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I'll spell that to you because it's not as you
think, T -E -A -M -B -U -I -L -D -R .com. Welcome
to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always,
my name is James Gearing and this week it is
my absolute honor to welcome on the show Air
Force Strength and Conditioning Coach Justin
Davis. Now in this conversation we discuss a
host of topics from his journey into the world
of strength and conditioning, training tactical
athletes, conditioning pilots, supplementation,
minimal effective dose, using team builder and
so much more. Now, before we get to this incredible
conversation, as I say every week, please just
take a moment, go to whichever app you listen
to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback
and leave a rating. Every single five star rating
truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making
it easier for others to find. And this is a free
library of well over 1000 episodes now. So all
I ask in return. is that you help share these
incredible men and women's stories so I can get
them to every single person on planet Earth who
needs to hear them. So with that being said,
I introduce to you Justin Davis. Enjoy. Well,
Justin, I want to start by saying two things.
Firstly, thank you to our mutual friend, Melissa
Mercado, for making the introduction. And secondly,
to welcome you onto the Behind the Shield podcast
today. Thank you so much for having me. Really,
really excited to be here. So where on planet
Earth are we finding you this afternoon? I am
in my office on Langley Air Force Base, Hampton,
Virginia. Beautiful. Well, I would love to start
the very beginning of your timeline before we
get to the kind of military strength and conditioning
side. So tell me where you were born and tell
me a little bit about your family dynamic, what
your parents did, how many siblings. Sure. Interesting
story. So and that kind of ties directly into
how I got here. So born and raised Newport News,
Virginia, Hampton Roads, kind of. So the greater
Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Hampton, Richmond area.
Grew up in York County. York County, Virginia.
So it's right next to Hampton and Pocosin. Went
to high school at Tab High School. Played soccer,
football with the U throughout my youth. Competitive
soccer as well, the Olympic Development Program
a little bit. So that's kind of where the competitive
juices started. Varsity soccer, and then kind
of got into the multi -sport athlete thing around
my junior year in high school. I wasn't good.
I'm not gonna say I was good, but I did run cross
country. I made the time the three miles, I think
it was a five case of 3 .2 and 21 minutes. So
I made that time just for conditioning for my
spring soccer season. Never won a race. Again,
wasn't very good, but I did enjoy it. So high
school, New York County, a lot of fun, very,
very nice area to grow up in. We were here because
both my parents worked at NASA. the National
Aeronautics Space Administration. My mom was
a chemical and electrical technician. She worked
with a lot of wind tunnel stuff, a lot of chemicals,
mass spec, stuff like that. She would do a lot
of air testing on top of the national monument
we have here that tested the lunar lander. So
she did a lot of that fun stuff. And my father
was an aerospace engineer. So he did a lot of
material science. A lot of people call them rocket
scientists. He did a lot of material science.
One of his main projects was the launch abort
system called Orion. So if anything went wrong,
they were going to at least, obviously you're
not going to be successful ejecting from a rocket,
but we can at least recover the black box, stuff
like that. So that was his kind of lead. big
baby project when he was toward the end of his
career. And then he did a lot of, like I said,
material science. So metals, conduction, stuff
like that, thermodynamics. And then that's kind
of how I got here and then got interested in
the science of exercise. So then went to school
at Virginia Commonwealth University for my bachelor's
in exercise science. Really enjoyed it there.
Great area to grow up in as well. During that
time, we either had a choice graduating from
VCU to be an exercise physiologist and get certified
via the ACSM, or you could go the NSCA route
and sit for your CSCS. You didn't have to pass
it, but you at least had to sit for it. I ended
up passing my first time, the CSCS. You know,
the exercise physiologists, I love them to death.
It didn't interest me at the time. And I actually
work with one daily here now. So, you know, ischemic
threshold, cardiac rehab, that wasn't really
my vibe at that point. So I ended going strength
and conditioning when my dad was in physical
therapy at one point. And then I was interested
in PT. And he had me come in and talk to the
physical therapist. And then that's when I started
the exercise science route. And then kind of
just dropped the physical therapy track and then
just went full -time exercise science. Picked
up a couple, you know, stats, statistics, minors,
a little math minor, big math guy. So graduated
there 2015. And then I started working at Fort
Eustis as a fitness specialist. So I would kind
of coach classes there. I would reach out to
different units, you know, hey, how can I help
you guys? They would send me their fitness improvement
program soldiers. So I would increase conditioning,
make sure they're passing their PT test. This
was before the Army combat fitness test, mind
you. This was years before that. And then moved
up to the fitness director there. So I kind of
took a little bit of a backwards route that most
coaches would normally take. I went. admin and
supervisory at first, which was very eye -opening.
We can get into that later. I had some real uncomfortable
situations being a 26 -year -old supervisor managing.
One of them was a retired chief in the Navy,
real salty dog. Good dude, but it was different.
He was 40 -plus. I was 26. I had my CSCS. He
was kind of sitting for it, and I failed it a
couple times, which that was a you problem, not
a me problem. I didn't handle that very well,
but so fitness director. So you, you supervise
the front desk staff, you make sure you have
enough classes. I changed this active duty. You
could do the classes on base for free. And then
I ended up going over to Romania for about 18
months. So fitness specialist at Eustis was with
the U S army. Then about 2018, I went to Romania
on their Navy base there. So that's an Aegis
Ashore Missile Defense System base, a little
bit higher ranking sailors. So a lot of E -5,
E -6, E -7s. We had a couple of senior chiefs
there, very heavy security forces base. Did that
for about 18 months and then COVID hit. So while
I was over there, I got into graduate school
at George Washington University. And their exercise
science concentration and strength and conditioning
program. I still work with some of those professors
to this day. Graduated there 2023. And then during
COVID, I ended up getting a job up at Wallops
Island, kind of through my parents' NASA connections,
because that's also, it's a NASA base and it's
an Aegis Ashore base. So the Aegis guys, the
Missileers still remembered me. They found out
I was back home. Their training headquarters
is in, I think it's in Damneck, Virginia. So
we'd link up, get a couple beers, you know, chat,
see what we're doing. Hey, what are you doing
during COVID? How's everything going? Got the
job in Wallops Island. Fitness director there
as well. So kind of back to the admin. And then
ended up getting a job with H2F for about a year
and a half at Fort Campbell. with the 44th Medical
Brigade. And then after that, I got the operational
support team, strength coach job. And then now
I'm here at Langley and kind of just rocking
and rolling. That's the short version of my life.
Brilliant. Now we're going to dive in a little
deeper. First question. I had one of the veterinary
surgeons, NASA's official veterinary surgeon
on a long time ago. regarding a product called
CoolMit. And it was to be able to cool an athlete,
try and get their core body temperature down,
literally putting on gloves. But it was interesting
because I was kind of asking him about the innovations
that you see, not only in NASA, but obviously
in DARPA as well, versus what we have in the
fire service. And a perfect example, you look
at our actual firefighting gloves, they're like
pillows. You have no dexterity at all. But then
you look at what an astronaut is wearing in,
again, extreme environments and in communication.
Our radios don't even work in an elevator shaft,
but you have astronauts talking to people on
Earth. So when you think about all these conversations
you have with your parents, were there any innovations
that were being used within a well -funded organization
like NASA that were maybe even applicable to
the world that you were in in strength and conditioning
but weren't being tapped into? Oh, that's a good
question. That's definitely a critical thinker.
A lot of it was kind of more not necessarily
like materials or any kind of fun gadgets or
anything, but we would always get down to, and
I remember my dad sitting on the bed. I came
back one day, you know, he was a GS -15. That's
as high as you can get. And then he was kind
of going over. I was working an extra summer
job at that time. And this is just the thing
that sticks with me where I brought home. I had
maybe 10 hours of overtime that week. It was
a really good paycheck for a college kid. He
was like, Hey, you know, son, how's work, et
cetera, et cetera. And then we kind of get into,
okay. Like that wasn't my first brush with taxes
or anything like that, but a large chunk of overtime,
they kind of, they kind of tax it a little bit
differently, but again, it was still a good paycheck.
And he was like, Hey, you know, Just want you
to know the government pays me for what I know,
not what I can do. And that stuck with me, which
I take through all facets of my life. There was
always the dinner table conversations and there's
so many acronyms that they were using. I honestly
couldn't follow it half the time. I would just
eat and go play video games, go play with my
friends. But my mom did a lot of cool science
where like infrared stuff. My dad was a little
bit. a little bit higher level i think his stuff
was a tad bit different with the thermodynamics
being like okay we have this space shuttle here
on earth but then when we go up to space there's
zero temperature um absolute zero so he was a
little bit off with my stuff but my mom did have
some fun things with okay what kind of why is
this mass spec picking up this random chemical
and then turn comes to find out they didn't clean
the machine enough so it was those conversations
that they would kind of talk with and my dad
was completely removed from that but he was a
high level thinker as well so he was just like
hey have you tried this um just a completely
separate idea or way to look at how to solve
my mom's problem which you know my mom would
have engineers yelling at her all day fix this
sensor do this do that um And then she goes in
the next day and she'd come home. She'd be like,
hey, Keith, that worked. Thank you very much.
Love you. What are we doing this weekend? Stuff
like that. So I just kind of took more their
problem -solving acumen, how they work together
as a team. And I think my wife and I are very
similar to that as well. She works in mortgage.
I work in human performance. But still, she'll
sometimes look at me and be like, have you tried
this? um just an outside kind of eye or ears
and then given an outside of the box answer or
possible solution so yeah the biggest thing i
probably took from my father was government doesn't
pay me for what i know or what i can do they
pay me for what i know and i think that's very
applicable in human performance especially in
strength and conditioning absolutely it's interesting
because in this profession you know what we know
we really are the swiss army knife of the first
responders i mean you have law enforcement who
are invaluable and their skill set is somewhat
diverse but everything else is us you know if
it's not about arresting someone or you know
on the roads then you're calling us like you
know snake removal plane flew into a tree whatever
it is um but and we'll get into this you know
unlike a lot of the professions where Because
of that high level of expertise, usually the
rest and recovery is extremely important. In
the tactical athlete world, when it comes to
fire, it's the opposite. And they're literally
some of the most overworked professions there
are. So there's such a disconnect between actual
physical and mental performance of someone who's
literally been called to save someone's life.
And as you said, the force multiplier of other
professions, excuse me, whereas you rise through.
You know, you become more of a journeyman. It
is about what you know, and it's not working
you into a ground into the ground like a laborer
would be. Yeah, I agree. All right. Well, another
NASA question before we progress forward. What
is your parents stance on whether we went to
the moon or not? Because that must be a pretty
interesting conversation in your household. I
have asked this. Yes. So I am assuming again.
I'm assuming the answer is yes, because I have,
my dad has, there's six or eight, 10 bolts that
hold the big booster to the rocket ship. And
my dad was responsible for kind of that engineering
or a certain part of that. So we have one of
those bolts that when the rocket kind of disengages,
they collect those bolts and give them to president
of NASA, you know, some engineers, stuff like
that. So I have one of those. bolts my mom has
one half i have the other um so it doesn't really
work as a book end at that point but i i think
the answer is yes um they didn't really super
there was some stuff that my dad would work on
and he didn't he couldn't really tell me about
until it kind of got declassified but yeah i
i do think we went to the moon um never got to
see any of these you know moon rocks or or uh
space dust or anything like that but i do know
some of the things and again this was just some
of my mom or dad's friends in another department
at nasa would be working on like like an aerogel
that they would kind of just put outside of the
space shuttle to to pick up when they're flying
by the moon or flying by mars or whatever they
would pick up particles and they would bring
those back and my mom would help kind of do a
little bit of research on that i think um my
mom did so much research i couldn't even keep
track anymore I think, you know, short answer,
yes. Long answer. Whereas I was always asking
about the flag waving. You know, there's no wind
in space. And they would kind of just smile and
laugh at me. And they're like, well, you know,
it kind of moves when you move the flag. And
then they would just kind of end it at that.
But yeah, I definitely think we went to the moon
for sure. I was at the museum in London a few
months ago with my son. And the only question
we're talking about critical thinking that does
make you go, huh. is the simple question, if
we went to the moon, why haven't we been back?
And I think that might be one of the most powerful
things that's got people querying it. If we went,
then we went. But it is something that requires
a good answer. Like, okay, well, then why haven't
we repeated the same feat? So that's my only
kind of, not even pushback, but the question
that if answered properly, I'd be like, oh, okay,
that makes sense. But yeah, I'd never even questioned
if we actually went to the moon. I took it as
gospel. But when... When I read about all the,
you know, the kind of other side of the conversation,
it is one that kind of does get you thinking
like, okay, well, surely we would want to go
back if we went there the first time. So that's
my only thing. Do I think about it all day? No,
I've got more important things to think about.
Yeah, same. But I think, yeah, and I've heard
it's pretty expensive too. And then I think they
dropped at some point. They're still NASA, obviously,
but. They dropped being the only funder or like
the solo launchers of the space shuttles. It
was an international conglomerate there. So I
think the European Space Agency does a lot now.
I know Russia does a lot too. So I know our astronauts
still go up. They kind of launch out of Kazakhstan
a lot too. So yeah, funding might have been an
issue because I've heard it was a lot of money
to send something up there. I could imagine.
Well, one more thing staying in this area, which
actually cross -pollinates into what you do.
One of the many disasters across the world that
are known to be attributed to sleep deprivation
is the discovery on top of nuclear reactors and
warship collisions and all kinds of things. Have
you had any discussion on sleep and the astronaut
being in the performance world, the human performance
world yourself? Yeah, actually our first semester,
glad you brought this up, or my first semester
in grad school, our first physiology class, like
literally the first class was kind of going over
the pressure gradient that we have. And then
they kind of introduced the skeletal muscle pump.
And then we kind of worked through there. So
I came home, you know, we were learning about
the back to the, you know, kind of the pilots
that the anti -gravity maneuver. So they don't
go into. gravitational loss of consciousness
or g -lock as you normally hear it it's like
okay that that makes total sense to me but one
they're moving hundreds of miles an hour and
there's no gravity so how is that affecting kind
of their blood pressure um and two you know they're
exercising up there they have to um question
two question three was bone density you know
there's nothing pulling you down so when you
go and exercise like does that hurt mom and obviously
i don't know if you knew or not but um i had
these conversations with my brother too up in
the uh up in our bonus room where we'd be playing
video games or something so yeah it's it's it's
unique and i know there's um i can't remember
his name i think he's cory we're friends on linkedin
he's the uh strength and conditioning coach or
exercise physiologist for nasa so i might ping
him on that too it's like hey So what are we
doing with, or what's the end goal for exercising
up in space? I know it's to kind of prevent some
things, but is there any way we can have an increase
in performance? Is there any way that, you know,
that can be used? I know we have anti -gravity
treadmills here in our physical therapy clinic.
So, you know, for our ACL rehab patients and
meniscus and stuff like that. That seems very
applicable, like you said, to our profession.
And then one, why are they so expensive? And
two, how can we get that to the masses? Because
it seems like it would be really helpful for
a retired male, female who just want to go play
pickleball on the weekends to go get their conditioning
in, you know, on maybe 75%. or 50 % gravity instead
of going to pound pavement and then risking chin
splints and further meniscus issues and stuff
like that. So why is it not available to the
masses? I don't know, but I think it should be.
When we go back in time to you as a youth athlete,
how did you do as far as injuries as you progress
through the ages? I don't think I had the only
injury, the real bad ones I had. tore my hamstring
twice and that was those were kind of freak accidents
where i was just because i was an outside defender
for soccer so i would just uh kind of lunge probably
being pre -fatigued lunge and try and block the
shot um so you know a little bit of an overstretch
nothing super terrible real bad bruising i never
actually tore it off the bone um i was always
a very big i was always very big on conditioning
and then Kind of like I'll like fast forward
and then rewind real quick. Fast forward into
my first couple of years as a strength coach.
I was loving seeing the strength building. I
was loving seeing the muscle being put on and
I felt great. And then I would go try and run
a mile and it's like, oh my gosh, what the hell
is going on here? So then got back into conditioning.
And the only other freak accident I had, two
freak accidents. One of them was we were in practice
for varsity. And then the ball just came to me
and I just went to trap it like normal. I think
we were just doing like a touch and hit drill,
trying to shoot from around the 18 or something.
And then I rolled my ankle off the ball and ended
up landing on that. So I definitely tore the
ligaments all to shit there, excuse my language.
So that took a long time to heal. And then I
had a pretty bad facial injury. I went up for
a header. And I don't know if I was higher than
this person or not, but I think they jumped a
little bit later and they kind of caught me off
balance. And as he was going up, I was coming
down and my facial bone, like right here and
all this was broken, hit the crown of the back
of his head. So that one, I was knocked out for
a little while. All I remember about that is
waking up and they had the big old Gatorade jug,
just pouring the water on me to get the blood
off the field. And then my mom had to take me
to the hospital there. And all I remember is
they tied that bandage so tight that I had a
headache for three days from that. You know,
they stitched me up, got me home. Obviously,
I was concussed, so I couldn't really sleep.
I slept a little bit, but my mom was always waking
me up. So, yeah, those were the only real bad
injuries. Most of them I wouldn't attribute to
bad training. We had good conditioning. At Tab,
I played soccer all year long. My brother and
I got to play together for a year, which was
the best year of my life. So I definitely, and
then looking back at it now as a little bit of
an older coach, conditioning is king. I think
it always will be. It affects recovery. It kind
of affects a lot more than some of these younger
strength coaches think. Strength is awesome.
And I'd be, I'd challenge them to continue doing
their strength building or their hypertrophy
building and add in some conditioning and then
see where those numbers go. You know, are we
going to lose strength? We may, you know, five,
10%. Are we going to lose muscle? If you lose
mass, I would argue you do lose muscle regardless,
but your strength doesn't go as far down as you
might think. I was always a big conditioner.
I played all year long. The only issue was my
feet. My feet would always hurt from the cleats.
No major injuries, thank goodness. How strongly
would you attribute being a multi -sport athlete
to the physical resilience that you had in injury
prevention overall? I think it was a big player
in that realm. And then obviously you're playing
backyard football. You're able to kind of like,
we would play tackle football. So you're able
to kind of still get that physicality. You land
weird. You kind of learn the difference between
like a tweak and a real injury. And that was
pretty powerful. I was never afraid to reach
out to the athletic trainer that we had at school.
I know he was busy, but. hey, man, am I good
with this? Can you check out my knee or my ankle?
And he would give me the go ahead and I would
just send it or he'd take me up and send me on
my way. So I think just being active all year
long was incredibly important. Winter here in
Hampton, summers are incredibly hot. We're right
next to the water. So the humidity is 90 plus
no matter what. And that's awful. So the refueling,
the electrolytes becomes a big part of. Every
coach, even during our tournaments, we would
get probably every 20 minutes. The 45 -minute
halves still because we played academy level.
Every 20 minutes, we'd get a little water break
too. The ref would call it. And then a lot of
our parents, you know, obviously oranges at halftime.
And then the cross country too was a little bit
different because you're at a high – you're at
your threshold, I would say. You know, a 5K in
21 minutes, obviously I was 15, 16 years old.
I cannot do that now. but you're really kind
of pushing it. And then you're getting used to
that high heart rate zone. So when you're going
on a ruck with the guys or you're out carrying,
like yesterday I had to help carry some stuff
out to one of the guys in the middle of the woods.
You know, there's no trails. So we're moving
around. We're carrying a case, probably 50, 60
pounds to them. I had one, my POC had another.
And then from the conditioning that I do and
the mobility that I do now. I had no issues.
It was just making sure the ticks didn't get
a hold of me and then getting out of the way
to observe what these guys were doing. So I think
multi -sport is incredibly important. It's kind
of going to the wayside now because parents are
really wanting their kids to focus on baseball
or football. But what if that doesn't work out?
And then at what cost? What's the opportunity
cost of pushing those other sports off when...
Maybe they meet another friend. Maybe they meet
their best friend for life. Maybe they really
like that coach who turns out to change sports
and is now asking for help. During COVID, I actually
went to work for one of my old soccer coaches
at a Greek deli here, so you never know. I think
it's incredibly important, and I wish parents
would emphasize that a little bit more. I'm so
glad that you said that preemptively. I asked
this to especially the people that were high
-level athletes that are on the show, and then
especially if they were that and or coaches as
well. When I first came to the States, I told
this story many times. So for people who listen
to the show a lot, I apologize. But it was not
long after being here that I kept hearing the
same kind of what I call Uncle Rico story. I
could have, would have, should have been in the
NFL, the NBA, whatever it was, if it wasn't for
my torn, you know, ACL, meniscus, you know, labrum,
whatever the thing is. And I was seeing a lot
of people kind of around my age then. So we're
talking either side, like 30, that were very,
very deconditioned now. Maybe they were talking,
you know, reminiscing about their time as an
athlete in high school and college. And the longer
I was here, and obviously not only coaching myself,
but then doing this podcast and listening to
stories over and over again, and being a parent
too, I started to see that in some instances,
performance was put front and center and sometimes
at the expense of the youth athlete, at the expense
of their longevity. And where if you look at
the UK and a lot of Europe, We don't play at
such a high level. We don't have strength and
conditioning within high schools, for example.
And you have your elite footballers that are
going to go to the Premier League on those. But
the rest of us just play sport. But then what
you see is that continues out of school. And
then people in their 30s, 40s, 50s are still
playing rugby and football and cricket and all
these different things. So when you reflect back
now with this kind of more mature lens that you
have. Talk to me about your kind of observation
of the line between performance and the responsibility
of well -being and longevity of the youth athlete.
I think that's a great question. So if you are
taking sports seriously as a youth, and what
I mean by seriously is whatever level you want
to play at, have some competitiveness, have some
discipline. I think kind of looking back, there's
those hidden gems. Again, like I just said, the
competitiveness, there's the different. You may
not be able to play rugby as a 30 -year -old,
but you can play it as a 20 -year -old, but you
also played baseball. You also played soccer.
So that gives you an avenue to continue. that
ACSM 150 minutes a week guideline to at least
lower your risk of heart disease, which again,
it's getting everybody. Tennis, pickleball, racquetball,
I think opening up the doors to allowing kids
to be kids again. Hey, mom, can you drop me off
at our gym here on base with the racquetball
courts called Shell Bank? Like, hey, when you're
working out. My best friend's Matt. Hey, can
we pick up Matt and can we play some racquetball
while you're doing your conditioning or whatever?
Yeah, sure. And then Matt and I, when we were
in college, when he'd come back in town, he went
to University of Tennessee. I went to Virginia
Commonwealth University. So Knoxville, Richmond,
Virginia, quite a distance. But when we'd come
back, we'd always hit the gym. He had access
to base and I could get on. His dad was a retired
colonel. And we'd go play some racquetball. Just
like we were 15 years old again. Hey, man, how's
Danny doing? How's Ellen doing? Those are his
parents. How's Patty? How's Keith doing? We'd
chat. We'd go get something to eat. And then,
you know, hey, you want to play tennis tomorrow?
So that kept us active. And then if you go to
college and if not, now there's these sports
leagues. The one here in Hampton Roads is Club
Waka that I play. I used to play seven -a -side
soccer there. Got a little bit too busy with
life, so I had to take this year off. But that
was incredibly fun. And then you have the young
teams where you're just like, I'm not going to
chase you down, man. Go ahead. I'm still going
to defend you, but it is what it is. If you're
just going to get past me in a half a move, then
go ahead. I still like being – and that's another
avenue too is like, are you a good loser? Because
you're not going to win every game. You're not
going to be good at every sport. I had a SECFO
guy the other day. So I'm 33 for transparency,
and this kid was maybe 25. We played racquetball,
and he was kind of jazzing me up. You know, hey,
man, I'm not very good. I've never played this
before. And this dude had a professional serve.
He was so good at racquetball, he beat my ass.
But it was fun still. You know, that was actually
the lead. buy -in for me getting in with the
security forces guys because that age difference
was was a little bit of a limiting factor where
what do we talk about i i'm over here thinking
about mortgages and investing and and etfs and
index funds and iras and these guys are you know
what when does madden come out when does gta6
come out hey coach what do you drive i drive
a 2013 honda accord But nothing sexy. He's paid
off. It still works wonderfully, you know, knock
on wood. But having that connection through sport
and then him kind of vouching for me as well,
he could tell I was athletic. We had a good time,
you know, talk some trash to each other. You
know, hey, man, great guy. Great game. My wife
was watching, too. So that was embarrassing.
But the next day. I'm at their guard mount at
5 in the morning, and then I had a line of people
asking, hey, coach, can you teach me how to build
a conditioning program? Or, hey, coach, can you
teach me how to do some Olympic lift variations
or derivatives? And that was a game changer.
So I think being open to trying any sport, as
long as you know your limitations, is incredibly
powerful, especially as you age. I was having
the conversation with my son because he, especially
in the track program, he got very, very competitive.
It was good. I mean, he got a sub five minute
mile. So he was getting up there and that was
only at, what was he then? 15, 16. But then he
got overuse injuries. And again, I think it was
for him, the bad timing. He had a big old growth
spurt right when he was doing this high intensity
training. I don't think those two went well together
at that moment. he was kind of so into this,
you got to win. And, you know, and you listen
to the kind of, you know, some of the rhetoric
out there, if, you know, if you're not first,
you're last and all this bollocks. And I told
him I've, apart from martial arts, which I did
win some trophies back in the day, you know,
I'm not the best at any sport, but I can snowboard,
I can wakeboard, I can play tennis and squash
and racquetball and swim and do all these things,
but none of them are at a super high level. But
I would argue any day of the week that has far
more fun, especially as you, you know, you've
left college now at this age, so much more fun.
Someone says, hey, do you want to go scuba diving?
Yes, because I can. You know, you want to come,
you know. surf i'm terrible at surfing but i've
done it at least you know what i mean so all
of these things where you just simply say yeah
right in a racket ball pickleball i mean i think
the reason why pickleball is so successful is
because you can keep the rally going way more
than tennis you know i mean those balls if someone's
got a good serve you're just basically standing
there while they destroy you um but again going
back to i'm kind of rambling now but going back
to the point is just refinding the love of play
and debunking this thing that you've got to be
the world champion of everything because only
one person is. And, you know, the perfect example,
the anti -argument to this whole participation
trophy bollocks. And I've never, ever seen a
team given praise and medals for putting zero
effort in. But I've watched lots of kids that
showed up for triathlons and football games,
rain and shine, that got a trophy just for being
part of this tournament, for putting the effort
in. And if you go to a Spartan race, or you run
a marathon, or you do a Tough Mudder, what do
you get at the end? A trophy. You get a little
medal saying, I ran 13 miles through mud and
helped people through obstacles. So debunking
this kind of facade of... You've got to win everything
you do and just getting people to be encouraged
and enthused about simply playing something.
And as you said, with the ego side, being bad
at something is really good for the soul as well.
To be humble enough to say, I'm going to try
this and I'm going to be awful at first. There's
so much growth in that versus I'm just going
to do baseball till my shoulders explode and
then I'm going to put on 100 pounds and complain
about how I could have been world champion if
the rest of my life. Yeah. And then the kids,
the amount of kids getting Tommy John these days
is just mind -boggling to me. And I don't know
if that would be avoided. I don't want to sit
here and take a hard stance on that, that it
could totally be avoided by playing other sports.
But your son overused stuff. I think we've all
kind of pushed it a little bit. Where like, kind
of let me see what I can do. You know, I want
to, I want to see what my body can handle. I
don't know if that's the answer, but I'm not
enjoying seeing all these Tommy Johns from these
13, 15, 16 year old kids. It's kind of heartbreaking.
Absolutely. All right. Well then moving forward
now again on the timeline, talk to me about.
You kind of touched on it a little bit. I went
through, I did sports science in University of
North London, and then I finished at University
of Florida years and years later. I did exercise
physiology. And the first semester of UF actually
was amazing because just like you said, it was
a semester of preparing you for the CSCS. And
so I have never actually sat for the test because
I was broke. But, you know, great, great training.
It really did prepare you well. But when I reflect
on my specific education at that point, I felt
like it prepared you more to carry on in higher
education and ultimately teach those classes
than it did to really give you the skills to
be a coach. And the CSCS excluded from that.
CSCS was a great, great semester, but that was
one out of the whole two years. When you reflect
back now in the sports science kind of kinesiology
world, what is your perspective of? someone going
in wanting to be a coach and and the tools that
they are given in higher education specifically
i think the tools right now are a little bit
based in and and this might be george washington
and vcu specific but they had very very good
i think they still do have a very good professional
staff a lot of good professors or they would
challenge you to think you know outside the box
of And these kids would always question, why
are we learning about the Krebs cycle? Why are
we learning about fast glycolysis, ATP, PCR system?
And then when you fast forward and you see all
of these athletes, hey, coach, what's your take
on creatine? There you go. There's the connection
right there. And they may not see that at this
point in time, but I think it prepared us. We
had a very heavy lab load where we could just
sit there and ask questions. Hey, why is the
inorganic phosphate getting cleaved? And how
is that happening? And what the heck does it
matter? We had one class. We didn't even have
a whole semester. We had one class that taught
you how to coach. And it was fun. It was amazing.
And Coach Contos, he's still at VCU actually,
Chris Contos. He brought us into the athlete
weight room and he was like, hey, I'm going to
teach you how to back squat. And then this is
the strength in. The strength zone, you know,
less than six reps, less than eight reps, however
you want to look at it. I think T -SAC pushes
it up to 12 reps now. And then he would kind
of – it was hands -on, and I hear a lot of coaches.
One of my mentors, Riley Kelleher up in Alaska,
will always say, like, you know, you can have
as much knowledge as you want, but how much time
under the bar do you have? Um, how much application
have you put forth all of these programs that
I'm giving these guys? I have tried myself, whether
it be the full six week window, I'll at least
go for, you know, I'll push my training off.
And if I'm training for half marathon, I'm going
to include this program that I'm building this
EOD operator, uh, into that to see how it affects
me. Like, okay, I'm running. a seven -mile long
run on Sunday, but I need to lift on Monday,
so can I push my schedule? I think learning,
if you're going into your CSCS, you have to do
an internship. I think you have to have, I think,
700 hours -ish. I had a 450 and a 100 -hour internship,
so I think they pushed that up a little bit.
The best internship I had was at Tidewater Performance,
which was directly tied to a physical therapy
clinic. One of the physical therapists would
come over and lift, and then they gave him to
me because they knew he was going to challenge
me. Hey, how much have you read in your book
today? Sit your ass down and study. What do you
think of this? How do I build mobility here?
Because he was a hockey player, kind of back
to your lifelong sport thing. Um, he, he played
lacrosse hockey and all that growing up and he
founded a beer leagues, what we call it adult
league. Um, and he still plays. So he challenged
me to, Hey, can you teach me how to Olympic lift?
I don't know how to Olympic lift Mike. I'm sorry.
And then I would reach out to one of the coaches
after my, my study session. Cause they sat me
down. Hey man, you're two hours after lunch is
you're going to read this damn book and you're
going to highlight what you need to highlight.
And then you're going to ask questions about
it. You're going to do the quizzes. So they built,
they instilled that discipline of learning and
questioning in me. And I think it'd be very important
for these students these days to understand physiology
is very important. You need to understand what,
if we're running outside, what the difference
between running outside and 90 degrees, 90 %
humidity and 90 degrees, 1 % humidity. That's
important to know. You need to know you might
not be able to run as fast and then ask why.
I kind of go back to the oxygen disassociation
curve. I remember that for some reason very vividly
where more blood is coming to the surface to
cool your body so there's not as much blood being
delivered to the muscles. That's physiology.
That is a VO2, VO2 difference, the Fick equation,
cardiac output. It all comes back. If you are
a lifelong coach, and I know some coaches, it's
a grind. It's a very competitive field right
now. But if you understand physiology and you
understand periodization, trying things out,
not all of my programs that I make these guys
work. Because if I'm sitting here testing out
a program and my squat goes down 45 pounds. It
doesn't mean it was a failure. It's only a failure
if you didn't learn from it. So, okay, did I
not squat enough? Did I not do enough accessories?
And then you start building these checklists
when you're building these programs out. You
find what kind of, I think that's a good time
when they're learning as well because everybody's
active in the gym and exercise science. Those
gyms at VCU were so packed and it was all of
the exercise science guys, you know, guys and
girls. I had no idea about the tier system, which
is what I use now. Shout out to Joe Ken. I had
no idea about the Texas method until these internships.
And then this kind of goes back to it was a little
bit of a hybrid. I was working and getting paid,
but it was also kind of an internship at CNU,
Christopher Newport, where we would have every
Friday either a couple of research articles or
you would have a presentation on. Like a scenario,
I think mine was you have a football team during
their offseason. We were not strong enough or
powerful enough. We were getting beat off the
ball. Our D -line was getting hammered. Our O
-line was getting pushed back. So how would you
increase overall strength in X, Y, and Z lifts?
And then also leave enough time for the heavy
conditioning. And I chose the Texas method, which
for those who aren't familiar is basically kind
of the gist. And I apologize to the creator of
the Texas method if I murder this, but it's a
five by five. And then every Friday you would
kind of work up to a heavy one for lack of a
better phrase, you would try and hit a max. And
now as an older coach, I know there's a lot more
variables to that, but I thought it was a very
unique. because when you're looking at these,
I mean, those guys do like college athletes are
the 1 % of the 1%, right? And that's what I think
people forget. They're doing five sets of eight.
They're doing heavy power cleans, and then they're
back squatting later that day. They're doing
some crazy power work, and then, oh, by the way,
you've got to be at the Freeman Center at CNU
at 5 in the morning for your hour -long conditioning
session, probably under -fueled. maybe still
drunk from the night before. We all know how
college kids work. You'd be silly to not acknowledge
that. I think these kids are not willing to try
things. They're a little afraid to fail, but
it's only a failure, like I said, if you don't
learn from it. You're not going to be 100 % successful
if you aren't investing and you get into finance.
There's no way you're right 100 % of the time.
But okay, what happened? How do I fix it to not
lose all my money again? Or okay, how do I not
just tear these guys' joints up and then send
them out on the field to get beaten all over
by a team that we should have clobbered? So ask
questions, try your programs out. It doesn't
have to be the full 12 -week program, but do
two weeks of phase one, do two weeks of phase
two, and two weeks of phase three. And then...
I had this question literally yesterday from
one of my athletes. He's getting out, so he's
doing a skill bridge. He's getting his exercise
science degree, good for him. And he was like,
hey, how do I know what to give these people?
And I kind of looked at him and was like, it
doesn't really matter. You give them a program
that you can explain, that you are comfortable
doing yourself, and then most importantly, that
you enjoy. I enjoy the tier system. Because I
know, especially in the tactical realm, sometimes
these guys have to go to motor pool and they're
there all day. So they have to skip their training
session. So we're not the normal chest try back
by leg split. If that's your leg day, you have
to wait a whole nother week to hit legs. So tier
system to me is wildly powerful, wildly slept
on in terms of you can squat twice a week. You
can hinge twice a week. You can press twice a
week. You can have what I'm doing right now is
a little bit of a hybrid where I have a guy who
he's been working with me for about four months.
So trying to keep him interested in it. So we're
trying now where we still have our total upper
and lower days, but the conditioning days, the
Tuesday, Thursdays are going to match the previous
day. So Tuesday is going to match Monday, which
is your high, high strength day, five sets of
three, six sets of three. Let those work up to
a heavy one this week. See what we got. And then
Thursdays are a little bit more strongman type
stuff. And he's an EOD operator, so let's add
in some Zurcher sandbag carries. And these guys
have to carry one of their packs yesterday. I
brought a little scale out with me. I'm a big
nerd. I literally brought a scale out into the
woods with me to measure all their stuff. So
I measured their helmets. I measured their backpacks.
And there was different scenarios that they,
that required different equipment. So some of
the teams just bought anything and everything
they thought they would need. So the heaviest
backpack I saw yesterday was about 35 pounds,
which is very commonplace for rucking. But then
you have some of these seals or these tack P's
or PJ's who I'm familiar with. Some of these
Rangers, they're going down range with a 90 pound
pack and a helmet and a fully loaded. you know,
rifle. Um, and then the radio man has the radio
on top of all that stuff and then their boots
suck. So it's like, okay, how are we taking care
of our feet? A lot of it is kind of just figure
out what you like and then figure out what you
can explain. And again, another shout out to
Joe Ken. He kind of told us, he's like, it doesn't
matter what program you do, but can you absorb,
modify and apply? I'm going to take this info
in. I'm going to modify it to what works for
me and my guys. And then I'm going to apply it
either by doing testing and then refining, or
I'm going to apply it and then take observations
if you don't want to go test it yourself. Strongman
implements one of the tools I started using.
a few years ago now um julian pano who founded
strong fit was really the first person that kind
of turned me on to that but i was a big crossfit
guy up to that point but i realized that yeah
i mean we literally are standing in the same
place we're pronated constantly with all the
olympic lifts with the pull -ups with you know
all the movements and so when i took a step back
and looked at what do we do especially on the
fire ground specifically we push we pull we drag
we climb none of those were really replicated
so i had great you know motor i had decent strength
with the crossfit you know hit style stuff but
there was a big chink in the armor on top of
you know some of the imbalances and some of the
you know lack of um posterior chain movements
and you know shoulder mobility and some of the
other areas um so expand on that talk to me about
the use of strongman because a lot of times when
you for example a fire department's putting together
a gym They're doing dumbbells. They're doing
barbells. They might be super progressive and
put kettlebells in there. But it's few and far
between, certainly at least a few years ago,
where they're really looking at sleds, sandbags,
and some of these incredible strongman tools
that now I think are so, so appropriate for my
profession. And I think it was a random video
on Instagram that got me thinking about this.
It was... Guy, he kind of focused a little bit
more on mobility. I forgot all the names. I was
kind of like one of those you scroll and then
you flip. But it was like, here's a strongman
sprinting. Or excuse me, here's a powerlifter
sprinting. And that dude was so immobile. He
was running straight up and down and there was
no, like, he probably couldn't turn a corner
if he wanted to, which is, and again, this is
kind of going a little bit more towards my niche,
which is tactical, where... Everybody loves to
lift heavy weights. We do need to deadlift, we
need to squat, and we need to press heavy. I
think that is, in and of itself, irrefutable.
However, when we are having to pull a guy who
maybe trips into cover, I don't want to ever
say any of my guys will get shot, but I know
it happens and stuff like that. Can you drag
a 300 -pound implement for more than one second?
um can you carry and not necessarily rucking
go ahead and put a heavy weight vest on and then
carry a sandbag can you do that for an extended
period of time and oh by the way that's it's
still axial loaded it's still kind of high impact
but we're conditioning that posterior chain like
you just said um and it's fun you know it's fun
to lift heavy things it's fun to see what you
can do And then that kind of gives you a little
bit of reprieve from the constant squatting,
the constant triple extension. Grip strength
is far slept on. Grip strength is grip strength.
But if that's not your limiting factor, up to
a certain extent, if we can deadlift without
straps. I'll I'm, I'm a big, no strap, no belt
guy until yes, we're going to push the envelope.
We're going to do a max strength block and then
yes, please put the belt on. Um, yes, please
put the, the, you know, lifting straps on. I
have the Olympic straps too. So, um, but like
maybe do some plate flips at the end of your
workouts. Fun. Hey, Hey coach, I did 45 the other
day. What have you done? Like, I don't, I don't
really keep track of it like that, but, um, Finding
different ways, and then all of these sports
interplay pretty intimately with there's a time
and a place for CrossFit. There's a time and
a place for strongman, like a EOD operator or
a PJ or a TACP or a fueler or a maintainer. There's
going to be times where they might have to carry
something heavy out to the flight line, whether
they're in an active battle or not. I don't want
to have to sit. my toolbox down every five meters.
Um, just, you know, man up and learn how to hit
hook grip and then get it there, take a rest,
hydrate, and then fix the jet. Or, um, uh, with
the PLL guys, here's a petroleum oxygen and lubricants.
They fuel and defuel the 22s, uh, which big old
fuel tanks, um, takes them a long time, but they
have to pull that hose out. So like, how do we,
how do we replicate that in the gym? Okay. Put
a sandbag on your shoulder and walk. And then
maybe like tip it a little bit back. And this
is getting way too into the details, but it's
my job. So maybe like put it a little bit more
on your posterior. So you have a little bit of
a forward lean and then see how far we can get.
And then let's do a fireman's carry with the
sandbag and let's get. Let's, let's take the
daggum safety squat bar out to the track and
load it up with 50 % body weight and let's just
get after it. And then we're going to drop that.
And then we're going to pick up some kettlebells
and move. And then once they kind of, once they
kind of see that their injuries go down a little
bit, yes, they're very, very tired. Typically
the next day is almost a full conditioning day,
excuse me, full recovery day. Cause that stuff
does tear you up. A heavy yoke carry will tear
you up. You have to stay engaged that whole time,
which then translates into the heavy deadlifts,
the heavy squats, and even the heavy presses.
You need to have your core engaged. You need
to brace. You need to, you know, get those lats
set. And then you need to pull that, take a bench
press, for example. You need to pull that bar
to your chest instead of letting the weight drop.
And then you need to put full on intent. And
that's what I also train with velocity -based
training. It's a very, very niche. But that helps
me. Teach these guys kind of like the all or
none principle back to physiology that we learned
in college. Hey, we're not doing bodybuilding
all the time. There's a time and a place and
that's on Fridays. I need you to touch your chest
and I need you to lift this weight as hard and
as fast as you can. The weight on the bar is
going to dictate the speed. And then that's another
conversation topic to. okay why are we bench
pressing 135 coach when i can i'm trying to get
225 bro but there's a whole force velocity curve
that we got to worry about you're the you're
not going to be carrying 225 pounds you're not
going to be squatting 315 all the time so i want
to get you better at moving lighter implements
fast and then also to lessen the injury i want
those high threshold motor units i want to recruit
those often and intense to when you're in the
gym instead of you know maybe going like bench
press to dips if we're learning how to kind of
to move with intent i have seen and this is only
anecdotal a little bit less injury where instead
of just going up for three seconds down for three
seconds again that's great for hypertrophy but
we're in a strength block dude you know, come
on, man, get after it. I need you to move this
barbell 0 .7 meters per second. And if you're
not moving in there that much or that fast, take
some weight off. And then they're like, well,
okay, why are we doing this? And then we kind
of get into the reasoning I just kind of talked
about with, we're not always going to be carrying
something heavy. We need to condition the brain
just as much as we're conditioning the musculature.
So, and that kind of goes to strongman training
too, is you're moving some heavy stuff over far,
vast distances. And then it's a little bit of
a mental challenge. Can you carry this 50 -pound
sandbag in a Zurcher stance a full lap? And if
you can't, that's a goal that they can hit. Some
of these guys don't have goals. Some of these
guys don't have the discipline to train up, to
kind of learn how to segment apart. Like, okay,
I got 200 meters this week. Let me get 250, and
then let me back off, and then let me try for
300, 350 next week, teaching them how to progress
and periodize and then also regress. strongman
comes in there as well where it's like okay you
can't hold on to this farmers uh farmers carry
handle or or farmers carries with the 71 pound
kettlebells for more than 20 meters why our grip
strength sucks so let's get that up which is
going to then help you do your job which is going
to help you get less injured so it's just a big
cascade and it's been it's really interesting
it's really fun these guys love it Throw some
sandbags, dude. Throw some med balls. Take a
little bit of a break from the squatting and
the pressing and the deadlifting and just move.
A lot of people call it functional. I just call
it life. We're not always going to be in a perfect
scenario in a gym with our lifting shoes and
our knee sleeves and our belts. Sometimes we're
going to be downrange getting shot at with a
helmet on our head and a night vision goggle
so my neck hurts. I know I can do this. I want
them to start thinking like, I know I can do
this. And if not, I'm going to segment it out.
I'm going to break it up to where if I need to
get a mile down the road, I'm going to take it
in quarter mile increments. And that's been a
really, really big game changer here too as well.
Going to stay in with the strongman implements.
One of the best things that I found, this is
just my own observation in jujitsu for grip strength
is putting a 75 foot rope. with a sled on the
end and standing there in a hinge and just pulling
it to you. And you roll up, you know, after doing
that for a while, you roll and then you're, you
know, three or four rolls deep and people are
wondering why you're so strong. Well, I'm not
strong. I just have muscular endurance because
of that. And then another one that was fun for
us, again, dragging people out, is you talked
about carrying the sandbag in different areas
to replicate. Well, then you also put the harness
on and have the sled. So now you're holding a
hundred pound sandbag, 150, and you're walking
back as with weight on the sled. Now you're replicating,
picking up that you said, the 300 pound dude,
half of his body is, you know, in your arms and
the other one's dragging on the floor. So it
does make it really, you know, you can be innovative.
You can be creative. You can have a sled. We
just did one video popped out where we did a
while ago where one hand is holding a dumbbell.
whilst they're pulling the sled with the other
one. So again, now you're basically, you've got
weapon in one hand as you're extricating the
person with the other, especially in law enforcement.
So, I mean, versus like you said, especially
the Olympic lifts where I find a very intimidating
and tend to dissuade a lot of my community from
even exercising. When you just tell a tactical
athlete, what you gotta do is pick this sandbag
up and walk over there and come back or push
the sled over to there or grab this rope and
drag it back to your feet. I find that that gets
a lot more buy -in because they can see the real
-world application versus a snatch or a bar muscle
-up where it's a lot harder to convince them
that there is some carryover at least. Yeah,
absolutely. And then, shoot, easiest way to train
triple extension if they don't want to pick up
a kettlebell is throw this med ball straight
up as high as you can. And I need you to end
on your toes. Huge. You don't have to spend more
than two minutes explaining the exercise. the
safety stuff but that's the easiest way to teach
triple extension right there and then you advance
it to a kettlebell and then you advance it to
a barbell so yeah strongman is huge and i love
it absolutely well the other side rest and recovery
um before we dive into you know your immersion
into the tactical athlete this can be that tactical
space or the sporting space that you worked in
before talk to me about the relationship between
sleep and performance oh man um There's no more
important relationship in athletics, whether
it be tactical or sport, for how much sleep are
you getting? Because that's when the majority
of your recovery is happening. I haven't dove
too much into the science, I'll be honest with
you. But I do know if you're up till... midnight
1 a .m 2 a .m playing video games and you just
had a heavy you know lower body day you're gonna
feel like shit the next day so and especially
these like kind of high tempo guys those firefighters
maybe uh i do work with the fire department here
not as much uh they're pretty small they're a
little bit busy but um you know they may have
to get a call out at two in the morning when
I need you to be thinking clearly or I need you
to be able to, to understand like, okay, maybe
I'm a little bit slow doing this or that. So
if you're not rested, you're not recovered. And
I always tell people, all these guys here are
like, I want to be like Matt Froning or Rich
Froning, excuse me, Matt Frazier. Those professional
athletes are professionals because they recover
professionally. That is their job. They go sit
in the Normatec for two hours. They get massages.
They get their cryotherapy. The weightlifting
and the conditioning is 20 % of it. The rest
of the 80%, and you look at the NFL athletes
and NBA, look at LeBron James. He'll always talk
about his recovery and how that's his game changer.
Not every day is for clanging and banging. Not
every day is to go hit the pavement for five
miles. We need to take some time off. to allow
our body, back to physiology again, to allow
our body to rebuild better, to allow our body
to take these nutrients in, get them to the right
place efficiently, and then be ready to work
the next day. And yes, there's a time for overreaching.
Hopefully we never get overtrained, but there
is a time to push the envelope. I never personally
do sleep deprivation or caloric deprivation.
I know that... you could argue that maybe that's
a way to train these guys, but that's a little
bit more real world, which I kind of leave that
to the professionals, like the team leads over
at EOD. Like, I'm not going to sit here and tell
these guys to eat MREs. If you can bring snacks,
bring snacks. But I do know how to effectively
help you recover from... we just had the you
know this day i think yesterday our time we were
at we got out there about 7 30 8 o 'clock in
the morning we didn't leave till 4 p .m and they
were full kitted up it wasn't hot it was beautiful
yesterday actually but uh we're in the woods
we're kind of a couple of guys stepped in the
mud and they're getting frustrated because the
ops weren't very easy and then lo and behold
one of the dudes didn't sleep very well that
night because his ac went out so Whether that
was the reason he was getting frustrated or not,
it's something to think about. It's a variable
that his team lead enjoyed hearing because it's
like, okay, what do you think of this? This was
training. This wasn't real -world stuff. So if
you're stuck, they would prompt you a little
bit. They wanted you to kind of fail a little.
Okay, why did we fail? Let's learn from it. But
I need you to pay attention. And then if you're
tired, I need you to pay extra attention. And
then, you know, call coach and get the Normatec.
I'll drop it off at their shop. I got the legs
for them. Or how much water are we drinking today?
Like that has to do with recovery. What are our
electrolytes like? You know, what's our protein
intake like? I don't go too deep into the nutrition.
We have an amazing, amazing dietician here, Dr.
Fike. I work with her a lot. So go talk with
her. Come get with me. Let's build you all encompassing.
It's not just about, like I said, clanging and
banging and lifting a heavy deadlift. It's about
you just had a heavy lower body day. Take this
Normatec home, 30 minutes, zone 3, zone 4, 5
intensities. It's from 1 to 7. I hate the 7.
It hurts my feet. But, hey, 5 is good for you.
Try it out. You can do an hour, 45 minutes, 30
minutes, 15. What works best for you. Bring these
back tomorrow. I'll charge them up for you, and
I'll drop them off again. There's no more important
relationship than recovery and sleep where, again,
that's preferably eight hours of your day where
you are laying down, you're comfortable, you're
warm, and your body has time to effectively move
this around, build this, build that. Let me pull
from here. Let me get all of these building blocks
ready for when we go hit it again the next day.
It's becoming a lot more commonplace for people
to talk about sleep, and I love seeing it. There
are professionals for that. I will not sit here
and say I'm a professional for sleep and recovery,
but there's a ton of podcasts out there. There's
a ton of books out there. There's YouTube videos
where you're just like, what's your nighttime
routine? How do I get to bed quicker? How do
I wake up in the morning without having to just
immediately reach for coffee or an energy drink?
Maybe drink a glass of water, go do your morning
routine, get to the shop, get your workout in,
and then hit your coffee, which, oh, by the way,
I'm known for this on base. I put protein in
my cold brew because it's French vanilla protein,
cold brew, delicious. There's 25 grams of protein
right there, and then you're eating your breakfast,
so it all kind of comes into play. Every time
I say that, they're like, Coach, man, that's
gross. And then they go and try it. And it's
a game changer for a lot of these guys. A lot
of these young cats love it. They're kind of
switching over to coffee too, which I would argue
is better than energy drinks. And it all just,
again, it's just a cascade. It's just like a
negative feedback loop where it keeps feeding
improvement and improvement. And then you go
and I teach them how to train hard and train
with intent. And then they tire themselves out
so they get a good night's sleep. So it's been
very beneficial. I think it's beneficial for
young coaches to look at that as well as how
are you teaching these athletes to train with
intent, meaning we don't have to do a 10 by 10
back squat. If we're doing a strength block,
I love training off of total volume. Did this
work? Did this not work? We talked on our initial
call about minimum effective dose, and then there's
also max recoverable volume. where i'm going
to push this dude we're going to deadlift and
squat in the same day we did 40 reps of deadlift
we did 18 squats okay and he was he was shot
he was fried the next day his his session rpe
was a nine okay so now i know that this is joe
schmoe's max recoverable volume and i'm going
to be right below that until again we go back
to our overreaching phase where what can we do
we built all of these pieces parts we built the
car Let's see how fast and how far we can go.
It's interesting because the number of people
I've spoken to now that coach, whether it's regular
military, whether it's the SFSO community, whether
it's a tier one community, the focus ultimately
is performance. But when you look at my profession
specifically, some of these are the same coaches
that have worked with fire departments and and
you know they're squeezing performance out these
war fighters and then when it comes to the conversation
with mine it's like well let's just try and get
you to die a little bit less let's walk you around
the building let's learn how to make oatmeal
and it's so crazy because it's a chasm you know
because as you said with with special operators
like you know seals having 90 pounds of gear
on their back If I do what they call a high -rise
strip, so we have a fire. My old station had
a 28, well, really 30 -story hotel building next
to it. And just to take the gear that I would
need to fight fire, so that would be all my gear
and my tank, a hose that obviously we connect
to the standpipe, two air bottles, because you
can imagine when we're climbing, we're getting
through these cylinders, so we need them, and
then a tool. That was it. That's 100 pounds of
gear on my then 168 -pound frame. Then you climb.
30 stories, then you go to work. Now it's time
to actually work and do a search and pull someone
out and then maybe have to carry them all the
way down to the bottom. And so, you know, the
level of performance that's needed in our profession
is extremely high. But then you also, you hear
about the sporting community, about, you know,
the SFSO kind of training and coaching that they
get and rest and recovery is very important.
Well, my profession worked 56 hours a week. So
that's not sleeping three days a week. And then
we're understaffed, arguably because young people
are looking at the way that we worked and going,
that doesn't sound very good. And so now you've
got all these vacancies. So now they're being
forced to work extra days. So now you're doing
80 -hour weeks with four sleepless nights a week.
And then we're wondering why not only is performance
very low, but longevity, wellness, mental health
is in the toilet too. And so it's really interesting
hearing the sporting community. The military
branches that have strength and conditioning
coaches and dieticians and all these things that
you just alluded to and how far we are from our
profession where we haven't even got the working
environment right. Because as you touched on,
if I'm learning a skill, I have to sleep to process
that skill to be better. If I've broken down
muscle tissue and ligaments and tendons, I need
to sleep to rebuild them. And so as I used to
get told, it's always the fit guys that get hurt.
It's like, yeah, back to your point. That's physiology.
If you look at how the body works, you build
when you sleep. So you're withholding sleep from
our first responders three or four nights a week
and then doing your surprise face and we all
start breaking down. Yeah, I think, again, when
I was a kid, too, I was 23, 24 years old. I didn't
care about the Krebs cycle. And I really started
getting into it where it's like, OK, this makes
a lot of sense to exactly like you're alluding
to. It doesn't matter what. community you're
in whether it be whether you're the the strength
coach uh for arsenal or the strength coach for
the philadelphia eagles or you're the you're
the seal team six strength coach like it's all
the same you need to be conditioned to get just
like you just said i've never climbed 30 flights
of stairs with 100 pounds you know and i commend
you for that hell yeah but that's not you don't
need to be strong to do that you need to be conditioned
to do that you need to be able to carry 100 pounds
so yes there is that baseline of strength but
it boils down to conditioning endurance and then
probably a little bit of mental mental fortitude
a little bit of a grit or a little bit of grit
excuse me but it is interesting to see a lot
of these concepts i i wouldn't say collegiate
athletics, which very, very good coaches there,
professional athletics, very, very good coaches,
high performance training. There are certain
aspects of that training that do translate to
tactical, but not all of them. And the coaches
who are not successful are trying to bring their
division one football programs to a medic and
not even a combat medic. Maybe it's a surgeon.
So they're standing all day. And if you've probably
heard from a couple of these guys, talked to
some tactical coaches, if you've been in the
military for 15, 20 years, your knees are going
to be torn up. Your back is going to be fried
because they're going through work nonstop. Same
with firefighters. They are nonstop working.
They don't have time to recover. So it's like
the opposite of what you want. General adaptation
syndrome says we're supposed to trend up. It's
the opposite. You never get a chance to recover.
to super compensate, to then build performance.
So it is very interesting to see where did that
stop becoming so important with like, let's do
our needs analysis. That's one of the first things
they teach you in CSCS is, hey, I have James
Gearing here, firefighter, like, okay, what does
he do? And then how can I help him get better?
I probably wouldn't do too much. heavy heavy
power lifting but we're going to be doing a ton
of conditioning teaching you how to recover teaching
you how to fuel properly looking at food as fuel
if you have an overweight athlete or firefighter
or operator or gen pop you know active duty member
we need to get that weight off and then so you
need to build the discipline you need to understand
like this A bag of Cheetos says 160 calories,
but yes, what about the four beers you're drinking
later? What about the lack of water that you're
drinking? Oh, coach, beer has water. I would
argue that is correct, but hey, it all comes
into play. Pay attention to what you're doing.
You're not getting good sleep if you're drinking,
and it all boils down to recovery at the end
of the day and fueling properly. So like you
said, when you sleep to build back better, I
guess. Absolutely. Well, walk me through your
journey from, I'm assuming, coaching more the
collegiate athlete when you were in school to
the tactical population. And were there any kind
of aha moments as far as the differences between
the two? Yeah, it was. And again, I have no issues
with collegiate athletics. Everything is what
it is. My first internship was at University
of Richmond. It was the 100 -hour internship
that we had to do at VCU, and I did it. So University
of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University,
both Richmond schools, both Division I, huge
rivals. So there's two or three of us from VCU.
We wanted to get our 100 -hour internship over
the summer so that we could also work. So we
went to University of Richmond, and we were with
their men's basketball team. uh coach jay demaya
i believe he's still there great coach good guy
um and then we kind of saw their the head strength
and conditioning coach for the whole program
chris stewart was leaving because a new football
coach was coming in and he was like hey man i
want to bring my own strength staff in and i'm
not saying that's right or wrong but i could
not do that to my i hadn't met leslie yet my
wife i couldn't do that to my wife to be like
oh we got to move to delaware We have to move
to Wyoming. And what if you have kids? What if
you have dogs? What if you have a family member
you're taking care of? So that was the first
kind of writing on the wall, the first aha moment
where like, man, this is cutthroat, dude. Not
every coach in college makes $100 ,000. A lot
of them don't. And then that was kind of answered.
That aha moment came when I was at Christopher
Newport. with Christopher Newport universities
in Newport news, Virginia. So small D three school,
very, very good academics, beautiful campus.
So they're at, they're very good at athletics,
believe it or not. But D three division three,
they're not there for the scholarships. They're
there for the love of the game. So that was really,
really fun to work with guys coming in at five
in the morning and none of them missed their
sessions. And that was just disciplined. Like
that's who those guys and girls were. um best
team I had there was women's volleyball because
that was literally my first session coaching
on my own where you know shout out to Jesse and
Dean um I still talk to Jesse to this day I went
to see I'm going to see Dean here this coming
year I think we have something later this spring
where I'm just going to go hang out you know
talk to them and stuff um the women's volleyball
team comes in after football so all strength
coaches typically assist with football The first
lift got out of the way. They ended at about
7, and then women's volleyball came in at about
8. So I had an hour to go run, get something
to eat, and then come back. Women's volleyball
came in, and we had the workouts. They used Team
Builder, which is where I got introduced to it.
And they put the workout up on the TV at the
end of the weight room, and they were like, all
right, coach, you got it? I was like, yeah, I
think so. Let me ask you something real quick.
And they just turned around and walked away.
So kind of a trial by fire. And then closed the
door, and then I locked it because I tried to
open to ask questions. Yeah, that was real trial
by fire. Fed me to the wolves. And the women's
volleyball team, you know, God bless them. I
was like, all right, guys, well, I guess we're
doing this. And they're like, I guess? You know,
I don't know if they were in on it or not, but
they were just like, look, the lift is what it
is. I hate using that phrase. Coach us through
it. If we have questions, ask. Check our form.
Make us work hard and then we'll get out of here.
And that was, that was our captain. I can't remember
her name. I feel like an asshole saying that,
but I was so like overwhelmed, you know, and
then Jesse and Dean, like the volume controls
for the music was in their office. So they, they
turned it up real loud. I think it was like Katy
Perry or something, you know, turned it up. That
was the volleyball girls. That was their playlist
that they made for their lifting session. And
then they were just like, all right, let's get
after it. Coach, teach us how to hang clean.
And this is the athletes telling me how to do
my job, which should have been the opposite.
Where it's like, okay, there's no right or wrong
to this. I didn't make these workouts. That was
Dean and Jesse. But I had it right in front of
me. I knew all these movements. I knew the warm
-up because they taught me. And it was really
kind of just keeping these girls in line, which
they were the best team I ever had out of all
of my teams. They were so well -behaved, asked
a lot of questions. I ended up getting one of
the athletes there a job at NASA via an internship
that my mom helped hook up with one of her colleagues,
coworkers, who's still there actually. So again,
kind of full circle. And then I got to talking
kind of like to your point, the second aha moment.
So I was a fitness director at USIS at that time.
So this was 2018, 2019. Excuse me, 2016, because
I left for Romania in 2018, where I was talking
to Jesse, and he was kind of going over. He was
like, hey, man, I don't know if he knew that
I knew a lot about the admin stuff. Again, I'm
a big investor. I know a lot about health insurance.
I know a lot about IRAs, what's the difference
between Roth and blah, blah, blah. So he was
like, hey, what do you think is more worth it?
Health insurance or contributing to my IRA? I
was like, what do you mean? You have to have
both. I think you have to have both. You don't
need an IRA, but individual retirement account
is what that stands for. And I was like, what
do you mean health insurance? Isn't that offered
through your job? He's like, yeah, but my rent
is this much. I only get paid X amount, and I'm
not going to put that amount out there. It wasn't
enough to sit here and pay for health insurance
and pay for rent. And he was an assistant coach,
smartest coach that I've ever met him and Jeff.
That's his best friend who was at Langley till
recently with the pilots. And I go down to see
him all the time. There just wasn't, there wasn't
the money that I expected. And I don't need a
hundred thousand dollars to support my wife and
myself, but I can't live off of. 20 you know
that that's a mortgage that's what i'm paying
in my mortgage so that was the second aha moment
right that was the official transition to tactical
finish that internship again still talk to jesse
to this day i just talked to him the other day
um still talk to jeff who i met at university
of richmond um But it was also like I am going
to bite the bullet and do this fitness director
thing. I did not like being a supervisor. I don't
think I was very good at it. But I had enough
money to pay the bills. And I was happy. I wasn't
doing 4 a .m. to 4 p .m. A lot of times 4 a .m.
to 6 p .m. because you got to drive home. And
then you're just tired and you got to go to bed
at 8 o 'clock. So you don't get any time with
your wife or husband or son or daughter or mom,
whatever. I didn't want to do that. I didn't
want to subject my future wife to that because
I had met Leslie at that point. And she because
I was doing an internship and full time job at
the same time, which is pretty akin to a full
time strength coach in college, long hours. So
I would work 4 a .m. to 11 a .m. at CNU and then
I would work 12 to 7. I wouldn't take a lunch
at Fort Eustis. People come in asking all these
questions. I'm tired because you have to lift
in collegiate athletics. They make you lift,
which is awesome. Build the discipline in me.
You've got to train every day. And I remember
Leslie, we were just sitting there on the couch
one day at her house, and she was like, dude,
you can't keep doing this, man. You're burning
the candle at both ends. So then I finished that
internship out. I'm not a quitter. So I finished
that out, got good. uh high praise from the guys
hey you'd make a great collegiate strength coach
um but then it was also like let me look at the
tactical strength and conditioning setting and
there wasn't any jobs open at that time around
me or anywhere that we would be comfortable moving
to so I just volunteered in high school athletics
just so I can get that like full -time coaching
big group aspect still and then slowly transition
into full -time coaching which happened So Romania
was a little different. It was very unique in
terms of your procuring equipment from Rogue
Fitness, which is out of Ohio. You got to get
it shipped halfway around the world to Romania.
And that was where my admin practice and acuity
came in. What's my budget? I have to pay 20 %
extra for shipping. and then how am I going to
get it from so everything would come in via boat
over there so it would come on the east coast
and we're in dead smack in the middle of Romania
so it had to get shipped all the way there so
you know getting familiar with POCs following
up where is this thing lo and behold they don't
track once it leaves the U .S. so that was a
nightmare um and then after I got back from Romania
was COVID kind of like I said so um However many
years that lasted, it was all a blur. I was working
at my old soccer coach, Jimmy the Greek's deli.
At his deli, I was front of the house manager.
I was delivering and taking calls and all that
kind of stuff, making money to pay the bills
because there was nowhere hiring at that point.
I was only training on my own. That's when I
was 26, 27 years old and I finally bought my
first barbell. And Leslie and I would just train
outside, got some bands. I would do some box
jumps into the back of my truck. And that was
a lot of fun and do some conditioning. And then
finally the H2F jobs opened, which is Army. And
then you have, I had five teams. I had preventative
medicine, combat medics, optometry. I had a forward
resuscitative surgical detachment, FRSD. They
were pretty cool. And then I had, I can't remember.
It was kind of, I was covering, I think they
were more like logistics. And then I had like
the colonels and stuff would come in and work
out with me too. So that was my first full -time
strength and conditioning, but I was already
making twice as much as what Jesse was making
at CMU. And that was where, again, Leslie and
I had a blast in Tennessee. an hour from Nashville.
We had enough money to go do things. We had enough
money to pay our rent. We had enough money to
get the dogs whatever toys they wanted. You need
this medicine. Tennessee and Kentucky are right
there. You want this nice bottle of whiskey?
Absolutely, I do. That's the whiskey capital
of the world. I tried a whole bunch of stuff.
I had a friend from where I met at Eustis. We
linked up there. He was at Fort Campbell too.
And then one day, I don't know how the OST thing
actually popped up, operational support team
thing popped up. It's the same concept as H2F,
but a little bit more high level. All the coaches
we have in here are incredibly talented coaches.
The leadership is incredible. You can reach out
for anything, any of the coaches. There's a group
chat that we have on Signal that's just nonstop.
Hey, who's doing this? How are you doing that?
Hey, coach, how'd you get this? And it's just
a great community, which you don't, that's actually
one of the things you do have in collegiate athletics.
Like seeing you could go to George Mason up in
Fairfax, Virginia, and that strength staff, excuse
me, would welcome you with open arms. Because
we're all in the kind of same aspect. We're all
training all day long. How are you guys doing
things? It's not a secret. You know, strength
training and conditioning is not a secret. Everybody's
doing the same thing. uh, just, just a little
bit different. And I know that sounds a little
contradictive, but, um, that's what OST has too.
That made me a little bit more comfortable with,
I'm not afraid to reach out and, and be like,
Hey, can anybody try this for me? I sent my first
program for the EOD guys here over to Japan where
we have coaches as well. You know, shout out
Megan, the Haven. She's amazing. And that was
the third aha moment where it's like, okay, I
feel home here. And then the pay is a little
bit better. Benefits are really, really good.
And I'm happy. You have to get paid a little
bit to be happy. You can't work for free. So
those aha moments, the kind of competitiveness
and cutthroat of collegiate was a writing on
the wall for me. You know, GTFO moment of collegiate
or trying to live that dream was when, you know,
Jesse maybe could or could not pay for his health
insurance. And then the third one was as long
as a community is built and as long as you're
open and vulnerable and accepting of criticism
and, hey, I tried this. What do you think? You'll
find your way. You know, there's going to be
rough spots no matter where you work at, whether
you're an engineer or a strength coach. As long
as you have the discipline and the willpower
and the grit to kind of get through those rough
patches, it's all going to be worth it in the
end. Talk to me about OST then, if you're going
to describe what it was and the purpose that
it serves. All right. OST is Operational Support
Team. We are worldwide. We are Air Force. So
it consists of a five -person team. And you can
kind of modify this any which way, but most 98%,
95 % of the teams consist of a team lead who
kind of analyzes the data. We have a big dashboard
where, you know, fitness tests are coming in
every year. Every active duty member has to do
a PHA. And I apologize if that acronym is wrong.
I don't really follow up too much on those words
like medical questionnaire profiles, which is
injuries. That's a documented injury in the military.
Same across the board, Army, Navy, Air Force,
Marines. All that comes into this big dashboard
that we have a data team up in Ohio. Again, leadership
is second to none. They kind of do all the crunching
and then put it in a nice dashboard for us. So
the team lead will go and kind of analyze. So
a little bit of data analytics, a little bit
of a team manager. So we're a hybrid team. We
have GS civilians, myself, the team lead, are
the GS civilians, and then the rest are active
duty. So team lead, strength and conditioning
coach, and then the active duty components are
you will typically have a physical therapist
based out of the med group and or the physical
therapy clinic. So their active duty, it's a
lot easier for mill to mill to talk. They know
their acronyms. They know their verbiage. So
that's awesome. Um, and then two mental health,
uh, clinicians, they try and slot it. One is
an LCSW or a licensed clinical social worker.
And the second one is a psychologist. There are
not a lot of psychologists period in the air
force or active duty. And then to the mental
health clinic, um, kind of going back to your,
your, uh, fire departments always being undermanned.
The mental health clinic, I would argue is the
most undermanned. clinic but one of the most
important in all of active duty so some bases
have them sure we here at langley only have myself
the strength and conditioning coach and the physical
therapist we're in the process of hiring the
team lead um and if the team lead is is an athletic
trainer i guess technically speaking if my boss
is going to listen to this they're not supposed
to treat but if you got a guy hey man my shoulder
hurts They're going to check you out. So it's
nice to have a nice little mix of some of them
are strength coaches who kind of promote to the
team lead. So they understand the OST dynamic.
So that's the team, strength coach, team lead,
physical therapist, two mental health clinicians.
And we embed in either targeted units. Our last
unit and our current unit here at Langley actually
reached out to us. They weren't even on our radar
of profiles or failing fitness tests or mental
health issues. They were just like, hey, we want
to build a profile PT for these guys. So basically,
what can I add into these workouts? And then
can we get a little bit of help lowering our
profile numbers over six months, about three
to six month embedment, and then we rotate. So
I've been... for transparency my first unit was
the logistics readiness squadron so they fuel
and defuel the jets any mail that comes on base
they they accept and sort that and they send
that out they have um what else does lrs have
basically anything and everything you can think
of um any uh fuel they'll test it um stuff like
that and then i then i went to maintenance so
the first maintenance squadron so They will fix
the equipment that starts the jets. They don't
fix the jets. That's, that's the crew chiefs
and those crews, which is the fighter squadron,
which is the pilots. So that's the whole, that's
the OHWS Jeff that I was kind of talking about.
So they fix the equipment that starts the jets
that pull the jets onto the runway. They, this
is this thing called LO where they'll like fix,
you know, paint jobs and. and stuff like that.
They had props and egress, which is the ejection
seat. And then the engines, which is split between
the active duty part of the shop where they do
whatever they did. It was always over my head,
man. That stuff is so, those engines are so crazy.
And then Pratt and Whitney or whoever makes the
engine will send their own team to do like the
super high level stuff. And here at Langley,
we have a lot of active guards. So full time
guard people. So they do like the longer term
maintenance. They're really cool people. And
then we went to security forces where it was
just me because my boss at that time, Caitlin,
who was a physical therapist, left. She PCS to
Holloman to be their flight doc. So I was alone
in security forces. But a lot of that was. I
would wear my vest sometimes and stand at the
gate to kind of see what it felt like. I'd work
12 -hour days twice a week to, again, see what
that felt like with them, too. And then I would
build them programs. I got two of the guys into
air assault. One guy's going for the Raven, which
is the people who secure the planes when they
land and take off with a little bit more intricate
cargo. Really tough course. Air assault's a tough
course as well. And then SECFO is, you know,
what they are. They are on the gates. Everybody
has to be checked in now, 100 % ID check. Any
speeding on base. We have canines here as well.
They train the entire base in CADM, which is
firing weapons. We have a CADM range here as
well. We have a full kind of canine compound
as well. They take very, very good care of their
dogs. I love that because I have two dogs too.
So can't like play with all of them. Some of
them were kind of mean, but it was really nice
to see that like, hey, dogs are people too. And
they take pride in this is when they're fed.
This is what they're fed. They go to their TDYs
and go on trainings on how to be a better canine
handler. So really good about that here. And
then now I'm currently with. muns or first munitions
squadron so any uh projectile that comes on base
to include the ammunition for security forces
comes through them they receive it inspect it
so that's conventional um and then we have the
precision guided missile dudes um we have a little
bit of like line delivery so if a plane needs
a bomb those guys are the ones who deliver it
And then LRS has vehicle maintenance. Sorry to
kind of backtrack there. They take care of all
the vehicles on base. And then, yeah, we're with
Munns right now who reached out to us and was
like, hey, we're seeing our profiles. Our injuries
are on the rise. Can you guys help? So what I'm
doing now is I'll sit in their gym, and when
these guys come in, like, hey, coach, I think
I tweaked my shoulder. or my knee kind of hurts,
I'm a little bit of the buffer between like,
do you need to go talk to Major Brad Pink, who
is my boss now, the new physical therapist? Do
you need to go see Pink? Or can I handle this?
So that's been really fun. That's very, very
unique. And then I'll just kind of give them
like, hey, why don't you try warming up with
this shoulder D1 and D2 pattern? Take these bands.
There you go. Before you press. Do your normal
warmup and then do your D1, D2, two sets of 12
each. Or, you know, maybe these guys are plateauing.
Maybe these guys are plateauing. So I'll kind
of give them like, not to steal Matt winning
stuff, but I'll give them some winning warmups.
So a little extended warmup as well. Like maybe
you just need a little bit of extra work to continue
progressing. And then, oh, by the way, like see
if that helps your knee injury. It's a lot of
stuff. They just need to go see the physical
therapist to hear that they're okay. And then
some of them are not familiar through any and
all squadrons are not familiar with like a tweak
or being sore and an actual injury. So that's
where kind of major pink comes in. He's an amazing
provider. Very, very good physical therapist.
He'll kind of tell you, this is the part that
I think it is. Let's try this. Yep. Confirmed.
Do this. Go see coach. So it's a nice little
team where we feed each other. And then once
the team specialist comes in, once he gets hired,
he's going to go to the base wide meetings with
all. There's a thing called the community action
team and the community action board, the cat
and cab, where they're basically these are the
problems we're seeing base wide. Hey, we have
a ton of knee injuries. What's going on here?
The physical therapy clinic is overwhelmed. We
need to attack this. So the team manager would
go to those meetings. He would go to, he would
schedule meetings with units that we would reach
out to. So we here at Langley, and I think most
bases with OSTs, we give about a two month lead
time with, we will contact, we contact three
of our next possible units that we want to go
to. And then one, whoever responds back, cool,
let's set something up and let's chat. So sometimes
only one will get back to us. So that's where
we're going or all three will get back and then
we'll have to make a little bit of a tough decision.
But it kind of boils down to what is the big
issue and can we make an impact? So we only have
MSK, musculoskeletal here. So we kind of focus
a little bit more on, excuse me, on the profiles
and the injuries and the fitness tests. But good
thing about Langley in most cases, there's a
program called True North, which are embedded
in like the high risk or high tempo units, licensed
clinical social worker or psychologist. So we
do we make friends with them. Big collab, big
collaboration all over the place with OST and
True North. So we'll be like, hey, ma 'am, I
see this. This guy's having a tough time. You
know, we, we lifted he's maybe he doesn't, it
can be anything, man. PTSD, depression, finance
issues. And then we'll just be like, Hey, can
you come talk to this guy or do what's called
a warm handoff or I'll just walk them down to
their office. Sometimes they'll come to me, Hey
coach, this guy just needs to work off his energy
or his anxiety. And I kind of get a little bit
of a bigger picture. Like, Hey, what am I dealing
with? Am I at risk of being in harm or anything,
which is never usually the case. And then, yeah,
cool. Send them my way. Give them my number,
please. So that's been really good since we don't
have the access to the mental health components
on our team. And I'm kind of like feeding off
of that. Some teams will go ahead and flip what's
called flipping a billet where we will turn one
of these mental health components into a dietician
or into an athletic trainer. where if we can't
get a physical therapist, we do need some kind
of manual therapy or they do different things
than what I do. They look at things differently
than I do. So like you do need that. If you don't
have access to a physical therapist, they'll
flip the billet to an athletic trainer or get
a team specialist who's familiar with that. So
that's basically OST in a nutshell. Well, that's
a good segue. So you've described how many different
people. you get to interact with in different
roles within the military. You mentioned about
coming across team builder in the collegiate
side. Talk to me about how you've applied it
in this situation. And I think one of the things
that I love about it, and this isn't some like
QVC sales pitch now, but what I've seen before
is kind of like blanket programming for the fire
service. Well, this is what you should do if
you're a firefighter. But what I've seen with
them is the ability, as you touched on, you've
got, the regular force and, okay, we're going
to start with programming. It might be age specific
or something, but apart from that, pretty general.
But then the ability to start tweaking it if
there is an injury, if there is a specific need,
because EOD has to be able to carry this amount.
So we're going to give them slightly different
programming. So talk to me again, kind of on
ramp of Team Builder and how you transition to
the military. And then what are the things that
you've really found valuable about that specific
platform? Yeah, Team Builder is a game changer.
It is. Honestly, I would not be able to do my
job without that. Because I train maybe 90 concurrent
athletes, 90 at a time. And again, most strength
coaches will probably agree. There's always,
if I have somebody who is untrained or injured,
I have a base. You know what I mean? I have a
base program where I can load onto them, load
onto their calendar that they have on their phone.
And we'll take EOD, and then we'll take the maintainers,
right? So I have 13 EOD guys. So about 10 of
them train with me. Some of them like the 12
-week program that their physical training lead
and I developed. He came to me. He was like,
hey, man, I want a 12 -week program if these
guys are struggling to pass because they have
the Tier 2 test. So it's a deadlift, a row. uh
med ball toss and then you have to do this little
circuit called the grooster which is brutal um
we can go into that it's a fun test you might
like it um so those guys have their baseline
it's always going to consist of a deadlift and
then it's going to consist of you know overall
strength and then we're going to phase it first
thing for me is always soft tissue prep or a
little bit of like eccentric loading Teach these
guys how to brace. So we're going to lower over
two weeks. We're going to lower all of our compound
lifts over five seconds. The deadlifts, the back
squats, I prefer front squat, but if they don't
know how to do that, Hey, I can load up a front
squat and there's a video right on top of the
screen. A lot of these guys are visual learners
and then I can type as many notes as I need in
there. They can message me in the app too. So
that's very useful because those guys are very
high tempo. Like I said, they were down in Virginia
beach yesterday. I was with them, but if I wasn't,
they could either text me or just message me
through the app to always get a hold of me because
I always have my phone on me. And then we have,
you know, the maintenance squadron is pretty
big. There's about 400 of them. So you can build
different programs for a fit or fitness improvement
program. So maybe the people who need some help
with conditioning. again, I'm going to put my
baseline program up and I'm going to modify accordingly
where, Hey, I'm going to assign you to this team,
which is still under maintenance, but this is
the fitness improvement team. And then I'm going
to assign you to the profile PT where I know
these, and this is in conjunction or collaboration
with my physical therapist where, Hey, can you
give me some good knee prep or some good squatting
prep? Or you can put up notes on there where
it's like, hey, if you're having some issues,
here's Major Pink's number. And then you can't
click on the number or anything, but it's easy
for people to remember that. So you just type
his number in, text him, and then he'll be like,
yeah, man, I'm free tomorrow. So it's definitely
a force multiplier, 100%. I'd have 1 ,000 spreadsheets
if I didn't have that. And then the metrics,
I think, for me personally, some of these people
don't know how to progress properly. So I'm either
here nor there about three on one off, two on
one off. Sometimes I'll undulate weekly. Sometimes
I'll undulate daily. Sometimes I'll throw in
like I base everything off of the tier system.
So again, back to the EOD dudes, they were out
all day yesterday, seven to four. I don't expect
them to lift, but they're only missing. If our
deadlift, I think our deadlift was the focus
yesterday. They're going to deadlift again later
this week. So they're not as far gone or, or
they don't have the opportunity cost of going
to do their job is far less than if you had the
normal chest, tried back by legs, which a lot
of programs online, these guys get, which whatever,
as long as we're moving, I don't care. But then
when I introduced them to the tier system, I
can go ahead and get, put them on a little note
where it's just like, Hey, This is a little bit
of a total body program. We're going to build
our work capacity. Here's your leg day. So yes,
the lower body day you could consider as a leg
day, but there's also, I'll put up their recovery
options via the notes. I'll always put up a session
RPE, like how hard scale of one to 10, you know,
keep it simple for these guys. And then that
shows up into a graph too. So I can see, Hey,
maybe, you know, my guy down at the age shop
didn't enjoy the, the CrossFit workout that I
made him. It was too hard. So let me find maybe
a scaled back one or maybe scale his movements,
or maybe let me introduce him to some strongman
training. And then they'll always be able to
put their notes in as well. Like, yo coach, I
hated this. Like, you know, this was awful. And
it's not always going to be fun, but so that's
been. That was the first thing that I asked for
and that I got when I got here was team builder
because I don't want to leave these guys hanging
at all. I want to, obviously, when I'm done with
work, yes, there is a time where I'll always
look at my phone and if you text me because I
have a work phone too. If it's like 7 o 'clock
at night, I'm sorry, I'm going to get this at
7 in the morning. But I'll text them back like,
hey, man, I'll answer this tomorrow. So being
available for them and then... Instead of me
having to hand over a sheet of paper, instead
of me having to use up all the memory on my daggum
computer or having to print stuff out, I can
just put my iPad up and then put their workout
up and then I'll put their weights in so that
I know how they're progressing. And then I'll
show them that the biggest game changer for me
was like that little bottom right icon where
it shows your past history. Or it's like, okay,
hey coach, how do I know how to progress? Cool,
go to this icon. What'd you do last week? add
five pounds. Um, and then you can, that's a real
good conversation starter to linear periodization.
Um, not many of these guys here, there's a large
group of them actually who have kind of gotten
away from it because it's a little bit too simple
for them at this point. So we got to turn it
into an undulating periodization type deal. Um,
but they understand if you did a five, an example,
if you did a five by five back squat, um, and
we're trying to increase our weight let's try
a four by four or five by four so we're going
to go down in reps and we're going to go up in
weight that's an easy easy conversation starter
keep it simple for them and you can you can show
them the graph that's an easy graph to draw um
and then the science portion as well is pretty
big for all of my fitness improvement or detrained
athletes they have this real cool team builder
has this really awesome uh, thing for their science
component where you can put a question on there
and then you can click the box where it says
like, until they answer this question, they're
not going to get the workout. And I get texts
all the time where it's like, yo coach, there's
nothing loaded up. Like, well, is there a question?
Yeah. Okay. Answer it please. So, cause that
question is how sore are you today? And did you
eat breakfast? The big issue here, people don't
like to eat breakfast. And then they're just
like, oh shit, there it is, dude. Thanks man.
Um, They know the workouts, and then I can also
put on their regressions and progressions. Modification
equals you have a back squat and your back kind
of hurts. Let's maybe go to a bodyweight squat
or a wall sit. Med ball hug walking lunges, and
then maybe let's go to a split squat hold or
a split squat. So stuff like that. You can build
those regressions, progressions in. And then
now they have this thing where they can add in,
and Melissa touched on this the other day on
her Instagram. which I thought she did perfectly
where it's like, yo, I know these guys are going
in to do other stuff. That's not wrong of you
to do. If I'm not giving you enough, absolutely
go do what you need to do. But I still need to
know the volume. I still need to know if you
went in and did a stupid German volume training,
10 by 10 squat that you saw on Instagram. Cause
then, yeah, I'm not going to run you the next
day and I'm not going to squat you the next day.
We're going to recover. So it's useful to know
that was a really, really good, kind of losing
me a little good really good thing they added
to the program where once you kind of tell these
athletes that's totally fine to add in your own
stuff you can build your own workout and then
oh by the way hey bro this is a great workout
i did it the other day and then if they're a
ptl they can give that to their airmen you know
group training okay how would we transform this
in a group of 40 you know hey i i did a back
squat let's just do a bodyweight squat And using
the same workout that they built that they were
just messing around in the gym. So that's been
huge. And those guys are like, whoa, dude, no
way. Like, yeah, you don't have to have a master's
degree and be a full -time coach to build a good
workout. But, you know, feed them a compliment
sandwich. This was great. And maybe go a little
bit heavier on the squats. And then kind of give
them some good criticism. So it's so beneficial
to have a training app like that where... especially
you can monitor fatigue management, load management,
hydration. You can put all that kind of stuff.
They have the habit tracker now. So if I have
guys trying to lose some weight, especially in
the skiffs or the secure compartmentalized facilities
where you can't take anything in, like it's very
sedentary work. So, hey, make sure you stand
up or make sure you get 5 ,000 steps a day. So
that's really good for them too. There's so many
different tools built within that one app that
they can't have their phone in the skiff. So
many tools that you can show them that they can
use without my help. I hope that I will never
have to be without it. I know funding sometimes
is an issue. It's not expensive, but government
funding is very wonky. We still don't have our
budget. We're supposed to have it in October.
Stuff like that. And customer service is second
to none as well, for sure. I can text Melissa
anytime. She'll get back to me within 24 hours.
Hey, I don't know that answer right now. Or hey,
go talk to this department. Here's your POC.
And then we'll sit down sometimes. I think I
was having some issues with some of my work capacity
tests where I wanted to see improvement and some
weird max sustained power, which is hard to measure.
And she was like, well, I'll try this or try
that. So I'll put it on. I'll go test it. And
then you get back to her, hey, this worked great.
So she'll take that and hand it to the next coach
who has that kind of same issue. So customer
service, second to none. Organization, second
to none. Super sets are super easy to explain.
And as long as my athletes put in their daggone
weights, you'll never go wrong. What about tracking?
One of the things that when I first spoke to
Melissa, I can see a great... I know extra layer
to this is you have, you know, brand new firefighter,
or as you said, even a deconditioned firefighter
that you're trying to, you know, you just finally
put in a fitness standard and you've given people
two years to get back to where they need to be.
Do you have an ability to kind of create kind
of trends as far as if someone's trending the
right way, if they're trending the wrong way,
you know, the kind of report side of this? Yeah.
And that comes into play with the conditioning
a lot, right? A lot of these guys. Probably the
same in the firefighter community. Hey, man,
I got my test coming up. You have a month to
train. That's not enough time. So you'll find
that they start out too high on the volume. So
when you, hey, man, give me two months, dude.
All I need is two months, ma 'am. And then you
start them out with let's run for time. And then
two weeks later, if you consistently run, I'm
at least a three day a week conditioning. You
know, I'm not going to be a hard ass. I run six
days a week, but just get one interval and two
steady states in. And then, okay, what's your
resting heart rate? And then what was the mileage
you did last week? Tell me. So I'll do 12 minutes.
A lot of these guys run the mile and a half.
So that should, in theory, be no more than 16
minutes of running. And that's at a high intensity.
Let's go do a 16 minute study state at a conversational
pace. And I'm going to make sure it's conversational
because I'm going to stand right next to you.
And I'm going to talk about your dog with you,
or I'm going to talk about, you know, whatever,
somebody pissing me off at work. Cause it's therapy
for us coaches too, right? Like you got a good
athlete that'll listen to you. Like, hell yeah,
I'm going to talk to you today. So, and then
you show them like, Hey, look. In this 15 minutes,
you ran 0 .75 miles. That's three laps. So we
don't need to start out with this 5K bull crap.
Like phase in 10 % a day. You know, hey, we did
0 .75. Let's go for it. It's a little bit more
than 10%. So I'm contradicting myself. Let's
go for a mile next time. And then we're going
to stay at the mile for a little while. And then
we're going to focus on speed. So then we'll
put either mile repeats. 400 meter repeats or
like hey i want you to go a mile as fast as you
can and then um i i like to have them nike run
club is a good one that i like to have them use
because you can set the splits on there and it'll
keep track of it for you so what are your what
are your quarter mile splits and you know i'll
kind of pull that data i'll have them enter it
which The onboarding for Team Builder or any
app like that is a little bit intricate where
I think every coach should take the time, be
patient, walk these guys through how to input
data, where to go, where are there programs that
aren't tied to a calendar. Walk them through
the app. Take time. Hey, man, this session we're
sitting down and we're learning how to use Team
Builder because you haven't been putting your
backspot weights in and you're pissing me off.
So I just nip that in the bud and I do it off
the bat. So it's like, Hey, Nike run club. When
you're done, it'll give you your splits. Go ahead
and put those. Cause, and this goes back to calling
Melissa. I was like, I wanted them to do a mile
run, but I want another, I want another quarter
mile splits. So she was like, cool. Just put
four quarter mile runs in. And then that'll kind
of, you can put that on the leaderboard where
it'll show it'll rank it. And it automatically,
any conditioning lower is better. Any weightlifting
higher is better. Or you can do, um, You've been
doing like strongman training, like distance,
you know, a, how far did you carry this? I'm
not super, I don't care about the accuracy. If
you think it's a half a lap, cool. We're going
to go with that. So you can put all that stuff
in and then you pull that graph. Hey man, you
started out a little bit too fast on this mile
run on Tuesday. You know, your first, your quarter
mile split was, this is fast, a minute 30. nobody
here can do that i don't think um let's just
say two minutes and then your third and fourth
was four minute for a lap for a lap because you
were just too gassed so hey maybe and that teaches
them how to pace themselves they can see their
heart rate on the nike run club app too which
i then put into team builder um so it's like
what was your heart rate running at this is that
a four out of ten no your max heart rate is this
you were at your max heart rate Take it easy.
There's a time and a place for you to run hard.
Maybe start out a little bit less intense. This
first lap, maybe go six out of 10 and then crank
it up. And then, oh, by the way, I think what
a lot of people are missing, no matter what field
you're in, is you need to warm up for a run too.
If you just go from resting heart rate or standing
heart rate to threshold running, it's such that...
that oxygen deficit again, back to physiology
in college, that O2 deficit is very difficult
to overcome because maybe they panic and they're
already anxious too. So their heart rate's probably
already a little bit elevated. Hey dude, go take
a lap or two, nice and slow. It's not going to
kill you. And then do your mile and a half. So
you get the heart rate up to where I want it
to start. And then I taught, I've taught them
how to pace. And then just remember, I'll always
be there at the track and I'll pace these people
if I need to. I don't mind that at all. But it's
like, you got this, dude. Remember that quarter
mile that you did two weeks ago on Tuesday that
you went out too fast? Don't do that. Go slow,
go steady. Slow and steady wins the race. And
it's like, yeah, coach, thanks, man. I've had
so many. And you get days off if you get above
a 90 on your PT test here. So I've had so many
days off that these guys have gotten. And I'll
meet them for lunch or we'll go after work. Again,
if my boss is listening, after work, we'll go
get a beer. We'll go fishing or whatever. They'll
come hang out with me at my house. I'll go hang
out with them. And then you build that lifelong
relationship as a resource that they can use.
I'll program for any active duty member for their
life. As long as they ask, as long as they reach
out and I'll never charge you a dime. So I still
have a guy going into SFAS here. I had a guy
get into DevGrew, which is SEAL Team 6. He was
their mechanic. Did some time in Syria too. And
that's when he really got into, I don't even
have to tell him what to do anymore. He'll kind
of reach out like, hey man, I tore my hamstring.
What do I do? Still has my number. I still respond.
I still remember who he is. So you build that
relationship by showing them progress. teaching
them how to regress, teaching them how to progress
appropriately. And then, hey man, just give yourself
a little bit more time when you're preparing
for these PT tests or you're preparing for a
marathon or something. And then as long as you're
ready and willing to put in the work, it'll happen.
Trust in coach and then please let me know how
I can help you. And it's been awesome. Beautiful.
Well, I got one question, closing question to
ask before we find out where people can find
you. Is there someone that you'd recommend to
come on this podcast as a guest to speak to the
first responders, military, and associated professions
of the world? I have two that immediately come
to mind, actually. And I was hoping you would
ask that. Mark Cristiani. He was, so last name
C -H -R -I -S -T -A -N -I. He is with O2X down
in Florida, I believe. And I'll send you his
info as well. Thank you. And then who I work
with here, Laura Fike. She is, so Mark, I'll
kind of like, you know, keep it in order. Mark
was one of the best supervisors I've ever had.
He was very, he's a former ranger. So he was,
we were in a geo dispersed unit. So he was very
trustworthy because I built that trust, right?
Yeah, I didn't have to go check in with him every
day. But he was like, yeah, man, you're doing
your job. You're doing great. The guys love you.
And he trusted me as a good supervisor should.
And he really knows his stuff, man. He is such
a good coach, such a good supervisor, just a
good person all around. When he would come visit
us, he was always my Scrabble partner when we
go to Strawberry Alley and get beers with the
team after work. So shout out to Mark. You know,
miss you, dude. And then Laura is. She's actually
training Apex right now, which is a new program
we have here on Langley where we're kind of teaching
these guys how to be adults. And today is the
mobility day, which I'm sad I missed because
I'm a golfer and I need mobility. But, you know,
I can just pop over. Her office is literally
right there, right next door. Huge, huge research
oriented. Very, very down to earth. No bullshit.
is going to tell you what you need to hear, not
what you want to hear. Nutrition. She was also
an athlete at University of Kentucky, played
soccer as well, and just a great person. And
she's getting ready to get her PhD. Fingers crossed
for her, cheering her on the whole time. Awesome,
awesome person to work with. She is not afraid
to try things, and her and I are both. Hey, man,
you down to do this briefing? Hell yeah. When
you need the slides by, hey, man, get them to
me by this date. I'll get them to you. i'll get
them to her excuse me and then she'll you know
make it you know sound better because i'm just
a coach man i don't do very good with verbiage
and stuff so she'll make it fancy and and we've
been doing a lot of very good briefings a lot
of units here know us now because of her so yeah
she's amazing mark and laura beautiful yeah well
thank you i mean if you're able to help me connect
with both let's get them both on that would be
incredible Brilliant. All right. Well then for
people listening, what about yourself? Where
are the best places online, social media, if
people want to reach out? All right. Best places
I have, um, we'll go Facebook, Instagram, TikTok.
So Facebook, uh, JD strength conditioning, no.
And, um, so a lot of stuff I post is fun facts.
Um, I'll post workouts probably about once a
week. And I'll post some funny stuff. Like I
posted one the other day about sumo deadlifting.
I still hate it to this day. So I keep it light.
Same handle, JD Strength Conditioning for Instagram
as well. And then TikTok, that page is called
Fit Money Moves. So fit underscore money underscore
moves. I do incorporate a little bit of investing
in finance on that one. I like to think I'm a
fairly successful investor. I kind of know what
I'm doing. I don't like saying no to people if
they're asking for help. And again, same thing.
I'll post a workout on there probably about once
a week. I'll post my training. I'll give little
good tidbits on, you know, why are we not growing?
Are you not doing enough accessories? Stuff like
that. Keep it light. Put some humor on there.
And that's me personally. I respond to all messages
that I get on this. Brilliant. Well, I want to
thank Melissa again for connecting us. And it
was really great to hear your testimony because
team builder, you're not kind of circling around,
but I mean, the. Every single sponsor that I
have on the podcast is usually someone that I've
sought after. But actually, in this case, Melissa
approached me. And again, I'm then going to take
a lot of time and be like, all right, well, is
this something that I'm going to put my name
behind? But hearing all the testimonies that
I've had so far and yours included, I mean, this
sounds like a great, great platform for more
progressive fire departments, police departments
that have coaches that are actually disseminating
programming. So I want to thank you so, so much
for being so generous with your time. and coming
on the Behind the Shield podcast today. All right.
Thank you for having me, man. This was a lot
of fun.