing, there was a guy that played at all the clubs I was at. Yeah. And I think we were just like maybe AIMing each other, I want to say. I remember. And I'm dating myself here, but I asked him how to start. And maybe, you know, I've never talked to somebody very educated on this, but the way he explained it to me was, well, there's 32 beats in a measure. So just count the 32 beats.

And this was like EDM, as they call it now. Yeah. So I just started lit. And that's easier to count because it's very, you know, 130 beats per minute. It's very straightforward. So I would just listen to the mixtapes I had and I would count. I'm like, oh, shit changes every 30 second. You know, then I started breaking it up into like eight fours or four eights, you know.

And then I tried to match things up. And by the time I met the guy who mentored me, he was a college town DJ who was originally from Chicago. and he used to break dance and DJ that was big in the 90s, you know, before the VIP tables took over all these places. You know, it used to be about music and dancing. But he just told me, he's like, stop worrying about fucking up so much. It's the story of my life. You know, I had to learn this lifting too. And he was just like, just play, just play.

And I got better and better and better. And I was playing at all the big college bars in West Central, Illinois, at least, you know, in McComb and Quad Cities. Yeah. And I had a good time with it. I wanted to get into like an actual instrument, but just money, you know, at the time. Sure. And by the time I was making, if I bought a guitar, I never touched it. Yeah, that's interesting too where you can get, because I'm a professional musician, so you can get pretty far.

Like I, I've only had a handful of real guitar lessons and real voice lessons, like before I even went to college for music. Yeah. But yeah, like with strength, I feel like. With strength, I feel like a lot of people, so like the fake it to you make it, you know, sort of aphorism works with a lot of things. Yeah. But there's kind of a wall that you hit with that, right?

Well, lifting? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And sometimes it's embarrassment. Sometimes it's, it's injury. Yeah. I don't think it's as much as a lack of achieving goals for some people. It's more of like a how am I perceived at my gym?

Or have I, have I not been accountable to my goals or that sort of thing? Like that letdown of missing something. Right. Did you make the mark? Yes. Yeah. So that kind of segues into the episode, you know? Yeah.

So who the fuck is this guy having my studio today? You know, let's probably start there. So I'd like to introduce my guest. This is Dan Ballinger or Dan doesn't know stuff on Instagram. I now see you. I forget your last name now. You're right. Your Dan doesn't know stuff.

That's what I think when I'm reaching out to you. Yeah. Because I interface with you on there probably more than when I call you. So like the only time I see your first and last name is on my iPhone. Yeah. And we don't text. It's usually like that or signal. Yeah.

But Dan was a member at my gym six years ago. And he's a guest member now. Like, you know, like a, you know, you have your legacy. Yeah, there you go. Legacy. Yeah, alumni. Yeah, alumni. And, you know, we're going to talk about that.

But he became a good friend of mine. And last episode I made. I thought about you because I was going on and on and on and on. And it hasn't been released yet. It should drop tomorrow. But I was going on and on and on about how people have an excuse mill to not train. And the recent excuse that I had encountered when I recorded that was I had a client who canceled his subscription. And it was like a month long ordeal.

So like, you know, he signed up with me. I did his diet stuff. He was on it. Started doing his training stuff. I maybe got a couple weeks out of it. of them in a two to three month period. And he just kept going on about, I don't have time, my family, this and that. And all those things are certainly barriers. You know, I'm not discrediting any of that. But, you know, as I'm talking about it, I'm thinking of other people

that are in much shittier situations with that. That's probably not the right word, but have more responsibility in that area. More moving parts. Yeah, more moving parts. And then, of course, you came to mind. And why would you come to mind? Well, what do you have nine kids? I do. Yeah. Yeah. You have nine kids. and how many jobs? Well, two jobs and a business which is slightly dormant, but we'll call three. You've never had just one job since I met you. No, not since I got married 25 years ago almost.

Yeah, so you juggle a lot of shit. Yeah. So, you know, I thought about you. There's some other guys that I trained that are in pretty busy situations, but I'd say you're probably the most extreme that I've encountered. And you used to show up at like 9, 10 o'clock at night. You were part of the night shift with me and Leo, who I need to get on the show also. and yeah for me opening a gym put me in that night shift i used to be a mid-morning or early-morning

lifter and once i opened that place i was a night shift guy got to know you got to know a couple of the other guys that would train but till 10 to midnight and uh you know here we are but when i was in in college and i had to sit through and learn about all this nutrition and physical activity, epidemiology. One of the things that stuck out to me, this was in my PhD program, that the number one reason for lack of adherence was perceived, keyword perceived people, perceived lack of time. It was ranked number one for why people don't stick with shit. And, you know, in my busiest points, I work through it. But I realize I can only go so far at how much bitching I can do at people in this camera because, well, you're,

a 41-year-old bachelor. Who the fuck are you to say anything? Well, okay, I've said my piece. Now I brought somebody on. So it's not just me, motherfuckers. Not to me, I do juggle shit. Just not a lot of living beings other than my, you know, dogs, but it's not the same thing. Um, so yeah, like, you know, talk to us. We've established that you're a musician. That's kind of how we kick this off, which I think was pretty cool. You know, give us a background of your history. Yeah. And it's, it's interesting. I have, um, you know, I have my lift, in sort of philosophy, Instagram,

Dan, no stuff. He also has the most phenomenal radio voice, so I was very excited about this. Anytime you can

make me talk in front of people, it's phenomenal. Go on. But I also have a music side of things, which is Dan Francis band,

and sort of, you know, I've had a Facebook page since 2006, right? So what happened is a lot of these memory posts

come in, like, on this day. And I went back and looked at like, man, like, I really fluctuated

in my appearance, specifically weight, over decades. And so what happened to me is I remember this was January of 2019. I went to a work conference in another state. And I remember this vividly. I was bored one night in the hotel room and found, I think there was an Amazon Prime documentary about the Navy SEAL.

that's so not like the famous one from the 90s which is about one of the classes this was a newer one and so for me I kind of got this hairbrained idea that like obviously we have the benefit of a lot of these content creators now like David Gagginz and Jaco Willink who we were talking about earlier

this was way before that a little bit before yeah this was kind of right because they kind of surged during COVID and this is obviously the year before that right And so I remember One of my last Memory Pictures recently was a receipt from Five Guys Burgers

at the Hartsfield Jackson Airport in Atlanta on a layover And it was probably the largest fast food meal I'd ever eaten in my life And at the time, I'm only 5'7 I was 265 pounds Incredibly unhealthy

And I got this hairbrained idea That this fat guy is going to join the military. And so without kind of the benefit of any education or support or experience, I kind of winged it. And so what I did for 10 months was calorie restriction, running Planet Fitness, which was actually really good for me, and just staying consistent with that. The issue was is that after losing 100 pounds in 10 months, I had horrible tailbone hip and back pain. I bet.

I was weak. I literally still just looked like my fat self, but smaller. And then through, because at the time, again, and mind you, I'm 38, 39 years old at this time. I'm trying at the time, didn't happen to slip under the wire into the Air Force because they have a little bit higher of an age standard. Yeah. but through another YouTuber John Lovell, Warrior Poet Society, did a cross-collaboration with Ripeto.

Yep, I remember that. At W. FAC. And because John at the time was doing starting strength. And Mark was coaching him on his lifts. Yes. Which was great. And so I thought like, oh, here's this one guy that I admire in terms of like gun content.

Now I like his strength stuff. and also kind of his like religion stuff too as well as a Christian. And then he's doing this like, what is this starting strength thing? And talking about Ripito's voice, I don't necessarily literally just mean his speaking voice. Like his voice as a conveyor of information. Yes.

Is one of the best people out there. I would agree. He made it seem so simple. And it both is and isn't with regarding, because I was stuck in the mode of, and you talk about this a lot. I wasn't a bro. In fact, I had never had any athletic experience in my entire life.

I wanted the whole like Brad Pitt from Fight Club look. I wanted abs and all this kind of stuff. You do listen to my show. I do. I do. And then I found out through going down the starting strength rabbit hole and seeing some of the couple of videos you had done with him and then finding out through the site that you had an affiliate gym

and that you did nutrition. I'm like, I'm just going to kill multiple birds with one stone. And so we eventually met, did nutrition consultation. And then I wasn't actually planning on joining the gym,

but you kind of like, Volan told me that I was. And it's like, all right, cool. You know, we're going to do this. So we did the barbell assessment. And I still remember.

I think I was trying to squat 65 pounds and your exact words, like, you can't? You really can't do this, can you? you like you were you were just thinking out loud like kind of being and like no it was it was kind of pathetic yeah but i i didn't i didn't like i didn't allow that the interaction of like experiencing gym culture yeah and a coach because i have never been in sports right for that

that was mild compared to what you received probably as a as a swimmer oh yeah oh yeah my uh swim coach was a he was a swim coach at a catholic high school in chicago before four we got him. Yeah. And yeah, what happens in Fight Clothes to he's in Fight Club, but he did not fuck around. No. So your relatively innocuous observation was true, but I'm like, no, I'm military man, going to be in the Air Force.

I can, if I can handle Robert Santana, you know, I can. And so, but I kept with it and I kept coming back. And I was, I would say much below the baseline of an average untrained male at that time. like I was kind of in sort of like the biologically in my lift ability is like kind of almost down in like the ladies range like I'll be honest with you when I trained my wife which we can get into eventually

like I think she started her lifts higher than some of mine were I think you mentioned this yeah this was coming back to me yeah very very very strong lady so and from there I kind of shifted my paradigm to not be concerned about weight but in lean mass.

And so during the before times, just before COVID and into them, for me it was really neat because I come from a world where for decades, I had only ever worked in churches, Christian churches and Catholic churches, as a musician and also as a person that does design,

graphic design, marketing that sort of thing. And coming to weights and plates was my first venturing outside of a church social circle since I was at Berkeley College of Music in 2000. Okay. So that it was, it was and like, I didn't burst into flames coming in there. And like, so like you all. Yeah. Some of the OGs, which, you know, we can mention at some point, like, we're kind of like my first non-church friends that I had had since I was in college, which was kind of a, it was kind of a big, big deal. for me, you know? Yeah. And I, I didn't have like a, I wasn't in like a strict religious community. It was just stuff I imposed on myself. Right. Yes. It was, it had nothing, like no,

there was no pastor, priest or telling me I couldn't socialize with normies. It was just I hadn't done it. And it was, for me, it was, it was nice because it wasn't big Globo Gym culture. It wasn't like bro Instagram and girl culture. It was like people around my age. some of whom had, you know, a lot of ability and athletic experience. And then some that were like me that like just came up from negative one normie status to where to where I got. And then, you know, within a couple of years, I was kind of in like respectable normal adult male lifting status of being 200 pounds, you know? Yeah. From 165 where I started when I met you.

Yeah, dude, you were a squish ball at 165 too. like you said, you were a smaller version of your fat self. Yeah, exactly. I experienced on a smaller scale when I was younger, I talk about that a lot. But I remember that.

I'm like, dude, this guy lost all his fucking muscle mass. And I got to tell him he's got to gain weight. I don't know if he's going to do it. No, and isn't that, that's a real big sticking place

with a lot of people, right? And I'm sure you deal with it with RP people. You deal with it with starting strength people? Like, what, you want me to eat more? Like, it makes the hair

in the back of their neck stand up. They're so afraid to go back. Yeah. to go back to where they were. And I was kind of just being like a, having been a yo-yo diet in my entire life, having been like a very fat child

to being like a sort of normal-sized high schooler and then got married and gained a bunch of weight, but gained and lost it a bunch of times. Like I had worked so hard to get down to that weight over those 10 months. I was just so afraid to go back. But at the same time, like, I had no muscle mass in my posterior chain

and in my lower back. So I couldn't sit driving a car for more than 15 or 20 minutes without having to stop the car and get out and stand up because my lower back are at that much. Shit.

And then discovering that squatting and deadlifting, think of it like an airbag in a car. Like it creates a bubble of protection and a ligature and a scaffolding

around your bones. And so the cure for back pain for me wasn't taking it easy. He was lifting more and consistently. Yeah. Three days a week. Who would have thought?

Yeah. I'd imagine that when you first walked in the door, you didn't think you'd take it as far. No, I was mostly going for the nutrition stuff. And I wanted to do the barbell orientation because of the John Lovell videos. It's so funny. This is all coming back to me. You came to me for diet.

Yeah. Yeah. I forgot all about that. Yeah, then you became a regular for a couple years there. And now we all get excited when you show up. He just came in for a diet console. Yeah, it's interesting when you see that. You know, I talk to these guys that have the capacity to get to 400 pounds.

And it's a very different physiological situation than a guy who just gets chubby, you know, because we have this joke. I got a guy he's probably listening right now. He lost about 100 pounds, some of which was with me, a big chunk of it he did on his own. And then I took over and did his training and he's still a client. And I don't know where I came up with this phrase that I use or this term, but I call it the inner fat kid. Yeah. That makes you want to eat and not stop.

Yeah. I think I got it from Josh Wells because I went to hang out. with him. I'm going to have him on the show pretty soon here. I wanted to hang out with him in Houston, and he took me to H.E.B. You ever been to an H.E. Oh, yeah. God's grocery store. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The homemade tortillas that they make there. You had them? No, but everything there is good. Yeah. Yeah. They make their own tortillas there, and he introduced me to these things, and I think I ripped through a package in front of them, and he's like, you're a fat kid. And I'm like, so are you, motherfucker and he's like, I know, but I didn't know you were a fat kid.

Sure. No, I, I, I, I, compulsive eating has definitely been like my, my biggest struggle and what's interesting. And, um, Rip talks about this with, where he steel man's the idea of a ketogenic diet, right? Where he says like, dude, after two weeks, you're just not hungry anymore. Yeah. I think that's why it's popular. Yeah.

And so when I was doing, um, calorie restriction, um, using a fit bit to sort of give me a baseline of what my body usage was for the day. Yeah. And doing a lot of cardio stuff. Like that actually, you know, that was a factor. Like if you eat less for long enough and it's not even like two to three weeks, like you've changed your desires and your set points. However, the inner fat kid is still in there.

Yes. Right? It never goes away, right? It's true. Yeah. And obviously, so for people that kind of have that switch inside of them like we do, stressors can be a big trigger for that. Joy is a big trigger.

We always have a reason to eat an entire pint of Ben and Jerry's, don't we? Yeah. For me, it's a loaf of bread. Really? Okay. If you bring a loaf of French bread in here, I'm ripping through that. Or tortillas are bad too, but I can regulate those better. Yeah. But like, soft, doughy fucking bread, I'll rip through that shit.

My daughter makes sourdough bread from scratch. Lord, help me. I can't be around that. I can't be around. She moved to Philadelphia, so it makes it easier for me. So how many in the house now? So out of nine, we have six left. Okay.

And I've got four adult kids. I've got a daughter that just turned 18, who's a senior, going to graduate. And she's going to go to college and state next year. So yeah, most of them are out doing stuff. And a couple of them live across the country, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. and then my oldest, my son, who we've been out to the shooting range with on occasion, lives close by and still plays in the band at church with me. Very cool. So we've established that.

Restraining yourself around food is difficult. I'm saying that metaphorically because it is for me too. lifting heavy shit and probably that first year I would say probably the second two you had to deal with all that elbow shit too so I'd say the first two years you were battling with technique stuff too right yes because I'm very physically idiotic I'm a motor moron motor moron no never played any skill sports never had any strength training yeah if you saw me run I look like you know Forrest Gump when he still had the leg braces on like it's that bad okay So, yeah, like no gifting in that way. Yeah, I remember you struggled and I would, you know, I had one gal, I used to call her Groundhog Day because it was. It was the same, the same lift every time. As the intro to bar, but she was sweet. She was sweet.

She showed up. She was a research participant. Yeah. So she didn't have to be there. But she showed up. She finished the study. She got stronger. She learned things.

But, oh, man, it was like an intro to barbell session every time. time. It was like Dory Finding Nemo. Like she forgot the last one every time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wouldn't say you were quite that bad, but maybe a version of that, like a very light version of that. Sure.

But I remember you struggled with reproducing the movements for a while. Yes. But once I did, it's really something I never lost. And another thing that was an immense help to me. So when I was coming to weights in place less, I began working with Dr. Will Morris, shout out to our friend Will. Oh, I need to get on here. And working, absolutely, and working over video.

And so me being able to watch myself on video, which I kind of started doing when I used to come just the once a week and I would work out twice at home. So I have a nice gym at home too. Being able to watch myself and essentially coach myself post hoc was a really amazing technique. And that's something I have helped train a few people really just as a hobby, just for fun and just for help, but that is always my biggest recommendation is you got to videotape yourself. I'm using the videotape is not a real thing. Yeah.

You have to film yourself and kind of watch back, but also be able to look at yourself in the third person and make adjustments as you go along. And so for me, although it was a very slow uptake for me to get to a physical understanding of where I am in time and space. Yeah. I say I'm very good at that now. Oh, yeah. To the point where, you know, I'm kind of able to help people get.

unscrewed when they're kind of painted into corners with different things. And so for me, it's it's helped with everything just because especially getting to the levels that I got to. Now, obviously, have to do confessional time because I discovered when I was 40 that I had subclinical hypogonadism. So I was kind of on the line of being clinical and have been on HRT since 2020 or 2021. Okay. And so for me, that's mainly helpful. helped with with with injury recovery and with a few other factors obviously you can read and watch a lot of things about that but for for me I was able to get to um we can talk about the the physical limitation of the of the elbow injury yeah but so mind you with a with a mars bar not

with a straight barbell I was able to get up to 455 um for a single which is what I was being programmed at the time gotten up to 510 on the deadlift um but I have still have the the poverty bench in the poverty oh HP so got up to 190 on the overhead press okay that's good and up to 290 on the bench that's good man yeah um and that that was a that was a a couple of years ago when i was a little more gung-ho with well back when you're a young man yeah so um but we talked about what you know kind of why do why do people lose consistency or compliance and not understanding certain things about your body can be a big thing so in my case um i had some um um ulnar nerve issues in my left side from being a professional guitar player all of my adult life.

It's a very common thing with that profession. So professional guitar players, professional violin players, and dentists and dental hygienists because you're in this position with the instruments for that long period of time. And so I had an ulnar nerve transposition surgery where they move the nerve from your funny bone. Okay. In that little block here and they move it around the corner. No shit. Yeah.

So no headlocks for anybody. I'm not going to do any jibisu anytime soon. And so for me, just my particular anthropometry, I still, even after the surgery, experienced a lot of issues with using the straight barbell for squats. However, the safety bar, the Mars bar and the transformer bar, which I know you prefer,

have been amazing helps. And while it's not an apples to apples comparison, probably the transformer in the low bar setting. That's the closest in my opinion. In the low bar setting, me, I just have so many hours under the Mars bar that that works out the best for me. That's, that's been amazing. So with that modifier and also with the deadlift, whereas I would love to hook grip, as a professional musician who needs these hands to make money, you know, either using mixed grip or

straps for certain things has been fine for me because the goal is strength. Yes. It's not for me to be in a powerlifting federation. Right. Using certain techniques, I just want to get strong. Yeah. You know, and not judging myself for having to use these little modifiers based on my athletic ability and age and just how my body's built has been great. So like not judging myself in that way, but also not letting myself skip. That's the most important thing. Yeah. And try as hard as I can not to because we all, we all become discouraged if we fail a lift or don't meet a goal or a certain thing. But the hero is made when you come to the gym two days later.

Regardless. Absolutely. Let's talk about that because you mentioned several hard things there. So diet, that's hard. Technique, lifting technique is hard because we're using barbells. We're not using machines. Pushing through heavy lifts is hard. Yeah.

You know, we didn't even dive into that, but I say it every, like probably in almost every episode or at some point, not every episode. I say it quite a bit that lifting heavy weights elicits fear, you know, doing high reps or endurance, work elicits pain tolerance, right? It's like how much pain can you tolerate to finish, which is a valuable skill in and of its own, but eliciting fear on purpose is not something many people sign up for. I think eliciting a pain response is easier than the fear response because the fear is primal. Yeah. The pain thing you can get used to like the suck is coming.

Yeah. But you better know how your spirit is and how your mind is when you take 405. off the rack for the first time in a squat. It still fucks with me. I could do it for five, maybe six, maybe seven. But the thing about heavy weights is the first rep feels like the last rep in terms of you holding it and going down with it. You know, like they all feel like fucking garbage, man.

And it's especially true on the squat. Yeah. With the squat for me especially, I don't know if you experienced this. Yeah. The first set feels like garbage. Then you have all of the benefits. of the adrenaline, the endorphine afterwards, the second set feels like a warm-up set.

Second set's the best. And then the third set, you're back to reality again. Yeah, that's accurate, especially on an NLP. Yeah. Do you remember in the early days when you were novice, the first rep of the deadlift would always crawl? Yes. Did you have that?

I had that. And the second one would fly, and then they, you know, it would be fine. So almost like you were still warming up on that first rep. Yeah, I don't get that anymore. I don't know, I don't know why that stopped. I don't know why that was a thing. but my first year training, that first rep, and I'd see it with novices to this day,

it just would crawl off the floor. So I have to tell them, I'm like, first one's going to feel like a max. You better just rip the second one as fast as you can, you know, within the parameters of getting set and all that. But, yeah, you listed several hard things, but the hardest thing above all is to keep doing them.

So there's this thing. I have it in my brain. You clearly have it in yours. And a lot of people in my circle, they say, what, the average of the five people, you surround yourself with have it where you just you just do it you know you do it when you don't want to do it yeah i'm wondering i don't know where i fall on this anymore is it genetic is it can it be learned can it be trained but i'd say you're a big poster boy for this because you

have a lot more shit going on than i do and a lot more demands on your time from other humans i can flex a lot better than other people i acknowledge that motherfuckers you know that is that is an advantage that I have, but not totally, you know, I'm confined by certain things, you know, but certainly not when you're responsible for a lot of people, you have to be places, you have to answer to things. Sure. There's a higher level of accountability than I'm accountable to things. You know, I have my dogs, obviously, I'm accountable to them. They're living creatures, but I'm accountable to things.

I'm accountable to customers. I do a lot of stuff online, which gives me flexibility. And, you know, I can only go so far with my opinion on this stuff. You know? So what is it that, you know, there's a lot that I threw at you. But what is it that keeps you showing up? Because you work through a lot. I mean, fucking elbow surgery.

You're fucking the lifts up left and right. You're not that strong to begin with. Yeah. There's all this shit that make a lot of people quit when the first little wrench gets thrown in the thing, you know, because your linear progression was not so linear, if I can remember. It's, uh, it kind of looked like a sine wave. Yeah, it was up and down. Yeah.

All over the place. You weren't the 18 to 25 year old that had a straight log rhythmic curve. No, I think for me, I can take a lot of things back to performing. So I've been a musical performer since I was very young. And something that people talk about in performance is stage fright. Now, I don't have stage fright. I kind of have the opposite of that. I'm extremely comfortable talking in front of people and with people.

I'm a very reluctant extrovert, though. So the way that I would look at it, like why I'm just a glutton for coming back even with all of my failures and my poor form and all of that stuff is my whole life has been like an open microphone performance. So I've made all my mistakes on the stage and learn how to engage with an audience and learn how to quickly forgive myself when I make mistakes as a musical performer. And a lot of that translated into the gym for the same reason is just not being like I just. I decided very early on at weights and plates. I'm just not going to be embarrassed. And no one is there to make me feel embarrassed. And everybody wants me to win.

And I want everybody else to win at the same time. You know? And I'm not doing it for the gram, so to speak. I'm doing it for my future. I'm doing it to be a better husband. I'm doing it to be a better father. I'm trying to be, this just sounds cheesy, but to be the best me I can possibly build.

Right. And at the same time, knowing that I don't have probably great athletic genetics. In fact, I did an ancestry test recently and certain markers they can look at. I actually have low DNA markers for muscle recovery. No shit. So it kind of makes sense with certain things. And the HRT has helped a little bit with that. So for me, like, I'm just not, I'm not embarrassed to fail, you know, except a couple times when I, you know,

I dropped a squat once at weights and plates. I dropped a Mars bar squat once in my gym. At one time, I had a really serious incident with an overhead press where I wasn't doing the Val Salva right, and I went unconscious with 180 pounds over my head. You know, that was at home. I remember this story. Yeah, it's still on my Instagram, if you want to go back and look at it.

I lived. Yeah, you showed us that one. Yeah. What was, he just reminded me, we're not going to say his name because we don't plug dumbasses here. Right. There was some internet guy. I think you know who I'm talking about. Yeah.

Did something that he said and it fucked you up. Yeah, there was a, what shall we call him a certain educator of a particular lift. Yeah. Who essentially gave a piece of advice on the foot stance and the squat, which works for women, but not for men. And as a result, like the little teapot, I got tipped over and poured out. So we won't do that again. You've had some bloopers, bad. I've had some bloopers.

My whole life is a blooper real. Yeah. Yeah, so go on. Yeah. So, but that's what it boils down to is that also when you, when you hit milestones again, because mine has been a very squiggly line. Yeah. My linear progression looks like, you know, the Bitcoin graph,

basically, is that I can remember back to my past victories. Like, I can remember, I can remember what benching a plate felt like for the first time. And that, that can fuel a person for the rest of their life. Or, or two, haven't gotten the three, but those different things. Like, two was a grind for you. It was. Yeah, but, but, but thinking back to it like, you know what? I, as a normie, I've dad lifted 500 pounds.

Like, you can't scare me with any other lift. Right. I got something that I never thought I wanted to do or that I could do, you know? So was Rip Wright, any capable man with even the decent genetics can do it. So that I'm not sure of because, no, obviously you have more, you have more time behind the gun site as far as training people. And you've seen a lot different types of populations. for me it's been my members of my family

and certain people on Twitter and Instagram that asked me for advice on certain things which has been a lot of fun. So I don't know that if the average, I 100% believe what they call the standards

1.0 or the standards 1.5 from starting strength that every male can squat 315, can deadlift 405, can overhead press 135 and can bench press 225. Yeah, that's the thing that's accurate.

For reps. Yeah. Even a little pocket Hulk or like a big, you know, large fat dude. Like, doesn't matter who it is. Like, you can do it. You could probably do that well into your 60s. Mm-hmm. You know?

I have a 60-year-old right now that just benched 365. Yeah. I don't know. He's over 60 now because I've had him for a few years. In his 60s and he benched in the mid-300s. My landlord is. in his early 60s and benches four plates and he's completely natty. Oh, Jesus.

Don't tell me this shit. Very gifted. Just a very gifted guy. Yeah. 4-405. Yeah. Fuck. We're all big pussies, essentially.

Dude, man, I remember your quest for two plates. Those damn elbows were fucking you up, left and right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so for me, it's a lot of it is when you have the fear response. you think that speed is your friend, but speed under a load is your enemy.

Absolutely. So CrossFit is good for some people. It was never going to be my destiny because I'm just not good doing things fast. Right. Power lifting or strength lifting style training was the best for me because it's slow and controlled.

And predictable in that you know what you're doing, but you still have to get under that weight and you still have to not give up. So for me, a lot of it was learning because each of our bodies, as you know, this segment is a certain length. This segment is a certain length. Every, you are a set of ligatures on hinges. Yes. And each one of your limb lengths relative to the other ones will change how your leverage is applied to a load. And I'm coming from a non-scientific background. This is just understanding like, little things about like where is your

what's your grip with where is your touch point right what's your stance where is your eye gaze every little thing matters on that the finer details yes yeah yeah and the heavier it gets the more it matters the more the more it matters

and as you know as Spider-Man says with great power comes great responsibility or what it says in the Bible that you know what you do with little you'll be given more it's kind of the same idea idea, you know, you know, and what you do one time in the small things is what you do every time when it gets hard. You have to develop that discipline, you know, starting from your first warm up.

Right. Because it's, it's, and again, talking about speed being your enemy. Like, sometimes the fear response makes you want to go fast, but you have to, you have to resist that. And sometimes taking that, that rep that you're afraid of, slower than you want to, was actually. actually the thing that got you through it. Right. Yeah. You made it more miserable and as a result, you're able to finish it. Dropping a squad or a bench too fast. Yeah. And then you're stuck under it. Yeah. That happens a lot of times. Or ripping a deadlift too fast and you're hitching. Mm-hmm. And you could pull a pack or something like that. Yeah. And it's a weight that you could

have set your back with. Yeah. Yeah. Or with the overhead press, it's too far in front of you because you're trying to go too fast. A lot of it's managing nerves. Because you're eliciting that fight or flight response on purpose. On purpose. You're loading all this weight on. And you've got to slow yourself the fuck down while also leveraging that adrenaline to get the fucking weight up. It's a balancing act. Can we talk about something that you guys always made fun of me about gym music?

Oh. We're going to get into this really quick. So I remember, shout out to James in California, one of our former members. Because I don't train with music. I don't put on headphones. He's like, you lift with no music? He's like, you're not training for strength. You're training for a murder.

Like, he's like, that sounds like something James would say. That's serial killer stuff. But then you all used to torture me with Ted Nugent every time I would walk in the gym. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So here's the thing. Like I've learned to be very common stressful situations. And obviously lifting a heavy weight is one of those.

For some people, music is a big help. I know for you, even though you're not a musician, you're a very musical person. Yeah. And so for you, it's a big help. For me, I, this sounds like masochistic. Like I want to feel and perceive everything that's going on without distraction. So at most, even now, I'm listening to an audiobook. Like, I might be listening to like The Iliad.

Okay. And I'm squatting three sets of five. Holy shit. You'll have that eye while you're lifting? Yeah. Yeah. I do audiobooks now. Oh, so it's not silent.

Sorry, James. I'm not silent anymore. Yeah. We'd come in and like you'd hear the plates and like you're the only. guy in the gym. Yeah. And then that's it. We'd hear the plates and it was just fucking like a pin drop.

And it was fucking kind of eerie but kind of cool too. Yeah. So like, yep, Dan soundtracks on. That was the joke we had. Yeah. Then one day we were in the office just bullshitting afterwards and the Nugent song went on repeat because Andrew was using it as a PR song. Yeah.

And you just interrupted our conversation. You're like, bro, you have the extended version of Ted Nugent play for the last half an hour, last hour. So it's like, it's like the, the eight-minute version of strangleholds. Yeah, and you just kind of like set it with like a straight face and like a monotode. So as a, as a, as a musician, I can't passively listen to music. You said that too. Yeah. So that's something to where like, um, if I'm, and it goes the other way. So if, if there is a song I really want to listen to, don't, don't talk to me. I'm having a moment right now. And so the opposite way, it's like, uh, it's like, uh, it's like not wanting to,

to, you know, to mix your, um, your personal life with your work life. It's like, no, music is my personal life. The gym is my work life. Like music is what I do for pleasure. The gym is what I'm doing to better myself and abuse myself in a manner of speaking. So I didn't want to, because it, uh, if, if a song is on, I'm listening to like, I'm listening to the guitar solo or I'm listening to the drum breakdown.

I'm listening to like the high note on the singer because like, just like somebody, uh, who, who's, uh, If you were a golfer and you're watching the PGA tour, like you're watching everything and you're analyzing it. Or like when I go to a musical concert, I'm not thinking about the performance. I'm looking at like what guitar amp is that on stage? You know? What kind of symbols does he have on the drum set?

Right. Because of all that, the nerd stuff. Sounds like you see that whole world differently than the average person. Yeah. And so for me, like music and gym, I never really put together because I really want them to be, you know, separate pleasures of mine. Yeah.

I think the best analogy I can come up with is when I do my assistance work, I go to the Globo Gym. Yeah. Because I don't want it to feel like work. Yeah. If I deadlift or bench press, I do that at my gym. If I squat or do assistance work, I do it at the Globo Gym, which kind of tells you how I feel about the squat these days. Sure. No, and now, if you did your heavies there, you're, without being conceded, lifting more than the average person there.

So you're going to draw a little bit of attention, but that's not your, point. Yeah. You're just there, you're there to get your single arm stuff in. Pretty much. I do my RDLs there. So I probably get,

I don't know if I, I don't pay attention. There's probably people looking at that because it's quite a bit of weight. Yeah. But I do squat there and I, I'm not Sam bagging the squat. It just doesn't,

unless it's triples, it doesn't stress me out. Yeah. Like I guess if I was doing heavy triples and singles, I'd probably do those at my gym. It's just a lift that from day one. I was never the guy, I don't want to squat as much weight as possible.

I responded to it from a young age. You know, I've naturally strong quadriceps for my size. You know, I think I was squatting over three, just three months fucking around in the college gym. Yeah. Not knowing what I was doing and just putting weight on. It might have been high. I don't know. When I got around to finding starting strength, I was already squatting 315.

That I had a video of. It was depth that would have passed in a powerlifting meet. So it just what, it's one of those things, you know, when you're, I wouldn't say I'm good at it. I'm not a five, six hundred, seven hundred pound squatter. But I achieved the benchmarks that most people have to work for. without doing anything too complicated. Like I got a three-plate squat for a single before starting strength,

and then I exceeded that for five on my linear progression. So it's just a lift that like, for my goals I don't have to struggle with. So I'll go to the Globo Gym and wrap out on what I do last time, $350 for a set of eight. Yeah. I just don't care. It doesn't stress me out.

I don't need perfect equipment and perfect conditions to squat. But if I deadlift, I want my fucking illegal power bar. Yeah. If I bench press, I want a monolift. And that's actually not so much because I care about the bench.

A lot of safety. Like, my shoulders get pissed off. I have to unrack it all awkward now. Yeah. You know? So I have been using the monolith attachment that Rogue and various companies make for so long. I barely have any time on racking a bench the real way.

Yeah. To the point where, like, I don't know what I would do. Because I bought mine in my gym because you had your and yours. Yeah. Yeah. I think everybody should have one if you're benching alone. When I go on vacation, the particular gym I pick is because they have monolith attachments

in a Mars bar. You hear that guy's he picks a gym when he's on vacation. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lifestyle, man. Yeah. Talk to us about that. Yeah.

So it's very easy to get out of rhythm because every decision you make is a small consent. Mm-hmm. So everything you did leading up to, you eating that loaf of bread or that pint of ice cream was a small bit of little permissions that you give to yourself. So for me, give vacations an example. Yeah. I know 100% that I'm going to gain five pounds on that vacation because my wife's family

are amazing cooks and my family are big drinkers. So those are just calories I'm going to have to accept. So I'm going to make so, so like on vacation. I might do a little short run or like a long walk. Yeah. In the summer in Massachusetts, the weather's beautiful. Yeah. I love it there.

And so, but being on vacation, whereas I might not do three days a week, spending $20 and drop in fees every time, I'll do twice a week when I'm on vacation. Or I'll do one long one to get me to get me through it just to make, because I don't want to come back home to Arizona after two weeks and have to do another NLP to get myself back to where I was. I want to keep, you know, stave off death, as Rip says. Yeah. Keep my baseline.

Tread water. Yeah. Sure. And so for me, I've never been a morning person. I'm never going to be. I'm like second shift all the way. I am the most productive between 2 p.m. and midnight. Yeah.

For me, in general. So typically for me, I'm either going to lift, if it happens to be a Saturday, I'm going to try to get that in before the night service at church. Yeah. So it's one in the afternoon. But most of the time, it's around, it's around dinner time. My family eats around 6.30. So I'll eat a light enough dinner that I don't feel all bloated in the gym.

Yep. And then, so about 7 o'clock. So 7 to 9, just because I'm doing longer rep schemes and I'm an older guy, my sessions tend to be one and a half to two hours. That's what I'm going to do. And or for me, if like kids get an orchestra concert, kids get a choir concert, like somebody gave us baseball tickets. It's like, I might start at midnight. That's fine. You know?

You've trained at two in the morning. Yeah. Like, I haven't even known. Shout out to Will. Like used to get like, like, used to not be able to believe like, dude, you did that at 2 a.m. Like, yeah, because I have to get it done. See, I didn't know this. Yeah.

So. That's fucking cool. But now, here's the thing. Not everybody has as flexible of a schedule or can survive a bit on a little bit less sleep. So there, there is, especially with those of us who were kind of approach. or in middle age, sleep is a huge factor. Oh, yeah. So I have barbed wire around two things when it comes to me.

It's sleep and hydration. So for me, those are the main thing. Interestingly enough for me, I obviously am mindful of my protein, but if I go light on a protein or light on a carb on a particular day, my lifts aren't gonna fall off a cliff. If I do that for multiple days in a row, it will. So for me, but if I don't get at least six the night before, I'm going to do a particular heavy effort, or if I'm not pre-hydrating throughout the day, it's game over pretty much for me. Same. Yeah. Same. Yeah. So those are the main things where, you know, if I have to lift at 2 a.m., you know, that might not work for everybody because that doesn't have as flexible as a schedule as I do for some things.

as a, I'm a church choir director, most of my hours are over the weekend. Okay. On the church campus. So that means I have a couple of days off during the week that I have off that most people don't have. Right. So I can be a little more flexible on a Monday or a Friday.

However, I know that training late for me, kind of within a range of about two hours to bedtime, does really affect the sleep because you're just keyed up. You've got all those positive. hormones running through you that make you feel accomplished and you're happy and you're gonna now you're gonna go back in the house and you're gonna drink your creatine

and in my case maybe have a beer and make yourself a little plate of something. Yeah. You know and all of that stimulus that you've just given yourself and that you're just putting into yourself with consuming calories is going to keep you awake and it's going to affect you. So your mileage may vary everyone

but so you but you have to kind of pay attention to those factors. and sort of like make a list of what things affect you. So like if you have a particularly bad set of squats one day, you have to go back and do a Brent Franklin test or a SWAT analysis. Like what just went wrong? You have to retrace your steps and see what's going on. Right.

And figure out like what are your non-negotiables and what are the things that you can kind of get away with? So for me, calories in general, like, I can get away on low calories and still lift pretty heavy. But if I don't sleep and drink water, I'm done. Sleep, I'm done, man. Yeah. Same. If I got a big deadlift and I don't sleep, I don't even bother anymore because I went down that road so many times. It just, it doesn't come off the floor.

If it's high reps, I get like three when I would have had eight, you know, or four when I would have had eight. Yeah. It's different for everybody. Some people can run on low sleep, but if they cut their diet, they're full. Fuck. Sure. You know? I had a guy recently, I saw the most extreme effects of this recently.

I had a guy sent up at the gym. And he has problems falling asleep, staying asleep, and he can't understand how somebody can sleep seven to eight hours, you know? Yeah. Like it's like four to six hours for him. I think when he started, it was like four consistently. And he is struggling with like no weight. Like I think, I don't know, bench under 100, press under seven. deadlift, it get to like 165, 175, it would fall off a cliff.

And the squad, I don't remember, I want to say low hundreds, upper, you know, just under 100. Anyhow, this guy, they mess with his sleep meds because he's medicated for this. Yeah. And when he got it up to six hours, like, then he had a normal linear progression. It was like night and day. Yeah. Like, I'd say six is the minimum. Yeah.

Unless you're one of those weird CEO types, like Elon Musk or Trump, who just. doesn't sleep, but, but, but, and they're fine that way. Yeah. One of my older brothers, who is, is a former Marine. Yeah. Patrick is 100% like, he's four or five hours a night. Oh, shit. And he, he's, uh, incredibly on it during the day.

Like, some people are just like that. Yeah, I can't do that. Yeah. My dad was always like that too. He was like, feet on the floor as soon as the alarm goes off. But also like, being in the Navy during the Cuban missile crisis helps. Yeah, that does help. Right.

And being a retired police officer as well. So, yeah. Yeah, I can't do that fucking shit, dude. Yeah. So. So you've talked about training at midnight, which I didn't know you did. That's pretty fucking cool.

So we learned something new. And you'll find a gym when you're traveling. You'll figure out how many days you have to train. These are all things that, you know, I don't think I may have trained at midnight once. I haven't done that one. I never had to. I would if I had to. Yeah.

But I always find gyms when I travel. And, you know, I said it earlier. It's a lifestyle. So, you know, talk to the audience a little bit. bit about how what you how you approach it when you people demand your time because a lot of people demand your time sure um so for for me one thing that um another factor i think about is having done this for six years five or six years i know that if there's too much of an interval in between workouts that i'm gonna like it's going to be sore and one of the cool

here's a big reason why I pick starting strength over other methods is because Ripato said like yeah you're you're not really sore most of the time like like when you start your squat NLP yeah your ad doctors

you're gonna be walking like a cowboy you're gonna be all bow-legged for a couple of weeks but then after that it's pretty much fine dude if I if I only squat once a week game over like I'm just in too much pain all the time like I have to consistently do that

at least twice a week. Interesting. So for me, what I can, so I have the benefit of, I haven't, we live in Arizona. I have a gym in my garage, but I haven't,

we've built an air-conditioned room. So we've built a space for me kind of around the rack. Yeah. And the nice thing about that is, that's also where my home office is. So I've got my standing desk there. So if I have work projects to do,

or if I'm trying to catch up on an audio book, or a podcast or something like that, I can sort of do that all within. Nice. I've also got my musical instruments nearby. I can do, you know, all that kind of stuff.

If I need to, you know, jump in to watch something with the kids or have a meal, I can do that. You know, I can sort of go back and forth between, like, in between sets. Like, for some people, like, they really have to be laser focused on. Headphones are on, like, you know,

we're ready to conquer the world. I'm pretty good at shifting gears. I would agree with that. So basically, I give permission for my gym life to be interrupted because I know that to the level now, I've programmed myself. Like, it's, it's, it's now who I am. It's, it's a habit. It's something I'm never going to stop doing. I can't imagine myself not strength training.

Like, that's a, you get to a certain, like, and so my wife and any of us who, who, especially men, if you have a spouse or a partner, you understand. that woman has watched you take on and give up so much stupid crap over the years. Like, all of a sudden, I'm going to start smoking a pipe. I'm going to become an expert in pipes. Or like, I'm going to be a golfer now. That's what it is. Or like, I'm a car guy now. Like, great.

Let's see how long you stick with that one. My wife, who's very kind and wonderful woman, it was pretty impressed that I've stuck with the gym stuff for all this time. And it's not going back to the point where, inspired her to want to join me sometimes, which is cool. And some of my older kids. Yeah. So for, for me, it's simultaneously, it is a huge deal to me, but also don't think of it as much of a big deal. It's just, it's just part of my life. Yeah. I have adjusted other things that don't matter as much to make sure that I have at least a little bit of room to do what I, so, and having the

benefit of a home gym obviously gives, gives an advantage. And you don't have to spend that. You could get, like the Walmart Everyday Essentials set like crummy imported stuff those weights are better than no weights going to Planet Fitness

is better than no gym It's not ideal but yeah It's not ideal So let's say something happens Like a toilet overflows And I have to replace a valve Or something like that

Well having the gym at home Oh you know I'm only gonna get to one lift today but tomorrow I'm going to get my second and third ones. So I have a checklist for the week. I will complete these lifts. Sometimes if I know I've got a big project or holidays at the church at the end of the week, which happens a lot of times,

like I'm going to be lifting several days in a row to get all my sets and reps in. And I don't allow myself to miss that because, I mean, number one, I know my strength is going to go down. Number two, psychologically, I won't let myself down. I just can't do it. it. So even if for some people, and this is okay, like some people that you train, like, yeah, they're going to be a two lifts, two days a week kind of a person because that's what they can do. You know what? That's better than doing nothing or that's better than one day

a week. It's not the ideal. So we want three days a week or a four day split. We want to do three lifts. But like, man, for some people, like, and you don't let them go there right away. That's a fallback position. Yes. Absolutely. You got to start with the model. You know, what's ideal. See how long they can stick with that. Sure. Then when you run into proms, you change things. But I think that in a lot of ways, people are, we, it often gets talked about how we live in a culture of instant gratification.

But then we also have this issue of, and I think it ties into that too, of all or nothing thinking with things. Yeah. So if I can't do all of it, I'm just going to do none of it. Not realizing that this is not one of, this is a case where. something is going to be better than nothing. You know, there are a few instances where something is not better than nothing like using self-reported diet intake for research. Yeah. But I digress.

Doing some lifting is better than no lifting. And this gets lost, you know, most of the people that come in for training, whether it's online or in person, they're not coming here to be professional fucking lifters. So I don't know how this mentality develops that. Well, it's hard to do. do it this way. I'm just not going to do it at all. This whole, I'm going to quit all of it. I don't understand this. So, you know, typically this gets uncovered in the first year. Maybe they might make it too, but usually in the first year. Did you run into any of this when you were

dealing with the elbows and all the other bullshit that first year? So I think what really helped me is that, so I'm going to pat myself on the back. It's not easy to lose 100 pounds in 10 months. Yeah. That was before you came. Yeah. That's before you met me. Yeah. So for me like That was a massive achievement. So, like, I proved to myself that I could do hard things. Yeah. Now, I'm going to, I'm going to give you a part two to that. Losing weight was the easy part.

Gaining strength, that's where it got difficult. Fuck, yeah. Yeah. Like, oh, my gosh, just not eating? Like, people, I don't mean to be glib, especially because I'm sure you have a lot of people that, that watch your show and see the clips that struggle with weight. And, you know, these are people I encounter in my social media life as well. like, buddy, that's the easy part.

Like getting, I, I didn't know that I wanted to be strong until I started doing it. And then I started seeing things coming together in my life. My relationships that started with you guys. It raised my confidence without being, I became more assertive without being aggressive. My work life was better. My wife enjoyed my presence more and liked the way that I looked. You know? dude like have your wife spank you on the bottom once as you walk by and having that never

happened in your marriage because you look cute that'll that'll change you right away like these are things like I was I was never uh what I consider like a a good looking or athletic person so to have that suddenly become something I was growing into I'm like oh oh I had I had this all wrong I come from an from an artistic background where maybe as a younger had being sort of awkward and bullied, like I might have disdained for those people. Like, no, they were kind of on to something. Do you know what I mean? The results speak for themselves, you know? Yeah. There's a reason that they achieve certain things in their life. Right. And have edges in certain areas. And it's not mythology. It's,

you know, you observe it. It is. Yeah. People that are physically proficient and in good shape have advantages. There's a halo effect around them, the way the opposite sex treats them, the way employers treat them the way customers treat them you know the way business associates treat them there's a reason for this um and when you can improve all these attributes in yourself you're going to see those results you know it's they i don't we don't oversell it like these jerkoffs in the gym business you know you're not going to you know have women kicking down your doors a you know as a man who just lost a bunch of weight and got in shape you know but you're going to have better interactions with them if you're married you like you said you're

said, you're going to have better interactions with your wife. It's obvious. Yeah. We, you know, if we're more physically attractive and we're more physically competent, people appreciate that. Just this way of the world, you know? You don't realize it, but you act differently when you, either if you're born that way or if you improve yourself into that state of being.

It was not something I was expecting. You know, there was a lot of things I wasn't expecting through this. Like, I didn't expect that when you lose weight that, like, your shoe size get smaller. Like that happened to me. I was so fat, I went down a half a shoe size. That's one thing.

But also with me, that strength training would affect so much of my capacity as a person and as a member of my family and my church community and just as like a, as a more useful person in general

as, as Rip talks about. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. And it's obvious. But when you're not in it, you don't see it. You know,

you don't see it. Somebody told me earlier, today actually. You don't know how shitty you're feeling until you feel good. Yeah. And I didn't think I'd have to pull that out. But it was hours ago. I was having this conversation with somebody about something else.

And he's like, dude, you don't know how shitty you feel, you feel good. Yeah. And it's 100% true. I think the biggest thing that I've noticed is you just, you almost get used to that drag of doing hard shit, you know, and that, it's one of the easiest ways to learn the value of delayed gratification because lifting weights and getting stronger is a pretty cheap thing to do. You know, you can go to a gym and get access to a bar and load it heavier, work through all the problems of it, get pissed off, angry sometimes. You've seen me get worked up. Throwing belts and plates and shit. And dog bowls.

And dog bowl. I forgot about that. Well, I bench 315 last year. You did. 320 actually I never posted that one I showed because I don't know that I'll PR that anytime soon but I got real pissed

because I got to 310 and I could not get the last five fucking pounds that was a bad day Yeah Yeah So but Jay still brings it up God bless you Jay

I'm sure you're watching too Yeah I brought him on here once Nice But all that just I don't know Going through that Frustration

with that I've done it with that With academia I'd say those were the two biggest areas where something shifted in my brain. And now when I learn something new and I'm going through that frustrating period that you reach and that, you know, pretty much after the first six months, the novice effects. The novice effect exists with everything. And once that is done, you get to see what you're made of. And you get to see how important it is to keep going with that.

Sure. You have to make a decision. Are you going to specialize in this? Or is this going to be a supplement to something else? Yeah. And not everybody needs to specialize in it. You know, you happen to like it enough to do so. You're a specialist at this point, sorry, you know.

I am, obviously. I do this for a living. But some people get to that point where it's frustrating. You know, the analogy I've always given is when you have short hair and you decide to grow long hair, there's that in-between phase. Yes. Where everybody inevitably cuts their hair. Yes. You know, we're talking about men here.

Women typically have long hair. Some have short, but most women have long hair. But when a man decides to go from short hair to long hair, It's that in-between phase that weeds out the fucking winners from the losers when it comes to long hair. And that's what this is the light. That's what the intermediate phase is. That early intermediate phase, you're figuring out your body and it is also putting more demands on your life. Sure.

And that intermediate phase is when you really experience your first major frustrations. I think a lot of the time. Yeah. And then you become an advanced lifter and you just want to jump off a cliff. But still. Well, now it's like, I kind of know what to expect because when you're in advanced lifter it all comes full circle. You're focusing on very specific things. And you just know it's going to take long and you just don't, it's like a tragger. You set it, forget it. You know, yes. You go in,

you do the workout, you forget about it. Like, I don't experience that level of frustration anymore because it's all, everything's happening over the course of months and years at this point. And you've been there before. Yeah. And but you're still making milestones, right? Yeah. Like the 315 or the deadlift progression you're on right now. Yeah. I've learned a, And I've had to learn new skills recently. You know, I trained dogs. Yeah. And the frustration level is much lower.

I'm experiencing it, but it's much lower because you do this thing enough times, you know what to expect. And you're like, oh, fuck, I'm uncalibrated right now. And that's what happens. You get past the rookie gains. And then you see that you're uncalibrated. And you want to be calibrated. You want to be the advanced guy. You want to be the badass, you know.

But the only way to get there is reps. Yeah. So people don't understand that advanced doesn't mean you're better. It means your, you know, your tolerance for success and failure is higher than other people. Yes. And you've committed to this. This is your life. Yes.

Yeah. And yeah, not many people develop that tolerance, unfortunately. And I wish more would. Sure. And I don't know if that's just the sign of the times or what. Yeah. And also, like, I, you know how people often in job interviews. years will say, well, I'm a fast learner. I am not a fast learner. Neither am I.

So for me, guitar playing and singing came very easy. Nothing else in life did for me. Yeah. So whether it's learning design software for graphic design or audio software for editing audio or what have you or publishing or various different things I've done or marketing or strength training. I think if I was not as crazy as I am, I would have given up a long time ago, like early into those processes. But for me, I'm like, I have enough grace for myself to know that I'm a slow learner. And that now, God bless every coworker I've ever had in every job I've ever had, and every boss I've ever had, and my wife, I am very slow on the uptake. But when I get something down, like, I could teach a class on it. I'm going to get to that level. I'm going to get to that

Yeah. And I did teach music theory at the collegiate level once. So, like, I got there, you know. And I'm not a coach such as yourself, but I do enjoy coaching others. I've seen that, yeah. For sure. So what would you leave the audience with then in terms of, you know, you got a lot of guys here. They have jobs.

They have wives. They have children. They have shit pulling them in all these different directions. Some of them may not want to be advanced. They may not have the training drive you and I have. But they're curious about this and they've gotten under a bar. What do you tell them when they say, well, shit, you know, like this just gets too demanding.

I don't have time for this shit. Yeah. So it's never the right time to do anything, isn't it? So it's never the right time to get married. It's never the right time to go for that new job you want. It's never the right time to have kids. I can tell you that nine times over. it's never the right time to start strength training that doesn't matter um this is something that

you have to understand you're not that delayed gratification that you're not doing it for you now you're doing this for you in five or ten years you're doing this so that when you're 90 you don't have to live in a nursing home and be physically assisted around you're going to be the one being the helper this is you're changing your family's legacy. You're changing, literally you're, you're changing a certain part of your DNA when you put yourself under physical stress.

So you are affecting the generations of your family after this. But it has to, it has to, especially if you're a man, not to be too cookie cutter, masculinity about this, but it's your responsibility to set the tone and set the example.

And so, whereas your, Line like mine was. You just, you can't, you can't give up, you know?

The, the phrase, I don't have time for this just means that, um, you are being, um,

a little too laxed, uh, with the other tasks that you have in your life. Because things, things can be moved around. I agree with that. Yeah. So,

uh, there, there's, now, I'm not saying it's like, a completely impossible thing like there are some people

in certain situations like you know but I know I know long haul truckers that still get their lifts in like over the top no no

no no but like yeah you know they might have just done a 16 hour hall yeah

between four states and it might be six in the morning you've just driven overnight no like we're still going to do our squats. Like don't just, you have to not give yourself permission to stop doing it. And I think that, I think I have the benefit of having failed at so many other things in life.

But just seeing that little bit of progress and that little bit of strength peeking through and having that patience and that grace for myself. Yep. That has been the biggest factor. And people are going to notice. to sit around you. Absolutely. There's no possible way that people are not going to comment on the fact that you're getting

stronger or leaner because it's going to change your attitude. It's going to change your countenance. Your face is going to seem brighter. Your voice is going to change. People are going to like you a little bit more for some reason because you're going to like yourself. But also at the same time, if you're somebody who's stopped and started a bunch of times, buddy, I've been there.

You know, you can absolutely do it. But this is not the time that you're going to do it. You're right. So I'm a, I'm a normie, fat kid, Dungeons and Dragons playing church choir director. If I can do it, I can't even throw a baseball. I don't even ask me. I look like a four-year-old girl. Like, if I can do this, I really think anybody can.

It seems like a little glib and cheesy and to the point. But like, that's what I, that's kind of how I view it. Well, you're doing it, man. Well, cool. I think we hammered that to hell. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah.

Cool. Let's close out here. You want to let the audience know where they can find you? Sure. So I'm, I'm not much of a social media personality, but I kind of, uh... You kind of are, though. I kind of post, I post, fun things about philosophy, religion, and, uh, different things on Dan knows stuff on

Twitter and Instagram and then also for... parentheses does it? I'm nothing if I like to make fun of myself but and then also for music stuff

Dan Francis band on all the things. So I sing songs too and whatnot and my kids sing with me too and they're all really talented. This is true. You gotta hear this guy sing. You know it's fucked up. I've known you six years.

I went one time to watch you sing and that was the one day you were off. You came to church that one time. I kept here. I've heard all the rumors of how well this guy sings and I heard it for the first time before this episode. He was playing a video of himself and I'm like, damn, is that you? So I got to come out again. See it in person.

But yeah, you can find me. Well, I'm supposed to do the whole thing now. So if you're watching on YouTube and you like what you heard today, smash that subscribe button. I'm always going to mock that. It's just, it's fucking stupid. I think it already is at this point. Yeah, it's necessary. Anyway, you can find me at waits and plates.com.

If you are in Metro Phoenix, I still have a gym, just south of Sky Harbor Airport, between 32nd Street and 40th Street off Broadway. Give me a call, numbers on Google, and we can get you in, get you an intro session. Maybe you can join the gym on accident like Dan did. You can find me on Instagram at the underscore Robert underscore Santana. and that is all she wrote for today. Thank you for tuning in.