WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.620 This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran 00:00:02.620 --> 00:00:04.980 -owned and operated performance optimization 00:00:04.980 --> 00:00:08.039 company that I introduced recently as a sponsor 00:00:08.039 --> 00:00:10.820 on this show. Well, since then I have actually 00:00:10.820 --> 00:00:13.080 been using my products and I have had incredible 00:00:13.080 --> 00:00:15.939 success. There was initial blood work that was 00:00:15.939 --> 00:00:19.039 extremely detailed and based on that they offered 00:00:19.039 --> 00:00:23.519 supplementation. So I began taking DHEA. BPC 00:00:23.519 --> 00:00:26.399 -157 for inflammation based on the fact that 00:00:26.399 --> 00:00:28.300 I've been a stuntman, a martial artist and a 00:00:28.300 --> 00:00:30.579 firefighter my whole life. Lots of aches and 00:00:30.579 --> 00:00:33.880 pains. Dihexa to help cognition after multiple 00:00:33.880 --> 00:00:36.899 punches to the head and shift work and peptides. 00:00:37.079 --> 00:00:39.520 Four months later they did a detailed blood work 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:42.259 again and I was actually able to taper off two 00:00:42.259 --> 00:00:44.479 of the peptides because my body had responded 00:00:44.479 --> 00:00:47.079 so well to just one of them that it was optimized 00:00:47.079 --> 00:00:50.530 at that point. So I cannot speak highly enough 00:00:50.530 --> 00:00:53.530 of the immense range of supplementation that 00:00:53.530 --> 00:00:55.789 they offer, whether it's male health, female 00:00:55.789 --> 00:00:58.530 health, peptides to boost your own testosterone, 00:00:58.630 --> 00:01:00.829 which I would argue is needed by a lot of the 00:01:00.829 --> 00:01:03.570 fire service, or whether it's exogenous testosterone 00:01:03.570 --> 00:01:06.750 needed, especially after TBIs or advanced age. 00:01:07.239 --> 00:01:09.480 Now, as I mentioned before, the other side of 00:01:09.480 --> 00:01:11.980 this company is an altruistic arm called the 00:01:11.980 --> 00:01:14.840 Transcend Foundation, which is putting veterans 00:01:14.840 --> 00:01:17.620 and first responders through some of their protocols 00:01:17.620 --> 00:01:21.340 free of charge. Now, Transcend are also offering 00:01:21.340 --> 00:01:24.019 you, the audience, 10 % off their protocols. 00:01:24.239 --> 00:01:27.120 And you can find that on jamesgearing .com under 00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:29.840 the Products tab. And if you want to hear more 00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:32.560 about Transcend and their story, listen to episode 00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:37.390 808 with the founder, Ernie Colling. or go to 00:01:37.390 --> 00:01:42.469 transcendcompany .com. This episode is sponsored 00:01:42.469 --> 00:01:45.390 by TeamBuildr, yet another company that's doing 00:01:45.390 --> 00:01:47.510 great things for the first responder community. 00:01:48.150 --> 00:01:50.709 As a strength and conditioning coach myself who 00:01:50.709 --> 00:01:53.930 also trains tactical athletes, dissemination 00:01:53.930 --> 00:01:56.310 of wellness information is one of the biggest 00:01:56.310 --> 00:01:59.129 challenges. Now, TeamBuildr is the premier 00:01:59.129 --> 00:02:01.489 strength and conditioning software for tactical 00:02:01.489 --> 00:02:04.069 athletes. And there are several features that 00:02:04.069 --> 00:02:07.750 really impress me. Firstly, there is a full exercise 00:02:07.750 --> 00:02:10.409 library, so you, the personal trainer, does not 00:02:10.409 --> 00:02:12.490 have to create that within your own department. 00:02:13.490 --> 00:02:16.210 Secondly, you can send out programming, but also 00:02:16.210 --> 00:02:19.610 individualize, which I love. So you blanket program 00:02:19.610 --> 00:02:22.870 for everyone. Now you can tweak based on someone's 00:02:22.870 --> 00:02:25.449 injury, someone's need to maybe drop some body 00:02:25.449 --> 00:02:28.210 composition, rather than having to write a program 00:02:28.210 --> 00:02:31.509 for every single person on their own. TeamBuildr 00:02:31.509 --> 00:02:33.870 also allows you to build custom questionnaires 00:02:33.870 --> 00:02:37.169 to collate health and wellness data. It integrates 00:02:37.169 --> 00:02:39.750 with wearables. And I think one of the most important 00:02:39.750 --> 00:02:43.550 things is obviously it tracks. To me, it's imperative 00:02:43.550 --> 00:02:47.009 that we as a profession start tracking our people 00:02:47.009 --> 00:02:50.909 from day one and then over the full span of their 00:02:50.909 --> 00:02:54.129 career, therefore catching potential wellness 00:02:54.129 --> 00:02:57.669 issues and injuries before they happen. Now, 00:02:57.689 --> 00:02:59.889 if you want to try Team Builder, they are offering 00:02:59.889 --> 00:03:02.229 you, the audience of the Behind the Shield podcast, 00:03:02.650 --> 00:03:06.830 a free 14 -day trial to experience all of the 00:03:06.830 --> 00:03:09.370 features. And if you want to take a deeper dive 00:03:09.370 --> 00:03:13.909 into TeamBuildr, listen to episode 1032 with 00:03:13.909 --> 00:03:17.930 Melissa Mercado or go to teambuildr .com. And 00:03:17.930 --> 00:03:19.449 I'll spell that to you because it's not as you 00:03:19.449 --> 00:03:26.370 think, T -E -A -M -B -U -I -L -D -R .com. Welcome 00:03:26.370 --> 00:03:28.150 to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always, 00:03:28.189 --> 00:03:29.990 my name is James Gearing and this week it is 00:03:29.990 --> 00:03:32.830 my absolute honor to welcome on the show Air 00:03:32.830 --> 00:03:35.490 Force Strength and Conditioning Coach Justin 00:03:35.490 --> 00:03:39.150 Davis. Now in this conversation we discuss a 00:03:39.150 --> 00:03:41.969 host of topics from his journey into the world 00:03:41.969 --> 00:03:44.569 of strength and conditioning, training tactical 00:03:44.569 --> 00:03:48.909 athletes, conditioning pilots, supplementation, 00:03:49.090 --> 00:03:53.969 minimal effective dose, using team builder and 00:03:53.969 --> 00:03:57.020 so much more. Now, before we get to this incredible 00:03:57.020 --> 00:03:59.639 conversation, as I say every week, please just 00:03:59.639 --> 00:04:02.259 take a moment, go to whichever app you listen 00:04:02.259 --> 00:04:05.780 to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback 00:04:05.780 --> 00:04:09.280 and leave a rating. Every single five star rating 00:04:09.280 --> 00:04:12.520 truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making 00:04:12.520 --> 00:04:16.319 it easier for others to find. And this is a free 00:04:16.319 --> 00:04:21.459 library of well over 1000 episodes now. So all 00:04:21.459 --> 00:04:24.699 I ask in return. is that you help share these 00:04:24.699 --> 00:04:27.759 incredible men and women's stories so I can get 00:04:27.759 --> 00:04:31.040 them to every single person on planet Earth who 00:04:31.040 --> 00:04:33.839 needs to hear them. So with that being said, 00:04:34.060 --> 00:04:58.060 I introduce to you Justin Davis. Enjoy. Well, 00:04:58.079 --> 00:05:00.300 Justin, I want to start by saying two things. 00:05:00.379 --> 00:05:02.680 Firstly, thank you to our mutual friend, Melissa 00:05:02.680 --> 00:05:05.480 Mercado, for making the introduction. And secondly, 00:05:05.519 --> 00:05:07.500 to welcome you onto the Behind the Shield podcast 00:05:07.500 --> 00:05:10.759 today. Thank you so much for having me. Really, 00:05:10.819 --> 00:05:13.819 really excited to be here. So where on planet 00:05:13.819 --> 00:05:17.100 Earth are we finding you this afternoon? I am 00:05:17.100 --> 00:05:21.720 in my office on Langley Air Force Base, Hampton, 00:05:21.740 --> 00:05:25.120 Virginia. Beautiful. Well, I would love to start 00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:27.279 the very beginning of your timeline before we 00:05:27.279 --> 00:05:29.360 get to the kind of military strength and conditioning 00:05:29.360 --> 00:05:32.759 side. So tell me where you were born and tell 00:05:32.759 --> 00:05:34.579 me a little bit about your family dynamic, what 00:05:34.579 --> 00:05:38.339 your parents did, how many siblings. Sure. Interesting 00:05:38.339 --> 00:05:40.800 story. So and that kind of ties directly into 00:05:40.800 --> 00:05:44.459 how I got here. So born and raised Newport News, 00:05:44.839 --> 00:05:47.720 Virginia, Hampton Roads, kind of. So the greater 00:05:47.720 --> 00:05:51.600 Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Hampton, Richmond area. 00:05:51.839 --> 00:05:55.339 Grew up in York County. York County, Virginia. 00:05:55.540 --> 00:05:58.560 So it's right next to Hampton and Pocosin. Went 00:05:58.560 --> 00:06:02.680 to high school at Tab High School. Played soccer, 00:06:02.879 --> 00:06:08.459 football with the U throughout my youth. Competitive 00:06:08.459 --> 00:06:10.959 soccer as well, the Olympic Development Program 00:06:10.959 --> 00:06:13.399 a little bit. So that's kind of where the competitive 00:06:13.399 --> 00:06:18.379 juices started. Varsity soccer, and then kind 00:06:18.379 --> 00:06:22.379 of got into the multi -sport athlete thing around 00:06:22.379 --> 00:06:26.300 my junior year in high school. I wasn't good. 00:06:26.480 --> 00:06:28.500 I'm not gonna say I was good, but I did run cross 00:06:28.500 --> 00:06:33.000 country. I made the time the three miles, I think 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:35.180 it was a five case of 3 .2 and 21 minutes. So 00:06:35.180 --> 00:06:37.100 I made that time just for conditioning for my 00:06:37.100 --> 00:06:41.579 spring soccer season. Never won a race. Again, 00:06:41.680 --> 00:06:44.800 wasn't very good, but I did enjoy it. So high 00:06:44.800 --> 00:06:48.019 school, New York County, a lot of fun, very, 00:06:48.139 --> 00:06:50.720 very nice area to grow up in. We were here because 00:06:50.720 --> 00:06:53.750 both my parents worked at NASA. the National 00:06:53.750 --> 00:06:56.790 Aeronautics Space Administration. My mom was 00:06:56.790 --> 00:07:01.050 a chemical and electrical technician. She worked 00:07:01.050 --> 00:07:06.490 with a lot of wind tunnel stuff, a lot of chemicals, 00:07:06.829 --> 00:07:09.810 mass spec, stuff like that. She would do a lot 00:07:09.810 --> 00:07:12.569 of air testing on top of the national monument 00:07:12.569 --> 00:07:15.649 we have here that tested the lunar lander. So 00:07:15.649 --> 00:07:17.889 she did a lot of that fun stuff. And my father 00:07:17.889 --> 00:07:22.269 was an aerospace engineer. So he did a lot of 00:07:22.269 --> 00:07:24.750 material science. A lot of people call them rocket 00:07:24.750 --> 00:07:26.709 scientists. He did a lot of material science. 00:07:28.050 --> 00:07:30.750 One of his main projects was the launch abort 00:07:30.750 --> 00:07:33.949 system called Orion. So if anything went wrong, 00:07:34.050 --> 00:07:36.250 they were going to at least, obviously you're 00:07:36.250 --> 00:07:38.870 not going to be successful ejecting from a rocket, 00:07:38.949 --> 00:07:41.829 but we can at least recover the black box, stuff 00:07:41.829 --> 00:07:45.350 like that. So that was his kind of lead. big 00:07:45.350 --> 00:07:48.649 baby project when he was toward the end of his 00:07:48.649 --> 00:07:50.910 career. And then he did a lot of, like I said, 00:07:50.930 --> 00:07:57.949 material science. So metals, conduction, stuff 00:07:57.949 --> 00:08:00.430 like that, thermodynamics. And then that's kind 00:08:00.430 --> 00:08:03.889 of how I got here and then got interested in 00:08:03.889 --> 00:08:09.230 the science of exercise. So then went to school 00:08:09.230 --> 00:08:13.170 at Virginia Commonwealth University for my bachelor's 00:08:13.170 --> 00:08:15.939 in exercise science. Really enjoyed it there. 00:08:16.100 --> 00:08:20.360 Great area to grow up in as well. During that 00:08:20.360 --> 00:08:23.540 time, we either had a choice graduating from 00:08:23.540 --> 00:08:27.300 VCU to be an exercise physiologist and get certified 00:08:27.300 --> 00:08:32.500 via the ACSM, or you could go the NSCA route 00:08:32.500 --> 00:08:35.220 and sit for your CSCS. You didn't have to pass 00:08:35.220 --> 00:08:37.700 it, but you at least had to sit for it. I ended 00:08:37.700 --> 00:08:42.649 up passing my first time, the CSCS. You know, 00:08:42.669 --> 00:08:45.049 the exercise physiologists, I love them to death. 00:08:45.190 --> 00:08:47.590 It didn't interest me at the time. And I actually 00:08:47.590 --> 00:08:51.389 work with one daily here now. So, you know, ischemic 00:08:51.389 --> 00:08:54.250 threshold, cardiac rehab, that wasn't really 00:08:54.250 --> 00:08:57.610 my vibe at that point. So I ended going strength 00:08:57.610 --> 00:09:00.129 and conditioning when my dad was in physical 00:09:00.129 --> 00:09:02.769 therapy at one point. And then I was interested 00:09:02.769 --> 00:09:05.789 in PT. And he had me come in and talk to the 00:09:05.789 --> 00:09:08.110 physical therapist. And then that's when I started 00:09:08.110 --> 00:09:10.450 the exercise science route. And then kind of 00:09:10.450 --> 00:09:13.149 just dropped the physical therapy track and then 00:09:13.149 --> 00:09:15.610 just went full -time exercise science. Picked 00:09:15.610 --> 00:09:19.830 up a couple, you know, stats, statistics, minors, 00:09:19.850 --> 00:09:23.450 a little math minor, big math guy. So graduated 00:09:23.450 --> 00:09:27.429 there 2015. And then I started working at Fort 00:09:27.429 --> 00:09:30.649 Eustis as a fitness specialist. So I would kind 00:09:30.649 --> 00:09:33.830 of coach classes there. I would reach out to 00:09:33.830 --> 00:09:36.490 different units, you know, hey, how can I help 00:09:36.490 --> 00:09:39.279 you guys? They would send me their fitness improvement 00:09:39.279 --> 00:09:43.919 program soldiers. So I would increase conditioning, 00:09:44.159 --> 00:09:46.519 make sure they're passing their PT test. This 00:09:46.519 --> 00:09:48.860 was before the Army combat fitness test, mind 00:09:48.860 --> 00:09:52.720 you. This was years before that. And then moved 00:09:52.720 --> 00:09:56.340 up to the fitness director there. So I kind of 00:09:56.340 --> 00:09:58.500 took a little bit of a backwards route that most 00:09:58.500 --> 00:10:02.710 coaches would normally take. I went. admin and 00:10:02.710 --> 00:10:05.669 supervisory at first, which was very eye -opening. 00:10:05.809 --> 00:10:08.730 We can get into that later. I had some real uncomfortable 00:10:08.730 --> 00:10:12.549 situations being a 26 -year -old supervisor managing. 00:10:12.990 --> 00:10:15.309 One of them was a retired chief in the Navy, 00:10:15.529 --> 00:10:19.429 real salty dog. Good dude, but it was different. 00:10:19.570 --> 00:10:23.970 He was 40 -plus. I was 26. I had my CSCS. He 00:10:23.970 --> 00:10:25.570 was kind of sitting for it, and I failed it a 00:10:25.570 --> 00:10:28.250 couple times, which that was a you problem, not 00:10:28.250 --> 00:10:31.100 a me problem. I didn't handle that very well, 00:10:31.139 --> 00:10:33.899 but so fitness director. So you, you supervise 00:10:33.899 --> 00:10:36.240 the front desk staff, you make sure you have 00:10:36.240 --> 00:10:39.679 enough classes. I changed this active duty. You 00:10:39.679 --> 00:10:42.620 could do the classes on base for free. And then 00:10:42.620 --> 00:10:47.919 I ended up going over to Romania for about 18 00:10:47.919 --> 00:10:51.519 months. So fitness specialist at Eustis was with 00:10:51.519 --> 00:10:57.100 the U S army. Then about 2018, I went to Romania 00:10:57.100 --> 00:11:00.559 on their Navy base there. So that's an Aegis 00:11:00.559 --> 00:11:04.200 Ashore Missile Defense System base, a little 00:11:04.200 --> 00:11:08.779 bit higher ranking sailors. So a lot of E -5, 00:11:08.940 --> 00:11:11.980 E -6, E -7s. We had a couple of senior chiefs 00:11:11.980 --> 00:11:17.919 there, very heavy security forces base. Did that 00:11:17.919 --> 00:11:21.379 for about 18 months and then COVID hit. So while 00:11:21.379 --> 00:11:24.360 I was over there, I got into graduate school 00:11:24.360 --> 00:11:28.500 at George Washington University. And their exercise 00:11:28.500 --> 00:11:31.000 science concentration and strength and conditioning 00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:33.620 program. I still work with some of those professors 00:11:33.620 --> 00:11:40.679 to this day. Graduated there 2023. And then during 00:11:40.679 --> 00:11:43.559 COVID, I ended up getting a job up at Wallops 00:11:43.559 --> 00:11:46.700 Island, kind of through my parents' NASA connections, 00:11:46.840 --> 00:11:49.500 because that's also, it's a NASA base and it's 00:11:49.500 --> 00:11:53.080 an Aegis Ashore base. So the Aegis guys, the 00:11:53.080 --> 00:11:55.320 Missileers still remembered me. They found out 00:11:55.320 --> 00:11:58.080 I was back home. Their training headquarters 00:11:58.080 --> 00:12:01.940 is in, I think it's in Damneck, Virginia. So 00:12:01.940 --> 00:12:04.480 we'd link up, get a couple beers, you know, chat, 00:12:04.600 --> 00:12:05.980 see what we're doing. Hey, what are you doing 00:12:05.980 --> 00:12:08.139 during COVID? How's everything going? Got the 00:12:08.139 --> 00:12:11.399 job in Wallops Island. Fitness director there 00:12:11.399 --> 00:12:14.559 as well. So kind of back to the admin. And then 00:12:14.559 --> 00:12:18.419 ended up getting a job with H2F for about a year 00:12:18.419 --> 00:12:21.539 and a half at Fort Campbell. with the 44th Medical 00:12:21.539 --> 00:12:25.899 Brigade. And then after that, I got the operational 00:12:25.899 --> 00:12:29.059 support team, strength coach job. And then now 00:12:29.059 --> 00:12:32.080 I'm here at Langley and kind of just rocking 00:12:32.080 --> 00:12:35.679 and rolling. That's the short version of my life. 00:12:36.220 --> 00:12:37.980 Brilliant. Now we're going to dive in a little 00:12:37.980 --> 00:12:43.779 deeper. First question. I had one of the veterinary 00:12:43.779 --> 00:12:46.100 surgeons, NASA's official veterinary surgeon 00:12:46.100 --> 00:12:49.769 on a long time ago. regarding a product called 00:12:49.769 --> 00:12:52.409 CoolMit. And it was to be able to cool an athlete, 00:12:52.490 --> 00:12:53.990 try and get their core body temperature down, 00:12:54.029 --> 00:12:57.889 literally putting on gloves. But it was interesting 00:12:57.889 --> 00:13:00.429 because I was kind of asking him about the innovations 00:13:00.429 --> 00:13:02.889 that you see, not only in NASA, but obviously 00:13:02.889 --> 00:13:06.230 in DARPA as well, versus what we have in the 00:13:06.230 --> 00:13:08.990 fire service. And a perfect example, you look 00:13:08.990 --> 00:13:11.309 at our actual firefighting gloves, they're like 00:13:11.309 --> 00:13:14.690 pillows. You have no dexterity at all. But then 00:13:14.690 --> 00:13:17.769 you look at what an astronaut is wearing in, 00:13:17.769 --> 00:13:20.590 again, extreme environments and in communication. 00:13:20.870 --> 00:13:23.049 Our radios don't even work in an elevator shaft, 00:13:23.289 --> 00:13:25.529 but you have astronauts talking to people on 00:13:25.529 --> 00:13:30.090 Earth. So when you think about all these conversations 00:13:30.090 --> 00:13:32.690 you have with your parents, were there any innovations 00:13:32.690 --> 00:13:35.929 that were being used within a well -funded organization 00:13:35.929 --> 00:13:39.389 like NASA that were maybe even applicable to 00:13:39.389 --> 00:13:40.970 the world that you were in in strength and conditioning 00:13:40.970 --> 00:13:44.879 but weren't being tapped into? Oh, that's a good 00:13:44.879 --> 00:13:47.179 question. That's definitely a critical thinker. 00:13:48.019 --> 00:13:52.279 A lot of it was kind of more not necessarily 00:13:52.279 --> 00:13:56.799 like materials or any kind of fun gadgets or 00:13:56.799 --> 00:14:00.220 anything, but we would always get down to, and 00:14:00.220 --> 00:14:02.100 I remember my dad sitting on the bed. I came 00:14:02.100 --> 00:14:07.360 back one day, you know, he was a GS -15. That's 00:14:07.360 --> 00:14:09.399 as high as you can get. And then he was kind 00:14:09.399 --> 00:14:11.259 of going over. I was working an extra summer 00:14:11.259 --> 00:14:13.860 job at that time. And this is just the thing 00:14:13.860 --> 00:14:17.340 that sticks with me where I brought home. I had 00:14:17.340 --> 00:14:20.039 maybe 10 hours of overtime that week. It was 00:14:20.039 --> 00:14:24.460 a really good paycheck for a college kid. He 00:14:24.460 --> 00:14:26.600 was like, Hey, you know, son, how's work, et 00:14:26.600 --> 00:14:28.799 cetera, et cetera. And then we kind of get into, 00:14:28.960 --> 00:14:32.679 okay. Like that wasn't my first brush with taxes 00:14:32.679 --> 00:14:35.539 or anything like that, but a large chunk of overtime, 00:14:35.659 --> 00:14:37.240 they kind of, they kind of tax it a little bit 00:14:37.240 --> 00:14:39.059 differently, but again, it was still a good paycheck. 00:14:39.139 --> 00:14:41.370 And he was like, Hey, you know, Just want you 00:14:41.370 --> 00:14:43.070 to know the government pays me for what I know, 00:14:43.129 --> 00:14:46.409 not what I can do. And that stuck with me, which 00:14:46.409 --> 00:14:50.529 I take through all facets of my life. There was 00:14:50.529 --> 00:14:53.750 always the dinner table conversations and there's 00:14:53.750 --> 00:14:56.549 so many acronyms that they were using. I honestly 00:14:56.549 --> 00:14:58.250 couldn't follow it half the time. I would just 00:14:58.250 --> 00:15:00.409 eat and go play video games, go play with my 00:15:00.409 --> 00:15:03.509 friends. But my mom did a lot of cool science 00:15:03.509 --> 00:15:09.169 where like infrared stuff. My dad was a little 00:15:09.169 --> 00:15:12.370 bit. a little bit higher level i think his stuff 00:15:12.370 --> 00:15:14.230 was a tad bit different with the thermodynamics 00:15:14.230 --> 00:15:17.409 being like okay we have this space shuttle here 00:15:17.409 --> 00:15:20.169 on earth but then when we go up to space there's 00:15:20.169 --> 00:15:23.929 zero temperature um absolute zero so he was a 00:15:23.929 --> 00:15:26.090 little bit off with my stuff but my mom did have 00:15:26.090 --> 00:15:30.450 some fun things with okay what kind of why is 00:15:30.450 --> 00:15:35.049 this mass spec picking up this random chemical 00:15:35.049 --> 00:15:37.389 and then turn comes to find out they didn't clean 00:15:38.039 --> 00:15:40.200 the machine enough so it was those conversations 00:15:40.200 --> 00:15:42.080 that they would kind of talk with and my dad 00:15:42.080 --> 00:15:45.139 was completely removed from that but he was a 00:15:45.139 --> 00:15:47.360 high level thinker as well so he was just like 00:15:47.360 --> 00:15:50.379 hey have you tried this um just a completely 00:15:50.379 --> 00:15:54.820 separate idea or way to look at how to solve 00:15:54.820 --> 00:15:57.659 my mom's problem which you know my mom would 00:15:57.659 --> 00:15:59.659 have engineers yelling at her all day fix this 00:15:59.659 --> 00:16:03.720 sensor do this do that um And then she goes in 00:16:03.720 --> 00:16:05.720 the next day and she'd come home. She'd be like, 00:16:05.799 --> 00:16:07.960 hey, Keith, that worked. Thank you very much. 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:11.179 Love you. What are we doing this weekend? Stuff 00:16:11.179 --> 00:16:14.220 like that. So I just kind of took more their 00:16:14.220 --> 00:16:17.820 problem -solving acumen, how they work together 00:16:17.820 --> 00:16:20.240 as a team. And I think my wife and I are very 00:16:20.240 --> 00:16:23.200 similar to that as well. She works in mortgage. 00:16:23.399 --> 00:16:26.299 I work in human performance. But still, she'll 00:16:26.299 --> 00:16:29.179 sometimes look at me and be like, have you tried 00:16:29.179 --> 00:16:33.179 this? um just an outside kind of eye or ears 00:16:33.179 --> 00:16:35.799 and then given an outside of the box answer or 00:16:35.799 --> 00:16:39.799 possible solution so yeah the biggest thing i 00:16:39.799 --> 00:16:42.179 probably took from my father was government doesn't 00:16:42.179 --> 00:16:44.360 pay me for what i know or what i can do they 00:16:44.360 --> 00:16:46.220 pay me for what i know and i think that's very 00:16:46.220 --> 00:16:48.360 applicable in human performance especially in 00:16:48.360 --> 00:16:51.720 strength and conditioning absolutely it's interesting 00:16:51.720 --> 00:16:55.379 because in this profession you know what we know 00:16:55.379 --> 00:16:57.899 we really are the swiss army knife of the first 00:16:57.899 --> 00:16:59.720 responders i mean you have law enforcement who 00:16:59.720 --> 00:17:02.600 are invaluable and their skill set is somewhat 00:17:02.600 --> 00:17:05.279 diverse but everything else is us you know if 00:17:05.279 --> 00:17:07.839 it's not about arresting someone or you know 00:17:07.839 --> 00:17:10.740 on the roads then you're calling us like you 00:17:10.740 --> 00:17:13.319 know snake removal plane flew into a tree whatever 00:17:13.319 --> 00:17:17.319 it is um but and we'll get into this you know 00:17:17.319 --> 00:17:20.359 unlike a lot of the professions where Because 00:17:20.359 --> 00:17:23.079 of that high level of expertise, usually the 00:17:23.079 --> 00:17:25.960 rest and recovery is extremely important. In 00:17:25.960 --> 00:17:27.839 the tactical athlete world, when it comes to 00:17:27.839 --> 00:17:29.779 fire, it's the opposite. And they're literally 00:17:29.779 --> 00:17:33.059 some of the most overworked professions there 00:17:33.059 --> 00:17:37.039 are. So there's such a disconnect between actual 00:17:37.039 --> 00:17:39.819 physical and mental performance of someone who's 00:17:39.819 --> 00:17:42.319 literally been called to save someone's life. 00:17:42.579 --> 00:17:44.900 And as you said, the force multiplier of other 00:17:44.900 --> 00:17:47.859 professions, excuse me, whereas you rise through. 00:17:48.480 --> 00:17:51.539 You know, you become more of a journeyman. It 00:17:51.539 --> 00:17:53.660 is about what you know, and it's not working 00:17:53.660 --> 00:17:56.140 you into a ground into the ground like a laborer 00:17:56.140 --> 00:18:00.579 would be. Yeah, I agree. All right. Well, another 00:18:00.579 --> 00:18:03.980 NASA question before we progress forward. What 00:18:03.980 --> 00:18:06.720 is your parents stance on whether we went to 00:18:06.720 --> 00:18:08.400 the moon or not? Because that must be a pretty 00:18:08.400 --> 00:18:11.019 interesting conversation in your household. I 00:18:11.019 --> 00:18:17.000 have asked this. Yes. So I am assuming again. 00:18:18.029 --> 00:18:20.750 I'm assuming the answer is yes, because I have, 00:18:20.970 --> 00:18:26.289 my dad has, there's six or eight, 10 bolts that 00:18:26.289 --> 00:18:29.930 hold the big booster to the rocket ship. And 00:18:29.930 --> 00:18:33.890 my dad was responsible for kind of that engineering 00:18:33.890 --> 00:18:36.589 or a certain part of that. So we have one of 00:18:36.589 --> 00:18:39.829 those bolts that when the rocket kind of disengages, 00:18:39.869 --> 00:18:42.650 they collect those bolts and give them to president 00:18:42.650 --> 00:18:45.269 of NASA, you know, some engineers, stuff like 00:18:45.269 --> 00:18:48.630 that. So I have one of those. bolts my mom has 00:18:48.630 --> 00:18:51.089 one half i have the other um so it doesn't really 00:18:51.089 --> 00:18:54.789 work as a book end at that point but i i think 00:18:54.789 --> 00:18:58.250 the answer is yes um they didn't really super 00:18:58.250 --> 00:19:01.589 there was some stuff that my dad would work on 00:19:01.589 --> 00:19:03.230 and he didn't he couldn't really tell me about 00:19:03.230 --> 00:19:06.670 until it kind of got declassified but yeah i 00:19:06.670 --> 00:19:11.170 i do think we went to the moon um never got to 00:19:11.170 --> 00:19:14.690 see any of these you know moon rocks or or uh 00:19:15.809 --> 00:19:18.329 space dust or anything like that but i do know 00:19:18.329 --> 00:19:21.670 some of the things and again this was just some 00:19:21.670 --> 00:19:23.569 of my mom or dad's friends in another department 00:19:23.569 --> 00:19:27.509 at nasa would be working on like like an aerogel 00:19:27.509 --> 00:19:29.910 that they would kind of just put outside of the 00:19:29.910 --> 00:19:32.289 space shuttle to to pick up when they're flying 00:19:32.289 --> 00:19:35.349 by the moon or flying by mars or whatever they 00:19:35.349 --> 00:19:37.289 would pick up particles and they would bring 00:19:37.289 --> 00:19:39.549 those back and my mom would help kind of do a 00:19:39.549 --> 00:19:41.930 little bit of research on that i think um my 00:19:41.930 --> 00:19:43.569 mom did so much research i couldn't even keep 00:19:43.569 --> 00:19:47.240 track anymore I think, you know, short answer, 00:19:47.299 --> 00:19:51.859 yes. Long answer. Whereas I was always asking 00:19:51.859 --> 00:19:54.579 about the flag waving. You know, there's no wind 00:19:54.579 --> 00:19:57.059 in space. And they would kind of just smile and 00:19:57.059 --> 00:19:59.220 laugh at me. And they're like, well, you know, 00:19:59.220 --> 00:20:01.480 it kind of moves when you move the flag. And 00:20:01.480 --> 00:20:02.680 then they would just kind of end it at that. 00:20:02.779 --> 00:20:04.539 But yeah, I definitely think we went to the moon 00:20:04.539 --> 00:20:08.400 for sure. I was at the museum in London a few 00:20:08.400 --> 00:20:11.559 months ago with my son. And the only question 00:20:11.559 --> 00:20:13.259 we're talking about critical thinking that does 00:20:13.259 --> 00:20:16.650 make you go, huh. is the simple question, if 00:20:16.650 --> 00:20:18.650 we went to the moon, why haven't we been back? 00:20:18.869 --> 00:20:20.750 And I think that might be one of the most powerful 00:20:20.750 --> 00:20:23.390 things that's got people querying it. If we went, 00:20:23.430 --> 00:20:26.829 then we went. But it is something that requires 00:20:26.829 --> 00:20:29.509 a good answer. Like, okay, well, then why haven't 00:20:29.509 --> 00:20:32.390 we repeated the same feat? So that's my only 00:20:32.390 --> 00:20:34.869 kind of, not even pushback, but the question 00:20:34.869 --> 00:20:36.809 that if answered properly, I'd be like, oh, okay, 00:20:36.950 --> 00:20:40.210 that makes sense. But yeah, I'd never even questioned 00:20:40.210 --> 00:20:42.430 if we actually went to the moon. I took it as 00:20:42.430 --> 00:20:45.539 gospel. But when... When I read about all the, 00:20:45.539 --> 00:20:48.839 you know, the kind of other side of the conversation, 00:20:49.119 --> 00:20:52.119 it is one that kind of does get you thinking 00:20:52.119 --> 00:20:54.319 like, okay, well, surely we would want to go 00:20:54.319 --> 00:20:56.319 back if we went there the first time. So that's 00:20:56.319 --> 00:20:58.940 my only thing. Do I think about it all day? No, 00:20:59.019 --> 00:21:00.579 I've got more important things to think about. 00:21:00.839 --> 00:21:04.500 Yeah, same. But I think, yeah, and I've heard 00:21:04.500 --> 00:21:06.900 it's pretty expensive too. And then I think they 00:21:06.900 --> 00:21:10.180 dropped at some point. They're still NASA, obviously, 00:21:10.180 --> 00:21:15.349 but. They dropped being the only funder or like 00:21:15.349 --> 00:21:17.589 the solo launchers of the space shuttles. It 00:21:17.589 --> 00:21:22.470 was an international conglomerate there. So I 00:21:22.470 --> 00:21:24.829 think the European Space Agency does a lot now. 00:21:24.930 --> 00:21:27.569 I know Russia does a lot too. So I know our astronauts 00:21:27.569 --> 00:21:29.569 still go up. They kind of launch out of Kazakhstan 00:21:29.569 --> 00:21:32.750 a lot too. So yeah, funding might have been an 00:21:32.750 --> 00:21:34.869 issue because I've heard it was a lot of money 00:21:34.869 --> 00:21:37.190 to send something up there. I could imagine. 00:21:37.789 --> 00:21:39.990 Well, one more thing staying in this area, which 00:21:39.990 --> 00:21:42.369 actually cross -pollinates into what you do. 00:21:43.029 --> 00:21:46.369 One of the many disasters across the world that 00:21:46.369 --> 00:21:48.910 are known to be attributed to sleep deprivation 00:21:48.910 --> 00:21:54.170 is the discovery on top of nuclear reactors and 00:21:54.170 --> 00:21:57.069 warship collisions and all kinds of things. Have 00:21:57.069 --> 00:22:00.170 you had any discussion on sleep and the astronaut 00:22:00.170 --> 00:22:03.710 being in the performance world, the human performance 00:22:03.710 --> 00:22:06.380 world yourself? Yeah, actually our first semester, 00:22:06.480 --> 00:22:08.279 glad you brought this up, or my first semester 00:22:08.279 --> 00:22:11.819 in grad school, our first physiology class, like 00:22:11.819 --> 00:22:16.619 literally the first class was kind of going over 00:22:16.619 --> 00:22:18.880 the pressure gradient that we have. And then 00:22:18.880 --> 00:22:20.859 they kind of introduced the skeletal muscle pump. 00:22:21.240 --> 00:22:23.539 And then we kind of worked through there. So 00:22:23.539 --> 00:22:25.599 I came home, you know, we were learning about 00:22:25.599 --> 00:22:28.400 the back to the, you know, kind of the pilots 00:22:28.400 --> 00:22:30.900 that the anti -gravity maneuver. So they don't 00:22:30.900 --> 00:22:33.299 go into. gravitational loss of consciousness 00:22:33.299 --> 00:22:36.440 or g -lock as you normally hear it it's like 00:22:36.440 --> 00:22:40.599 okay that that makes total sense to me but one 00:22:40.599 --> 00:22:44.319 they're moving hundreds of miles an hour and 00:22:44.319 --> 00:22:47.640 there's no gravity so how is that affecting kind 00:22:47.640 --> 00:22:51.099 of their blood pressure um and two you know they're 00:22:51.099 --> 00:22:55.319 exercising up there they have to um question 00:22:55.319 --> 00:22:57.940 two question three was bone density you know 00:22:58.269 --> 00:23:00.230 there's nothing pulling you down so when you 00:23:00.230 --> 00:23:03.089 go and exercise like does that hurt mom and obviously 00:23:03.089 --> 00:23:05.650 i don't know if you knew or not but um i had 00:23:05.650 --> 00:23:07.970 these conversations with my brother too up in 00:23:07.970 --> 00:23:10.089 the uh up in our bonus room where we'd be playing 00:23:10.089 --> 00:23:14.069 video games or something so yeah it's it's it's 00:23:14.069 --> 00:23:17.029 unique and i know there's um i can't remember 00:23:17.029 --> 00:23:19.130 his name i think he's cory we're friends on linkedin 00:23:19.130 --> 00:23:22.589 he's the uh strength and conditioning coach or 00:23:22.589 --> 00:23:25.210 exercise physiologist for nasa so i might ping 00:23:25.210 --> 00:23:28.420 him on that too it's like hey So what are we 00:23:28.420 --> 00:23:32.039 doing with, or what's the end goal for exercising 00:23:32.039 --> 00:23:35.200 up in space? I know it's to kind of prevent some 00:23:35.200 --> 00:23:37.700 things, but is there any way we can have an increase 00:23:37.700 --> 00:23:41.299 in performance? Is there any way that, you know, 00:23:41.299 --> 00:23:43.539 that can be used? I know we have anti -gravity 00:23:43.539 --> 00:23:45.680 treadmills here in our physical therapy clinic. 00:23:46.279 --> 00:23:48.880 So, you know, for our ACL rehab patients and 00:23:48.880 --> 00:23:51.740 meniscus and stuff like that. That seems very 00:23:51.740 --> 00:23:53.859 applicable, like you said, to our profession. 00:23:54.019 --> 00:23:56.460 And then one, why are they so expensive? And 00:23:56.460 --> 00:23:59.940 two, how can we get that to the masses? Because 00:23:59.940 --> 00:24:02.119 it seems like it would be really helpful for 00:24:02.119 --> 00:24:06.460 a retired male, female who just want to go play 00:24:06.460 --> 00:24:08.799 pickleball on the weekends to go get their conditioning 00:24:08.799 --> 00:24:13.759 in, you know, on maybe 75%. or 50 % gravity instead 00:24:13.759 --> 00:24:16.480 of going to pound pavement and then risking chin 00:24:16.480 --> 00:24:19.440 splints and further meniscus issues and stuff 00:24:19.440 --> 00:24:21.619 like that. So why is it not available to the 00:24:21.619 --> 00:24:23.740 masses? I don't know, but I think it should be. 00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:28.440 When we go back in time to you as a youth athlete, 00:24:28.640 --> 00:24:31.019 how did you do as far as injuries as you progress 00:24:31.019 --> 00:24:35.200 through the ages? I don't think I had the only 00:24:35.200 --> 00:24:40.230 injury, the real bad ones I had. tore my hamstring 00:24:40.230 --> 00:24:42.970 twice and that was those were kind of freak accidents 00:24:42.970 --> 00:24:45.210 where i was just because i was an outside defender 00:24:45.210 --> 00:24:49.049 for soccer so i would just uh kind of lunge probably 00:24:49.049 --> 00:24:51.109 being pre -fatigued lunge and try and block the 00:24:51.109 --> 00:24:54.349 shot um so you know a little bit of an overstretch 00:24:54.349 --> 00:24:58.369 nothing super terrible real bad bruising i never 00:24:58.369 --> 00:25:01.829 actually tore it off the bone um i was always 00:25:01.829 --> 00:25:04.569 a very big i was always very big on conditioning 00:25:04.569 --> 00:25:07.660 and then Kind of like I'll like fast forward 00:25:07.660 --> 00:25:09.480 and then rewind real quick. Fast forward into 00:25:09.480 --> 00:25:11.319 my first couple of years as a strength coach. 00:25:11.799 --> 00:25:14.319 I was loving seeing the strength building. I 00:25:14.319 --> 00:25:16.599 was loving seeing the muscle being put on and 00:25:16.599 --> 00:25:18.880 I felt great. And then I would go try and run 00:25:18.880 --> 00:25:21.640 a mile and it's like, oh my gosh, what the hell 00:25:21.640 --> 00:25:24.359 is going on here? So then got back into conditioning. 00:25:24.680 --> 00:25:28.599 And the only other freak accident I had, two 00:25:28.599 --> 00:25:31.000 freak accidents. One of them was we were in practice 00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:35.089 for varsity. And then the ball just came to me 00:25:35.089 --> 00:25:37.250 and I just went to trap it like normal. I think 00:25:37.250 --> 00:25:38.869 we were just doing like a touch and hit drill, 00:25:39.009 --> 00:25:41.450 trying to shoot from around the 18 or something. 00:25:41.549 --> 00:25:44.089 And then I rolled my ankle off the ball and ended 00:25:44.089 --> 00:25:45.910 up landing on that. So I definitely tore the 00:25:45.910 --> 00:25:48.390 ligaments all to shit there, excuse my language. 00:25:48.630 --> 00:25:51.829 So that took a long time to heal. And then I 00:25:51.829 --> 00:25:56.470 had a pretty bad facial injury. I went up for 00:25:56.470 --> 00:26:00.250 a header. And I don't know if I was higher than 00:26:00.250 --> 00:26:01.970 this person or not, but I think they jumped a 00:26:01.970 --> 00:26:04.130 little bit later and they kind of caught me off 00:26:04.130 --> 00:26:06.650 balance. And as he was going up, I was coming 00:26:06.650 --> 00:26:10.269 down and my facial bone, like right here and 00:26:10.269 --> 00:26:13.170 all this was broken, hit the crown of the back 00:26:13.170 --> 00:26:16.369 of his head. So that one, I was knocked out for 00:26:16.369 --> 00:26:19.230 a little while. All I remember about that is 00:26:19.230 --> 00:26:21.630 waking up and they had the big old Gatorade jug, 00:26:21.690 --> 00:26:23.690 just pouring the water on me to get the blood 00:26:23.690 --> 00:26:26.200 off the field. And then my mom had to take me 00:26:26.200 --> 00:26:28.339 to the hospital there. And all I remember is 00:26:28.339 --> 00:26:31.579 they tied that bandage so tight that I had a 00:26:31.579 --> 00:26:33.619 headache for three days from that. You know, 00:26:33.619 --> 00:26:35.720 they stitched me up, got me home. Obviously, 00:26:35.720 --> 00:26:37.740 I was concussed, so I couldn't really sleep. 00:26:38.279 --> 00:26:40.660 I slept a little bit, but my mom was always waking 00:26:40.660 --> 00:26:43.779 me up. So, yeah, those were the only real bad 00:26:43.779 --> 00:26:46.920 injuries. Most of them I wouldn't attribute to 00:26:46.920 --> 00:26:50.059 bad training. We had good conditioning. At Tab, 00:26:50.279 --> 00:26:52.839 I played soccer all year long. My brother and 00:26:52.839 --> 00:26:54.799 I got to play together for a year, which was 00:26:54.799 --> 00:26:58.099 the best year of my life. So I definitely, and 00:26:58.099 --> 00:27:00.259 then looking back at it now as a little bit of 00:27:00.259 --> 00:27:04.400 an older coach, conditioning is king. I think 00:27:04.400 --> 00:27:10.480 it always will be. It affects recovery. It kind 00:27:10.480 --> 00:27:14.059 of affects a lot more than some of these younger 00:27:14.059 --> 00:27:16.940 strength coaches think. Strength is awesome. 00:27:17.640 --> 00:27:22.619 And I'd be, I'd challenge them to continue doing 00:27:22.619 --> 00:27:24.500 their strength building or their hypertrophy 00:27:24.500 --> 00:27:27.180 building and add in some conditioning and then 00:27:27.180 --> 00:27:29.579 see where those numbers go. You know, are we 00:27:29.579 --> 00:27:31.960 going to lose strength? We may, you know, five, 00:27:32.259 --> 00:27:35.359 10%. Are we going to lose muscle? If you lose 00:27:35.359 --> 00:27:38.240 mass, I would argue you do lose muscle regardless, 00:27:38.500 --> 00:27:42.519 but your strength doesn't go as far down as you 00:27:42.519 --> 00:27:47.059 might think. I was always a big conditioner. 00:27:47.160 --> 00:27:49.079 I played all year long. The only issue was my 00:27:49.079 --> 00:27:51.640 feet. My feet would always hurt from the cleats. 00:27:51.700 --> 00:27:57.079 No major injuries, thank goodness. How strongly 00:27:57.079 --> 00:28:00.180 would you attribute being a multi -sport athlete 00:28:00.180 --> 00:28:04.640 to the physical resilience that you had in injury 00:28:04.640 --> 00:28:09.339 prevention overall? I think it was a big player 00:28:09.339 --> 00:28:13.029 in that realm. And then obviously you're playing 00:28:13.029 --> 00:28:16.589 backyard football. You're able to kind of like, 00:28:16.630 --> 00:28:18.549 we would play tackle football. So you're able 00:28:18.549 --> 00:28:22.789 to kind of still get that physicality. You land 00:28:22.789 --> 00:28:26.269 weird. You kind of learn the difference between 00:28:26.269 --> 00:28:30.089 like a tweak and a real injury. And that was 00:28:30.089 --> 00:28:33.789 pretty powerful. I was never afraid to reach 00:28:33.789 --> 00:28:35.930 out to the athletic trainer that we had at school. 00:28:36.049 --> 00:28:39.730 I know he was busy, but. hey, man, am I good 00:28:39.730 --> 00:28:42.930 with this? Can you check out my knee or my ankle? 00:28:43.329 --> 00:28:45.089 And he would give me the go ahead and I would 00:28:45.089 --> 00:28:47.190 just send it or he'd take me up and send me on 00:28:47.190 --> 00:28:50.970 my way. So I think just being active all year 00:28:50.970 --> 00:28:55.369 long was incredibly important. Winter here in 00:28:55.369 --> 00:28:58.589 Hampton, summers are incredibly hot. We're right 00:28:58.589 --> 00:29:00.809 next to the water. So the humidity is 90 plus 00:29:00.809 --> 00:29:04.910 no matter what. And that's awful. So the refueling, 00:29:04.910 --> 00:29:07.839 the electrolytes becomes a big part of. Every 00:29:07.839 --> 00:29:10.279 coach, even during our tournaments, we would 00:29:10.279 --> 00:29:12.480 get probably every 20 minutes. The 45 -minute 00:29:12.480 --> 00:29:14.299 halves still because we played academy level. 00:29:15.079 --> 00:29:17.180 Every 20 minutes, we'd get a little water break 00:29:17.180 --> 00:29:20.059 too. The ref would call it. And then a lot of 00:29:20.059 --> 00:29:22.420 our parents, you know, obviously oranges at halftime. 00:29:23.559 --> 00:29:27.140 And then the cross country too was a little bit 00:29:27.140 --> 00:29:29.880 different because you're at a high – you're at 00:29:29.880 --> 00:29:32.779 your threshold, I would say. You know, a 5K in 00:29:32.779 --> 00:29:35.359 21 minutes, obviously I was 15, 16 years old. 00:29:35.420 --> 00:29:39.180 I cannot do that now. but you're really kind 00:29:39.180 --> 00:29:41.019 of pushing it. And then you're getting used to 00:29:41.019 --> 00:29:42.920 that high heart rate zone. So when you're going 00:29:42.920 --> 00:29:45.940 on a ruck with the guys or you're out carrying, 00:29:46.180 --> 00:29:48.079 like yesterday I had to help carry some stuff 00:29:48.079 --> 00:29:50.299 out to one of the guys in the middle of the woods. 00:29:50.440 --> 00:29:53.460 You know, there's no trails. So we're moving 00:29:53.460 --> 00:29:56.559 around. We're carrying a case, probably 50, 60 00:29:56.559 --> 00:29:59.720 pounds to them. I had one, my POC had another. 00:30:00.059 --> 00:30:03.220 And then from the conditioning that I do and 00:30:03.220 --> 00:30:05.839 the mobility that I do now. I had no issues. 00:30:05.960 --> 00:30:08.059 It was just making sure the ticks didn't get 00:30:08.059 --> 00:30:10.119 a hold of me and then getting out of the way 00:30:10.119 --> 00:30:12.779 to observe what these guys were doing. So I think 00:30:12.779 --> 00:30:15.059 multi -sport is incredibly important. It's kind 00:30:15.059 --> 00:30:18.920 of going to the wayside now because parents are 00:30:18.920 --> 00:30:22.380 really wanting their kids to focus on baseball 00:30:22.380 --> 00:30:25.339 or football. But what if that doesn't work out? 00:30:25.440 --> 00:30:28.660 And then at what cost? What's the opportunity 00:30:28.660 --> 00:30:32.420 cost of pushing those other sports off when... 00:30:32.829 --> 00:30:35.190 Maybe they meet another friend. Maybe they meet 00:30:35.190 --> 00:30:38.730 their best friend for life. Maybe they really 00:30:38.730 --> 00:30:41.869 like that coach who turns out to change sports 00:30:41.869 --> 00:30:46.670 and is now asking for help. During COVID, I actually 00:30:46.670 --> 00:30:48.490 went to work for one of my old soccer coaches 00:30:48.490 --> 00:30:53.289 at a Greek deli here, so you never know. I think 00:30:53.289 --> 00:30:55.089 it's incredibly important, and I wish parents 00:30:55.089 --> 00:30:59.829 would emphasize that a little bit more. I'm so 00:30:59.829 --> 00:31:02.460 glad that you said that preemptively. I asked 00:31:02.460 --> 00:31:04.700 this to especially the people that were high 00:31:04.700 --> 00:31:07.000 -level athletes that are on the show, and then 00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:09.359 especially if they were that and or coaches as 00:31:09.359 --> 00:31:12.900 well. When I first came to the States, I told 00:31:12.900 --> 00:31:14.680 this story many times. So for people who listen 00:31:14.680 --> 00:31:18.799 to the show a lot, I apologize. But it was not 00:31:18.799 --> 00:31:21.220 long after being here that I kept hearing the 00:31:21.220 --> 00:31:24.430 same kind of what I call Uncle Rico story. I 00:31:24.430 --> 00:31:25.849 could have, would have, should have been in the 00:31:25.849 --> 00:31:28.210 NFL, the NBA, whatever it was, if it wasn't for 00:31:28.210 --> 00:31:31.789 my torn, you know, ACL, meniscus, you know, labrum, 00:31:31.849 --> 00:31:35.490 whatever the thing is. And I was seeing a lot 00:31:35.490 --> 00:31:37.589 of people kind of around my age then. So we're 00:31:37.589 --> 00:31:39.910 talking either side, like 30, that were very, 00:31:39.950 --> 00:31:42.250 very deconditioned now. Maybe they were talking, 00:31:42.349 --> 00:31:44.690 you know, reminiscing about their time as an 00:31:44.690 --> 00:31:47.829 athlete in high school and college. And the longer 00:31:47.829 --> 00:31:50.150 I was here, and obviously not only coaching myself, 00:31:50.309 --> 00:31:52.950 but then doing this podcast and listening to 00:31:52.950 --> 00:31:56.009 stories over and over again, and being a parent 00:31:56.009 --> 00:32:00.509 too, I started to see that in some instances, 00:32:00.529 --> 00:32:03.670 performance was put front and center and sometimes 00:32:03.670 --> 00:32:06.569 at the expense of the youth athlete, at the expense 00:32:06.569 --> 00:32:09.910 of their longevity. And where if you look at 00:32:09.910 --> 00:32:12.490 the UK and a lot of Europe, We don't play at 00:32:12.490 --> 00:32:14.869 such a high level. We don't have strength and 00:32:14.869 --> 00:32:17.049 conditioning within high schools, for example. 00:32:17.250 --> 00:32:19.329 And you have your elite footballers that are 00:32:19.329 --> 00:32:21.769 going to go to the Premier League on those. But 00:32:21.769 --> 00:32:24.210 the rest of us just play sport. But then what 00:32:24.210 --> 00:32:27.069 you see is that continues out of school. And 00:32:27.069 --> 00:32:30.069 then people in their 30s, 40s, 50s are still 00:32:30.069 --> 00:32:32.869 playing rugby and football and cricket and all 00:32:32.869 --> 00:32:35.829 these different things. So when you reflect back 00:32:35.829 --> 00:32:38.049 now with this kind of more mature lens that you 00:32:38.049 --> 00:32:42.119 have. Talk to me about your kind of observation 00:32:42.119 --> 00:32:46.700 of the line between performance and the responsibility 00:32:46.700 --> 00:32:49.559 of well -being and longevity of the youth athlete. 00:32:50.359 --> 00:32:55.539 I think that's a great question. So if you are 00:32:55.539 --> 00:33:00.099 taking sports seriously as a youth, and what 00:33:00.099 --> 00:33:03.720 I mean by seriously is whatever level you want 00:33:03.720 --> 00:33:06.740 to play at, have some competitiveness, have some 00:33:06.740 --> 00:33:14.400 discipline. I think kind of looking back, there's 00:33:14.400 --> 00:33:19.660 those hidden gems. Again, like I just said, the 00:33:19.660 --> 00:33:24.099 competitiveness, there's the different. You may 00:33:24.099 --> 00:33:26.859 not be able to play rugby as a 30 -year -old, 00:33:26.900 --> 00:33:28.720 but you can play it as a 20 -year -old, but you 00:33:28.720 --> 00:33:32.500 also played baseball. You also played soccer. 00:33:32.880 --> 00:33:37.940 So that gives you an avenue to continue. that 00:33:37.940 --> 00:33:42.059 ACSM 150 minutes a week guideline to at least 00:33:42.059 --> 00:33:44.880 lower your risk of heart disease, which again, 00:33:44.920 --> 00:33:51.079 it's getting everybody. Tennis, pickleball, racquetball, 00:33:51.259 --> 00:33:55.640 I think opening up the doors to allowing kids 00:33:55.640 --> 00:33:59.819 to be kids again. Hey, mom, can you drop me off 00:33:59.819 --> 00:34:03.480 at our gym here on base with the racquetball 00:34:03.480 --> 00:34:05.180 courts called Shell Bank? Like, hey, when you're 00:34:05.180 --> 00:34:08.230 working out. My best friend's Matt. Hey, can 00:34:08.230 --> 00:34:10.690 we pick up Matt and can we play some racquetball 00:34:10.690 --> 00:34:13.789 while you're doing your conditioning or whatever? 00:34:14.110 --> 00:34:16.929 Yeah, sure. And then Matt and I, when we were 00:34:16.929 --> 00:34:18.929 in college, when he'd come back in town, he went 00:34:18.929 --> 00:34:21.469 to University of Tennessee. I went to Virginia 00:34:21.469 --> 00:34:24.269 Commonwealth University. So Knoxville, Richmond, 00:34:24.329 --> 00:34:26.690 Virginia, quite a distance. But when we'd come 00:34:26.690 --> 00:34:29.329 back, we'd always hit the gym. He had access 00:34:29.329 --> 00:34:31.230 to base and I could get on. His dad was a retired 00:34:31.230 --> 00:34:35.880 colonel. And we'd go play some racquetball. Just 00:34:35.880 --> 00:34:39.820 like we were 15 years old again. Hey, man, how's 00:34:39.820 --> 00:34:41.579 Danny doing? How's Ellen doing? Those are his 00:34:41.579 --> 00:34:44.579 parents. How's Patty? How's Keith doing? We'd 00:34:44.579 --> 00:34:46.659 chat. We'd go get something to eat. And then, 00:34:46.699 --> 00:34:48.139 you know, hey, you want to play tennis tomorrow? 00:34:48.559 --> 00:34:52.800 So that kept us active. And then if you go to 00:34:52.800 --> 00:34:54.960 college and if not, now there's these sports 00:34:54.960 --> 00:34:59.380 leagues. The one here in Hampton Roads is Club 00:34:59.380 --> 00:35:01.719 Waka that I play. I used to play seven -a -side 00:35:01.719 --> 00:35:04.139 soccer there. Got a little bit too busy with 00:35:04.139 --> 00:35:06.719 life, so I had to take this year off. But that 00:35:06.719 --> 00:35:09.500 was incredibly fun. And then you have the young 00:35:09.500 --> 00:35:11.639 teams where you're just like, I'm not going to 00:35:11.639 --> 00:35:13.780 chase you down, man. Go ahead. I'm still going 00:35:13.780 --> 00:35:17.260 to defend you, but it is what it is. If you're 00:35:17.260 --> 00:35:19.340 just going to get past me in a half a move, then 00:35:19.340 --> 00:35:23.380 go ahead. I still like being – and that's another 00:35:23.380 --> 00:35:27.980 avenue too is like, are you a good loser? Because 00:35:27.980 --> 00:35:30.280 you're not going to win every game. You're not 00:35:30.280 --> 00:35:34.070 going to be good at every sport. I had a SECFO 00:35:34.070 --> 00:35:38.050 guy the other day. So I'm 33 for transparency, 00:35:38.250 --> 00:35:42.309 and this kid was maybe 25. We played racquetball, 00:35:42.449 --> 00:35:45.429 and he was kind of jazzing me up. You know, hey, 00:35:45.489 --> 00:35:48.489 man, I'm not very good. I've never played this 00:35:48.489 --> 00:35:50.610 before. And this dude had a professional serve. 00:35:51.110 --> 00:35:54.889 He was so good at racquetball, he beat my ass. 00:35:56.050 --> 00:35:59.869 But it was fun still. You know, that was actually 00:35:59.869 --> 00:36:03.559 the lead. buy -in for me getting in with the 00:36:03.559 --> 00:36:05.559 security forces guys because that age difference 00:36:05.559 --> 00:36:08.980 was was a little bit of a limiting factor where 00:36:08.980 --> 00:36:13.099 what do we talk about i i'm over here thinking 00:36:13.099 --> 00:36:16.920 about mortgages and investing and and etfs and 00:36:16.920 --> 00:36:19.820 index funds and iras and these guys are you know 00:36:19.820 --> 00:36:22.780 what when does madden come out when does gta6 00:36:22.780 --> 00:36:25.880 come out hey coach what do you drive i drive 00:36:25.880 --> 00:36:29.309 a 2013 honda accord But nothing sexy. He's paid 00:36:29.309 --> 00:36:31.710 off. It still works wonderfully, you know, knock 00:36:31.710 --> 00:36:36.369 on wood. But having that connection through sport 00:36:36.369 --> 00:36:39.409 and then him kind of vouching for me as well, 00:36:39.409 --> 00:36:42.949 he could tell I was athletic. We had a good time, 00:36:42.949 --> 00:36:45.510 you know, talk some trash to each other. You 00:36:45.510 --> 00:36:47.489 know, hey, man, great guy. Great game. My wife 00:36:47.489 --> 00:36:49.409 was watching, too. So that was embarrassing. 00:36:49.909 --> 00:36:54.309 But the next day. I'm at their guard mount at 00:36:54.309 --> 00:36:56.690 5 in the morning, and then I had a line of people 00:36:56.690 --> 00:37:00.369 asking, hey, coach, can you teach me how to build 00:37:00.369 --> 00:37:02.409 a conditioning program? Or, hey, coach, can you 00:37:02.409 --> 00:37:05.449 teach me how to do some Olympic lift variations 00:37:05.449 --> 00:37:08.030 or derivatives? And that was a game changer. 00:37:08.170 --> 00:37:15.710 So I think being open to trying any sport, as 00:37:15.710 --> 00:37:17.769 long as you know your limitations, is incredibly 00:37:17.769 --> 00:37:22.730 powerful, especially as you age. I was having 00:37:22.730 --> 00:37:25.429 the conversation with my son because he, especially 00:37:25.429 --> 00:37:28.570 in the track program, he got very, very competitive. 00:37:28.690 --> 00:37:30.329 It was good. I mean, he got a sub five minute 00:37:30.329 --> 00:37:33.050 mile. So he was getting up there and that was 00:37:33.050 --> 00:37:38.369 only at, what was he then? 15, 16. But then he 00:37:38.369 --> 00:37:41.170 got overuse injuries. And again, I think it was 00:37:41.170 --> 00:37:43.349 for him, the bad timing. He had a big old growth 00:37:43.349 --> 00:37:45.070 spurt right when he was doing this high intensity 00:37:45.070 --> 00:37:47.789 training. I don't think those two went well together 00:37:47.789 --> 00:37:52.269 at that moment. he was kind of so into this, 00:37:52.269 --> 00:37:53.750 you got to win. And, you know, and you listen 00:37:53.750 --> 00:37:55.630 to the kind of, you know, some of the rhetoric 00:37:55.630 --> 00:37:57.230 out there, if, you know, if you're not first, 00:37:57.250 --> 00:37:59.849 you're last and all this bollocks. And I told 00:37:59.849 --> 00:38:01.949 him I've, apart from martial arts, which I did 00:38:01.949 --> 00:38:04.610 win some trophies back in the day, you know, 00:38:04.610 --> 00:38:08.269 I'm not the best at any sport, but I can snowboard, 00:38:08.309 --> 00:38:10.849 I can wakeboard, I can play tennis and squash 00:38:10.849 --> 00:38:14.190 and racquetball and swim and do all these things, 00:38:14.210 --> 00:38:16.989 but none of them are at a super high level. But 00:38:16.989 --> 00:38:19.409 I would argue any day of the week that has far 00:38:19.409 --> 00:38:21.650 more fun, especially as you, you know, you've 00:38:21.650 --> 00:38:24.469 left college now at this age, so much more fun. 00:38:24.489 --> 00:38:25.809 Someone says, hey, do you want to go scuba diving? 00:38:25.949 --> 00:38:27.789 Yes, because I can. You know, you want to come, 00:38:27.889 --> 00:38:31.519 you know. surf i'm terrible at surfing but i've 00:38:31.519 --> 00:38:33.639 done it at least you know what i mean so all 00:38:33.639 --> 00:38:35.360 of these things where you just simply say yeah 00:38:35.360 --> 00:38:37.579 right in a racket ball pickleball i mean i think 00:38:37.579 --> 00:38:40.400 the reason why pickleball is so successful is 00:38:40.400 --> 00:38:42.219 because you can keep the rally going way more 00:38:42.219 --> 00:38:44.719 than tennis you know i mean those balls if someone's 00:38:44.719 --> 00:38:46.239 got a good serve you're just basically standing 00:38:46.239 --> 00:38:49.239 there while they destroy you um but again going 00:38:49.239 --> 00:38:51.039 back to i'm kind of rambling now but going back 00:38:51.039 --> 00:38:54.519 to the point is just refinding the love of play 00:38:55.039 --> 00:38:57.360 and debunking this thing that you've got to be 00:38:57.360 --> 00:38:59.300 the world champion of everything because only 00:38:59.300 --> 00:39:02.199 one person is. And, you know, the perfect example, 00:39:02.260 --> 00:39:06.179 the anti -argument to this whole participation 00:39:06.179 --> 00:39:08.880 trophy bollocks. And I've never, ever seen a 00:39:08.880 --> 00:39:12.780 team given praise and medals for putting zero 00:39:12.780 --> 00:39:15.119 effort in. But I've watched lots of kids that 00:39:15.119 --> 00:39:17.699 showed up for triathlons and football games, 00:39:17.900 --> 00:39:21.179 rain and shine, that got a trophy just for being 00:39:21.179 --> 00:39:24.039 part of this tournament, for putting the effort 00:39:24.039 --> 00:39:27.320 in. And if you go to a Spartan race, or you run 00:39:27.320 --> 00:39:29.980 a marathon, or you do a Tough Mudder, what do 00:39:29.980 --> 00:39:32.780 you get at the end? A trophy. You get a little 00:39:32.780 --> 00:39:36.119 medal saying, I ran 13 miles through mud and 00:39:36.119 --> 00:39:39.420 helped people through obstacles. So debunking 00:39:39.420 --> 00:39:42.639 this kind of facade of... You've got to win everything 00:39:42.639 --> 00:39:44.719 you do and just getting people to be encouraged 00:39:44.719 --> 00:39:47.820 and enthused about simply playing something. 00:39:47.980 --> 00:39:50.639 And as you said, with the ego side, being bad 00:39:50.639 --> 00:39:53.059 at something is really good for the soul as well. 00:39:53.139 --> 00:39:55.139 To be humble enough to say, I'm going to try 00:39:55.139 --> 00:39:58.179 this and I'm going to be awful at first. There's 00:39:58.179 --> 00:40:00.840 so much growth in that versus I'm just going 00:40:00.840 --> 00:40:03.019 to do baseball till my shoulders explode and 00:40:03.019 --> 00:40:05.820 then I'm going to put on 100 pounds and complain 00:40:05.820 --> 00:40:08.380 about how I could have been world champion if 00:40:08.380 --> 00:40:12.360 the rest of my life. Yeah. And then the kids, 00:40:12.579 --> 00:40:15.400 the amount of kids getting Tommy John these days 00:40:15.400 --> 00:40:20.260 is just mind -boggling to me. And I don't know 00:40:20.260 --> 00:40:24.719 if that would be avoided. I don't want to sit 00:40:24.719 --> 00:40:30.579 here and take a hard stance on that, that it 00:40:30.579 --> 00:40:33.039 could totally be avoided by playing other sports. 00:40:33.260 --> 00:40:37.320 But your son overused stuff. I think we've all 00:40:37.320 --> 00:40:40.440 kind of pushed it a little bit. Where like, kind 00:40:40.440 --> 00:40:43.039 of let me see what I can do. You know, I want 00:40:43.039 --> 00:40:45.699 to, I want to see what my body can handle. I 00:40:45.699 --> 00:40:48.139 don't know if that's the answer, but I'm not 00:40:48.139 --> 00:40:50.099 enjoying seeing all these Tommy Johns from these 00:40:50.099 --> 00:40:53.059 13, 15, 16 year old kids. It's kind of heartbreaking. 00:40:54.940 --> 00:40:57.579 Absolutely. All right. Well then moving forward 00:40:57.579 --> 00:41:00.380 now again on the timeline, talk to me about. 00:41:01.130 --> 00:41:03.329 You kind of touched on it a little bit. I went 00:41:03.329 --> 00:41:05.570 through, I did sports science in University of 00:41:05.570 --> 00:41:07.650 North London, and then I finished at University 00:41:07.650 --> 00:41:09.730 of Florida years and years later. I did exercise 00:41:09.730 --> 00:41:14.469 physiology. And the first semester of UF actually 00:41:14.469 --> 00:41:16.349 was amazing because just like you said, it was 00:41:16.349 --> 00:41:19.289 a semester of preparing you for the CSCS. And 00:41:19.289 --> 00:41:21.409 so I have never actually sat for the test because 00:41:21.409 --> 00:41:25.130 I was broke. But, you know, great, great training. 00:41:25.190 --> 00:41:28.309 It really did prepare you well. But when I reflect 00:41:28.309 --> 00:41:32.809 on my specific education at that point, I felt 00:41:32.809 --> 00:41:36.510 like it prepared you more to carry on in higher 00:41:36.510 --> 00:41:38.829 education and ultimately teach those classes 00:41:38.829 --> 00:41:41.070 than it did to really give you the skills to 00:41:41.070 --> 00:41:43.849 be a coach. And the CSCS excluded from that. 00:41:43.889 --> 00:41:46.250 CSCS was a great, great semester, but that was 00:41:46.250 --> 00:41:49.210 one out of the whole two years. When you reflect 00:41:49.210 --> 00:41:52.349 back now in the sports science kind of kinesiology 00:41:52.349 --> 00:41:56.449 world, what is your perspective of? someone going 00:41:56.449 --> 00:41:59.130 in wanting to be a coach and and the tools that 00:41:59.130 --> 00:42:01.250 they are given in higher education specifically 00:42:01.250 --> 00:42:05.889 i think the tools right now are a little bit 00:42:05.889 --> 00:42:12.050 based in and and this might be george washington 00:42:12.050 --> 00:42:15.550 and vcu specific but they had very very good 00:42:15.550 --> 00:42:18.030 i think they still do have a very good professional 00:42:18.030 --> 00:42:20.670 staff a lot of good professors or they would 00:42:20.670 --> 00:42:24.610 challenge you to think you know outside the box 00:42:24.610 --> 00:42:28.389 of And these kids would always question, why 00:42:28.389 --> 00:42:30.269 are we learning about the Krebs cycle? Why are 00:42:30.269 --> 00:42:33.969 we learning about fast glycolysis, ATP, PCR system? 00:42:35.170 --> 00:42:37.269 And then when you fast forward and you see all 00:42:37.269 --> 00:42:39.710 of these athletes, hey, coach, what's your take 00:42:39.710 --> 00:42:42.369 on creatine? There you go. There's the connection 00:42:42.369 --> 00:42:45.389 right there. And they may not see that at this 00:42:45.389 --> 00:42:49.889 point in time, but I think it prepared us. We 00:42:49.889 --> 00:42:53.130 had a very heavy lab load where we could just 00:42:53.130 --> 00:42:57.670 sit there and ask questions. Hey, why is the 00:42:57.670 --> 00:43:00.429 inorganic phosphate getting cleaved? And how 00:43:00.429 --> 00:43:02.309 is that happening? And what the heck does it 00:43:02.309 --> 00:43:06.730 matter? We had one class. We didn't even have 00:43:06.730 --> 00:43:08.489 a whole semester. We had one class that taught 00:43:08.489 --> 00:43:11.650 you how to coach. And it was fun. It was amazing. 00:43:12.170 --> 00:43:14.469 And Coach Contos, he's still at VCU actually, 00:43:14.630 --> 00:43:17.949 Chris Contos. He brought us into the athlete 00:43:17.949 --> 00:43:20.269 weight room and he was like, hey, I'm going to 00:43:20.269 --> 00:43:22.369 teach you how to back squat. And then this is 00:43:22.369 --> 00:43:25.210 the strength in. The strength zone, you know, 00:43:25.230 --> 00:43:27.690 less than six reps, less than eight reps, however 00:43:27.690 --> 00:43:30.190 you want to look at it. I think T -SAC pushes 00:43:30.190 --> 00:43:35.170 it up to 12 reps now. And then he would kind 00:43:35.170 --> 00:43:37.309 of – it was hands -on, and I hear a lot of coaches. 00:43:38.849 --> 00:43:41.769 One of my mentors, Riley Kelleher up in Alaska, 00:43:42.030 --> 00:43:45.429 will always say, like, you know, you can have 00:43:45.429 --> 00:43:47.130 as much knowledge as you want, but how much time 00:43:47.130 --> 00:43:50.730 under the bar do you have? Um, how much application 00:43:50.730 --> 00:43:53.650 have you put forth all of these programs that 00:43:53.650 --> 00:43:57.230 I'm giving these guys? I have tried myself, whether 00:43:57.230 --> 00:43:59.730 it be the full six week window, I'll at least 00:43:59.730 --> 00:44:03.070 go for, you know, I'll push my training off. 00:44:03.150 --> 00:44:05.050 And if I'm training for half marathon, I'm going 00:44:05.050 --> 00:44:08.329 to include this program that I'm building this 00:44:08.329 --> 00:44:11.909 EOD operator, uh, into that to see how it affects 00:44:11.909 --> 00:44:14.840 me. Like, okay, I'm running. a seven -mile long 00:44:14.840 --> 00:44:17.219 run on Sunday, but I need to lift on Monday, 00:44:17.340 --> 00:44:22.480 so can I push my schedule? I think learning, 00:44:22.760 --> 00:44:26.800 if you're going into your CSCS, you have to do 00:44:26.800 --> 00:44:29.440 an internship. I think you have to have, I think, 00:44:29.480 --> 00:44:34.599 700 hours -ish. I had a 450 and a 100 -hour internship, 00:44:34.760 --> 00:44:36.239 so I think they pushed that up a little bit. 00:44:37.150 --> 00:44:40.949 The best internship I had was at Tidewater Performance, 00:44:41.210 --> 00:44:43.389 which was directly tied to a physical therapy 00:44:43.389 --> 00:44:46.329 clinic. One of the physical therapists would 00:44:46.329 --> 00:44:48.469 come over and lift, and then they gave him to 00:44:48.469 --> 00:44:51.130 me because they knew he was going to challenge 00:44:51.130 --> 00:44:53.909 me. Hey, how much have you read in your book 00:44:53.909 --> 00:44:59.449 today? Sit your ass down and study. What do you 00:44:59.449 --> 00:45:01.849 think of this? How do I build mobility here? 00:45:02.010 --> 00:45:03.829 Because he was a hockey player, kind of back 00:45:03.829 --> 00:45:07.320 to your lifelong sport thing. Um, he, he played 00:45:07.320 --> 00:45:09.480 lacrosse hockey and all that growing up and he 00:45:09.480 --> 00:45:11.400 founded a beer leagues, what we call it adult 00:45:11.400 --> 00:45:15.360 league. Um, and he still plays. So he challenged 00:45:15.360 --> 00:45:19.239 me to, Hey, can you teach me how to Olympic lift? 00:45:19.539 --> 00:45:22.360 I don't know how to Olympic lift Mike. I'm sorry. 00:45:22.820 --> 00:45:25.460 And then I would reach out to one of the coaches 00:45:25.460 --> 00:45:28.599 after my, my study session. Cause they sat me 00:45:28.599 --> 00:45:31.940 down. Hey man, you're two hours after lunch is 00:45:31.940 --> 00:45:33.760 you're going to read this damn book and you're 00:45:33.760 --> 00:45:35.139 going to highlight what you need to highlight. 00:45:35.679 --> 00:45:37.320 And then you're going to ask questions about 00:45:37.320 --> 00:45:39.780 it. You're going to do the quizzes. So they built, 00:45:39.880 --> 00:45:42.639 they instilled that discipline of learning and 00:45:42.639 --> 00:45:45.239 questioning in me. And I think it'd be very important 00:45:45.239 --> 00:45:48.480 for these students these days to understand physiology 00:45:48.480 --> 00:45:52.559 is very important. You need to understand what, 00:45:52.599 --> 00:45:55.099 if we're running outside, what the difference 00:45:55.099 --> 00:45:57.820 between running outside and 90 degrees, 90 % 00:45:57.820 --> 00:46:01.260 humidity and 90 degrees, 1 % humidity. That's 00:46:01.260 --> 00:46:03.650 important to know. You need to know you might 00:46:03.650 --> 00:46:05.929 not be able to run as fast and then ask why. 00:46:06.230 --> 00:46:08.969 I kind of go back to the oxygen disassociation 00:46:08.969 --> 00:46:11.650 curve. I remember that for some reason very vividly 00:46:11.650 --> 00:46:15.130 where more blood is coming to the surface to 00:46:15.130 --> 00:46:17.889 cool your body so there's not as much blood being 00:46:17.889 --> 00:46:19.989 delivered to the muscles. That's physiology. 00:46:20.610 --> 00:46:25.349 That is a VO2, VO2 difference, the Fick equation, 00:46:25.670 --> 00:46:29.860 cardiac output. It all comes back. If you are 00:46:29.860 --> 00:46:33.280 a lifelong coach, and I know some coaches, it's 00:46:33.280 --> 00:46:36.420 a grind. It's a very competitive field right 00:46:36.420 --> 00:46:40.920 now. But if you understand physiology and you 00:46:40.920 --> 00:46:46.840 understand periodization, trying things out, 00:46:46.940 --> 00:46:48.880 not all of my programs that I make these guys 00:46:48.880 --> 00:46:51.559 work. Because if I'm sitting here testing out 00:46:51.559 --> 00:46:55.840 a program and my squat goes down 45 pounds. It 00:46:55.840 --> 00:46:57.840 doesn't mean it was a failure. It's only a failure 00:46:57.840 --> 00:47:01.679 if you didn't learn from it. So, okay, did I 00:47:01.679 --> 00:47:04.860 not squat enough? Did I not do enough accessories? 00:47:05.340 --> 00:47:07.579 And then you start building these checklists 00:47:07.579 --> 00:47:10.639 when you're building these programs out. You 00:47:10.639 --> 00:47:13.099 find what kind of, I think that's a good time 00:47:13.099 --> 00:47:15.579 when they're learning as well because everybody's 00:47:15.579 --> 00:47:17.599 active in the gym and exercise science. Those 00:47:17.599 --> 00:47:20.980 gyms at VCU were so packed and it was all of 00:47:20.980 --> 00:47:23.440 the exercise science guys, you know, guys and 00:47:23.440 --> 00:47:27.289 girls. I had no idea about the tier system, which 00:47:27.289 --> 00:47:30.750 is what I use now. Shout out to Joe Ken. I had 00:47:30.750 --> 00:47:34.789 no idea about the Texas method until these internships. 00:47:34.929 --> 00:47:37.030 And then this kind of goes back to it was a little 00:47:37.030 --> 00:47:39.309 bit of a hybrid. I was working and getting paid, 00:47:39.389 --> 00:47:42.409 but it was also kind of an internship at CNU, 00:47:42.449 --> 00:47:45.710 Christopher Newport, where we would have every 00:47:45.710 --> 00:47:48.969 Friday either a couple of research articles or 00:47:48.969 --> 00:47:52.300 you would have a presentation on. Like a scenario, 00:47:52.579 --> 00:47:55.780 I think mine was you have a football team during 00:47:55.780 --> 00:47:59.579 their offseason. We were not strong enough or 00:47:59.579 --> 00:48:01.099 powerful enough. We were getting beat off the 00:48:01.099 --> 00:48:03.599 ball. Our D -line was getting hammered. Our O 00:48:03.599 --> 00:48:07.119 -line was getting pushed back. So how would you 00:48:07.119 --> 00:48:12.260 increase overall strength in X, Y, and Z lifts? 00:48:13.099 --> 00:48:15.960 And then also leave enough time for the heavy 00:48:15.960 --> 00:48:18.579 conditioning. And I chose the Texas method, which 00:48:18.579 --> 00:48:21.260 for those who aren't familiar is basically kind 00:48:21.260 --> 00:48:23.519 of the gist. And I apologize to the creator of 00:48:23.519 --> 00:48:25.860 the Texas method if I murder this, but it's a 00:48:25.860 --> 00:48:29.039 five by five. And then every Friday you would 00:48:29.039 --> 00:48:31.739 kind of work up to a heavy one for lack of a 00:48:31.739 --> 00:48:33.460 better phrase, you would try and hit a max. And 00:48:33.460 --> 00:48:35.940 now as an older coach, I know there's a lot more 00:48:35.940 --> 00:48:39.800 variables to that, but I thought it was a very 00:48:39.800 --> 00:48:42.519 unique. because when you're looking at these, 00:48:42.739 --> 00:48:46.280 I mean, those guys do like college athletes are 00:48:46.280 --> 00:48:48.340 the 1 % of the 1%, right? And that's what I think 00:48:48.340 --> 00:48:50.099 people forget. They're doing five sets of eight. 00:48:50.219 --> 00:48:53.780 They're doing heavy power cleans, and then they're 00:48:53.780 --> 00:48:56.099 back squatting later that day. They're doing 00:48:56.099 --> 00:48:58.679 some crazy power work, and then, oh, by the way, 00:48:58.699 --> 00:49:01.260 you've got to be at the Freeman Center at CNU 00:49:01.260 --> 00:49:04.420 at 5 in the morning for your hour -long conditioning 00:49:04.420 --> 00:49:07.849 session, probably under -fueled. maybe still 00:49:07.849 --> 00:49:09.849 drunk from the night before. We all know how 00:49:09.849 --> 00:49:13.630 college kids work. You'd be silly to not acknowledge 00:49:13.630 --> 00:49:22.150 that. I think these kids are not willing to try 00:49:22.150 --> 00:49:25.829 things. They're a little afraid to fail, but 00:49:25.829 --> 00:49:27.849 it's only a failure, like I said, if you don't 00:49:27.849 --> 00:49:30.690 learn from it. You're not going to be 100 % successful 00:49:30.690 --> 00:49:33.130 if you aren't investing and you get into finance. 00:49:33.369 --> 00:49:35.829 There's no way you're right 100 % of the time. 00:49:36.329 --> 00:49:39.730 But okay, what happened? How do I fix it to not 00:49:39.730 --> 00:49:42.389 lose all my money again? Or okay, how do I not 00:49:42.389 --> 00:49:46.670 just tear these guys' joints up and then send 00:49:46.670 --> 00:49:49.130 them out on the field to get beaten all over 00:49:49.130 --> 00:49:53.789 by a team that we should have clobbered? So ask 00:49:53.789 --> 00:49:57.170 questions, try your programs out. It doesn't 00:49:57.170 --> 00:49:59.750 have to be the full 12 -week program, but do 00:49:59.750 --> 00:50:02.150 two weeks of phase one, do two weeks of phase 00:50:02.150 --> 00:50:04.969 two, and two weeks of phase three. And then... 00:50:05.309 --> 00:50:07.389 I had this question literally yesterday from 00:50:07.389 --> 00:50:10.050 one of my athletes. He's getting out, so he's 00:50:10.050 --> 00:50:12.409 doing a skill bridge. He's getting his exercise 00:50:12.409 --> 00:50:15.489 science degree, good for him. And he was like, 00:50:15.550 --> 00:50:18.809 hey, how do I know what to give these people? 00:50:19.349 --> 00:50:21.130 And I kind of looked at him and was like, it 00:50:21.130 --> 00:50:24.210 doesn't really matter. You give them a program 00:50:24.210 --> 00:50:27.829 that you can explain, that you are comfortable 00:50:27.829 --> 00:50:30.590 doing yourself, and then most importantly, that 00:50:30.590 --> 00:50:33.760 you enjoy. I enjoy the tier system. Because I 00:50:33.760 --> 00:50:36.699 know, especially in the tactical realm, sometimes 00:50:36.699 --> 00:50:38.639 these guys have to go to motor pool and they're 00:50:38.639 --> 00:50:40.559 there all day. So they have to skip their training 00:50:40.559 --> 00:50:43.579 session. So we're not the normal chest try back 00:50:43.579 --> 00:50:47.619 by leg split. If that's your leg day, you have 00:50:47.619 --> 00:50:50.860 to wait a whole nother week to hit legs. So tier 00:50:50.860 --> 00:50:55.440 system to me is wildly powerful, wildly slept 00:50:55.440 --> 00:50:59.099 on in terms of you can squat twice a week. You 00:50:59.099 --> 00:51:01.400 can hinge twice a week. You can press twice a 00:51:01.400 --> 00:51:04.739 week. You can have what I'm doing right now is 00:51:04.739 --> 00:51:07.840 a little bit of a hybrid where I have a guy who 00:51:07.840 --> 00:51:09.440 he's been working with me for about four months. 00:51:10.719 --> 00:51:13.059 So trying to keep him interested in it. So we're 00:51:13.059 --> 00:51:14.980 trying now where we still have our total upper 00:51:14.980 --> 00:51:17.860 and lower days, but the conditioning days, the 00:51:17.860 --> 00:51:20.920 Tuesday, Thursdays are going to match the previous 00:51:20.920 --> 00:51:23.360 day. So Tuesday is going to match Monday, which 00:51:23.360 --> 00:51:26.880 is your high, high strength day, five sets of 00:51:26.880 --> 00:51:29.019 three, six sets of three. Let those work up to 00:51:29.019 --> 00:51:31.440 a heavy one this week. See what we got. And then 00:51:31.440 --> 00:51:35.019 Thursdays are a little bit more strongman type 00:51:35.019 --> 00:51:39.239 stuff. And he's an EOD operator, so let's add 00:51:39.239 --> 00:51:43.780 in some Zurcher sandbag carries. And these guys 00:51:43.780 --> 00:51:45.699 have to carry one of their packs yesterday. I 00:51:45.699 --> 00:51:47.440 brought a little scale out with me. I'm a big 00:51:47.440 --> 00:51:49.860 nerd. I literally brought a scale out into the 00:51:49.860 --> 00:51:51.900 woods with me to measure all their stuff. So 00:51:51.900 --> 00:51:55.019 I measured their helmets. I measured their backpacks. 00:51:55.639 --> 00:51:57.880 And there was different scenarios that they, 00:51:57.920 --> 00:52:00.400 that required different equipment. So some of 00:52:00.400 --> 00:52:01.960 the teams just bought anything and everything 00:52:01.960 --> 00:52:04.119 they thought they would need. So the heaviest 00:52:04.119 --> 00:52:06.579 backpack I saw yesterday was about 35 pounds, 00:52:06.679 --> 00:52:10.840 which is very commonplace for rucking. But then 00:52:10.840 --> 00:52:13.219 you have some of these seals or these tack P's 00:52:13.219 --> 00:52:16.019 or PJ's who I'm familiar with. Some of these 00:52:16.019 --> 00:52:18.800 Rangers, they're going down range with a 90 pound 00:52:18.800 --> 00:52:22.340 pack and a helmet and a fully loaded. you know, 00:52:22.340 --> 00:52:25.280 rifle. Um, and then the radio man has the radio 00:52:25.280 --> 00:52:27.719 on top of all that stuff and then their boots 00:52:27.719 --> 00:52:30.679 suck. So it's like, okay, how are we taking care 00:52:30.679 --> 00:52:37.639 of our feet? A lot of it is kind of just figure 00:52:37.639 --> 00:52:40.199 out what you like and then figure out what you 00:52:40.199 --> 00:52:42.619 can explain. And again, another shout out to 00:52:42.619 --> 00:52:44.739 Joe Ken. He kind of told us, he's like, it doesn't 00:52:44.739 --> 00:52:46.559 matter what program you do, but can you absorb, 00:52:46.699 --> 00:52:49.579 modify and apply? I'm going to take this info 00:52:49.579 --> 00:52:51.929 in. I'm going to modify it to what works for 00:52:51.929 --> 00:52:54.730 me and my guys. And then I'm going to apply it 00:52:54.730 --> 00:52:58.610 either by doing testing and then refining, or 00:52:58.610 --> 00:53:02.030 I'm going to apply it and then take observations 00:53:02.030 --> 00:53:06.610 if you don't want to go test it yourself. Strongman 00:53:06.610 --> 00:53:08.829 implements one of the tools I started using. 00:53:09.320 --> 00:53:12.440 a few years ago now um julian pano who founded 00:53:12.440 --> 00:53:14.460 strong fit was really the first person that kind 00:53:14.460 --> 00:53:16.940 of turned me on to that but i was a big crossfit 00:53:16.940 --> 00:53:19.760 guy up to that point but i realized that yeah 00:53:19.760 --> 00:53:21.719 i mean we literally are standing in the same 00:53:21.719 --> 00:53:24.599 place we're pronated constantly with all the 00:53:24.599 --> 00:53:26.900 olympic lifts with the pull -ups with you know 00:53:26.900 --> 00:53:30.280 all the movements and so when i took a step back 00:53:30.280 --> 00:53:31.659 and looked at what do we do especially on the 00:53:31.659 --> 00:53:35.079 fire ground specifically we push we pull we drag 00:53:35.079 --> 00:53:37.019 we climb none of those were really replicated 00:53:37.019 --> 00:53:40.630 so i had great you know motor i had decent strength 00:53:40.630 --> 00:53:43.929 with the crossfit you know hit style stuff but 00:53:43.929 --> 00:53:46.070 there was a big chink in the armor on top of 00:53:46.070 --> 00:53:48.050 you know some of the imbalances and some of the 00:53:48.050 --> 00:53:51.449 you know lack of um posterior chain movements 00:53:51.449 --> 00:53:53.250 and you know shoulder mobility and some of the 00:53:53.250 --> 00:53:56.750 other areas um so expand on that talk to me about 00:53:56.750 --> 00:53:59.409 the use of strongman because a lot of times when 00:53:59.409 --> 00:54:01.989 you for example a fire department's putting together 00:54:01.989 --> 00:54:04.530 a gym They're doing dumbbells. They're doing 00:54:04.530 --> 00:54:06.730 barbells. They might be super progressive and 00:54:06.730 --> 00:54:10.090 put kettlebells in there. But it's few and far 00:54:10.090 --> 00:54:11.849 between, certainly at least a few years ago, 00:54:11.909 --> 00:54:14.489 where they're really looking at sleds, sandbags, 00:54:14.590 --> 00:54:18.409 and some of these incredible strongman tools 00:54:18.409 --> 00:54:21.150 that now I think are so, so appropriate for my 00:54:21.150 --> 00:54:24.929 profession. And I think it was a random video 00:54:24.929 --> 00:54:26.769 on Instagram that got me thinking about this. 00:54:27.929 --> 00:54:32.050 It was... Guy, he kind of focused a little bit 00:54:32.050 --> 00:54:34.690 more on mobility. I forgot all the names. I was 00:54:34.690 --> 00:54:35.989 kind of like one of those you scroll and then 00:54:35.989 --> 00:54:39.050 you flip. But it was like, here's a strongman 00:54:39.050 --> 00:54:41.170 sprinting. Or excuse me, here's a powerlifter 00:54:41.170 --> 00:54:44.769 sprinting. And that dude was so immobile. He 00:54:44.769 --> 00:54:46.570 was running straight up and down and there was 00:54:46.570 --> 00:54:48.889 no, like, he probably couldn't turn a corner 00:54:48.889 --> 00:54:51.730 if he wanted to, which is, and again, this is 00:54:51.730 --> 00:54:53.630 kind of going a little bit more towards my niche, 00:54:53.769 --> 00:54:58.019 which is tactical, where... Everybody loves to 00:54:58.019 --> 00:55:00.940 lift heavy weights. We do need to deadlift, we 00:55:00.940 --> 00:55:03.059 need to squat, and we need to press heavy. I 00:55:03.059 --> 00:55:07.639 think that is, in and of itself, irrefutable. 00:55:08.519 --> 00:55:13.260 However, when we are having to pull a guy who 00:55:13.260 --> 00:55:16.420 maybe trips into cover, I don't want to ever 00:55:16.420 --> 00:55:18.139 say any of my guys will get shot, but I know 00:55:18.139 --> 00:55:20.420 it happens and stuff like that. Can you drag 00:55:20.420 --> 00:55:24.400 a 300 -pound implement for more than one second? 00:55:24.889 --> 00:55:28.769 um can you carry and not necessarily rucking 00:55:28.769 --> 00:55:31.070 go ahead and put a heavy weight vest on and then 00:55:31.070 --> 00:55:34.670 carry a sandbag can you do that for an extended 00:55:34.670 --> 00:55:38.210 period of time and oh by the way that's it's 00:55:38.210 --> 00:55:40.570 still axial loaded it's still kind of high impact 00:55:40.570 --> 00:55:43.889 but we're conditioning that posterior chain like 00:55:43.889 --> 00:55:48.530 you just said um and it's fun you know it's fun 00:55:48.530 --> 00:55:50.789 to lift heavy things it's fun to see what you 00:55:50.789 --> 00:55:53.079 can do And then that kind of gives you a little 00:55:53.079 --> 00:55:57.599 bit of reprieve from the constant squatting, 00:55:57.599 --> 00:56:00.579 the constant triple extension. Grip strength 00:56:00.579 --> 00:56:05.019 is far slept on. Grip strength is grip strength. 00:56:05.219 --> 00:56:09.019 But if that's not your limiting factor, up to 00:56:09.019 --> 00:56:14.460 a certain extent, if we can deadlift without 00:56:14.460 --> 00:56:17.849 straps. I'll I'm, I'm a big, no strap, no belt 00:56:17.849 --> 00:56:20.690 guy until yes, we're going to push the envelope. 00:56:20.750 --> 00:56:22.250 We're going to do a max strength block and then 00:56:22.250 --> 00:56:24.909 yes, please put the belt on. Um, yes, please 00:56:24.909 --> 00:56:27.889 put the, the, you know, lifting straps on. I 00:56:27.889 --> 00:56:31.469 have the Olympic straps too. So, um, but like 00:56:31.469 --> 00:56:34.110 maybe do some plate flips at the end of your 00:56:34.110 --> 00:56:37.730 workouts. Fun. Hey, Hey coach, I did 45 the other 00:56:37.730 --> 00:56:40.269 day. What have you done? Like, I don't, I don't 00:56:40.269 --> 00:56:43.280 really keep track of it like that, but, um, Finding 00:56:43.280 --> 00:56:46.000 different ways, and then all of these sports 00:56:46.000 --> 00:56:50.920 interplay pretty intimately with there's a time 00:56:50.920 --> 00:56:52.780 and a place for CrossFit. There's a time and 00:56:52.780 --> 00:56:56.480 a place for strongman, like a EOD operator or 00:56:56.480 --> 00:57:01.880 a PJ or a TACP or a fueler or a maintainer. There's 00:57:01.880 --> 00:57:03.679 going to be times where they might have to carry 00:57:03.679 --> 00:57:05.880 something heavy out to the flight line, whether 00:57:05.880 --> 00:57:10.159 they're in an active battle or not. I don't want 00:57:10.159 --> 00:57:12.929 to have to sit. my toolbox down every five meters. 00:57:13.030 --> 00:57:17.010 Um, just, you know, man up and learn how to hit 00:57:17.010 --> 00:57:19.590 hook grip and then get it there, take a rest, 00:57:19.710 --> 00:57:25.409 hydrate, and then fix the jet. Or, um, uh, with 00:57:25.409 --> 00:57:28.590 the PLL guys, here's a petroleum oxygen and lubricants. 00:57:28.690 --> 00:57:33.250 They fuel and defuel the 22s, uh, which big old 00:57:33.250 --> 00:57:36.429 fuel tanks, um, takes them a long time, but they 00:57:36.429 --> 00:57:40.519 have to pull that hose out. So like, how do we, 00:57:40.519 --> 00:57:43.599 how do we replicate that in the gym? Okay. Put 00:57:43.599 --> 00:57:46.699 a sandbag on your shoulder and walk. And then 00:57:46.699 --> 00:57:49.000 maybe like tip it a little bit back. And this 00:57:49.000 --> 00:57:51.380 is getting way too into the details, but it's 00:57:51.380 --> 00:57:54.940 my job. So maybe like put it a little bit more 00:57:54.940 --> 00:57:56.980 on your posterior. So you have a little bit of 00:57:56.980 --> 00:57:59.619 a forward lean and then see how far we can get. 00:57:59.679 --> 00:58:01.460 And then let's do a fireman's carry with the 00:58:01.460 --> 00:58:04.059 sandbag and let's get. Let's, let's take the 00:58:04.059 --> 00:58:06.619 daggum safety squat bar out to the track and 00:58:06.619 --> 00:58:09.360 load it up with 50 % body weight and let's just 00:58:09.360 --> 00:58:11.380 get after it. And then we're going to drop that. 00:58:11.480 --> 00:58:13.340 And then we're going to pick up some kettlebells 00:58:13.340 --> 00:58:16.519 and move. And then once they kind of, once they 00:58:16.519 --> 00:58:18.659 kind of see that their injuries go down a little 00:58:18.659 --> 00:58:20.900 bit, yes, they're very, very tired. Typically 00:58:20.900 --> 00:58:23.539 the next day is almost a full conditioning day, 00:58:23.639 --> 00:58:27.340 excuse me, full recovery day. Cause that stuff 00:58:27.340 --> 00:58:29.380 does tear you up. A heavy yoke carry will tear 00:58:29.380 --> 00:58:32.820 you up. You have to stay engaged that whole time, 00:58:32.900 --> 00:58:36.480 which then translates into the heavy deadlifts, 00:58:36.519 --> 00:58:38.639 the heavy squats, and even the heavy presses. 00:58:38.960 --> 00:58:40.880 You need to have your core engaged. You need 00:58:40.880 --> 00:58:43.960 to brace. You need to, you know, get those lats 00:58:43.960 --> 00:58:46.380 set. And then you need to pull that, take a bench 00:58:46.380 --> 00:58:47.800 press, for example. You need to pull that bar 00:58:47.800 --> 00:58:49.460 to your chest instead of letting the weight drop. 00:58:50.179 --> 00:58:53.760 And then you need to put full on intent. And 00:58:53.760 --> 00:58:55.579 that's what I also train with velocity -based 00:58:55.579 --> 00:58:58.539 training. It's a very, very niche. But that helps 00:58:58.539 --> 00:59:01.800 me. Teach these guys kind of like the all or 00:59:01.800 --> 00:59:05.119 none principle back to physiology that we learned 00:59:05.119 --> 00:59:10.179 in college. Hey, we're not doing bodybuilding 00:59:10.179 --> 00:59:11.840 all the time. There's a time and a place and 00:59:11.840 --> 00:59:15.719 that's on Fridays. I need you to touch your chest 00:59:15.719 --> 00:59:18.599 and I need you to lift this weight as hard and 00:59:18.599 --> 00:59:21.659 as fast as you can. The weight on the bar is 00:59:21.659 --> 00:59:24.739 going to dictate the speed. And then that's another 00:59:24.739 --> 00:59:30.420 conversation topic to. okay why are we bench 00:59:30.420 --> 00:59:34.519 pressing 135 coach when i can i'm trying to get 00:59:34.519 --> 00:59:38.719 225 bro but there's a whole force velocity curve 00:59:38.719 --> 00:59:41.260 that we got to worry about you're the you're 00:59:41.260 --> 00:59:44.079 not going to be carrying 225 pounds you're not 00:59:44.079 --> 00:59:46.519 going to be squatting 315 all the time so i want 00:59:46.519 --> 00:59:48.639 to get you better at moving lighter implements 00:59:48.639 --> 00:59:52.519 fast and then also to lessen the injury i want 00:59:52.519 --> 00:59:55.219 those high threshold motor units i want to recruit 00:59:55.219 --> 01:00:01.079 those often and intense to when you're in the 01:00:01.079 --> 01:00:02.920 gym instead of you know maybe going like bench 01:00:02.920 --> 01:00:06.000 press to dips if we're learning how to kind of 01:00:06.000 --> 01:00:10.179 to move with intent i have seen and this is only 01:00:10.179 --> 01:00:14.440 anecdotal a little bit less injury where instead 01:00:14.440 --> 01:00:16.320 of just going up for three seconds down for three 01:00:16.320 --> 01:00:18.420 seconds again that's great for hypertrophy but 01:00:18.420 --> 01:00:21.420 we're in a strength block dude you know, come 01:00:21.420 --> 01:00:23.340 on, man, get after it. I need you to move this 01:00:23.340 --> 01:00:25.619 barbell 0 .7 meters per second. And if you're 01:00:25.619 --> 01:00:27.980 not moving in there that much or that fast, take 01:00:27.980 --> 01:00:30.059 some weight off. And then they're like, well, 01:00:30.079 --> 01:00:31.659 okay, why are we doing this? And then we kind 01:00:31.659 --> 01:00:34.539 of get into the reasoning I just kind of talked 01:00:34.539 --> 01:00:36.440 about with, we're not always going to be carrying 01:00:36.440 --> 01:00:38.860 something heavy. We need to condition the brain 01:00:38.860 --> 01:00:41.019 just as much as we're conditioning the musculature. 01:00:41.179 --> 01:00:44.219 So, and that kind of goes to strongman training 01:00:44.219 --> 01:00:47.679 too, is you're moving some heavy stuff over far, 01:00:47.800 --> 01:00:50.920 vast distances. And then it's a little bit of 01:00:50.920 --> 01:00:53.739 a mental challenge. Can you carry this 50 -pound 01:00:53.739 --> 01:00:57.980 sandbag in a Zurcher stance a full lap? And if 01:00:57.980 --> 01:01:00.719 you can't, that's a goal that they can hit. Some 01:01:00.719 --> 01:01:03.780 of these guys don't have goals. Some of these 01:01:03.780 --> 01:01:06.300 guys don't have the discipline to train up, to 01:01:06.300 --> 01:01:08.239 kind of learn how to segment apart. Like, okay, 01:01:08.280 --> 01:01:11.719 I got 200 meters this week. Let me get 250, and 01:01:11.719 --> 01:01:14.039 then let me back off, and then let me try for 01:01:14.039 --> 01:01:16.900 300, 350 next week, teaching them how to progress 01:01:16.900 --> 01:01:20.190 and periodize and then also regress. strongman 01:01:20.190 --> 01:01:22.389 comes in there as well where it's like okay you 01:01:22.389 --> 01:01:26.650 can't hold on to this farmers uh farmers carry 01:01:26.650 --> 01:01:29.429 handle or or farmers carries with the 71 pound 01:01:29.429 --> 01:01:32.929 kettlebells for more than 20 meters why our grip 01:01:32.929 --> 01:01:36.190 strength sucks so let's get that up which is 01:01:36.190 --> 01:01:38.050 going to then help you do your job which is going 01:01:38.050 --> 01:01:39.889 to help you get less injured so it's just a big 01:01:39.889 --> 01:01:42.710 cascade and it's been it's really interesting 01:01:42.710 --> 01:01:45.389 it's really fun these guys love it Throw some 01:01:45.389 --> 01:01:48.090 sandbags, dude. Throw some med balls. Take a 01:01:48.090 --> 01:01:49.570 little bit of a break from the squatting and 01:01:49.570 --> 01:01:52.050 the pressing and the deadlifting and just move. 01:01:52.610 --> 01:01:55.590 A lot of people call it functional. I just call 01:01:55.590 --> 01:01:58.050 it life. We're not always going to be in a perfect 01:01:58.050 --> 01:02:00.230 scenario in a gym with our lifting shoes and 01:02:00.230 --> 01:02:02.150 our knee sleeves and our belts. Sometimes we're 01:02:02.150 --> 01:02:04.610 going to be downrange getting shot at with a 01:02:04.610 --> 01:02:06.429 helmet on our head and a night vision goggle 01:02:06.429 --> 01:02:10.559 so my neck hurts. I know I can do this. I want 01:02:10.559 --> 01:02:12.440 them to start thinking like, I know I can do 01:02:12.440 --> 01:02:14.800 this. And if not, I'm going to segment it out. 01:02:14.860 --> 01:02:16.900 I'm going to break it up to where if I need to 01:02:16.900 --> 01:02:19.619 get a mile down the road, I'm going to take it 01:02:19.619 --> 01:02:21.639 in quarter mile increments. And that's been a 01:02:21.639 --> 01:02:23.639 really, really big game changer here too as well. 01:02:25.320 --> 01:02:27.900 Going to stay in with the strongman implements. 01:02:27.940 --> 01:02:29.920 One of the best things that I found, this is 01:02:29.920 --> 01:02:33.679 just my own observation in jujitsu for grip strength 01:02:33.679 --> 01:02:37.360 is putting a 75 foot rope. with a sled on the 01:02:37.360 --> 01:02:39.860 end and standing there in a hinge and just pulling 01:02:39.860 --> 01:02:42.360 it to you. And you roll up, you know, after doing 01:02:42.360 --> 01:02:44.000 that for a while, you roll and then you're, you 01:02:44.000 --> 01:02:46.239 know, three or four rolls deep and people are 01:02:46.239 --> 01:02:47.699 wondering why you're so strong. Well, I'm not 01:02:47.699 --> 01:02:50.420 strong. I just have muscular endurance because 01:02:50.420 --> 01:02:53.400 of that. And then another one that was fun for 01:02:53.400 --> 01:02:57.079 us, again, dragging people out, is you talked 01:02:57.079 --> 01:02:59.960 about carrying the sandbag in different areas 01:02:59.960 --> 01:03:02.019 to replicate. Well, then you also put the harness 01:03:02.019 --> 01:03:04.900 on and have the sled. So now you're holding a 01:03:04.900 --> 01:03:07.880 hundred pound sandbag, 150, and you're walking 01:03:07.880 --> 01:03:10.179 back as with weight on the sled. Now you're replicating, 01:03:10.199 --> 01:03:12.579 picking up that you said, the 300 pound dude, 01:03:12.699 --> 01:03:15.239 half of his body is, you know, in your arms and 01:03:15.239 --> 01:03:17.519 the other one's dragging on the floor. So it 01:03:17.519 --> 01:03:19.360 does make it really, you know, you can be innovative. 01:03:19.420 --> 01:03:21.900 You can be creative. You can have a sled. We 01:03:21.900 --> 01:03:24.340 just did one video popped out where we did a 01:03:24.340 --> 01:03:26.980 while ago where one hand is holding a dumbbell. 01:03:27.900 --> 01:03:29.579 whilst they're pulling the sled with the other 01:03:29.579 --> 01:03:32.500 one. So again, now you're basically, you've got 01:03:32.500 --> 01:03:34.519 weapon in one hand as you're extricating the 01:03:34.519 --> 01:03:36.239 person with the other, especially in law enforcement. 01:03:36.420 --> 01:03:39.400 So, I mean, versus like you said, especially 01:03:39.400 --> 01:03:41.820 the Olympic lifts where I find a very intimidating 01:03:41.820 --> 01:03:44.719 and tend to dissuade a lot of my community from 01:03:44.719 --> 01:03:47.699 even exercising. When you just tell a tactical 01:03:47.699 --> 01:03:49.460 athlete, what you gotta do is pick this sandbag 01:03:49.460 --> 01:03:51.719 up and walk over there and come back or push 01:03:51.719 --> 01:03:54.239 the sled over to there or grab this rope and 01:03:54.239 --> 01:03:56.900 drag it back to your feet. I find that that gets 01:03:56.900 --> 01:03:59.820 a lot more buy -in because they can see the real 01:03:59.820 --> 01:04:03.940 -world application versus a snatch or a bar muscle 01:04:03.940 --> 01:04:06.119 -up where it's a lot harder to convince them 01:04:06.119 --> 01:04:09.079 that there is some carryover at least. Yeah, 01:04:09.079 --> 01:04:11.380 absolutely. And then, shoot, easiest way to train 01:04:11.380 --> 01:04:13.280 triple extension if they don't want to pick up 01:04:13.280 --> 01:04:15.059 a kettlebell is throw this med ball straight 01:04:15.059 --> 01:04:17.739 up as high as you can. And I need you to end 01:04:17.739 --> 01:04:23.079 on your toes. Huge. You don't have to spend more 01:04:23.079 --> 01:04:26.070 than two minutes explaining the exercise. the 01:04:26.070 --> 01:04:28.829 safety stuff but that's the easiest way to teach 01:04:28.829 --> 01:04:30.650 triple extension right there and then you advance 01:04:30.650 --> 01:04:32.610 it to a kettlebell and then you advance it to 01:04:32.610 --> 01:04:34.929 a barbell so yeah strongman is huge and i love 01:04:34.929 --> 01:04:38.210 it absolutely well the other side rest and recovery 01:04:38.210 --> 01:04:41.570 um before we dive into you know your immersion 01:04:41.570 --> 01:04:44.989 into the tactical athlete this can be that tactical 01:04:44.989 --> 01:04:46.949 space or the sporting space that you worked in 01:04:46.949 --> 01:04:49.510 before talk to me about the relationship between 01:04:49.510 --> 01:05:00.920 sleep and performance oh man um There's no more 01:05:00.920 --> 01:05:04.699 important relationship in athletics, whether 01:05:04.699 --> 01:05:10.420 it be tactical or sport, for how much sleep are 01:05:10.420 --> 01:05:11.840 you getting? Because that's when the majority 01:05:11.840 --> 01:05:16.460 of your recovery is happening. I haven't dove 01:05:16.460 --> 01:05:18.480 too much into the science, I'll be honest with 01:05:18.480 --> 01:05:23.079 you. But I do know if you're up till... midnight 01:05:23.079 --> 01:05:25.940 1 a .m 2 a .m playing video games and you just 01:05:25.940 --> 01:05:29.000 had a heavy you know lower body day you're gonna 01:05:29.000 --> 01:05:32.780 feel like shit the next day so and especially 01:05:32.780 --> 01:05:35.719 these like kind of high tempo guys those firefighters 01:05:35.719 --> 01:05:39.619 maybe uh i do work with the fire department here 01:05:39.619 --> 01:05:41.599 not as much uh they're pretty small they're a 01:05:41.599 --> 01:05:44.559 little bit busy but um you know they may have 01:05:44.559 --> 01:05:48.780 to get a call out at two in the morning when 01:05:50.049 --> 01:05:53.250 I need you to be thinking clearly or I need you 01:05:53.250 --> 01:05:56.030 to be able to, to understand like, okay, maybe 01:05:56.030 --> 01:06:00.010 I'm a little bit slow doing this or that. So 01:06:00.010 --> 01:06:02.630 if you're not rested, you're not recovered. And 01:06:02.630 --> 01:06:04.710 I always tell people, all these guys here are 01:06:04.710 --> 01:06:07.210 like, I want to be like Matt Froning or Rich 01:06:07.210 --> 01:06:11.849 Froning, excuse me, Matt Frazier. Those professional 01:06:11.849 --> 01:06:14.150 athletes are professionals because they recover 01:06:14.150 --> 01:06:17.820 professionally. That is their job. They go sit 01:06:17.820 --> 01:06:21.659 in the Normatec for two hours. They get massages. 01:06:21.659 --> 01:06:24.739 They get their cryotherapy. The weightlifting 01:06:24.739 --> 01:06:27.639 and the conditioning is 20 % of it. The rest 01:06:27.639 --> 01:06:29.940 of the 80%, and you look at the NFL athletes 01:06:29.940 --> 01:06:32.900 and NBA, look at LeBron James. He'll always talk 01:06:32.900 --> 01:06:35.320 about his recovery and how that's his game changer. 01:06:36.079 --> 01:06:39.739 Not every day is for clanging and banging. Not 01:06:39.739 --> 01:06:42.219 every day is to go hit the pavement for five 01:06:42.219 --> 01:06:47.690 miles. We need to take some time off. to allow 01:06:47.690 --> 01:06:50.989 our body, back to physiology again, to allow 01:06:50.989 --> 01:06:54.809 our body to rebuild better, to allow our body 01:06:54.809 --> 01:06:58.030 to take these nutrients in, get them to the right 01:06:58.030 --> 01:07:03.090 place efficiently, and then be ready to work 01:07:03.090 --> 01:07:05.250 the next day. And yes, there's a time for overreaching. 01:07:06.210 --> 01:07:08.489 Hopefully we never get overtrained, but there 01:07:08.489 --> 01:07:11.550 is a time to push the envelope. I never personally 01:07:11.550 --> 01:07:14.349 do sleep deprivation or caloric deprivation. 01:07:14.429 --> 01:07:17.739 I know that... you could argue that maybe that's 01:07:17.739 --> 01:07:20.219 a way to train these guys, but that's a little 01:07:20.219 --> 01:07:24.460 bit more real world, which I kind of leave that 01:07:24.460 --> 01:07:27.880 to the professionals, like the team leads over 01:07:27.880 --> 01:07:29.559 at EOD. Like, I'm not going to sit here and tell 01:07:29.559 --> 01:07:31.719 these guys to eat MREs. If you can bring snacks, 01:07:31.800 --> 01:07:37.000 bring snacks. But I do know how to effectively 01:07:37.000 --> 01:07:40.989 help you recover from... we just had the you 01:07:40.989 --> 01:07:43.329 know this day i think yesterday our time we were 01:07:43.329 --> 01:07:45.349 at we got out there about 7 30 8 o 'clock in 01:07:45.349 --> 01:07:47.670 the morning we didn't leave till 4 p .m and they 01:07:47.670 --> 01:07:49.889 were full kitted up it wasn't hot it was beautiful 01:07:49.889 --> 01:07:52.630 yesterday actually but uh we're in the woods 01:07:52.630 --> 01:07:54.849 we're kind of a couple of guys stepped in the 01:07:54.849 --> 01:07:59.289 mud and they're getting frustrated because the 01:07:59.289 --> 01:08:02.829 ops weren't very easy and then lo and behold 01:08:02.829 --> 01:08:04.730 one of the dudes didn't sleep very well that 01:08:04.730 --> 01:08:07.250 night because his ac went out so Whether that 01:08:07.250 --> 01:08:08.849 was the reason he was getting frustrated or not, 01:08:09.010 --> 01:08:11.309 it's something to think about. It's a variable 01:08:11.309 --> 01:08:14.329 that his team lead enjoyed hearing because it's 01:08:14.329 --> 01:08:17.470 like, okay, what do you think of this? This was 01:08:17.470 --> 01:08:19.409 training. This wasn't real -world stuff. So if 01:08:19.409 --> 01:08:21.529 you're stuck, they would prompt you a little 01:08:21.529 --> 01:08:23.630 bit. They wanted you to kind of fail a little. 01:08:23.989 --> 01:08:27.329 Okay, why did we fail? Let's learn from it. But 01:08:27.329 --> 01:08:31.710 I need you to pay attention. And then if you're 01:08:31.710 --> 01:08:35.520 tired, I need you to pay extra attention. And 01:08:35.520 --> 01:08:38.779 then, you know, call coach and get the Normatec. 01:08:38.800 --> 01:08:41.020 I'll drop it off at their shop. I got the legs 01:08:41.020 --> 01:08:44.359 for them. Or how much water are we drinking today? 01:08:44.539 --> 01:08:46.579 Like that has to do with recovery. What are our 01:08:46.579 --> 01:08:49.039 electrolytes like? You know, what's our protein 01:08:49.039 --> 01:08:52.359 intake like? I don't go too deep into the nutrition. 01:08:52.500 --> 01:08:54.939 We have an amazing, amazing dietician here, Dr. 01:08:55.079 --> 01:09:00.039 Fike. I work with her a lot. So go talk with 01:09:00.039 --> 01:09:04.159 her. Come get with me. Let's build you all encompassing. 01:09:04.990 --> 01:09:06.970 It's not just about, like I said, clanging and 01:09:06.970 --> 01:09:09.250 banging and lifting a heavy deadlift. It's about 01:09:09.250 --> 01:09:12.550 you just had a heavy lower body day. Take this 01:09:12.550 --> 01:09:17.649 Normatec home, 30 minutes, zone 3, zone 4, 5 01:09:17.649 --> 01:09:21.189 intensities. It's from 1 to 7. I hate the 7. 01:09:21.329 --> 01:09:24.430 It hurts my feet. But, hey, 5 is good for you. 01:09:24.470 --> 01:09:28.289 Try it out. You can do an hour, 45 minutes, 30 01:09:28.289 --> 01:09:30.750 minutes, 15. What works best for you. Bring these 01:09:30.750 --> 01:09:32.289 back tomorrow. I'll charge them up for you, and 01:09:32.289 --> 01:09:36.479 I'll drop them off again. There's no more important 01:09:36.479 --> 01:09:41.060 relationship than recovery and sleep where, again, 01:09:41.100 --> 01:09:44.800 that's preferably eight hours of your day where 01:09:44.800 --> 01:09:48.220 you are laying down, you're comfortable, you're 01:09:48.220 --> 01:09:53.140 warm, and your body has time to effectively move 01:09:53.140 --> 01:09:55.619 this around, build this, build that. Let me pull 01:09:55.619 --> 01:09:58.119 from here. Let me get all of these building blocks 01:09:58.119 --> 01:10:00.220 ready for when we go hit it again the next day. 01:10:01.659 --> 01:10:04.300 It's becoming a lot more commonplace for people 01:10:04.300 --> 01:10:06.880 to talk about sleep, and I love seeing it. There 01:10:06.880 --> 01:10:09.819 are professionals for that. I will not sit here 01:10:09.819 --> 01:10:12.119 and say I'm a professional for sleep and recovery, 01:10:12.340 --> 01:10:15.279 but there's a ton of podcasts out there. There's 01:10:15.279 --> 01:10:17.520 a ton of books out there. There's YouTube videos 01:10:17.520 --> 01:10:20.399 where you're just like, what's your nighttime 01:10:20.399 --> 01:10:24.220 routine? How do I get to bed quicker? How do 01:10:24.220 --> 01:10:27.899 I wake up in the morning without having to just 01:10:27.899 --> 01:10:29.979 immediately reach for coffee or an energy drink? 01:10:31.739 --> 01:10:34.939 Maybe drink a glass of water, go do your morning 01:10:34.939 --> 01:10:37.800 routine, get to the shop, get your workout in, 01:10:37.899 --> 01:10:40.279 and then hit your coffee, which, oh, by the way, 01:10:40.380 --> 01:10:42.840 I'm known for this on base. I put protein in 01:10:42.840 --> 01:10:46.300 my cold brew because it's French vanilla protein, 01:10:46.539 --> 01:10:52.119 cold brew, delicious. There's 25 grams of protein 01:10:52.119 --> 01:10:54.359 right there, and then you're eating your breakfast, 01:10:54.399 --> 01:10:58.250 so it all kind of comes into play. Every time 01:10:58.250 --> 01:11:00.189 I say that, they're like, Coach, man, that's 01:11:00.189 --> 01:11:02.789 gross. And then they go and try it. And it's 01:11:02.789 --> 01:11:04.550 a game changer for a lot of these guys. A lot 01:11:04.550 --> 01:11:06.729 of these young cats love it. They're kind of 01:11:06.729 --> 01:11:09.010 switching over to coffee too, which I would argue 01:11:09.010 --> 01:11:12.489 is better than energy drinks. And it all just, 01:11:12.609 --> 01:11:14.609 again, it's just a cascade. It's just like a 01:11:14.609 --> 01:11:16.609 negative feedback loop where it keeps feeding 01:11:16.609 --> 01:11:19.210 improvement and improvement. And then you go 01:11:19.210 --> 01:11:22.430 and I teach them how to train hard and train 01:11:22.430 --> 01:11:24.689 with intent. And then they tire themselves out 01:11:24.689 --> 01:11:27.060 so they get a good night's sleep. So it's been 01:11:27.060 --> 01:11:29.520 very beneficial. I think it's beneficial for 01:11:29.520 --> 01:11:32.340 young coaches to look at that as well as how 01:11:32.340 --> 01:11:34.340 are you teaching these athletes to train with 01:11:34.340 --> 01:11:39.100 intent, meaning we don't have to do a 10 by 10 01:11:39.100 --> 01:11:42.319 back squat. If we're doing a strength block, 01:11:42.560 --> 01:11:45.579 I love training off of total volume. Did this 01:11:45.579 --> 01:11:49.100 work? Did this not work? We talked on our initial 01:11:49.100 --> 01:11:51.520 call about minimum effective dose, and then there's 01:11:51.520 --> 01:11:54.539 also max recoverable volume. where i'm going 01:11:54.539 --> 01:11:56.720 to push this dude we're going to deadlift and 01:11:56.720 --> 01:11:59.359 squat in the same day we did 40 reps of deadlift 01:11:59.359 --> 01:12:03.960 we did 18 squats okay and he was he was shot 01:12:03.960 --> 01:12:07.119 he was fried the next day his his session rpe 01:12:07.119 --> 01:12:10.739 was a nine okay so now i know that this is joe 01:12:10.739 --> 01:12:13.960 schmoe's max recoverable volume and i'm going 01:12:13.960 --> 01:12:16.239 to be right below that until again we go back 01:12:16.239 --> 01:12:19.340 to our overreaching phase where what can we do 01:12:19.340 --> 01:12:22.520 we built all of these pieces parts we built the 01:12:22.520 --> 01:12:25.180 car Let's see how fast and how far we can go. 01:12:27.180 --> 01:12:29.439 It's interesting because the number of people 01:12:29.439 --> 01:12:34.020 I've spoken to now that coach, whether it's regular 01:12:34.020 --> 01:12:37.479 military, whether it's the SFSO community, whether 01:12:37.479 --> 01:12:40.399 it's a tier one community, the focus ultimately 01:12:40.399 --> 01:12:43.420 is performance. But when you look at my profession 01:12:43.420 --> 01:12:46.640 specifically, some of these are the same coaches 01:12:46.640 --> 01:12:48.520 that have worked with fire departments and and 01:12:48.520 --> 01:12:50.579 you know they're squeezing performance out these 01:12:50.579 --> 01:12:52.739 war fighters and then when it comes to the conversation 01:12:52.739 --> 01:12:54.399 with mine it's like well let's just try and get 01:12:54.399 --> 01:12:57.020 you to die a little bit less let's walk you around 01:12:57.020 --> 01:12:59.079 the building let's learn how to make oatmeal 01:12:59.079 --> 01:13:01.979 and it's so crazy because it's a chasm you know 01:13:01.979 --> 01:13:04.199 because as you said with with special operators 01:13:04.199 --> 01:13:06.420 like you know seals having 90 pounds of gear 01:13:06.420 --> 01:13:09.770 on their back If I do what they call a high -rise 01:13:09.770 --> 01:13:12.529 strip, so we have a fire. My old station had 01:13:12.529 --> 01:13:15.409 a 28, well, really 30 -story hotel building next 01:13:15.409 --> 01:13:18.829 to it. And just to take the gear that I would 01:13:18.829 --> 01:13:21.069 need to fight fire, so that would be all my gear 01:13:21.069 --> 01:13:24.489 and my tank, a hose that obviously we connect 01:13:24.489 --> 01:13:26.869 to the standpipe, two air bottles, because you 01:13:26.869 --> 01:13:28.510 can imagine when we're climbing, we're getting 01:13:28.510 --> 01:13:30.270 through these cylinders, so we need them, and 01:13:30.270 --> 01:13:32.289 then a tool. That was it. That's 100 pounds of 01:13:32.289 --> 01:13:36.329 gear on my then 168 -pound frame. Then you climb. 01:13:36.829 --> 01:13:40.090 30 stories, then you go to work. Now it's time 01:13:40.090 --> 01:13:41.989 to actually work and do a search and pull someone 01:13:41.989 --> 01:13:44.210 out and then maybe have to carry them all the 01:13:44.210 --> 01:13:47.010 way down to the bottom. And so, you know, the 01:13:47.010 --> 01:13:48.909 level of performance that's needed in our profession 01:13:48.909 --> 01:13:51.270 is extremely high. But then you also, you hear 01:13:51.270 --> 01:13:53.689 about the sporting community, about, you know, 01:13:53.710 --> 01:13:58.670 the SFSO kind of training and coaching that they 01:13:58.670 --> 01:14:00.649 get and rest and recovery is very important. 01:14:00.770 --> 01:14:03.750 Well, my profession worked 56 hours a week. So 01:14:03.750 --> 01:14:06.680 that's not sleeping three days a week. And then 01:14:06.680 --> 01:14:09.800 we're understaffed, arguably because young people 01:14:09.800 --> 01:14:11.399 are looking at the way that we worked and going, 01:14:11.439 --> 01:14:13.520 that doesn't sound very good. And so now you've 01:14:13.520 --> 01:14:16.020 got all these vacancies. So now they're being 01:14:16.020 --> 01:14:17.939 forced to work extra days. So now you're doing 01:14:17.939 --> 01:14:20.739 80 -hour weeks with four sleepless nights a week. 01:14:21.000 --> 01:14:23.439 And then we're wondering why not only is performance 01:14:23.439 --> 01:14:27.180 very low, but longevity, wellness, mental health 01:14:27.180 --> 01:14:29.939 is in the toilet too. And so it's really interesting 01:14:29.939 --> 01:14:35.779 hearing the sporting community. The military 01:14:35.779 --> 01:14:37.640 branches that have strength and conditioning 01:14:37.640 --> 01:14:39.479 coaches and dieticians and all these things that 01:14:39.479 --> 01:14:42.579 you just alluded to and how far we are from our 01:14:42.579 --> 01:14:44.939 profession where we haven't even got the working 01:14:44.939 --> 01:14:47.619 environment right. Because as you touched on, 01:14:47.720 --> 01:14:50.859 if I'm learning a skill, I have to sleep to process 01:14:50.859 --> 01:14:53.380 that skill to be better. If I've broken down 01:14:53.380 --> 01:14:55.760 muscle tissue and ligaments and tendons, I need 01:14:55.760 --> 01:14:58.939 to sleep to rebuild them. And so as I used to 01:14:58.939 --> 01:15:00.840 get told, it's always the fit guys that get hurt. 01:15:00.920 --> 01:15:03.020 It's like, yeah, back to your point. That's physiology. 01:15:03.950 --> 01:15:06.609 If you look at how the body works, you build 01:15:06.609 --> 01:15:09.510 when you sleep. So you're withholding sleep from 01:15:09.510 --> 01:15:11.449 our first responders three or four nights a week 01:15:11.449 --> 01:15:13.789 and then doing your surprise face and we all 01:15:13.789 --> 01:15:19.850 start breaking down. Yeah, I think, again, when 01:15:19.850 --> 01:15:23.409 I was a kid, too, I was 23, 24 years old. I didn't 01:15:23.409 --> 01:15:26.430 care about the Krebs cycle. And I really started 01:15:26.430 --> 01:15:28.289 getting into it where it's like, OK, this makes 01:15:28.289 --> 01:15:31.289 a lot of sense to exactly like you're alluding 01:15:31.289 --> 01:15:34.140 to. It doesn't matter what. community you're 01:15:34.140 --> 01:15:37.460 in whether it be whether you're the the strength 01:15:37.460 --> 01:15:40.560 coach uh for arsenal or the strength coach for 01:15:40.560 --> 01:15:43.500 the philadelphia eagles or you're the you're 01:15:43.500 --> 01:15:46.539 the seal team six strength coach like it's all 01:15:46.539 --> 01:15:50.619 the same you need to be conditioned to get just 01:15:50.619 --> 01:15:53.699 like you just said i've never climbed 30 flights 01:15:53.699 --> 01:15:55.699 of stairs with 100 pounds you know and i commend 01:15:55.699 --> 01:16:00.039 you for that hell yeah but that's not you don't 01:16:00.039 --> 01:16:02.760 need to be strong to do that you need to be conditioned 01:16:02.760 --> 01:16:06.239 to do that you need to be able to carry 100 pounds 01:16:06.239 --> 01:16:08.340 so yes there is that baseline of strength but 01:16:08.340 --> 01:16:12.460 it boils down to conditioning endurance and then 01:16:12.460 --> 01:16:14.619 probably a little bit of mental mental fortitude 01:16:14.619 --> 01:16:16.300 a little bit of a grit or a little bit of grit 01:16:16.300 --> 01:16:21.199 excuse me but it is interesting to see a lot 01:16:21.199 --> 01:16:26.739 of these concepts i i wouldn't say collegiate 01:16:26.739 --> 01:16:29.359 athletics, which very, very good coaches there, 01:16:29.439 --> 01:16:31.460 professional athletics, very, very good coaches, 01:16:31.479 --> 01:16:33.979 high performance training. There are certain 01:16:33.979 --> 01:16:37.399 aspects of that training that do translate to 01:16:37.399 --> 01:16:39.979 tactical, but not all of them. And the coaches 01:16:39.979 --> 01:16:42.100 who are not successful are trying to bring their 01:16:42.100 --> 01:16:46.659 division one football programs to a medic and 01:16:46.659 --> 01:16:48.520 not even a combat medic. Maybe it's a surgeon. 01:16:48.909 --> 01:16:52.189 So they're standing all day. And if you've probably 01:16:52.189 --> 01:16:54.449 heard from a couple of these guys, talked to 01:16:54.449 --> 01:16:56.310 some tactical coaches, if you've been in the 01:16:56.310 --> 01:16:58.949 military for 15, 20 years, your knees are going 01:16:58.949 --> 01:17:01.550 to be torn up. Your back is going to be fried 01:17:01.550 --> 01:17:05.149 because they're going through work nonstop. Same 01:17:05.149 --> 01:17:07.590 with firefighters. They are nonstop working. 01:17:07.729 --> 01:17:10.250 They don't have time to recover. So it's like 01:17:10.250 --> 01:17:12.770 the opposite of what you want. General adaptation 01:17:12.770 --> 01:17:15.789 syndrome says we're supposed to trend up. It's 01:17:15.789 --> 01:17:17.850 the opposite. You never get a chance to recover. 01:17:18.329 --> 01:17:20.890 to super compensate, to then build performance. 01:17:21.130 --> 01:17:25.909 So it is very interesting to see where did that 01:17:25.909 --> 01:17:29.989 stop becoming so important with like, let's do 01:17:29.989 --> 01:17:31.850 our needs analysis. That's one of the first things 01:17:31.850 --> 01:17:35.329 they teach you in CSCS is, hey, I have James 01:17:35.329 --> 01:17:37.470 Gearing here, firefighter, like, okay, what does 01:17:37.470 --> 01:17:40.369 he do? And then how can I help him get better? 01:17:41.109 --> 01:17:45.359 I probably wouldn't do too much. heavy heavy 01:17:45.359 --> 01:17:47.539 power lifting but we're going to be doing a ton 01:17:47.539 --> 01:17:51.119 of conditioning teaching you how to recover teaching 01:17:51.119 --> 01:17:53.619 you how to fuel properly looking at food as fuel 01:17:53.619 --> 01:17:56.619 if you have an overweight athlete or firefighter 01:17:56.619 --> 01:18:01.979 or operator or gen pop you know active duty member 01:18:01.979 --> 01:18:04.880 we need to get that weight off and then so you 01:18:04.880 --> 01:18:07.699 need to build the discipline you need to understand 01:18:07.699 --> 01:18:13.520 like this A bag of Cheetos says 160 calories, 01:18:13.640 --> 01:18:15.739 but yes, what about the four beers you're drinking 01:18:15.739 --> 01:18:19.920 later? What about the lack of water that you're 01:18:19.920 --> 01:18:22.920 drinking? Oh, coach, beer has water. I would 01:18:22.920 --> 01:18:28.000 argue that is correct, but hey, it all comes 01:18:28.000 --> 01:18:30.319 into play. Pay attention to what you're doing. 01:18:31.060 --> 01:18:33.260 You're not getting good sleep if you're drinking, 01:18:33.300 --> 01:18:36.460 and it all boils down to recovery at the end 01:18:36.460 --> 01:18:39.020 of the day and fueling properly. So like you 01:18:39.020 --> 01:18:41.579 said, when you sleep to build back better, I 01:18:41.579 --> 01:18:45.399 guess. Absolutely. Well, walk me through your 01:18:45.399 --> 01:18:48.840 journey from, I'm assuming, coaching more the 01:18:48.840 --> 01:18:50.899 collegiate athlete when you were in school to 01:18:50.899 --> 01:18:53.699 the tactical population. And were there any kind 01:18:53.699 --> 01:18:55.840 of aha moments as far as the differences between 01:18:55.840 --> 01:19:01.699 the two? Yeah, it was. And again, I have no issues 01:19:01.699 --> 01:19:06.699 with collegiate athletics. Everything is what 01:19:06.699 --> 01:19:11.100 it is. My first internship was at University 01:19:11.100 --> 01:19:13.199 of Richmond. It was the 100 -hour internship 01:19:13.199 --> 01:19:17.399 that we had to do at VCU, and I did it. So University 01:19:17.399 --> 01:19:19.520 of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University, 01:19:20.300 --> 01:19:22.500 both Richmond schools, both Division I, huge 01:19:22.500 --> 01:19:26.659 rivals. So there's two or three of us from VCU. 01:19:26.739 --> 01:19:29.819 We wanted to get our 100 -hour internship over 01:19:29.819 --> 01:19:33.560 the summer so that we could also work. So we 01:19:33.560 --> 01:19:35.239 went to University of Richmond, and we were with 01:19:35.239 --> 01:19:38.600 their men's basketball team. uh coach jay demaya 01:19:38.600 --> 01:19:41.000 i believe he's still there great coach good guy 01:19:41.000 --> 01:19:47.399 um and then we kind of saw their the head strength 01:19:47.399 --> 01:19:49.000 and conditioning coach for the whole program 01:19:49.000 --> 01:19:52.239 chris stewart was leaving because a new football 01:19:52.239 --> 01:19:54.300 coach was coming in and he was like hey man i 01:19:54.300 --> 01:19:57.399 want to bring my own strength staff in and i'm 01:19:57.399 --> 01:19:59.500 not saying that's right or wrong but i could 01:19:59.500 --> 01:20:03.300 not do that to my i hadn't met leslie yet my 01:20:03.300 --> 01:20:05.260 wife i couldn't do that to my wife to be like 01:20:05.260 --> 01:20:07.569 oh we got to move to delaware We have to move 01:20:07.569 --> 01:20:10.130 to Wyoming. And what if you have kids? What if 01:20:10.130 --> 01:20:12.550 you have dogs? What if you have a family member 01:20:12.550 --> 01:20:16.369 you're taking care of? So that was the first 01:20:16.369 --> 01:20:18.430 kind of writing on the wall, the first aha moment 01:20:18.430 --> 01:20:22.069 where like, man, this is cutthroat, dude. Not 01:20:22.069 --> 01:20:26.270 every coach in college makes $100 ,000. A lot 01:20:26.270 --> 01:20:30.470 of them don't. And then that was kind of answered. 01:20:30.529 --> 01:20:33.710 That aha moment came when I was at Christopher 01:20:33.710 --> 01:20:36.680 Newport. with Christopher Newport universities 01:20:36.680 --> 01:20:39.180 in Newport news, Virginia. So small D three school, 01:20:39.340 --> 01:20:42.600 very, very good academics, beautiful campus. 01:20:42.939 --> 01:20:45.560 So they're at, they're very good at athletics, 01:20:45.600 --> 01:20:49.000 believe it or not. But D three division three, 01:20:49.039 --> 01:20:50.619 they're not there for the scholarships. They're 01:20:50.619 --> 01:20:52.560 there for the love of the game. So that was really, 01:20:52.619 --> 01:20:55.800 really fun to work with guys coming in at five 01:20:55.800 --> 01:20:57.579 in the morning and none of them missed their 01:20:57.579 --> 01:20:59.960 sessions. And that was just disciplined. Like 01:20:59.960 --> 01:21:03.199 that's who those guys and girls were. um best 01:21:03.199 --> 01:21:05.119 team I had there was women's volleyball because 01:21:05.119 --> 01:21:07.279 that was literally my first session coaching 01:21:07.279 --> 01:21:10.840 on my own where you know shout out to Jesse and 01:21:10.840 --> 01:21:14.159 Dean um I still talk to Jesse to this day I went 01:21:14.159 --> 01:21:16.359 to see I'm going to see Dean here this coming 01:21:16.359 --> 01:21:18.380 year I think we have something later this spring 01:21:18.380 --> 01:21:19.880 where I'm just going to go hang out you know 01:21:19.880 --> 01:21:23.460 talk to them and stuff um the women's volleyball 01:21:23.460 --> 01:21:25.680 team comes in after football so all strength 01:21:25.680 --> 01:21:28.720 coaches typically assist with football The first 01:21:28.720 --> 01:21:30.439 lift got out of the way. They ended at about 01:21:30.439 --> 01:21:32.579 7, and then women's volleyball came in at about 01:21:32.579 --> 01:21:34.880 8. So I had an hour to go run, get something 01:21:34.880 --> 01:21:37.140 to eat, and then come back. Women's volleyball 01:21:37.140 --> 01:21:41.760 came in, and we had the workouts. They used Team 01:21:41.760 --> 01:21:44.420 Builder, which is where I got introduced to it. 01:21:45.479 --> 01:21:48.279 And they put the workout up on the TV at the 01:21:48.279 --> 01:21:50.460 end of the weight room, and they were like, all 01:21:50.460 --> 01:21:52.140 right, coach, you got it? I was like, yeah, I 01:21:52.140 --> 01:21:53.399 think so. Let me ask you something real quick. 01:21:53.479 --> 01:21:55.100 And they just turned around and walked away. 01:21:55.699 --> 01:21:58.340 So kind of a trial by fire. And then closed the 01:21:58.340 --> 01:22:00.520 door, and then I locked it because I tried to 01:22:00.520 --> 01:22:04.060 open to ask questions. Yeah, that was real trial 01:22:04.060 --> 01:22:08.439 by fire. Fed me to the wolves. And the women's 01:22:08.439 --> 01:22:10.300 volleyball team, you know, God bless them. I 01:22:10.300 --> 01:22:12.199 was like, all right, guys, well, I guess we're 01:22:12.199 --> 01:22:15.079 doing this. And they're like, I guess? You know, 01:22:15.159 --> 01:22:17.460 I don't know if they were in on it or not, but 01:22:17.460 --> 01:22:20.260 they were just like, look, the lift is what it 01:22:20.260 --> 01:22:23.119 is. I hate using that phrase. Coach us through 01:22:23.119 --> 01:22:26.340 it. If we have questions, ask. Check our form. 01:22:26.890 --> 01:22:28.890 Make us work hard and then we'll get out of here. 01:22:28.970 --> 01:22:30.890 And that was, that was our captain. I can't remember 01:22:30.890 --> 01:22:32.770 her name. I feel like an asshole saying that, 01:22:32.829 --> 01:22:40.010 but I was so like overwhelmed, you know, and 01:22:40.010 --> 01:22:42.670 then Jesse and Dean, like the volume controls 01:22:42.670 --> 01:22:46.050 for the music was in their office. So they, they 01:22:46.050 --> 01:22:48.050 turned it up real loud. I think it was like Katy 01:22:48.050 --> 01:22:50.550 Perry or something, you know, turned it up. That 01:22:50.550 --> 01:22:52.409 was the volleyball girls. That was their playlist 01:22:52.409 --> 01:22:55.060 that they made for their lifting session. And 01:22:55.060 --> 01:22:56.380 then they were just like, all right, let's get 01:22:56.380 --> 01:22:58.560 after it. Coach, teach us how to hang clean. 01:22:58.699 --> 01:23:00.779 And this is the athletes telling me how to do 01:23:00.779 --> 01:23:02.319 my job, which should have been the opposite. 01:23:02.800 --> 01:23:05.560 Where it's like, okay, there's no right or wrong 01:23:05.560 --> 01:23:09.600 to this. I didn't make these workouts. That was 01:23:09.600 --> 01:23:12.239 Dean and Jesse. But I had it right in front of 01:23:12.239 --> 01:23:14.560 me. I knew all these movements. I knew the warm 01:23:14.560 --> 01:23:17.739 -up because they taught me. And it was really 01:23:17.739 --> 01:23:19.380 kind of just keeping these girls in line, which 01:23:19.380 --> 01:23:21.979 they were the best team I ever had out of all 01:23:21.979 --> 01:23:25.010 of my teams. They were so well -behaved, asked 01:23:25.010 --> 01:23:27.550 a lot of questions. I ended up getting one of 01:23:27.550 --> 01:23:31.829 the athletes there a job at NASA via an internship 01:23:31.829 --> 01:23:35.670 that my mom helped hook up with one of her colleagues, 01:23:35.869 --> 01:23:39.250 coworkers, who's still there actually. So again, 01:23:39.350 --> 01:23:45.369 kind of full circle. And then I got to talking 01:23:45.369 --> 01:23:47.949 kind of like to your point, the second aha moment. 01:23:48.660 --> 01:23:51.159 So I was a fitness director at USIS at that time. 01:23:51.239 --> 01:23:55.479 So this was 2018, 2019. Excuse me, 2016, because 01:23:55.479 --> 01:23:58.720 I left for Romania in 2018, where I was talking 01:23:58.720 --> 01:24:01.819 to Jesse, and he was kind of going over. He was 01:24:01.819 --> 01:24:04.479 like, hey, man, I don't know if he knew that 01:24:04.479 --> 01:24:06.739 I knew a lot about the admin stuff. Again, I'm 01:24:06.739 --> 01:24:08.859 a big investor. I know a lot about health insurance. 01:24:08.979 --> 01:24:11.020 I know a lot about IRAs, what's the difference 01:24:11.020 --> 01:24:14.180 between Roth and blah, blah, blah. So he was 01:24:14.180 --> 01:24:17.819 like, hey, what do you think is more worth it? 01:24:18.650 --> 01:24:23.390 Health insurance or contributing to my IRA? I 01:24:23.390 --> 01:24:26.189 was like, what do you mean? You have to have 01:24:26.189 --> 01:24:28.989 both. I think you have to have both. You don't 01:24:28.989 --> 01:24:31.489 need an IRA, but individual retirement account 01:24:31.489 --> 01:24:34.810 is what that stands for. And I was like, what 01:24:34.810 --> 01:24:37.989 do you mean health insurance? Isn't that offered 01:24:37.989 --> 01:24:41.050 through your job? He's like, yeah, but my rent 01:24:41.050 --> 01:24:43.930 is this much. I only get paid X amount, and I'm 01:24:43.930 --> 01:24:46.619 not going to put that amount out there. It wasn't 01:24:46.619 --> 01:24:49.340 enough to sit here and pay for health insurance 01:24:49.340 --> 01:24:52.720 and pay for rent. And he was an assistant coach, 01:24:52.880 --> 01:24:55.539 smartest coach that I've ever met him and Jeff. 01:24:55.659 --> 01:24:58.420 That's his best friend who was at Langley till 01:24:58.420 --> 01:25:00.399 recently with the pilots. And I go down to see 01:25:00.399 --> 01:25:05.619 him all the time. There just wasn't, there wasn't 01:25:05.619 --> 01:25:08.899 the money that I expected. And I don't need a 01:25:08.899 --> 01:25:10.899 hundred thousand dollars to support my wife and 01:25:10.899 --> 01:25:17.380 myself, but I can't live off of. 20 you know 01:25:17.380 --> 01:25:19.399 that that's a mortgage that's what i'm paying 01:25:19.399 --> 01:25:24.159 in my mortgage so that was the second aha moment 01:25:24.159 --> 01:25:28.159 right that was the official transition to tactical 01:25:28.159 --> 01:25:31.060 finish that internship again still talk to jesse 01:25:31.060 --> 01:25:33.560 to this day i just talked to him the other day 01:25:33.560 --> 01:25:36.739 um still talk to jeff who i met at university 01:25:36.739 --> 01:25:41.770 of richmond um But it was also like I am going 01:25:41.770 --> 01:25:44.390 to bite the bullet and do this fitness director 01:25:44.390 --> 01:25:47.229 thing. I did not like being a supervisor. I don't 01:25:47.229 --> 01:25:50.369 think I was very good at it. But I had enough 01:25:50.369 --> 01:25:53.710 money to pay the bills. And I was happy. I wasn't 01:25:53.710 --> 01:25:56.970 doing 4 a .m. to 4 p .m. A lot of times 4 a .m. 01:25:56.970 --> 01:26:00.369 to 6 p .m. because you got to drive home. And 01:26:00.369 --> 01:26:01.850 then you're just tired and you got to go to bed 01:26:01.850 --> 01:26:03.890 at 8 o 'clock. So you don't get any time with 01:26:03.890 --> 01:26:07.069 your wife or husband or son or daughter or mom, 01:26:07.229 --> 01:26:10.810 whatever. I didn't want to do that. I didn't 01:26:10.810 --> 01:26:12.649 want to subject my future wife to that because 01:26:12.649 --> 01:26:15.350 I had met Leslie at that point. And she because 01:26:15.350 --> 01:26:17.609 I was doing an internship and full time job at 01:26:17.609 --> 01:26:20.609 the same time, which is pretty akin to a full 01:26:20.609 --> 01:26:23.210 time strength coach in college, long hours. So 01:26:23.210 --> 01:26:28.369 I would work 4 a .m. to 11 a .m. at CNU and then 01:26:28.369 --> 01:26:31.789 I would work 12 to 7. I wouldn't take a lunch 01:26:31.789 --> 01:26:36.399 at Fort Eustis. People come in asking all these 01:26:36.399 --> 01:26:38.600 questions. I'm tired because you have to lift 01:26:38.600 --> 01:26:40.420 in collegiate athletics. They make you lift, 01:26:40.579 --> 01:26:42.840 which is awesome. Build the discipline in me. 01:26:42.859 --> 01:26:45.680 You've got to train every day. And I remember 01:26:45.680 --> 01:26:47.420 Leslie, we were just sitting there on the couch 01:26:47.420 --> 01:26:50.399 one day at her house, and she was like, dude, 01:26:50.520 --> 01:26:52.100 you can't keep doing this, man. You're burning 01:26:52.100 --> 01:26:56.539 the candle at both ends. So then I finished that 01:26:56.539 --> 01:26:58.939 internship out. I'm not a quitter. So I finished 01:26:58.939 --> 01:27:03.939 that out, got good. uh high praise from the guys 01:27:03.939 --> 01:27:05.659 hey you'd make a great collegiate strength coach 01:27:05.659 --> 01:27:09.460 um but then it was also like let me look at the 01:27:09.460 --> 01:27:11.380 tactical strength and conditioning setting and 01:27:11.380 --> 01:27:14.100 there wasn't any jobs open at that time around 01:27:14.100 --> 01:27:16.579 me or anywhere that we would be comfortable moving 01:27:16.579 --> 01:27:21.020 to so I just volunteered in high school athletics 01:27:21.020 --> 01:27:23.800 just so I can get that like full -time coaching 01:27:23.800 --> 01:27:27.359 big group aspect still and then slowly transition 01:27:27.359 --> 01:27:32.069 into full -time coaching which happened So Romania 01:27:32.069 --> 01:27:35.630 was a little different. It was very unique in 01:27:35.630 --> 01:27:37.869 terms of your procuring equipment from Rogue 01:27:37.869 --> 01:27:40.409 Fitness, which is out of Ohio. You got to get 01:27:40.409 --> 01:27:42.270 it shipped halfway around the world to Romania. 01:27:43.090 --> 01:27:48.569 And that was where my admin practice and acuity 01:27:48.569 --> 01:27:53.909 came in. What's my budget? I have to pay 20 % 01:27:53.909 --> 01:27:58.270 extra for shipping. and then how am I going to 01:27:58.270 --> 01:28:00.329 get it from so everything would come in via boat 01:28:00.329 --> 01:28:03.050 over there so it would come on the east coast 01:28:03.050 --> 01:28:05.810 and we're in dead smack in the middle of Romania 01:28:05.810 --> 01:28:08.789 so it had to get shipped all the way there so 01:28:08.789 --> 01:28:11.890 you know getting familiar with POCs following 01:28:11.890 --> 01:28:15.590 up where is this thing lo and behold they don't 01:28:15.590 --> 01:28:17.630 track once it leaves the U .S. so that was a 01:28:17.630 --> 01:28:22.470 nightmare um and then after I got back from Romania 01:28:22.470 --> 01:28:27.590 was COVID kind of like I said so um However many 01:28:27.590 --> 01:28:31.649 years that lasted, it was all a blur. I was working 01:28:31.649 --> 01:28:36.550 at my old soccer coach, Jimmy the Greek's deli. 01:28:36.550 --> 01:28:38.430 At his deli, I was front of the house manager. 01:28:38.470 --> 01:28:42.609 I was delivering and taking calls and all that 01:28:42.609 --> 01:28:44.210 kind of stuff, making money to pay the bills 01:28:44.210 --> 01:28:46.489 because there was nowhere hiring at that point. 01:28:46.729 --> 01:28:49.970 I was only training on my own. That's when I 01:28:49.970 --> 01:28:54.869 was 26, 27 years old and I finally bought my 01:28:54.869 --> 01:28:57.779 first barbell. And Leslie and I would just train 01:28:57.779 --> 01:29:01.220 outside, got some bands. I would do some box 01:29:01.220 --> 01:29:03.739 jumps into the back of my truck. And that was 01:29:03.739 --> 01:29:05.859 a lot of fun and do some conditioning. And then 01:29:05.859 --> 01:29:10.960 finally the H2F jobs opened, which is Army. And 01:29:10.960 --> 01:29:14.239 then you have, I had five teams. I had preventative 01:29:14.239 --> 01:29:21.060 medicine, combat medics, optometry. I had a forward 01:29:21.060 --> 01:29:24.939 resuscitative surgical detachment, FRSD. They 01:29:24.939 --> 01:29:28.279 were pretty cool. And then I had, I can't remember. 01:29:28.460 --> 01:29:30.659 It was kind of, I was covering, I think they 01:29:30.659 --> 01:29:32.960 were more like logistics. And then I had like 01:29:32.960 --> 01:29:34.340 the colonels and stuff would come in and work 01:29:34.340 --> 01:29:36.699 out with me too. So that was my first full -time 01:29:36.699 --> 01:29:38.239 strength and conditioning, but I was already 01:29:38.239 --> 01:29:42.039 making twice as much as what Jesse was making 01:29:42.039 --> 01:29:45.680 at CMU. And that was where, again, Leslie and 01:29:45.680 --> 01:29:49.489 I had a blast in Tennessee. an hour from Nashville. 01:29:50.210 --> 01:29:52.649 We had enough money to go do things. We had enough 01:29:52.649 --> 01:29:55.670 money to pay our rent. We had enough money to 01:29:55.670 --> 01:29:58.569 get the dogs whatever toys they wanted. You need 01:29:58.569 --> 01:30:03.170 this medicine. Tennessee and Kentucky are right 01:30:03.170 --> 01:30:05.449 there. You want this nice bottle of whiskey? 01:30:05.689 --> 01:30:09.069 Absolutely, I do. That's the whiskey capital 01:30:09.069 --> 01:30:11.109 of the world. I tried a whole bunch of stuff. 01:30:11.350 --> 01:30:14.630 I had a friend from where I met at Eustis. We 01:30:14.630 --> 01:30:16.949 linked up there. He was at Fort Campbell too. 01:30:18.269 --> 01:30:23.210 And then one day, I don't know how the OST thing 01:30:23.210 --> 01:30:25.529 actually popped up, operational support team 01:30:25.529 --> 01:30:28.409 thing popped up. It's the same concept as H2F, 01:30:28.510 --> 01:30:32.449 but a little bit more high level. All the coaches 01:30:32.449 --> 01:30:34.689 we have in here are incredibly talented coaches. 01:30:35.170 --> 01:30:38.409 The leadership is incredible. You can reach out 01:30:38.409 --> 01:30:41.829 for anything, any of the coaches. There's a group 01:30:41.829 --> 01:30:44.609 chat that we have on Signal that's just nonstop. 01:30:44.609 --> 01:30:46.250 Hey, who's doing this? How are you doing that? 01:30:46.890 --> 01:30:50.229 Hey, coach, how'd you get this? And it's just 01:30:50.229 --> 01:30:53.470 a great community, which you don't, that's actually 01:30:53.470 --> 01:30:55.390 one of the things you do have in collegiate athletics. 01:30:55.569 --> 01:30:59.210 Like seeing you could go to George Mason up in 01:30:59.210 --> 01:31:02.810 Fairfax, Virginia, and that strength staff, excuse 01:31:02.810 --> 01:31:05.430 me, would welcome you with open arms. Because 01:31:05.430 --> 01:31:08.529 we're all in the kind of same aspect. We're all 01:31:08.529 --> 01:31:10.770 training all day long. How are you guys doing 01:31:10.770 --> 01:31:13.170 things? It's not a secret. You know, strength 01:31:13.170 --> 01:31:15.289 training and conditioning is not a secret. Everybody's 01:31:15.289 --> 01:31:17.810 doing the same thing. uh, just, just a little 01:31:17.810 --> 01:31:19.250 bit different. And I know that sounds a little 01:31:19.250 --> 01:31:24.250 contradictive, but, um, that's what OST has too. 01:31:24.970 --> 01:31:27.810 That made me a little bit more comfortable with, 01:31:27.869 --> 01:31:31.229 I'm not afraid to reach out and, and be like, 01:31:31.310 --> 01:31:34.350 Hey, can anybody try this for me? I sent my first 01:31:34.350 --> 01:31:38.930 program for the EOD guys here over to Japan where 01:31:38.930 --> 01:31:41.029 we have coaches as well. You know, shout out 01:31:41.029 --> 01:31:44.750 Megan, the Haven. She's amazing. And that was 01:31:44.750 --> 01:31:48.850 the third aha moment where it's like, okay, I 01:31:48.850 --> 01:31:51.789 feel home here. And then the pay is a little 01:31:51.789 --> 01:31:54.210 bit better. Benefits are really, really good. 01:31:55.989 --> 01:32:00.090 And I'm happy. You have to get paid a little 01:32:00.090 --> 01:32:02.609 bit to be happy. You can't work for free. So 01:32:02.609 --> 01:32:07.430 those aha moments, the kind of competitiveness 01:32:07.430 --> 01:32:10.289 and cutthroat of collegiate was a writing on 01:32:10.289 --> 01:32:16.430 the wall for me. You know, GTFO moment of collegiate 01:32:16.430 --> 01:32:18.970 or trying to live that dream was when, you know, 01:32:18.970 --> 01:32:21.829 Jesse maybe could or could not pay for his health 01:32:21.829 --> 01:32:24.890 insurance. And then the third one was as long 01:32:24.890 --> 01:32:27.670 as a community is built and as long as you're 01:32:27.670 --> 01:32:31.890 open and vulnerable and accepting of criticism 01:32:31.890 --> 01:32:35.310 and, hey, I tried this. What do you think? You'll 01:32:35.310 --> 01:32:36.970 find your way. You know, there's going to be 01:32:36.970 --> 01:32:39.609 rough spots no matter where you work at, whether 01:32:39.609 --> 01:32:42.609 you're an engineer or a strength coach. As long 01:32:42.609 --> 01:32:44.189 as you have the discipline and the willpower 01:32:44.189 --> 01:32:46.250 and the grit to kind of get through those rough 01:32:46.250 --> 01:32:48.489 patches, it's all going to be worth it in the 01:32:48.489 --> 01:32:52.590 end. Talk to me about OST then, if you're going 01:32:52.590 --> 01:32:55.189 to describe what it was and the purpose that 01:32:55.189 --> 01:32:58.430 it serves. All right. OST is Operational Support 01:32:58.430 --> 01:33:02.710 Team. We are worldwide. We are Air Force. So 01:33:02.710 --> 01:33:08.460 it consists of a five -person team. And you can 01:33:08.460 --> 01:33:11.960 kind of modify this any which way, but most 98%, 01:33:11.960 --> 01:33:16.159 95 % of the teams consist of a team lead who 01:33:16.159 --> 01:33:19.060 kind of analyzes the data. We have a big dashboard 01:33:19.060 --> 01:33:21.819 where, you know, fitness tests are coming in 01:33:21.819 --> 01:33:25.020 every year. Every active duty member has to do 01:33:25.020 --> 01:33:29.779 a PHA. And I apologize if that acronym is wrong. 01:33:29.859 --> 01:33:31.500 I don't really follow up too much on those words 01:33:31.500 --> 01:33:35.779 like medical questionnaire profiles, which is 01:33:35.779 --> 01:33:38.649 injuries. That's a documented injury in the military. 01:33:38.649 --> 01:33:41.350 Same across the board, Army, Navy, Air Force, 01:33:41.430 --> 01:33:44.630 Marines. All that comes into this big dashboard 01:33:44.630 --> 01:33:48.810 that we have a data team up in Ohio. Again, leadership 01:33:48.810 --> 01:33:53.670 is second to none. They kind of do all the crunching 01:33:53.670 --> 01:33:56.550 and then put it in a nice dashboard for us. So 01:33:56.550 --> 01:33:59.770 the team lead will go and kind of analyze. So 01:33:59.770 --> 01:34:02.930 a little bit of data analytics, a little bit 01:34:02.930 --> 01:34:06.279 of a team manager. So we're a hybrid team. We 01:34:06.279 --> 01:34:11.699 have GS civilians, myself, the team lead, are 01:34:11.699 --> 01:34:14.159 the GS civilians, and then the rest are active 01:34:14.159 --> 01:34:17.000 duty. So team lead, strength and conditioning 01:34:17.000 --> 01:34:20.840 coach, and then the active duty components are 01:34:20.840 --> 01:34:22.779 you will typically have a physical therapist 01:34:22.779 --> 01:34:26.439 based out of the med group and or the physical 01:34:26.439 --> 01:34:30.000 therapy clinic. So their active duty, it's a 01:34:30.000 --> 01:34:32.720 lot easier for mill to mill to talk. They know 01:34:32.720 --> 01:34:34.619 their acronyms. They know their verbiage. So 01:34:34.619 --> 01:34:37.939 that's awesome. Um, and then two mental health, 01:34:38.060 --> 01:34:42.399 uh, clinicians, they try and slot it. One is 01:34:42.399 --> 01:34:45.739 an LCSW or a licensed clinical social worker. 01:34:46.079 --> 01:34:49.020 And the second one is a psychologist. There are 01:34:49.020 --> 01:34:51.859 not a lot of psychologists period in the air 01:34:51.859 --> 01:34:56.100 force or active duty. And then to the mental 01:34:56.100 --> 01:34:58.939 health clinic, um, kind of going back to your, 01:34:58.939 --> 01:35:01.920 your, uh, fire departments always being undermanned. 01:35:01.920 --> 01:35:03.619 The mental health clinic, I would argue is the 01:35:03.619 --> 01:35:06.710 most undermanned. clinic but one of the most 01:35:06.710 --> 01:35:11.210 important in all of active duty so some bases 01:35:11.210 --> 01:35:15.050 have them sure we here at langley only have myself 01:35:15.050 --> 01:35:17.109 the strength and conditioning coach and the physical 01:35:17.109 --> 01:35:19.170 therapist we're in the process of hiring the 01:35:19.170 --> 01:35:23.189 team lead um and if the team lead is is an athletic 01:35:23.189 --> 01:35:28.630 trainer i guess technically speaking if my boss 01:35:28.630 --> 01:35:30.289 is going to listen to this they're not supposed 01:35:30.289 --> 01:35:33.789 to treat but if you got a guy hey man my shoulder 01:35:33.789 --> 01:35:36.329 hurts They're going to check you out. So it's 01:35:36.329 --> 01:35:38.869 nice to have a nice little mix of some of them 01:35:38.869 --> 01:35:43.109 are strength coaches who kind of promote to the 01:35:43.109 --> 01:35:46.069 team lead. So they understand the OST dynamic. 01:35:46.449 --> 01:35:49.109 So that's the team, strength coach, team lead, 01:35:49.229 --> 01:35:51.449 physical therapist, two mental health clinicians. 01:35:51.909 --> 01:35:56.989 And we embed in either targeted units. Our last 01:35:56.989 --> 01:35:59.470 unit and our current unit here at Langley actually 01:35:59.470 --> 01:36:02.289 reached out to us. They weren't even on our radar 01:36:02.289 --> 01:36:05.770 of profiles or failing fitness tests or mental 01:36:05.770 --> 01:36:07.470 health issues. They were just like, hey, we want 01:36:07.470 --> 01:36:11.729 to build a profile PT for these guys. So basically, 01:36:11.789 --> 01:36:14.170 what can I add into these workouts? And then 01:36:14.170 --> 01:36:16.149 can we get a little bit of help lowering our 01:36:16.149 --> 01:36:20.390 profile numbers over six months, about three 01:36:20.390 --> 01:36:23.569 to six month embedment, and then we rotate. So 01:36:23.569 --> 01:36:27.180 I've been... for transparency my first unit was 01:36:27.180 --> 01:36:29.699 the logistics readiness squadron so they fuel 01:36:29.699 --> 01:36:32.460 and defuel the jets any mail that comes on base 01:36:32.460 --> 01:36:35.239 they they accept and sort that and they send 01:36:35.239 --> 01:36:39.560 that out they have um what else does lrs have 01:36:39.560 --> 01:36:42.579 basically anything and everything you can think 01:36:42.579 --> 01:36:48.779 of um any uh fuel they'll test it um stuff like 01:36:48.779 --> 01:36:52.260 that and then i then i went to maintenance so 01:36:52.260 --> 01:36:56.350 the first maintenance squadron so They will fix 01:36:56.350 --> 01:36:58.909 the equipment that starts the jets. They don't 01:36:58.909 --> 01:37:01.109 fix the jets. That's, that's the crew chiefs 01:37:01.109 --> 01:37:04.329 and those crews, which is the fighter squadron, 01:37:04.409 --> 01:37:06.229 which is the pilots. So that's the whole, that's 01:37:06.229 --> 01:37:09.109 the OHWS Jeff that I was kind of talking about. 01:37:09.210 --> 01:37:11.590 So they fix the equipment that starts the jets 01:37:11.590 --> 01:37:18.430 that pull the jets onto the runway. They, this 01:37:18.430 --> 01:37:22.170 is this thing called LO where they'll like fix, 01:37:22.310 --> 01:37:25.300 you know, paint jobs and. and stuff like that. 01:37:25.920 --> 01:37:29.880 They had props and egress, which is the ejection 01:37:29.880 --> 01:37:33.359 seat. And then the engines, which is split between 01:37:33.359 --> 01:37:36.479 the active duty part of the shop where they do 01:37:36.479 --> 01:37:39.939 whatever they did. It was always over my head, 01:37:39.939 --> 01:37:42.680 man. That stuff is so, those engines are so crazy. 01:37:43.399 --> 01:37:46.520 And then Pratt and Whitney or whoever makes the 01:37:46.520 --> 01:37:49.380 engine will send their own team to do like the 01:37:49.380 --> 01:37:52.569 super high level stuff. And here at Langley, 01:37:52.609 --> 01:37:55.949 we have a lot of active guards. So full time 01:37:55.949 --> 01:37:59.630 guard people. So they do like the longer term 01:37:59.630 --> 01:38:02.770 maintenance. They're really cool people. And 01:38:02.770 --> 01:38:05.510 then we went to security forces where it was 01:38:05.510 --> 01:38:08.329 just me because my boss at that time, Caitlin, 01:38:08.430 --> 01:38:11.289 who was a physical therapist, left. She PCS to 01:38:11.289 --> 01:38:16.590 Holloman to be their flight doc. So I was alone 01:38:16.590 --> 01:38:20.449 in security forces. But a lot of that was. I 01:38:20.449 --> 01:38:22.609 would wear my vest sometimes and stand at the 01:38:22.609 --> 01:38:25.770 gate to kind of see what it felt like. I'd work 01:38:25.770 --> 01:38:28.090 12 -hour days twice a week to, again, see what 01:38:28.090 --> 01:38:30.630 that felt like with them, too. And then I would 01:38:30.630 --> 01:38:33.270 build them programs. I got two of the guys into 01:38:33.270 --> 01:38:35.930 air assault. One guy's going for the Raven, which 01:38:35.930 --> 01:38:38.350 is the people who secure the planes when they 01:38:38.350 --> 01:38:40.430 land and take off with a little bit more intricate 01:38:40.430 --> 01:38:43.930 cargo. Really tough course. Air assault's a tough 01:38:43.930 --> 01:38:47.770 course as well. And then SECFO is, you know, 01:38:47.770 --> 01:38:50.989 what they are. They are on the gates. Everybody 01:38:50.989 --> 01:38:54.970 has to be checked in now, 100 % ID check. Any 01:38:54.970 --> 01:38:59.710 speeding on base. We have canines here as well. 01:38:59.850 --> 01:39:04.050 They train the entire base in CADM, which is 01:39:04.050 --> 01:39:08.489 firing weapons. We have a CADM range here as 01:39:08.489 --> 01:39:11.510 well. We have a full kind of canine compound 01:39:11.510 --> 01:39:13.470 as well. They take very, very good care of their 01:39:13.470 --> 01:39:15.630 dogs. I love that because I have two dogs too. 01:39:15.789 --> 01:39:18.869 So can't like play with all of them. Some of 01:39:18.869 --> 01:39:20.550 them were kind of mean, but it was really nice 01:39:20.550 --> 01:39:24.609 to see that like, hey, dogs are people too. And 01:39:24.609 --> 01:39:27.729 they take pride in this is when they're fed. 01:39:27.850 --> 01:39:31.189 This is what they're fed. They go to their TDYs 01:39:31.189 --> 01:39:33.710 and go on trainings on how to be a better canine 01:39:33.710 --> 01:39:36.529 handler. So really good about that here. And 01:39:36.529 --> 01:39:39.960 then now I'm currently with. muns or first munitions 01:39:39.960 --> 01:39:44.640 squadron so any uh projectile that comes on base 01:39:44.640 --> 01:39:48.159 to include the ammunition for security forces 01:39:48.159 --> 01:39:52.079 comes through them they receive it inspect it 01:39:52.079 --> 01:39:55.939 so that's conventional um and then we have the 01:39:55.939 --> 01:40:00.159 precision guided missile dudes um we have a little 01:40:00.159 --> 01:40:04.279 bit of like line delivery so if a plane needs 01:40:04.279 --> 01:40:06.560 a bomb those guys are the ones who deliver it 01:40:07.840 --> 01:40:11.319 And then LRS has vehicle maintenance. Sorry to 01:40:11.319 --> 01:40:13.760 kind of backtrack there. They take care of all 01:40:13.760 --> 01:40:17.260 the vehicles on base. And then, yeah, we're with 01:40:17.260 --> 01:40:20.119 Munns right now who reached out to us and was 01:40:20.119 --> 01:40:23.600 like, hey, we're seeing our profiles. Our injuries 01:40:23.600 --> 01:40:28.000 are on the rise. Can you guys help? So what I'm 01:40:28.000 --> 01:40:30.880 doing now is I'll sit in their gym, and when 01:40:30.880 --> 01:40:32.960 these guys come in, like, hey, coach, I think 01:40:32.960 --> 01:40:37.359 I tweaked my shoulder. or my knee kind of hurts, 01:40:37.500 --> 01:40:39.960 I'm a little bit of the buffer between like, 01:40:40.020 --> 01:40:42.539 do you need to go talk to Major Brad Pink, who 01:40:42.539 --> 01:40:45.500 is my boss now, the new physical therapist? Do 01:40:45.500 --> 01:40:49.020 you need to go see Pink? Or can I handle this? 01:40:49.359 --> 01:40:51.859 So that's been really fun. That's very, very 01:40:51.859 --> 01:40:55.340 unique. And then I'll just kind of give them 01:40:55.340 --> 01:40:57.539 like, hey, why don't you try warming up with 01:40:57.539 --> 01:41:00.960 this shoulder D1 and D2 pattern? Take these bands. 01:41:01.220 --> 01:41:04.420 There you go. Before you press. Do your normal 01:41:04.420 --> 01:41:07.260 warmup and then do your D1, D2, two sets of 12 01:41:07.260 --> 01:41:11.819 each. Or, you know, maybe these guys are plateauing. 01:41:14.220 --> 01:41:16.180 Maybe these guys are plateauing. So I'll kind 01:41:16.180 --> 01:41:19.699 of give them like, not to steal Matt winning 01:41:19.699 --> 01:41:21.739 stuff, but I'll give them some winning warmups. 01:41:21.899 --> 01:41:24.159 So a little extended warmup as well. Like maybe 01:41:24.159 --> 01:41:26.659 you just need a little bit of extra work to continue 01:41:26.659 --> 01:41:30.199 progressing. And then, oh, by the way, like see 01:41:30.199 --> 01:41:32.670 if that helps your knee injury. It's a lot of 01:41:32.670 --> 01:41:34.430 stuff. They just need to go see the physical 01:41:34.430 --> 01:41:37.470 therapist to hear that they're okay. And then 01:41:37.470 --> 01:41:40.529 some of them are not familiar through any and 01:41:40.529 --> 01:41:43.189 all squadrons are not familiar with like a tweak 01:41:43.189 --> 01:41:46.510 or being sore and an actual injury. So that's 01:41:46.510 --> 01:41:48.750 where kind of major pink comes in. He's an amazing 01:41:48.750 --> 01:41:51.729 provider. Very, very good physical therapist. 01:41:51.810 --> 01:41:54.409 He'll kind of tell you, this is the part that 01:41:54.409 --> 01:41:56.869 I think it is. Let's try this. Yep. Confirmed. 01:41:57.109 --> 01:42:00.789 Do this. Go see coach. So it's a nice little 01:42:00.789 --> 01:42:03.470 team where we feed each other. And then once 01:42:03.470 --> 01:42:06.050 the team specialist comes in, once he gets hired, 01:42:06.229 --> 01:42:09.449 he's going to go to the base wide meetings with 01:42:09.449 --> 01:42:11.630 all. There's a thing called the community action 01:42:11.630 --> 01:42:14.569 team and the community action board, the cat 01:42:14.569 --> 01:42:18.270 and cab, where they're basically these are the 01:42:18.270 --> 01:42:21.689 problems we're seeing base wide. Hey, we have 01:42:21.689 --> 01:42:23.449 a ton of knee injuries. What's going on here? 01:42:23.569 --> 01:42:25.670 The physical therapy clinic is overwhelmed. We 01:42:25.670 --> 01:42:28.449 need to attack this. So the team manager would 01:42:28.449 --> 01:42:32.609 go to those meetings. He would go to, he would 01:42:32.609 --> 01:42:34.890 schedule meetings with units that we would reach 01:42:34.890 --> 01:42:37.409 out to. So we here at Langley, and I think most 01:42:37.409 --> 01:42:41.470 bases with OSTs, we give about a two month lead 01:42:41.470 --> 01:42:45.850 time with, we will contact, we contact three 01:42:45.850 --> 01:42:49.010 of our next possible units that we want to go 01:42:49.010 --> 01:42:53.890 to. And then one, whoever responds back, cool, 01:42:53.970 --> 01:42:56.300 let's set something up and let's chat. So sometimes 01:42:56.300 --> 01:42:58.319 only one will get back to us. So that's where 01:42:58.319 --> 01:43:00.300 we're going or all three will get back and then 01:43:00.300 --> 01:43:01.899 we'll have to make a little bit of a tough decision. 01:43:02.000 --> 01:43:06.680 But it kind of boils down to what is the big 01:43:06.680 --> 01:43:11.060 issue and can we make an impact? So we only have 01:43:11.060 --> 01:43:15.020 MSK, musculoskeletal here. So we kind of focus 01:43:15.020 --> 01:43:20.119 a little bit more on, excuse me, on the profiles 01:43:20.119 --> 01:43:23.819 and the injuries and the fitness tests. But good 01:43:23.819 --> 01:43:26.340 thing about Langley in most cases, there's a 01:43:26.340 --> 01:43:29.380 program called True North, which are embedded 01:43:29.380 --> 01:43:35.460 in like the high risk or high tempo units, licensed 01:43:35.460 --> 01:43:38.579 clinical social worker or psychologist. So we 01:43:38.579 --> 01:43:42.439 do we make friends with them. Big collab, big 01:43:42.439 --> 01:43:44.840 collaboration all over the place with OST and 01:43:44.840 --> 01:43:48.199 True North. So we'll be like, hey, ma 'am, I 01:43:48.199 --> 01:43:51.260 see this. This guy's having a tough time. You 01:43:51.260 --> 01:43:53.979 know, we, we lifted he's maybe he doesn't, it 01:43:53.979 --> 01:43:59.159 can be anything, man. PTSD, depression, finance 01:43:59.159 --> 01:44:01.720 issues. And then we'll just be like, Hey, can 01:44:01.720 --> 01:44:03.279 you come talk to this guy or do what's called 01:44:03.279 --> 01:44:05.140 a warm handoff or I'll just walk them down to 01:44:05.140 --> 01:44:08.340 their office. Sometimes they'll come to me, Hey 01:44:08.340 --> 01:44:10.859 coach, this guy just needs to work off his energy 01:44:10.859 --> 01:44:13.760 or his anxiety. And I kind of get a little bit 01:44:13.760 --> 01:44:16.000 of a bigger picture. Like, Hey, what am I dealing 01:44:16.000 --> 01:44:20.500 with? Am I at risk of being in harm or anything, 01:44:20.579 --> 01:44:23.380 which is never usually the case. And then, yeah, 01:44:23.420 --> 01:44:25.340 cool. Send them my way. Give them my number, 01:44:25.380 --> 01:44:28.439 please. So that's been really good since we don't 01:44:28.439 --> 01:44:30.579 have the access to the mental health components 01:44:30.579 --> 01:44:33.939 on our team. And I'm kind of like feeding off 01:44:33.939 --> 01:44:36.340 of that. Some teams will go ahead and flip what's 01:44:36.340 --> 01:44:39.800 called flipping a billet where we will turn one 01:44:39.800 --> 01:44:43.060 of these mental health components into a dietician 01:44:43.060 --> 01:44:49.229 or into an athletic trainer. where if we can't 01:44:49.229 --> 01:44:51.569 get a physical therapist, we do need some kind 01:44:51.569 --> 01:44:56.149 of manual therapy or they do different things 01:44:56.149 --> 01:44:57.770 than what I do. They look at things differently 01:44:57.770 --> 01:45:00.289 than I do. So like you do need that. If you don't 01:45:00.289 --> 01:45:01.949 have access to a physical therapist, they'll 01:45:01.949 --> 01:45:03.970 flip the billet to an athletic trainer or get 01:45:03.970 --> 01:45:06.909 a team specialist who's familiar with that. So 01:45:06.909 --> 01:45:10.229 that's basically OST in a nutshell. Well, that's 01:45:10.229 --> 01:45:12.930 a good segue. So you've described how many different 01:45:12.930 --> 01:45:15.930 people. you get to interact with in different 01:45:15.930 --> 01:45:21.050 roles within the military. You mentioned about 01:45:21.050 --> 01:45:23.329 coming across team builder in the collegiate 01:45:23.329 --> 01:45:27.890 side. Talk to me about how you've applied it 01:45:27.890 --> 01:45:29.810 in this situation. And I think one of the things 01:45:29.810 --> 01:45:31.770 that I love about it, and this isn't some like 01:45:31.770 --> 01:45:35.449 QVC sales pitch now, but what I've seen before 01:45:35.449 --> 01:45:37.630 is kind of like blanket programming for the fire 01:45:37.630 --> 01:45:39.210 service. Well, this is what you should do if 01:45:39.210 --> 01:45:41.449 you're a firefighter. But what I've seen with 01:45:41.449 --> 01:45:43.369 them is the ability, as you touched on, you've 01:45:43.369 --> 01:45:45.729 got, the regular force and, okay, we're going 01:45:45.729 --> 01:45:48.109 to start with programming. It might be age specific 01:45:48.109 --> 01:45:50.489 or something, but apart from that, pretty general. 01:45:51.029 --> 01:45:53.430 But then the ability to start tweaking it if 01:45:53.430 --> 01:45:55.750 there is an injury, if there is a specific need, 01:45:55.949 --> 01:45:58.590 because EOD has to be able to carry this amount. 01:45:58.750 --> 01:45:59.949 So we're going to give them slightly different 01:45:59.949 --> 01:46:03.170 programming. So talk to me again, kind of on 01:46:03.170 --> 01:46:05.770 ramp of Team Builder and how you transition to 01:46:05.770 --> 01:46:07.430 the military. And then what are the things that 01:46:07.430 --> 01:46:09.930 you've really found valuable about that specific 01:46:09.930 --> 01:46:13.250 platform? Yeah, Team Builder is a game changer. 01:46:13.600 --> 01:46:17.819 It is. Honestly, I would not be able to do my 01:46:17.819 --> 01:46:24.779 job without that. Because I train maybe 90 concurrent 01:46:24.779 --> 01:46:28.840 athletes, 90 at a time. And again, most strength 01:46:28.840 --> 01:46:30.739 coaches will probably agree. There's always, 01:46:30.899 --> 01:46:34.539 if I have somebody who is untrained or injured, 01:46:34.800 --> 01:46:36.939 I have a base. You know what I mean? I have a 01:46:36.939 --> 01:46:40.800 base program where I can load onto them, load 01:46:40.800 --> 01:46:43.000 onto their calendar that they have on their phone. 01:46:45.340 --> 01:46:48.039 And we'll take EOD, and then we'll take the maintainers, 01:46:48.039 --> 01:46:56.699 right? So I have 13 EOD guys. So about 10 of 01:46:56.699 --> 01:46:59.380 them train with me. Some of them like the 12 01:46:59.380 --> 01:47:01.699 -week program that their physical training lead 01:47:01.699 --> 01:47:04.000 and I developed. He came to me. He was like, 01:47:04.079 --> 01:47:05.760 hey, man, I want a 12 -week program if these 01:47:05.760 --> 01:47:07.199 guys are struggling to pass because they have 01:47:07.199 --> 01:47:10.779 the Tier 2 test. So it's a deadlift, a row. uh 01:47:10.779 --> 01:47:13.060 med ball toss and then you have to do this little 01:47:13.060 --> 01:47:15.560 circuit called the grooster which is brutal um 01:47:15.560 --> 01:47:17.880 we can go into that it's a fun test you might 01:47:17.880 --> 01:47:22.460 like it um so those guys have their baseline 01:47:22.460 --> 01:47:25.859 it's always going to consist of a deadlift and 01:47:25.859 --> 01:47:28.300 then it's going to consist of you know overall 01:47:28.300 --> 01:47:30.979 strength and then we're going to phase it first 01:47:30.979 --> 01:47:33.899 thing for me is always soft tissue prep or a 01:47:33.899 --> 01:47:36.569 little bit of like eccentric loading Teach these 01:47:36.569 --> 01:47:39.250 guys how to brace. So we're going to lower over 01:47:39.250 --> 01:47:41.250 two weeks. We're going to lower all of our compound 01:47:41.250 --> 01:47:44.630 lifts over five seconds. The deadlifts, the back 01:47:44.630 --> 01:47:46.829 squats, I prefer front squat, but if they don't 01:47:46.829 --> 01:47:49.630 know how to do that, Hey, I can load up a front 01:47:49.630 --> 01:47:51.210 squat and there's a video right on top of the 01:47:51.210 --> 01:47:53.989 screen. A lot of these guys are visual learners 01:47:53.989 --> 01:47:56.149 and then I can type as many notes as I need in 01:47:56.149 --> 01:47:59.050 there. They can message me in the app too. So 01:47:59.050 --> 01:48:00.750 that's very useful because those guys are very 01:48:00.750 --> 01:48:02.930 high tempo. Like I said, they were down in Virginia 01:48:02.930 --> 01:48:05.920 beach yesterday. I was with them, but if I wasn't, 01:48:05.920 --> 01:48:08.600 they could either text me or just message me 01:48:08.600 --> 01:48:10.340 through the app to always get a hold of me because 01:48:10.340 --> 01:48:14.680 I always have my phone on me. And then we have, 01:48:14.680 --> 01:48:16.460 you know, the maintenance squadron is pretty 01:48:16.460 --> 01:48:20.180 big. There's about 400 of them. So you can build 01:48:20.180 --> 01:48:24.300 different programs for a fit or fitness improvement 01:48:24.300 --> 01:48:26.460 program. So maybe the people who need some help 01:48:26.460 --> 01:48:29.199 with conditioning. again, I'm going to put my 01:48:29.199 --> 01:48:31.619 baseline program up and I'm going to modify accordingly 01:48:31.619 --> 01:48:34.460 where, Hey, I'm going to assign you to this team, 01:48:34.560 --> 01:48:36.560 which is still under maintenance, but this is 01:48:36.560 --> 01:48:39.560 the fitness improvement team. And then I'm going 01:48:39.560 --> 01:48:43.479 to assign you to the profile PT where I know 01:48:43.479 --> 01:48:46.159 these, and this is in conjunction or collaboration 01:48:46.159 --> 01:48:48.619 with my physical therapist where, Hey, can you 01:48:48.619 --> 01:48:51.920 give me some good knee prep or some good squatting 01:48:51.920 --> 01:48:55.859 prep? Or you can put up notes on there where 01:48:55.859 --> 01:48:57.560 it's like, hey, if you're having some issues, 01:48:57.859 --> 01:49:01.260 here's Major Pink's number. And then you can't 01:49:01.260 --> 01:49:02.800 click on the number or anything, but it's easy 01:49:02.800 --> 01:49:04.420 for people to remember that. So you just type 01:49:04.420 --> 01:49:06.539 his number in, text him, and then he'll be like, 01:49:06.600 --> 01:49:11.000 yeah, man, I'm free tomorrow. So it's definitely 01:49:11.000 --> 01:49:15.380 a force multiplier, 100%. I'd have 1 ,000 spreadsheets 01:49:15.380 --> 01:49:18.020 if I didn't have that. And then the metrics, 01:49:18.199 --> 01:49:20.739 I think, for me personally, some of these people 01:49:20.739 --> 01:49:24.300 don't know how to progress properly. So I'm either 01:49:24.300 --> 01:49:27.680 here nor there about three on one off, two on 01:49:27.680 --> 01:49:30.279 one off. Sometimes I'll undulate weekly. Sometimes 01:49:30.279 --> 01:49:33.579 I'll undulate daily. Sometimes I'll throw in 01:49:33.579 --> 01:49:35.800 like I base everything off of the tier system. 01:49:36.079 --> 01:49:39.859 So again, back to the EOD dudes, they were out 01:49:39.859 --> 01:49:42.300 all day yesterday, seven to four. I don't expect 01:49:42.300 --> 01:49:45.800 them to lift, but they're only missing. If our 01:49:45.800 --> 01:49:47.640 deadlift, I think our deadlift was the focus 01:49:47.640 --> 01:49:50.100 yesterday. They're going to deadlift again later 01:49:50.100 --> 01:49:53.979 this week. So they're not as far gone or, or 01:49:53.979 --> 01:49:57.600 they don't have the opportunity cost of going 01:49:57.600 --> 01:50:01.159 to do their job is far less than if you had the 01:50:01.159 --> 01:50:04.819 normal chest, tried back by legs, which a lot 01:50:04.819 --> 01:50:07.199 of programs online, these guys get, which whatever, 01:50:07.359 --> 01:50:10.920 as long as we're moving, I don't care. But then 01:50:10.920 --> 01:50:13.579 when I introduced them to the tier system, I 01:50:13.579 --> 01:50:15.939 can go ahead and get, put them on a little note 01:50:15.939 --> 01:50:18.399 where it's just like, Hey, This is a little bit 01:50:18.399 --> 01:50:20.800 of a total body program. We're going to build 01:50:20.800 --> 01:50:25.119 our work capacity. Here's your leg day. So yes, 01:50:25.199 --> 01:50:27.659 the lower body day you could consider as a leg 01:50:27.659 --> 01:50:30.920 day, but there's also, I'll put up their recovery 01:50:30.920 --> 01:50:34.720 options via the notes. I'll always put up a session 01:50:34.720 --> 01:50:38.739 RPE, like how hard scale of one to 10, you know, 01:50:38.739 --> 01:50:41.760 keep it simple for these guys. And then that 01:50:41.760 --> 01:50:44.079 shows up into a graph too. So I can see, Hey, 01:50:44.199 --> 01:50:47.829 maybe, you know, my guy down at the age shop 01:50:47.829 --> 01:50:52.810 didn't enjoy the, the CrossFit workout that I 01:50:52.810 --> 01:50:55.750 made him. It was too hard. So let me find maybe 01:50:55.750 --> 01:50:57.729 a scaled back one or maybe scale his movements, 01:50:57.770 --> 01:51:00.710 or maybe let me introduce him to some strongman 01:51:00.710 --> 01:51:03.350 training. And then they'll always be able to 01:51:03.350 --> 01:51:05.390 put their notes in as well. Like, yo coach, I 01:51:05.390 --> 01:51:09.069 hated this. Like, you know, this was awful. And 01:51:09.069 --> 01:51:11.890 it's not always going to be fun, but so that's 01:51:11.890 --> 01:51:14.369 been. That was the first thing that I asked for 01:51:14.369 --> 01:51:16.770 and that I got when I got here was team builder 01:51:16.770 --> 01:51:20.729 because I don't want to leave these guys hanging 01:51:20.729 --> 01:51:25.289 at all. I want to, obviously, when I'm done with 01:51:25.289 --> 01:51:27.689 work, yes, there is a time where I'll always 01:51:27.689 --> 01:51:29.470 look at my phone and if you text me because I 01:51:29.470 --> 01:51:31.770 have a work phone too. If it's like 7 o 'clock 01:51:31.770 --> 01:51:33.729 at night, I'm sorry, I'm going to get this at 01:51:33.729 --> 01:51:36.229 7 in the morning. But I'll text them back like, 01:51:36.310 --> 01:51:38.770 hey, man, I'll answer this tomorrow. So being 01:51:38.770 --> 01:51:41.960 available for them and then... Instead of me 01:51:41.960 --> 01:51:44.479 having to hand over a sheet of paper, instead 01:51:44.479 --> 01:51:48.800 of me having to use up all the memory on my daggum 01:51:48.800 --> 01:51:52.239 computer or having to print stuff out, I can 01:51:52.239 --> 01:51:54.619 just put my iPad up and then put their workout 01:51:54.619 --> 01:51:56.600 up and then I'll put their weights in so that 01:51:56.600 --> 01:51:58.380 I know how they're progressing. And then I'll 01:51:58.380 --> 01:52:01.399 show them that the biggest game changer for me 01:52:01.399 --> 01:52:03.760 was like that little bottom right icon where 01:52:03.760 --> 01:52:06.159 it shows your past history. Or it's like, okay, 01:52:06.340 --> 01:52:08.399 hey coach, how do I know how to progress? Cool, 01:52:08.500 --> 01:52:10.899 go to this icon. What'd you do last week? add 01:52:10.899 --> 01:52:14.520 five pounds. Um, and then you can, that's a real 01:52:14.520 --> 01:52:17.439 good conversation starter to linear periodization. 01:52:17.659 --> 01:52:20.699 Um, not many of these guys here, there's a large 01:52:20.699 --> 01:52:23.060 group of them actually who have kind of gotten 01:52:23.060 --> 01:52:26.680 away from it because it's a little bit too simple 01:52:26.680 --> 01:52:28.779 for them at this point. So we got to turn it 01:52:28.779 --> 01:52:31.640 into an undulating periodization type deal. Um, 01:52:31.800 --> 01:52:36.359 but they understand if you did a five, an example, 01:52:36.399 --> 01:52:40.659 if you did a five by five back squat, um, and 01:52:40.659 --> 01:52:43.460 we're trying to increase our weight let's try 01:52:43.460 --> 01:52:46.300 a four by four or five by four so we're going 01:52:46.300 --> 01:52:48.420 to go down in reps and we're going to go up in 01:52:48.420 --> 01:52:51.640 weight that's an easy easy conversation starter 01:52:51.640 --> 01:52:54.140 keep it simple for them and you can you can show 01:52:54.140 --> 01:52:57.140 them the graph that's an easy graph to draw um 01:52:57.140 --> 01:53:01.420 and then the science portion as well is pretty 01:53:01.420 --> 01:53:05.420 big for all of my fitness improvement or detrained 01:53:05.420 --> 01:53:08.300 athletes they have this real cool team builder 01:53:08.300 --> 01:53:11.710 has this really awesome uh, thing for their science 01:53:11.710 --> 01:53:13.949 component where you can put a question on there 01:53:13.949 --> 01:53:16.829 and then you can click the box where it says 01:53:16.829 --> 01:53:19.010 like, until they answer this question, they're 01:53:19.010 --> 01:53:21.470 not going to get the workout. And I get texts 01:53:21.470 --> 01:53:23.510 all the time where it's like, yo coach, there's 01:53:23.510 --> 01:53:25.409 nothing loaded up. Like, well, is there a question? 01:53:25.750 --> 01:53:28.590 Yeah. Okay. Answer it please. So, cause that 01:53:28.590 --> 01:53:31.470 question is how sore are you today? And did you 01:53:31.470 --> 01:53:34.529 eat breakfast? The big issue here, people don't 01:53:34.529 --> 01:53:36.470 like to eat breakfast. And then they're just 01:53:36.470 --> 01:53:38.270 like, oh shit, there it is, dude. Thanks man. 01:53:38.770 --> 01:53:42.899 Um, They know the workouts, and then I can also 01:53:42.899 --> 01:53:46.060 put on their regressions and progressions. Modification 01:53:46.060 --> 01:53:48.979 equals you have a back squat and your back kind 01:53:48.979 --> 01:53:51.100 of hurts. Let's maybe go to a bodyweight squat 01:53:51.100 --> 01:53:55.779 or a wall sit. Med ball hug walking lunges, and 01:53:55.779 --> 01:53:57.699 then maybe let's go to a split squat hold or 01:53:57.699 --> 01:53:59.920 a split squat. So stuff like that. You can build 01:53:59.920 --> 01:54:03.180 those regressions, progressions in. And then 01:54:03.180 --> 01:54:05.680 now they have this thing where they can add in, 01:54:05.819 --> 01:54:08.680 and Melissa touched on this the other day on 01:54:08.680 --> 01:54:10.829 her Instagram. which I thought she did perfectly 01:54:10.829 --> 01:54:13.550 where it's like, yo, I know these guys are going 01:54:13.550 --> 01:54:16.890 in to do other stuff. That's not wrong of you 01:54:16.890 --> 01:54:19.310 to do. If I'm not giving you enough, absolutely 01:54:19.310 --> 01:54:23.189 go do what you need to do. But I still need to 01:54:23.189 --> 01:54:25.069 know the volume. I still need to know if you 01:54:25.069 --> 01:54:27.369 went in and did a stupid German volume training, 01:54:27.510 --> 01:54:30.989 10 by 10 squat that you saw on Instagram. Cause 01:54:30.989 --> 01:54:32.750 then, yeah, I'm not going to run you the next 01:54:32.750 --> 01:54:34.210 day and I'm not going to squat you the next day. 01:54:34.250 --> 01:54:36.689 We're going to recover. So it's useful to know 01:54:36.689 --> 01:54:41.539 that was a really, really good, kind of losing 01:54:41.539 --> 01:54:43.520 me a little good really good thing they added 01:54:43.520 --> 01:54:46.359 to the program where once you kind of tell these 01:54:46.359 --> 01:54:48.479 athletes that's totally fine to add in your own 01:54:48.479 --> 01:54:50.340 stuff you can build your own workout and then 01:54:50.340 --> 01:54:53.119 oh by the way hey bro this is a great workout 01:54:53.119 --> 01:54:55.600 i did it the other day and then if they're a 01:54:55.600 --> 01:54:58.420 ptl they can give that to their airmen you know 01:54:58.420 --> 01:55:00.680 group training okay how would we transform this 01:55:00.680 --> 01:55:03.680 in a group of 40 you know hey i i did a back 01:55:03.680 --> 01:55:06.180 squat let's just do a bodyweight squat And using 01:55:06.180 --> 01:55:08.739 the same workout that they built that they were 01:55:08.739 --> 01:55:11.720 just messing around in the gym. So that's been 01:55:11.720 --> 01:55:14.199 huge. And those guys are like, whoa, dude, no 01:55:14.199 --> 01:55:16.539 way. Like, yeah, you don't have to have a master's 01:55:16.539 --> 01:55:18.899 degree and be a full -time coach to build a good 01:55:18.899 --> 01:55:22.159 workout. But, you know, feed them a compliment 01:55:22.159 --> 01:55:24.720 sandwich. This was great. And maybe go a little 01:55:24.720 --> 01:55:27.180 bit heavier on the squats. And then kind of give 01:55:27.180 --> 01:55:30.920 them some good criticism. So it's so beneficial 01:55:30.920 --> 01:55:35.030 to have a training app like that where... especially 01:55:35.030 --> 01:55:41.170 you can monitor fatigue management, load management, 01:55:41.310 --> 01:55:44.310 hydration. You can put all that kind of stuff. 01:55:44.369 --> 01:55:46.390 They have the habit tracker now. So if I have 01:55:46.390 --> 01:55:48.489 guys trying to lose some weight, especially in 01:55:48.489 --> 01:55:52.390 the skiffs or the secure compartmentalized facilities 01:55:52.390 --> 01:55:54.970 where you can't take anything in, like it's very 01:55:54.970 --> 01:55:57.170 sedentary work. So, hey, make sure you stand 01:55:57.170 --> 01:55:59.869 up or make sure you get 5 ,000 steps a day. So 01:55:59.869 --> 01:56:02.520 that's really good for them too. There's so many 01:56:02.520 --> 01:56:05.060 different tools built within that one app that 01:56:05.060 --> 01:56:08.260 they can't have their phone in the skiff. So 01:56:08.260 --> 01:56:12.159 many tools that you can show them that they can 01:56:12.159 --> 01:56:16.720 use without my help. I hope that I will never 01:56:16.720 --> 01:56:19.039 have to be without it. I know funding sometimes 01:56:19.039 --> 01:56:22.220 is an issue. It's not expensive, but government 01:56:22.220 --> 01:56:26.579 funding is very wonky. We still don't have our 01:56:26.579 --> 01:56:27.779 budget. We're supposed to have it in October. 01:56:28.680 --> 01:56:32.279 Stuff like that. And customer service is second 01:56:32.279 --> 01:56:35.600 to none as well, for sure. I can text Melissa 01:56:35.600 --> 01:56:37.920 anytime. She'll get back to me within 24 hours. 01:56:38.159 --> 01:56:40.640 Hey, I don't know that answer right now. Or hey, 01:56:40.720 --> 01:56:42.640 go talk to this department. Here's your POC. 01:56:44.020 --> 01:56:46.460 And then we'll sit down sometimes. I think I 01:56:46.460 --> 01:56:48.359 was having some issues with some of my work capacity 01:56:48.359 --> 01:56:52.239 tests where I wanted to see improvement and some 01:56:52.239 --> 01:56:55.359 weird max sustained power, which is hard to measure. 01:56:55.680 --> 01:56:58.140 And she was like, well, I'll try this or try 01:56:58.140 --> 01:57:00.680 that. So I'll put it on. I'll go test it. And 01:57:00.680 --> 01:57:02.899 then you get back to her, hey, this worked great. 01:57:03.020 --> 01:57:05.119 So she'll take that and hand it to the next coach 01:57:05.119 --> 01:57:07.880 who has that kind of same issue. So customer 01:57:07.880 --> 01:57:10.340 service, second to none. Organization, second 01:57:10.340 --> 01:57:13.239 to none. Super sets are super easy to explain. 01:57:14.140 --> 01:57:16.180 And as long as my athletes put in their daggone 01:57:16.180 --> 01:57:21.720 weights, you'll never go wrong. What about tracking? 01:57:22.260 --> 01:57:24.279 One of the things that when I first spoke to 01:57:24.279 --> 01:57:27.369 Melissa, I can see a great... I know extra layer 01:57:27.369 --> 01:57:30.229 to this is you have, you know, brand new firefighter, 01:57:30.229 --> 01:57:32.170 or as you said, even a deconditioned firefighter 01:57:32.170 --> 01:57:33.949 that you're trying to, you know, you just finally 01:57:33.949 --> 01:57:35.970 put in a fitness standard and you've given people 01:57:35.970 --> 01:57:38.470 two years to get back to where they need to be. 01:57:38.890 --> 01:57:42.029 Do you have an ability to kind of create kind 01:57:42.029 --> 01:57:44.489 of trends as far as if someone's trending the 01:57:44.489 --> 01:57:46.270 right way, if they're trending the wrong way, 01:57:46.270 --> 01:57:48.989 you know, the kind of report side of this? Yeah. 01:57:49.329 --> 01:57:51.149 And that comes into play with the conditioning 01:57:51.149 --> 01:57:54.630 a lot, right? A lot of these guys. Probably the 01:57:54.630 --> 01:57:57.609 same in the firefighter community. Hey, man, 01:57:57.630 --> 01:57:59.250 I got my test coming up. You have a month to 01:57:59.250 --> 01:58:02.789 train. That's not enough time. So you'll find 01:58:02.789 --> 01:58:07.130 that they start out too high on the volume. So 01:58:07.130 --> 01:58:09.890 when you, hey, man, give me two months, dude. 01:58:10.010 --> 01:58:13.630 All I need is two months, ma 'am. And then you 01:58:13.630 --> 01:58:16.810 start them out with let's run for time. And then 01:58:16.810 --> 01:58:19.970 two weeks later, if you consistently run, I'm 01:58:19.970 --> 01:58:22.409 at least a three day a week conditioning. You 01:58:22.409 --> 01:58:24.390 know, I'm not going to be a hard ass. I run six 01:58:24.390 --> 01:58:27.770 days a week, but just get one interval and two 01:58:27.770 --> 01:58:29.810 steady states in. And then, okay, what's your 01:58:29.810 --> 01:58:33.189 resting heart rate? And then what was the mileage 01:58:33.189 --> 01:58:37.329 you did last week? Tell me. So I'll do 12 minutes. 01:58:37.529 --> 01:58:39.510 A lot of these guys run the mile and a half. 01:58:39.550 --> 01:58:41.989 So that should, in theory, be no more than 16 01:58:41.989 --> 01:58:43.960 minutes of running. And that's at a high intensity. 01:58:44.300 --> 01:58:47.180 Let's go do a 16 minute study state at a conversational 01:58:47.180 --> 01:58:49.579 pace. And I'm going to make sure it's conversational 01:58:49.579 --> 01:58:51.079 because I'm going to stand right next to you. 01:58:51.220 --> 01:58:53.460 And I'm going to talk about your dog with you, 01:58:53.539 --> 01:58:58.739 or I'm going to talk about, you know, whatever, 01:58:58.760 --> 01:59:01.479 somebody pissing me off at work. Cause it's therapy 01:59:01.479 --> 01:59:03.479 for us coaches too, right? Like you got a good 01:59:03.479 --> 01:59:05.180 athlete that'll listen to you. Like, hell yeah, 01:59:05.279 --> 01:59:08.899 I'm going to talk to you today. So, and then 01:59:08.899 --> 01:59:11.899 you show them like, Hey, look. In this 15 minutes, 01:59:11.979 --> 01:59:16.840 you ran 0 .75 miles. That's three laps. So we 01:59:16.840 --> 01:59:20.100 don't need to start out with this 5K bull crap. 01:59:20.279 --> 01:59:25.319 Like phase in 10 % a day. You know, hey, we did 01:59:25.319 --> 01:59:27.720 0 .75. Let's go for it. It's a little bit more 01:59:27.720 --> 01:59:29.539 than 10%. So I'm contradicting myself. Let's 01:59:29.539 --> 01:59:32.420 go for a mile next time. And then we're going 01:59:32.420 --> 01:59:35.119 to stay at the mile for a little while. And then 01:59:35.119 --> 01:59:37.819 we're going to focus on speed. So then we'll 01:59:37.819 --> 01:59:42.350 put either mile repeats. 400 meter repeats or 01:59:42.350 --> 01:59:45.529 like hey i want you to go a mile as fast as you 01:59:45.529 --> 01:59:50.289 can and then um i i like to have them nike run 01:59:50.289 --> 01:59:52.289 club is a good one that i like to have them use 01:59:52.289 --> 01:59:54.489 because you can set the splits on there and it'll 01:59:54.489 --> 01:59:57.390 keep track of it for you so what are your what 01:59:57.390 --> 01:59:59.890 are your quarter mile splits and you know i'll 01:59:59.890 --> 02:00:02.250 kind of pull that data i'll have them enter it 02:00:02.250 --> 02:00:05.569 which The onboarding for Team Builder or any 02:00:05.569 --> 02:00:07.750 app like that is a little bit intricate where 02:00:07.750 --> 02:00:11.170 I think every coach should take the time, be 02:00:11.170 --> 02:00:13.649 patient, walk these guys through how to input 02:00:13.649 --> 02:00:17.750 data, where to go, where are there programs that 02:00:17.750 --> 02:00:20.210 aren't tied to a calendar. Walk them through 02:00:20.210 --> 02:00:23.189 the app. Take time. Hey, man, this session we're 02:00:23.189 --> 02:00:24.550 sitting down and we're learning how to use Team 02:00:24.550 --> 02:00:25.829 Builder because you haven't been putting your 02:00:25.829 --> 02:00:27.369 backspot weights in and you're pissing me off. 02:00:27.869 --> 02:00:31.270 So I just nip that in the bud and I do it off 02:00:31.270 --> 02:00:35.199 the bat. So it's like, Hey, Nike run club. When 02:00:35.199 --> 02:00:37.039 you're done, it'll give you your splits. Go ahead 02:00:37.039 --> 02:00:40.560 and put those. Cause, and this goes back to calling 02:00:40.560 --> 02:00:42.619 Melissa. I was like, I wanted them to do a mile 02:00:42.619 --> 02:00:44.539 run, but I want another, I want another quarter 02:00:44.539 --> 02:00:46.760 mile splits. So she was like, cool. Just put 02:00:46.760 --> 02:00:51.020 four quarter mile runs in. And then that'll kind 02:00:51.020 --> 02:00:52.840 of, you can put that on the leaderboard where 02:00:52.840 --> 02:00:55.159 it'll show it'll rank it. And it automatically, 02:00:55.380 --> 02:00:58.979 any conditioning lower is better. Any weightlifting 02:00:58.979 --> 02:01:02.340 higher is better. Or you can do, um, You've been 02:01:02.340 --> 02:01:04.039 doing like strongman training, like distance, 02:01:04.319 --> 02:01:07.560 you know, a, how far did you carry this? I'm 02:01:07.560 --> 02:01:10.340 not super, I don't care about the accuracy. If 02:01:10.340 --> 02:01:11.859 you think it's a half a lap, cool. We're going 02:01:11.859 --> 02:01:15.100 to go with that. So you can put all that stuff 02:01:15.100 --> 02:01:18.199 in and then you pull that graph. Hey man, you 02:01:18.199 --> 02:01:20.020 started out a little bit too fast on this mile 02:01:20.020 --> 02:01:23.479 run on Tuesday. You know, your first, your quarter 02:01:23.479 --> 02:01:30.020 mile split was, this is fast, a minute 30. nobody 02:01:30.020 --> 02:01:32.880 here can do that i don't think um let's just 02:01:32.880 --> 02:01:36.300 say two minutes and then your third and fourth 02:01:36.300 --> 02:01:40.439 was four minute for a lap for a lap because you 02:01:40.439 --> 02:01:43.699 were just too gassed so hey maybe and that teaches 02:01:43.699 --> 02:01:46.640 them how to pace themselves they can see their 02:01:46.640 --> 02:01:48.680 heart rate on the nike run club app too which 02:01:48.680 --> 02:01:52.840 i then put into team builder um so it's like 02:01:52.840 --> 02:01:55.039 what was your heart rate running at this is that 02:01:55.039 --> 02:01:57.560 a four out of ten no your max heart rate is this 02:01:57.560 --> 02:01:59.909 you were at your max heart rate Take it easy. 02:02:00.229 --> 02:02:02.210 There's a time and a place for you to run hard. 02:02:03.829 --> 02:02:07.989 Maybe start out a little bit less intense. This 02:02:07.989 --> 02:02:10.630 first lap, maybe go six out of 10 and then crank 02:02:10.630 --> 02:02:13.930 it up. And then, oh, by the way, I think what 02:02:13.930 --> 02:02:16.989 a lot of people are missing, no matter what field 02:02:16.989 --> 02:02:19.909 you're in, is you need to warm up for a run too. 02:02:20.670 --> 02:02:23.550 If you just go from resting heart rate or standing 02:02:23.550 --> 02:02:28.810 heart rate to threshold running, it's such that... 02:02:28.920 --> 02:02:31.800 that oxygen deficit again, back to physiology 02:02:31.800 --> 02:02:35.819 in college, that O2 deficit is very difficult 02:02:35.819 --> 02:02:38.760 to overcome because maybe they panic and they're 02:02:38.760 --> 02:02:40.899 already anxious too. So their heart rate's probably 02:02:40.899 --> 02:02:43.319 already a little bit elevated. Hey dude, go take 02:02:43.319 --> 02:02:45.640 a lap or two, nice and slow. It's not going to 02:02:45.640 --> 02:02:47.680 kill you. And then do your mile and a half. So 02:02:47.680 --> 02:02:49.340 you get the heart rate up to where I want it 02:02:49.340 --> 02:02:51.939 to start. And then I taught, I've taught them 02:02:51.939 --> 02:02:55.119 how to pace. And then just remember, I'll always 02:02:55.119 --> 02:02:57.260 be there at the track and I'll pace these people 02:02:57.260 --> 02:02:59.939 if I need to. I don't mind that at all. But it's 02:02:59.939 --> 02:03:04.520 like, you got this, dude. Remember that quarter 02:03:04.520 --> 02:03:07.560 mile that you did two weeks ago on Tuesday that 02:03:07.560 --> 02:03:10.100 you went out too fast? Don't do that. Go slow, 02:03:10.239 --> 02:03:14.060 go steady. Slow and steady wins the race. And 02:03:14.060 --> 02:03:16.600 it's like, yeah, coach, thanks, man. I've had 02:03:16.600 --> 02:03:19.829 so many. And you get days off if you get above 02:03:19.829 --> 02:03:22.390 a 90 on your PT test here. So I've had so many 02:03:22.390 --> 02:03:25.029 days off that these guys have gotten. And I'll 02:03:25.029 --> 02:03:28.489 meet them for lunch or we'll go after work. Again, 02:03:28.630 --> 02:03:30.250 if my boss is listening, after work, we'll go 02:03:30.250 --> 02:03:34.310 get a beer. We'll go fishing or whatever. They'll 02:03:34.310 --> 02:03:35.949 come hang out with me at my house. I'll go hang 02:03:35.949 --> 02:03:38.729 out with them. And then you build that lifelong 02:03:38.729 --> 02:03:41.409 relationship as a resource that they can use. 02:03:41.770 --> 02:03:45.229 I'll program for any active duty member for their 02:03:45.229 --> 02:03:47.640 life. As long as they ask, as long as they reach 02:03:47.640 --> 02:03:50.779 out and I'll never charge you a dime. So I still 02:03:50.779 --> 02:03:53.859 have a guy going into SFAS here. I had a guy 02:03:53.859 --> 02:03:56.279 get into DevGrew, which is SEAL Team 6. He was 02:03:56.279 --> 02:03:59.180 their mechanic. Did some time in Syria too. And 02:03:59.180 --> 02:04:02.020 that's when he really got into, I don't even 02:04:02.020 --> 02:04:03.800 have to tell him what to do anymore. He'll kind 02:04:03.800 --> 02:04:05.659 of reach out like, hey man, I tore my hamstring. 02:04:05.739 --> 02:04:08.279 What do I do? Still has my number. I still respond. 02:04:08.539 --> 02:04:11.260 I still remember who he is. So you build that 02:04:11.260 --> 02:04:14.460 relationship by showing them progress. teaching 02:04:14.460 --> 02:04:16.680 them how to regress, teaching them how to progress 02:04:16.680 --> 02:04:20.239 appropriately. And then, hey man, just give yourself 02:04:20.239 --> 02:04:21.859 a little bit more time when you're preparing 02:04:21.859 --> 02:04:24.479 for these PT tests or you're preparing for a 02:04:24.479 --> 02:04:27.079 marathon or something. And then as long as you're 02:04:27.079 --> 02:04:30.300 ready and willing to put in the work, it'll happen. 02:04:30.619 --> 02:04:32.840 Trust in coach and then please let me know how 02:04:32.840 --> 02:04:36.539 I can help you. And it's been awesome. Beautiful. 02:04:37.039 --> 02:04:39.260 Well, I got one question, closing question to 02:04:39.260 --> 02:04:41.359 ask before we find out where people can find 02:04:41.359 --> 02:04:44.340 you. Is there someone that you'd recommend to 02:04:44.340 --> 02:04:47.319 come on this podcast as a guest to speak to the 02:04:47.319 --> 02:04:49.840 first responders, military, and associated professions 02:04:49.840 --> 02:04:52.640 of the world? I have two that immediately come 02:04:52.640 --> 02:04:54.260 to mind, actually. And I was hoping you would 02:04:54.260 --> 02:05:01.260 ask that. Mark Cristiani. He was, so last name 02:05:01.260 --> 02:05:06.699 C -H -R -I -S -T -A -N -I. He is with O2X down 02:05:06.699 --> 02:05:10.159 in Florida, I believe. And I'll send you his 02:05:10.159 --> 02:05:13.319 info as well. Thank you. And then who I work 02:05:13.319 --> 02:05:19.199 with here, Laura Fike. She is, so Mark, I'll 02:05:19.199 --> 02:05:21.380 kind of like, you know, keep it in order. Mark 02:05:21.380 --> 02:05:24.579 was one of the best supervisors I've ever had. 02:05:24.779 --> 02:05:27.340 He was very, he's a former ranger. So he was, 02:05:27.359 --> 02:05:29.840 we were in a geo dispersed unit. So he was very 02:05:29.840 --> 02:05:33.779 trustworthy because I built that trust, right? 02:05:34.159 --> 02:05:36.039 Yeah, I didn't have to go check in with him every 02:05:36.039 --> 02:05:40.109 day. But he was like, yeah, man, you're doing 02:05:40.109 --> 02:05:41.770 your job. You're doing great. The guys love you. 02:05:42.189 --> 02:05:45.289 And he trusted me as a good supervisor should. 02:05:45.590 --> 02:05:48.430 And he really knows his stuff, man. He is such 02:05:48.430 --> 02:05:50.949 a good coach, such a good supervisor, just a 02:05:50.949 --> 02:05:54.090 good person all around. When he would come visit 02:05:54.090 --> 02:05:56.569 us, he was always my Scrabble partner when we 02:05:56.569 --> 02:05:58.989 go to Strawberry Alley and get beers with the 02:05:58.989 --> 02:06:01.449 team after work. So shout out to Mark. You know, 02:06:01.449 --> 02:06:05.100 miss you, dude. And then Laura is. She's actually 02:06:05.100 --> 02:06:08.020 training Apex right now, which is a new program 02:06:08.020 --> 02:06:10.020 we have here on Langley where we're kind of teaching 02:06:10.020 --> 02:06:13.500 these guys how to be adults. And today is the 02:06:13.500 --> 02:06:15.859 mobility day, which I'm sad I missed because 02:06:15.859 --> 02:06:19.140 I'm a golfer and I need mobility. But, you know, 02:06:19.180 --> 02:06:20.939 I can just pop over. Her office is literally 02:06:20.939 --> 02:06:26.420 right there, right next door. Huge, huge research 02:06:26.420 --> 02:06:32.239 oriented. Very, very down to earth. No bullshit. 02:06:33.000 --> 02:06:34.720 is going to tell you what you need to hear, not 02:06:34.720 --> 02:06:37.859 what you want to hear. Nutrition. She was also 02:06:37.859 --> 02:06:40.140 an athlete at University of Kentucky, played 02:06:40.140 --> 02:06:44.239 soccer as well, and just a great person. And 02:06:44.239 --> 02:06:47.760 she's getting ready to get her PhD. Fingers crossed 02:06:47.760 --> 02:06:49.699 for her, cheering her on the whole time. Awesome, 02:06:49.859 --> 02:06:52.399 awesome person to work with. She is not afraid 02:06:52.399 --> 02:06:55.659 to try things, and her and I are both. Hey, man, 02:06:55.699 --> 02:06:57.939 you down to do this briefing? Hell yeah. When 02:06:57.939 --> 02:07:00.079 you need the slides by, hey, man, get them to 02:07:00.079 --> 02:07:02.489 me by this date. I'll get them to you. i'll get 02:07:02.489 --> 02:07:04.390 them to her excuse me and then she'll you know 02:07:04.390 --> 02:07:07.010 make it you know sound better because i'm just 02:07:07.010 --> 02:07:09.489 a coach man i don't do very good with verbiage 02:07:09.489 --> 02:07:12.090 and stuff so she'll make it fancy and and we've 02:07:12.090 --> 02:07:14.770 been doing a lot of very good briefings a lot 02:07:14.770 --> 02:07:18.510 of units here know us now because of her so yeah 02:07:18.510 --> 02:07:21.970 she's amazing mark and laura beautiful yeah well 02:07:21.970 --> 02:07:23.489 thank you i mean if you're able to help me connect 02:07:23.489 --> 02:07:25.170 with both let's get them both on that would be 02:07:25.170 --> 02:07:28.350 incredible Brilliant. All right. Well then for 02:07:28.350 --> 02:07:30.250 people listening, what about yourself? Where 02:07:30.250 --> 02:07:32.670 are the best places online, social media, if 02:07:32.670 --> 02:07:35.050 people want to reach out? All right. Best places 02:07:35.050 --> 02:07:38.409 I have, um, we'll go Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. 02:07:38.470 --> 02:07:44.029 So Facebook, uh, JD strength conditioning, no. 02:07:44.149 --> 02:07:48.949 And, um, so a lot of stuff I post is fun facts. 02:07:49.250 --> 02:07:52.069 Um, I'll post workouts probably about once a 02:07:52.069 --> 02:07:55.300 week. And I'll post some funny stuff. Like I 02:07:55.300 --> 02:07:57.460 posted one the other day about sumo deadlifting. 02:07:57.560 --> 02:08:01.800 I still hate it to this day. So I keep it light. 02:08:02.739 --> 02:08:06.279 Same handle, JD Strength Conditioning for Instagram 02:08:06.279 --> 02:08:10.020 as well. And then TikTok, that page is called 02:08:10.020 --> 02:08:13.680 Fit Money Moves. So fit underscore money underscore 02:08:13.680 --> 02:08:18.279 moves. I do incorporate a little bit of investing 02:08:18.279 --> 02:08:21.710 in finance on that one. I like to think I'm a 02:08:21.710 --> 02:08:24.010 fairly successful investor. I kind of know what 02:08:24.010 --> 02:08:26.909 I'm doing. I don't like saying no to people if 02:08:26.909 --> 02:08:29.090 they're asking for help. And again, same thing. 02:08:29.170 --> 02:08:31.210 I'll post a workout on there probably about once 02:08:31.210 --> 02:08:34.069 a week. I'll post my training. I'll give little 02:08:34.069 --> 02:08:38.149 good tidbits on, you know, why are we not growing? 02:08:38.270 --> 02:08:40.029 Are you not doing enough accessories? Stuff like 02:08:40.029 --> 02:08:41.810 that. Keep it light. Put some humor on there. 02:08:42.289 --> 02:08:45.449 And that's me personally. I respond to all messages 02:08:45.449 --> 02:08:48.960 that I get on this. Brilliant. Well, I want to 02:08:48.960 --> 02:08:51.500 thank Melissa again for connecting us. And it 02:08:51.500 --> 02:08:53.380 was really great to hear your testimony because 02:08:53.380 --> 02:08:56.159 team builder, you're not kind of circling around, 02:08:56.260 --> 02:08:58.729 but I mean, the. Every single sponsor that I 02:08:58.729 --> 02:09:01.670 have on the podcast is usually someone that I've 02:09:01.670 --> 02:09:04.090 sought after. But actually, in this case, Melissa 02:09:04.090 --> 02:09:06.710 approached me. And again, I'm then going to take 02:09:06.710 --> 02:09:08.050 a lot of time and be like, all right, well, is 02:09:08.050 --> 02:09:09.569 this something that I'm going to put my name 02:09:09.569 --> 02:09:12.270 behind? But hearing all the testimonies that 02:09:12.270 --> 02:09:14.550 I've had so far and yours included, I mean, this 02:09:14.550 --> 02:09:17.210 sounds like a great, great platform for more 02:09:17.210 --> 02:09:19.310 progressive fire departments, police departments 02:09:19.310 --> 02:09:22.050 that have coaches that are actually disseminating 02:09:22.050 --> 02:09:25.050 programming. So I want to thank you so, so much 02:09:25.050 --> 02:09:27.479 for being so generous with your time. and coming 02:09:27.479 --> 02:09:29.899 on the Behind the Shield podcast today. All right. 02:09:29.899 --> 02:09:31.359 Thank you for having me, man. This was a lot 02:09:31.359 --> 02:09:31.600 of fun.