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Primal Foundations Podcast
Welcome to the Primal Foundations Podcast! We will dive into what I believe are the 4 essential foundations you need to live a healthy lifestyle.
Strength , Nutrition , Movement , and Recovery.
Get ready to dive into discussions that will guide you on your transformative journey to unlocking your path to optimal health.
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Primal Foundations Podcast
Episode 54: No Gimmicks, Just Gains with Jim Wendler 5/3/1
The search for the perfect strength training program often leads to over-complication, but Jim Wendler—creator of the iconic 5-3-1 program and former elite powerlifter who once squatted 1,000 pounds—makes a compelling case for simplicity. In this episode, Wendler shares how his lifelong commitment to consistent, basic training transformed him from an average athlete into a multi-sport standout and shaped his no-nonsense coaching philosophy. We dive into his current work revamping a small-town high school football program, where his simple, repeatable training approach has turned a struggling team into playoff regulars and state finalists—all without flashy equipment or complex programming.
Wendler explains why executing simple movements with perfect form, building muscle methodically, and fostering belief in young athletes leads to outsized results. He also challenges traditional strength dogma—favoring light weights, extended time at consistent loads, and assistance work—proving that “more isn’t better, better is better.” Whether you’re a coach, athlete, or just looking to get stronger, this conversation will reframe how you think about training. Follow Jim on Instagram @jimwendler and catch his Friday live Q&As on YouTube.
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Book: 5/3/1 - The Simplest and Most Effective Training System for Raw Strength
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Today's guest is Jim Whittler. Jim played football and graduated from University of Arizona where he was a three-time letter winner. Jim went on to squat 1,000 pounds in competition and accomplished 2,375 pound total. As an elite lifter he has coached high school athletes, collegiate athletes, trained general population, spoken globally on the topics of strength training, conditioning, fat loss, performance and program design. Jim is also the creator of the iconic 5-3-1 program, one of the most influential and widely adopted strength templates ever developed. Jim, welcome to the Primal Foundations podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's an honor for me. I've used your program. It seems like every high school strength coach has some knowledge or has heard of this program, so it's a really great day to sit down and talk to you. Zoom to zoom instead of face to face I guess. But yeah, for some of the listeners you know kind of talking about your background first and just kind of get to know you a little bit. You know what got you into strength training and you know back when you were starting what resources did you have. You know strength coach literature, et cetera.
Speaker 2:So the story goes, I was bugging my dad was a football coach, athletic director, pe teacher, and so sports were always a big part of our house. And for years, when I was I don't know fourth, fifth, sixth, I don't remember exactly I was bugging my old man to take me to the weight room. I just wanted to lift and I think I'm going to guess, because I don't remember exactly, but it's probably just the Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone. I was obsessed with being big and powerful and stuff, and I was an average kid, so to speak, and I was bugging him forever and he was always like you're too young, just do pushups and sit-ups. And I was like, nah, I want to lift weights. Anyway, long story short, between the summer, between my seventh and eighth grade year, he said, he sat me down, I'll never forget this and said listen, we're going to start training. He went in with me and trained with me and he's like, if you, once you commit, you can't stop, I don't care how much you hate it, but this is something you have to stick with. And I was like yep, yep, yep. And so that was what, like two or three months or something, and I remember my first day school, eighth grade year. I remember I remember the t-shirt I was wearing. I remember walking in through the door and I remember one of my friends, who I hadn't seen all summer, said oh my God, what did you do? And I was like I didn't know. I was like what are you talking about? I was like dude, you look massive.
Speaker 2:So my sixth grade and seventh grade year I played as many sports as I could and I also ran cross country. I ended up qualifying for the state meet in junior high when I was in seventh grade. By the time track came around my eighth grade year I was the fastest kid in school. I played football seventh and eighth grade year. My eighth grade performance in football was insane. I threw the disc farther. I set the school record in the discus. So I saw all these things. I went downstate in the wrestling. It's the first year I ever wrestled, because you could play basketball and wrestle. That was the first year that you could play both sports. They separated the seasons. I had never wrestled before. I made it to the state meet.
Speaker 2:All these things changed in my life and I was just stronger. That's it Now. I wasn't what you would call strong and I didn't know what I was doing. I mean, we had posters on the wall. We had a universal A lot of people don't they know universal machines but there was a circuit, giant universal circuit. Uh, we had all these different stations, probably eight or ten stations leg press, dips, lat, pull downs, bench press, shoulder press and we would just go around and around three sets of everything. That was pretty much the extent of what I had access to with whatever posters were on the wall in the high school weight room because, again, my dad was in the high school, he would take me there when I, uh, I continued lifting right through every season. I never missed a day, three times a week. We would just just basically do the same basic thing every all days.
Speaker 2:And then we started working with the barbell, probably three or four months into it and, uh, you know it's. I remember the first time I put a bar on my back. Oh, it hurts, you know like, but I quickly got, you know, fairly strong, cause, again, we didn't miss any days and there was a high school teacher who ended up coaching me in track. He was my discus coach. He was big, you know, I still think I look back and he was super strong. He was, you know, 35 year old dude. He I saw him hang clean 290 for 10 reps and without a belt on just super explosive.
Speaker 2:And when I first got into the weight room, a lot of times the high school kids would be in there and it was very intimidating because there's like 35 kids in there and I'm just a little dork kid and Darren, this coach never talked to me, never said a word to me. And then one day, like six months in, he said something to me like maybe you should probably do some straight leg deadlifts. I'll never forget this and I was like okay, I was like I don't know what you know. And then after about a year, he kind of took me under his wing, so to speak, and he taught me about you know how to squat a little better, how to do cleans and jumps. We started doing a ton of jumping. Anyway, long story short, he kind of became my mentor. So he's the one that kind of set me right. Now, there wasn't.
Speaker 2:We talk about information. The only thing I had access to is my parents, because I'm like very obsessive about something. As soon as I want to do something, that's like my main focus. And my parents bought me, like it wasn't the Arnold encyclopedia, it was something similar to that. That was an Arnold book much thinner, and that's where I learned about the different exercises and stuff.
Speaker 2:So I just, you know, you have a picture or a book with some pictures and a couple of descriptions, and then the stuff, the posters that were on the wall. That maybe. But the good thing is you got to learn on your own and you got to throw a lot of stuff on the wall. As I'm sure everyone here knows, every week I had a different perfect workout, you know, and this lasted all the way through pretty much through my high school years. But the thing is, as I got stronger, you know, I started finding magazines that my dad would have because he was the athletic director and he would have like publications sent in from different sporting things. I remember reading about the throwers the discus shot putters, hammer throwers were really ahead of their time. That's when I learned about George Friend, like I was. That's awesome, like, imagine learning about like the old box squats from West Side Bar.
Speaker 1:I had no idea, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Like imagine learning about, like the old box squats from a Westside bar. I had no idea. You know, throughout my high school career I kind of had a system and as, basically, I would always try to get a PR set, that was just what I did. I w and I I found the set rep max. When I was a kid. I remember the magazine I was reading it. It was a. It was a article on Bruno Paletto and he talked about having how to compare rep maxes. You could, you know, calculate your one RM or something like that.
Speaker 2:So I was like, listen, if I just keep on trying to bump it up, and so I would just choose random weights, pretty much. So if I squatted, you know, 225 for eight, what can I do with 235 to better that too? You know what I'm saying. So I would just plug in this is what I did all day. I didn't even have a calculator. I would just that's why I'm really good at math, I think like the basic stuff, because I did so many calculations and that's how I trained I would just try and beat my PR, that's it, and that's kind of that's what set the tone for the five through one program. If I'm going, not a, it's not for everyone, because it's you got to be ultra competitive. You've got to be ready to, you know, put it on the line, so to speak, every day.
Speaker 2:But that's what I did and I my performance in school or in sports, I should say, not school improved drastically. I mean drastically. I was fairly self-aware, you know, when I was in junior high and high school, that I didn't look like my football heroes, because that's all I want to do is play college football. That was it. And I once I got better at, you know, strength training. I got stronger, like, I got better and I was like, oh, I just got to get stronger and bigger, that's it, that's my key.
Speaker 2:And I found something that I could control, that could make up for any deficiencies. Now we all know now genetically, like you've got to have good genetics to go far, and I'm made up for average genetics by training harder. It's just never going to get you over the real hump, if we're going to be completely honest, and one of the things I've had a real epiphany on when I train high school kids now the high school football team is I see pictures of like Miles Garrett when he was in high school. It's unbelievable. Or Nick Chubb, who's in high school.
Speaker 2:It looked like you and I could never, lift or take enough drugs to look like either of those guys when they were in high school, and you realize how important training is if you're just an average dude because it's not going to make you into an NFL player but man you can go far and that's essentially what my entire focus the last 10 years has been is. I don't really care about the freaks on the field because there's nothing we can do training wise that is ever going to make you know, a six, five, 250 pound high school kid run a four, four. That's just how he's built. He's got great parents Not saying he doesn't work hard. But what do I need to do to make our average kids? Now they're good athletes, but they're not NFL athletes. No one's going to Ohio State from London here. What can we do training-wise to compete against the good athletes or better athletes? And as a coach at London, uh, since I started now this is not just me, I'm gonna make that very clear.
Speaker 2:We have a really good team of coaches and stuff, but I started my first uh off season was prior to the 2017 season and the year prior we won three games. We have never missed the playoffs. Last year we went to the final four, the only public team to make it to the final four. We've only had one D1 athlete since I've been here and I think two others probably could have played. They went to a little lower levels of school. So to see that kind of success happening at a small school in Ohio and our kids, like our D line probably last year averaged like 165, and we're absolutely barn burners I mean explosive they could all deadlift well or trap bar well over 400 pounds. Our linemen you know again our offensive linemen not the biggest guys in the world but they're quick and they're incredibly strong and we're just. You know, the kids overcome whatever, just like I had to overcome anything that they don don't have by just training consistently and being just giving good effort. That's all it comes down to. So it's been.
Speaker 2:I know we're kind of jumping off track here, but that's because I see how I was and you know everyone around this area. Ohio State's massive is what is Ohio State doing with their athletes? It doesn't matter, you know they got five star athletes. So I'm not concerned about you know, and I see a lot of high school coaches trying to emulate what Ohio state does. Well, that's why they're so good now because they're genetically gifted. So we have. I wanted to make something specific for people that grew up like me, and that's kind of what I'm doing with the high school is I want to make a bunch of average dudes ass kickers. That's what it comes down to.
Speaker 1:One sometimes like that compliment you were talking about, that gets you hooked. You know, I mean let's. Let's be honest. You know some compliments when you're younger, in high school or grade school, and people are like are you doing? You're looking, you're looking swole. You're like, oh, I'm going to keep doing this, I don't know what.
Speaker 2:I'm going to keep doing this. I don't know what I'm going to. And my parents put on like 10 years ago or so, they put a bunch of my old high school stuff on DVDs that they had on DHS and one of them was one of my wrestling meets from junior high. So I put it in and I'm just watching. It's grainy and wobbly and stuff. And I was just putting it in and I'm watching. I'm like dude, who is this kid? I mean traps are up to here walking. Yeah, no, that kid is jacked and it was me.
Speaker 2:I kept I'm like, oh my god, that's me it was. That was like because I never, you know, when you're you got that body dysmorphia shit going on when you're that age and uh, but it's. I realized like wow, what a difference it made. I'm just happy I can pass this shit down. It it's so important I think. But yeah, it's, the training is like the refuge of the average, that's what it is. And I'm sure you've seen professional, like high-end, professional athletes train and you're like, oh my God, oh boy, oh, it's bad, it's bad. I saw some guys train in person. I was like oh boy.
Speaker 1:Like, whatever, it doesn't matter. Yeah, and talking about speaking about, you know, passing knowledge down, you spent some time at west side, right, yeah, uh so I learned when I was in college.
Speaker 2:Uh, I saw an interview with louis. Uh, this was at the old testosteronenet. It turned into t-nation, but testosterone was how it started out. And it was an interview with Louie and at that time I had kind of hit like a road where I didn't know. I wanted to expand my training knowledge but I didn't want to read random books because everything I had read up to then was kind of you try it out and like, dude, no, there's no way, this is right. And I remember reading at the interview with Louie he said if you're explosive and fast, I can make you strong. Well, shit, I was explosive and fast, for you know, not saying I was running a four, four, but I could jump high and all that other stuff. And so I'm like, well, who is this guy? This guy's bananas, you know. And so I started looking into it, I started playing around with it a little bit with the training and then, long story short, I ended up getting a job at Elite FTS. I got to know Dave Tate and then so when I moved out here, I was coaching at the University of Kentucky and I moved out to Ohio and that's when I started training at Westside and maybe 2003 or something. But I had been very familiar with what they were doing and I had talked to Louie and Dave for several years prior to that. So, yeah, it was an awesome time. An awesome time.
Speaker 2:My recollection of what it was like to train at Westside is very different than what I've seen in videos and stuff like that, because it was fun and it was very much like, uh, how I'm not saying it's very intense and stuff like that but it's just a bunch of dudes who want to get strong and they were busting each other's balls and making fun of each. You know each other. It wasn't like cutthroat, like I've seen it. Not saying you didn't try, but it wasn't like you know, I'm gonna beat you up if you get this. It's like dude, come on, you suck dude.
Speaker 2:Time was a bunch of dudes just wanting to get strong. It was. For me, it was a lot of fun. So I just want people to know that I don't. I think a lot of the stuff you see has kind of been glamorized a little bit. Not again, not saying that it wasn't intense, but it's a lot different than what I experienced and, uh, like I got to train with Chuck Vogel. He's fucking hilarious. He's a good dude, like everyone you know. Not saying he's not intense, but he's just. We had a great time together. And do you know?
Speaker 1:I'm saying like I don't know if that, no, yeah, I just to be just to be like, because you see the instagram, you see the, the youtube shorts and things like that. It's just like to be a fly on the wall and to just rub elbows with those people and everybody's there for this common goal, like, hey, let's get stronger, yeah, let's get stronger, let's, you know, let's find this. Uh, because they do like the conger uh programming, yeah, conjure programming, and like it's like some of the cool things you see and we're gonna talk about some auxiliary lifts, and like chains and rubber bands. I was like, oh, this is, this is bonkers man, it was fun a, it was fun.
Speaker 2:There was rhyme and reason to some of it and at the same time it was like dude, what do you want? You want to try this Like eh, let's see what happens, we'll be fine.
Speaker 1:Throw a little caution to the wind. Yeah, what are you going to do?
Speaker 2:So but yeah, I had to. You know I got to do a ton of seminars with Dave. I got to do some seminars with Louie. It was awesome, you know, and it's you know, I got the most important like Louie, in all my years of doing all this stuff. Louie is the smartest man in regards to training and I don't say that lightly because I've met some really smart, good coaches, but it's just overall training, knowledge and creativity, louie. Training, knowledge and creativity, louis, 100%, 100%. And the one thing I think needs to be said is you've got to speak, louis. You have to learn Louis and what he's trying to say and what he is saying to understand all of it. I don't know if that, because he can say all this stuff and you're like what is he talking about? But if you take a step back, you're like, oh, okay, and it's not as easy, I guess, to interpret sometimes.
Speaker 1:But if you understand.
Speaker 2:Louie, you can and I'll tell you this Louie's one of the funniest dudes I've ever met. I mean fucking, hilarious, like good dude. That's the other. I just wish people would know that side of Lou. I really did. It's just incredibly witty. And so and I'll tell you what the other thing is.
Speaker 2:Uh, when I was coaching at, I was doing my uh, graduate assistant stuff at Kentucky, and I got got to know Lou and Dave and you know I was not making any money being an intern, ga, whatever, and Louie found ways for me to make money Like hey, can you do this for me? And I get a check for a thousand bucks. And when you're fucking poor as shit man, I was making $800 a month. That's huge. I mean I got food, and so him and Dave both offered me lifelines when I really really needed it. I mean really needed it. So I'm internally grateful. I mean Dave, he is in here, you know, in town here, and we still keep in touch, and so I'm just I was very lucky to meet both those guys, you know, so very, very blessed.
Speaker 1:It's always great to just hear like good things about people and just know, know they're, they're still amazing people, people that got your back in this world and and just to have that amazing experience and and just live that that's. That's such a cool, cool time of your life. That's awesome. This, this 531 program, right, and we're talking about all this different information, all these different training styles and everything. Uh, for the listeners, you know, if you're just just a big broad stroke, for some that might not know like what is the five, three, one program and like who's it really for?
Speaker 2:So the reason why I wrote that was is twofold, but if I'm going to look back, I wish I had something like that when I was growing up and when it was. It's for people who maybe don't know a ton about training. My audience is not people like you, like business professionals in this business. My audience and most people's audience are regular dudes. They have jobs outside of this and I. They just need to be told what to do and that's all it came down to just and I've always been one of those guys just tell me what to do. I don't care what it is. If I need to climb this fucking hill and kill 10 people up there, fine, I don't need to know the why's. We talked about this before. Just tell me what to do, let me do it. And so I wanted to do something where the numbers were on paper. You just looked at it and just did it, and I love non-negotiable training. I don't want to have to think too much, and that's one of the things that you got to be really good at. The more advanced you get and I got really good at that the last two years of powerlifting, I think I was at the peak of my advanced training. Like I understood exactly what weights needed to be what I needed to do, and it was awesome. But the majority of people aren't there. Like you can't just say, like you figure it out, and that's why I started. That was like listen, here's your numbers, this is what you want to do. Here's some. You can have some variations on the assistance. That's fine. Like you can kind of decide that.
Speaker 2:But for this main stuff, this is what you're going to do. Go out there and kick ass and that's pretty much what it's for. It's for people and it doesn't matter. We use it with the football team. Obviously you can use it. If you're an MMA fighter, you can always alter it based on what you're doing. Now you have to make some changes. I totally get that. But it's for anyone that needs to get stronger and does other stuff too. That's the other thing. It's not just lifting weights. You know whether it's stressors from your home or work or if you're like a first responder or if you're in the military and you've got to run and do those. That's why I developed it was for people who wanted to get strong but was also doing other things and just needed to be, like, told exactly what to do, so that's pretty much how it started.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Just you always emphasize, like the simplicity of the program. You know, why do you think so many people overcomplicate training so much or like are all over the place of I'm going to do the nine week this and like a five week that, why do you think people are just always jumping?
Speaker 2:around. I think, well, I went through that too. Uh, I think once you get past like the first couple months, you start reading a ton and you have information overload. Even when I was growing up I didn't it wasn't privy to all the information there is and I still was like going everywhere. So I think it's just, you're just trying to find your way. I think it's. The other thing is I think it's fun. The other thing that I don't.
Speaker 2:If you keep like the basics of your training in it, you can vary a lot. I know I'm saying now, if you go from like a Olympic lifting program to a bodybuilding program, that's going to be a little different. But if you know, as long as you're squatting and squatting hard and benching and building muscle, maybe it doesn't matter as much as we like to think. The problem is the one and I've went through this many times and I look back in my life the more options I had, the least, the less project progress I made. And I think there's something with brain power and body power or, you know, effort, where, if you're just told X, y and Z, sometimes those get you the best results because you're not worrying about all the other stuff. So, but I think everyone needs, especially once you get past, like, the first couple of years. That's when you start doing all the crazy shit, like I'm going to do boards and weight releasers and reverse band and double bands and chains all at the same time. We're doing everything, uh, so, but that's, you know.
Speaker 2:One of the good things I like training with the high school kids is like I have control over the weights they put on the bar, the exercises they do, and I can get them to avoid all the dumb shit that, uh, you know that I did. You know. The other thing too is, uh, as a coach, you have to understand that no one likes training more than you. There's not a single kid that cares that much. And that's another thing I you know. With coaches, you're like, why don't you, you know, study the ankle mobility of the Olympic lifts? Like, I don't care, like just do I got a squad or not? What do I got to do? And I think that's important to know is, the kids don't care as much as you do, and that's fine. Then you have to alter your training or your program a little bit to make up for that, and uh, that's, that was something I learned a long time ago, but it was like an eye opener for me. Like the people you work with generally don't love training as much as you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I tell the high school kids and even clients too. I'm just like we got to get really. You got to be brilliant at the basics, I feel like. I'm just a broken record saying that and I've even got it on slides for, like our summer strength and conditioning. I'm just getting slides ready for that and I'm like just we need to be brilliant at the basics, like if I'm going to be a piano player or whatever I got to. You know, I got to play the piano Once I get some basic music fundamentals down.
Speaker 2:Like if I want to go for the clarinet for a little bit cool, but like I got to know the notes right, so well one of the things I'd stress to Mike the kids in the school and I said every high school program squats, benches, you know, does some kind of pulling movement, whether it's trap, bar, power cleans. I'm like the only thing that separates us from everyone else is we just do it better than everyone. Our standards are higher, our effort is greater, our consistency is better, that's it. And so when I, you know, I get a ton of messages from high school coaches and stuff like what are you guys doing? And then I show them. They're like that's it. I'm like, yeah, that's it. We do one main lift a day and we do two to three assistance movements and then we go out and run, that's it. And we do some jumping and stuff like that. But every time it's like, well, we did squats, we did overhead press, we did rows and then we went out and ran. What, yeah, yeah? But we do it because we have a junior high program my wife runs that starts in seventh grade.
Speaker 2:We have six years with these kids, so we just the way I look at it is, if we are consistent and we train, usually 50 weeks out of the year, and we're in there, no matter what, I don't have to kill these kids. We don't have to load the bar terribly heavy. Just come in. You know you can. I'd love for you to work really hard, but if you just want to have a good day, that's fine too, and we just stack good days on good days and that's why we're able to not do a ton Like we run year round. The only time we don't run is during the season, during practice. We don't do any conditioning because the kids run from the day that the last game is played. The next week we come in we're already running. We're never out of shape, so we never have to have like a conditioning period ever. So our kids don't have to go like the last four weeks before camp within everyone's running a ton. Our kids are fine, they're you know and you know.
Speaker 2:The other thing I'm going to go off on the track here is uh, after the last week, after the first season, I was there. I didn't do any of the strength training stuff and I told the coach, the head coach, just let me do it all, just I'll do everything you don't have, because he was doing all the training and so I started doing it during. It was like the first two weeks of the new off season and we had won three games. It was a horrible season. And the coach asked me he's like and I didn't know him, like I know him now, you know, we're really good friends. He's like hey, uh, what do you think we should change here?
Speaker 1:and I was like hey, cut is kyle cutler.
Speaker 2:I was like how, uh, how honest, do you want me to be bud? He's like just give it to me. And I was like this, this, this, this, this, and we changed everything was the george costanza moment of my life, like we just did the opposite of every. Everything we did. We cut out two days. We did all this other stuff we cut out and we simplified our offense and defense to the degree it's comical, because the kids aren't Bill Belichick, listen. You just got this gap. All you got to worry about is this gap. And then, if we call this, then you just worry about this gap. That's all you have to do, kid. Just worry about this gap. That's all you have to do, kid.
Speaker 2:So it was an awesome lesson in things that we learned when we were kids and football players and what we needed to keep and what we needed to throw away. That's not just because that's what we did before and so we threw a lot of stuff like why do we do this? I don't know. Let's not do it anymore because I don't think it's smart. So I always call it. You don't have to honor every ghost. You know all those things that you used to do. I got a message from some guy who got mad because we don't do two-a-days. You're not developing spirit. I'm like whatever you get in two-a-days, we get year-round because we never miss days, you know. You know, I'm just like that, that hard work and consistency, because we don't need to, we're already in good shape. Our kids are always doing skill work. You know, at least twice a week where the you know they go out and walk through plays and stuff. So by the time the season rolls around they've run, you know student body right 5 billion times like they know what's going on. So I don't know it's. It's been the best experience of my life being here, because I got to be part of something that is like exactly my dream of a football team, of what, what is expected out of the kids.
Speaker 2:We play the game Like we don't pass the ball. We probably pass the ball twice a game. The crowd goes bananas when we pass the ball, but we will rush. I mean we had one year we rushed for like 500 yards a game and we they probably didn't play a starter in the fourth quarter the entire year. I mean, just run this shit out of the ball and we are good and like you see, our linemen, they're five 10, one, 85 coming out there the fucking knocky on their head they will. You know there's a stronger and better. That's it and it's. It's pretty amazing watching that.
Speaker 1:So I know I'm blabbing on but it's been awesome to be part of something that's bigger than me and I see our kids succeed. I love, I love it, I love you know, in that, going back to that, the person's like we can't believe we don't do two days like because more sometimes isn't better. No, this is what I tell people more isn't better, better is better so for our kids.
Speaker 1:You know, for athletes, whome it's not just dumping things on. Like any coach and any trainer can crush you, like they can totally crush you. Fine, great, you're on the floor at the end and you can't breathe anymore. What the hell? How does that help me, you know? And they have that mentality. I got to push through, you got to do this, you got to do that. You got to like be crawling out of the gym like that's just going to hinder you, like let's, let's do the things that make us better, and breaking you down. And you said this earlier and I wanted to get to it, but you just, if you want to touch upon it, stacking wins, stacking wins.
Speaker 2:Well, when you're working with young people, we can go into this. But a lot of the kids will come in. They're not remotely fully developed adults, right? Obviously they're young kids and a lot of them they haven't had maybe much success in their life. I'm not saying that it's Oliver Twist or anything like that, but I want them because training to me, is more than just getting bigger and getting stronger. It's developing confidence to attack the world, so to speak.
Speaker 2:You know, shoulders back, head up kind of thing when young men and I assume this goes for women I got two boys, so but when we, when you allow a young man to accomplish something physically that they didn't think they could do and it's not like big, it's not like, listen, you got to go through hell week, buddy. It's listen, we're going to you benched a hundred pounds, holy shit, look at all that work you put in Congratulations, and now, instead of having their head down, it's a little higher. And then the next week you say I bet you, I know you can squat the dumbbell, squat 50 pounds for 15 reps. It's like, oh man, I've only done 40 for 10. I think you can do it and you always give them tasks that you know they can accomplish but they don't know. I constantly give kids like, listen, I bet you can get 12 here, what? And you're like, dude, you can probably get 30. I'll be honest, but let's just get 12. And I just want them to stack good physical accomplishments and challenges day after day. Now they're not like I said, it's not like running a marathon. It's little stuff and obviously it's not going to happen every day. But you try to get something done with each kid, as much as possible, and all of a sudden that confidence starts building right, the self-esteem gets better. So I'm not giving them hollow bullshit like, oh, you're the best, no, you know what. You prove that you have the work ethic and the attitude to go from point A to point Z. Look, look at all the things you've done.
Speaker 2:I have a kid right now who has never played a sport in his life, never played football, never trained. He works his ass off. I don't know if he's ever going to see the field, but he could barely bench the barbell. All right, he did like 135 for like 12 reps and he was able to finally squat with a barbell. I mean, he pushed that set so hard and he's like he's determined to get better and I think last, last week, so he's probably been there maybe 10 weeks the last week and he's over overweight. I saw him during the day and I was first time show. His trap started coming in a little bit. He's not like going to take off his shirt and like impress anyone, but he looked different and I was like dude, look at you like an attack on the world. I love it. And you know he's like yeah, yeah, and his attitude already changed.
Speaker 2:Like that's how you build self-esteem, that's how you set young men up for success in all areas of life. You give them challenges, let them accomplish them, and then you do it again and again and again and again. And I'm tired of people saying to build self-esteem, you just got to tell them they're great. No, they have to fucking prove it day in and day out that they're great.
Speaker 2:And in regards to, like the trainers smoking guys, I always love it, because everyone looks to the Navy SEALs, right, hell, weak and buds. Everyone gets hurt, everyone does, even the guys that passed. They all got shins splint their shoulders, all fucked up their chafe. And our kids aren't Navy SEALs, they're not even close to it. So why would I give them a task to do that they can't accomplish. And I mean their fail rate is what? Like probably 85 percent, like what, what? What world do you live in? And those guys are the cream of the crop. So even the guys that get dropped for whatever reason whether it's injury they're still studs. My kids aren't even close to that, so I wouldn't expect them to do that.
Speaker 2:And the other thing is when you're coach, I coach 60 kids at once, so it's chaos sometimes. The kids these days are not. They have such a low GPP level from when I was growing up and I'm not here to down them. It's not their fault, but I can't expect them to train and do the same stuff I did. You know I'm 50 years old, so that was a serious eye opener for me was I saw how low their general fitness level is. So it was well, either I complain about it or I do something about it. So we had to weather everything down because I needed these kids to train consistently. If I'm burning the boats all the time, they're never going to want to come back ever. So I tell the kids listen all I give me, give me an hour, just give me an hour. We'll get you out of here.
Speaker 2:I got a standing ovation when I, when I first addressed the team, like this is what I expect out of you guys get you in and out of here an hour. Just give me a good effort. I don't want to. Don't, just do what I tell you to do, everything will be good. The kids all stood up no-transcript, and I was like, wow, these kids put a lot of trust in me.
Speaker 2:And that first game we had lost to that team the year prior and I was warming up the kids, I almost puked like a dozen times because I'm like these kids work so hard. What a kick in the nuts. It would be Steamrolled. This team. I mean everything we did. Just and this is before we even knew who we were. Like the kids had no idea and I remember one of the kids running off the field. He's like these guys don't squat, you know, but it was it.
Speaker 2:Now I have, I have enough background now with working with the team. Where the kids are, they like, listen, I'll just do whatever you tell me. But back then, you know, we had a super group of kids who were willing to give me their trust and stuff, and so that first senior class. I give them a ton of credit. They're the ones that changed this entire program. They really did, and they had no reason to trust me, like who's this tattooed idiot that's coming in thinking he knows how to train people, you know? So I still keep in touch with a lot of those kids too. So, it's, it's been good. I still keep in touch with a lot of those kids too.
Speaker 1:So it's it's been good Having having a mentor, having a coach, like it's. It's super impactful and you know, and you spend a lot of that, you spend more time with those kids than they do sometimes with their parents. Right, they're at school all day. You might see them at school or whatever. If you're in the building, you see them at practice day to day, you see him on the weekends, you see him off season. So it's like it's something that is overlooked and I just hate that. Kids are getting out of athletics. I think there is a little bit of a decline. It's getting too elite. Kids don't want to do it anymore. There's a big drop off at that high school level. But it's so good to have a mentor and a coach.
Speaker 2:And to how Louie was to you, you are to these kids, which is awesome, yeah. And you know, the other thing I tell coaches is like I want the kids to want to come in, I want them to like, and I'm I've probably yelled six times since I've been there uh, so I'm not going to get on you a little bit. I mean, obviously I'm going to encourage you, but I'm not going to be like you, piece of shit. What, what do you think I'm like? No, like, if you don't want to give the effort, that's fine. Like I got 59 other kids in here. But I also, like we said, I'm not going to smoke you every day. Like you know, you're going to come in, you're, everyone's getting. Like I always say like we do a full, uh, so on days that we squat, we'll also do upper body.
Speaker 2:But my big thing is these kids are just need to build muscle. Like everyone wants to get all this. Like our kids got no muscle. So I'm a big fan of boyd epley, the the godfather of strength training for football and his main focus. This is boyd epley. If his main focus is as basic as building muscle for his stud athletes at nebraska, then what? What am I doing? Trying to develop like the one leg. You know, bosu, hop. No, we just need a little jack.
Speaker 2:So I always tell the kids, like, listen, after we squat, everyone's getting jacked today. And then the kids, they just, and our kids are all bigger than everyone else, they're as big as they're going to get. I should say, you know, they're not like bodybuilders, but all our kids got traps, all our kids got butts, got big arms, shoulders, and, uh, the kids like to do that stuff. So I'm like, listen, we need to do it anyway, let's just have some fun and do it. So it's not all super specific sports, we're just getting stronger, building muscle, jumping and running, that's all it comes down to.
Speaker 1:And uh, so yeah, and that sports, and you mentioned sports specific training. You know thoughts on that, you know well, there's.
Speaker 2:There's a couple of things. One again we're dealing with very low general physical preparedness and I answer questions on this every single day. It's like I got a 13 year old girl who lacks acceleration. Her first step is slow. I'm like, well, how many pull-ups can she do? She can't do any. Can she squat without her knees coming in? No, no, no, no, we don't do that. It's like well, let's do the basic stuff first. Let's just build some muscle, get her a little stronger. She's not going to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger after six months.
Speaker 2:The other thing is I saw a very, very big time high school I'm not going to name it, the facilities would blow your mind. I watched them train and it was all sports specific stuff and it was horrible. Even like that, the, the technique and stuff. Like I'd be like, dude, if you, if a kid, did that in our weight room, the kids would laugh them out of there, like what the fuck are you doing Our kid, not me, them they would. And then I looked around, they got like, you know, 10 or 15 kids are going D1. I'm like, well, that's why it doesn't matter, it does. It matters more for us than it does for them. And the other thing is like you'll see elite sprinters and I've seen some crazy shit being done at the same time and I'm sure you know if they've had success fine. But at the same time, oh my God, I can't believe I just dropped the ball on this. Who's the great sprint coach for Ben Johnson? Oh my God, I can't believe I just dropped the ball. Famous sprint coach he coached Ben Johnson from Canada, charlie Francis. He just did squats, benches and like lat pulldowns. He's like strength is just general. We'll worry about the other stuff when we're on the field or you know, on the track, so to speak. And I was like, wow, if Charlie Francis is doing it and there was elite level sprinters, then what am I trying to do? And what I've noticed too, is if I get our kids strong.
Speaker 2:Now, there's a couple of things with this. Is we never trained very heavy. You would laugh your ass off at how light our kids train, because every rep is awesome. Every rep is awesome. As an example, we got a kid. Yet two weeks ago, when he does his trap bar work, his weights weighed from 225, 245, and 265. He's done that for, I think, 10 weeks. That's the only weights he's touched. We worked up, he pulled 365 for 10. He came up to me First of all he's like thank you, coach, because he's one of those kids like if you tell him, listen, do 145 for 80 reps, I'll just do it. Whatever, he'll do it. And he came up, said thank you so much because he couldn't believe he pulled 365 for 10. And he goes.
Speaker 2:I don't understand why it works, but when you just do crisp reps all the time, you get stronger and we're never burnt out. The kids' backs are never tired, they're never terribly sore, especially in their lower body. But where was I going with this? So we get them strong, we put some muscle on them and if we did sports specific stuff they'd be fine, cause it's a lot of that.
Speaker 2:Stuff is just learning to do the crazy movement, right. But you can't take a kid who's done all these crazy movements and put 365 on the bar and do say pull 10 reps. One has a carry over to the other. I learned that from Dave Tate, you know. Remember that squatting on a Bosu ball was a thing. Yeah, you can teach that to Chuck Vogel, right, it may take a few sessions like that, but he'd get it down. But you can't take that same guy and put you know 1200 pounds on his back and expect them to squat it. So one thing has a carry over to the other. That doesn't mean I'm like just Frankenstein when I, you know, like just, but at the same time like if you are, you know, 25% body fat and you weigh 165 pounds. What are we doing? Let's get a little leaner. Let's put some muscle on. Let's get you a little stronger.
Speaker 1:Let's get you to squat 225.
Speaker 2:Well, that'd be nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Uh, so I know, I know I'm just blabbing. The most thing is the more average you are, more below average you are. I can train hard, be consistent, give effort, you'll be fine. And again, you're not going to go to the NFL. You know, like one of my favorite things I ever heard, how do I increase my vertical jump? And a guy I know said get new parents.
Speaker 1:That's a good one. I'm using that.
Speaker 2:I mean that's you know. I'm sure you see it all the time.
Speaker 1:You got parents who think their kid's gonna go here and here and from fifth grade already planning, planning on them going to division one and getting a scholarship. For I told the parent the other day we played badminton and I'm like, hey, uh, your kid won our like pe class badman tournament or whatever, and then they get to play me at the end I just smoke them, you know uh. But the parents of the dad looks at me, goes badman, he told me about that, that he did. Really, I'm like he's got just a touch for it, right. And uh, he's like is there any, uh, college money?
Speaker 1:In that I, I was just like I don't think so, man, I don't know, I don't know any badminton, although I just say it's all. It was a boy who won, but it was. I just say it's all female badminton, that's all I know of. I don't think it is a boy sport. Yeah, I don't know If there's any college badminton. I have no idea that's, I have no idea, but immediately goes to any college money. In that I was like I don't know, maybe, maybe on the international circuit buddy.
Speaker 1:But yeah, the high expectations, the unfortunately and I just had this conversation and other podcasts shout out Nate Nikki for the let's talk strength podcast we had Angelo Gingere leon and he is the strength coach at seton hall. He wrote this book, called that. The book's called the next four years and getting kids prepared and what's expected of like navigating college and getting into college. And he's like why the hell and we like clipped it. It was like a great clip.
Speaker 1:Why the hell am I? Am I trying to get a kid to do a one-arm, uh, uh, bench press on a bosew ball when they can't even do a one push-up? Yeah, he's like I got aau kids, basketball kids that are coming in and they cannot do a lunge. He's like this is a real problem. They might be really great at basketball, but like they can't even do a lunge. He's like this is a real problem. They might be really great at basketball, but like they can't even do a lunge. He's like that's just gonna compound and athletes are the best at compensating over time. It doesn't show during gameplay, but if you ask them to do a movement screener, ask them to do a lunge, it doesn't look right and like that's that's just going to lead to injury.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's all SPP and no GBP. Yeah, and the other thing I you know I would love if I had that same kind of control over, like a professional baseball team, if it never happened. But I thought about this baseball. Professional baseball is essentially in season training year round and I'm like I bet you I give me those guys two days a week and we'll take care of all the issues. Uh, because it doesn't take.
Speaker 2:Like, when people think of training, if there's still coaches here at the high school, uh are three and two and three sport athletes who freak out that the kids trained. I was like what do you think we're doing up here? Do you think we're uh doing like 30, 30 sets of 10 on the squat, like we're doing explosive reps? We're doing some very basic stuff and then we're leaving. And I think when people think like when, like, for example, the basketball players, they think of training is going to smoke them, it doesn't, it doesn't have to be like that we can make great progress without killing you. And I think that's everyone thinks it's just bodybuilding or something, I don't know. You know that kind of where you walk out of the weight room like Tom Platt's and your legs are shaking like that's not going to happen, I mean, unless you do something stupid. But for the most part, a good coach won't let that happen. So, but it's, you know.
Speaker 2:At the other thing, it's another thing why genetics rule. I mean, if you're six, six, seven and can run like the wind and you dunk a basketball, since you're like a you know freshman in high school, I mean, who am I to tell these guys how to train? I hate to say that, but at the same time, uh, I remember dave tate talking about that, when louis would get critical about how professional athletes train. You know football players, and it's like they've, they're making millions of dollars doing what they've been doing. What are you going to tell them? Like they've obviously had success? Uh, not saying that that's the right thing. But you know, who would you listen to if you just signed a you know $55 million contract Like, well, whatever I've been doing has been working pretty well.
Speaker 1:So it's like a nutritionist trying to talk to chad chad ocho. The guy eats mcdonald's every day, you know. And he's like what are you gonna tell him? You know, you got to eat cleaner. It's like yeah, I'm, I'm good I love his.
Speaker 2:His reasoning is that's why everyone gets hurt they eat too healthy. Yeah, right, exactly. It's like you need those chemicals in your body to keep it strong. Like well, whatever, I don't care, like I see it with like dk metcalf he doesn't eat very well and the guy's actually tons of muscle on him and again, like, welcome to the world of genetics.
Speaker 2:You know, I wrote an article and I did a video, and I wrote an article about this on my forum, about the biggest mistake I made when I was playing college football was and even in high school was I saw the big time stars. You know that were big running backs who were like 5'10", 235, 245, and they could run like the wind. And I thought, well, shit, I just got to get that big. I got that big and I was horribly out of shape and I couldn't move very well. And I wish someone would have told me you, not him you just got to be the best version of you you can be, and if that means you're 205, 210 pounds, so be it. Screw it.
Speaker 2:Always comparing yourself to the freaks is going to ruin you. It'll ruin your it'll, it'll sabotage your training or your, your sports career. Just be the best awesome version of yourself that you can be. Uh, so I came up with like a formula like, based on your height, like of the guys that I've been around for the last 30 years, what I call average dudes what's approximately the body the least and most body weight you should have if you want to be super strong and very well conditioned? And people got a little upset like, well, I'm, I'm way over that. I'm like, yeah, but can you run consecutive six minute miles?
Speaker 2:well, no, well then, you're a little upset Like, well, I'm, I'm way over that. I'm like, yeah, but can you run consecutive six minute miles? Well, no, well then you're a little too chunky and it's, it's okay. I'm not telling you you have to look like you have to be that, but if you were an average guy like, these are generally the weights you should be around If you want to be. You know, still not saying you're going to bench 500 pounds, but you know if you want to be an awesome average guy.
Speaker 1:That's pretty much what it comes down to. I mean, you look at gymnastics, right, weight's a weight's a factor, you know, for the men and for the females. You know boxing, wrestling. You know it's all going to be contention on your kind of your body fat and your outcome of your performance. So it's a it's a thing you got to talk about because it it, because it does matter. You have to have those conversations.
Speaker 2:You know, the other crazy thing is I saw a guy did a study on guys that passed the special operator stuff for, like the Air Force, the Navy, you know, the Rangers and SF units as well as like CrossFit, and the people that had the highest outcomes had the most muscle mass. That was the greatest determined. Granted, you still had to run and do all this other stuff, but muscle mass was super important. And I was like, oh my god, so it doesn't matter if you're a combat controller, ass kicker in the air force or if you're a crossfit like that's how important muscle mass was and I it was. It was like a. You know, here I am at my age thinking like we got to do this and that. And I realized that when I was growing up, people had more muscle on them when they entered high school and started training. Just because their overall GPP was higher, they could do pull-ups.
Speaker 2:If you get a kid now in seventh grade to be able to do a pull-up, you're like, hell yeah, man, hell yeah, my wife handles all that stuff. She's like it is unbelievable. We had a kid who had trouble getting off the ground in sixth grade. Like it was. Like you know, I was like, oh my God, and there's more to that stuff. Like I think it's important regardless if you're a, you know, a young man or young woman important to be healthy when you're a young age. It sets you up for a lifetime of not just health, but it's just like you interact socially better when you're not terribly obese. And I also think at a young age, once you set your body's homeostasis for being overweight, it's going to stay there for a long time unless you have to diet. And then you see people who are overweight for the large chunk of their life and they get in great shape. That's all they. That's diet and food is what their life revolves around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, case in point myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's tough and uh like, then it becomes and it's, it's awesome, but right, it's, it becomes such a big part of your life. I don't eat like and this is not me Like I have to watch what I eat now, but I had like 46 good years, just whatever, I'll be fine, not saying I was the leanest dude in the world, but I never thought about it. So that's how much I think just doing working with young kids is so important. It really is, because it sets them up for a lifetime of achievement. And the other thing like my oldest son and youngest son both play sports. They're never going to be college athletes I don't think, you know. Or my oldest son's in college, he's not playing sports or anything.
Speaker 2:But I'm like I look at sports as a way like let's extract what we can from the sports to help you out later in life. I don't care if you play in the NFL, I don't even care how much you play, I don't care. Like I want you to be part of a team, I want you to be able to work through some tough times. And it's funny, like I see sports is like, uh, let's just it's going to build you as a human being and not to build my bank account, and I think there's a big difference in those. You know, parents, I'll fucking pay for college, screw it, we're. You know, we'll take out some loans or whatever we need to do if you want to go. So, uh, I just wish you know see so many parents like not just living through their kids but like using them as piggy banks.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's just sad to me yeah, you know, and it's about building the character, right, like at the end of the day that's. You know, sometimes nobody's going to remember the wins and the losses and who placed this in this conference or whatever, but it's like I remember that kid, I remember that coach, I remember that team, right, that's, that's the biggest thing. And I think I you've even said some stories. I think I heard a podcast of, like, other coaches coming across, you know, shaking your hand and be like hey, man, you kicked our butts. Like what do you guys? What are you guys doing? Like this is this.
Speaker 2:You know that was that was a weird moment in my life where the other coach came across and the year prior this team kicked our ass and we went in. I love this story. Our quarterback got hurt the week before, so we had no backup quarterback, none. So we put a wide receiver in this first time. He's put in his hands for the first time in his life on some dude's grundle. You know. He's like oh shit, and so, uh, you know he's got to run. We run a wing t offense and it's not like he's throwing, throwing a lot. But you got to do all these fakes, whatever, and we ended up winning.
Speaker 2:The game was like 75 to nothing or something stupid. We scored a touchdown with nine guys on offense, like we had some kind of whatever, and the coach came across. Their head of strength coach came across the field and said I got to ask you what the hell do you guys do? And I said this was like I didn't think about it. He's like I said my goal is to make my average guy kick your average guy's ass all over the field, that's it. And he's like holy cow. And then he told me I'd love this story.
Speaker 2:He's like do you guys have good facilities? I'm like well, our kids raise all the money for every piece of equipment we've had in that weight room. Our kids raise it selling mulch. That's how you know. We live in a rural area. Every year we do a mulch sale. They're dropping bags off right now as I speak and he said we can't call our training facility a weight room because it's. They said it's a uh, it's intimidating to the other students and faculty, so we can't call it a weight room. And we have two squat racks in our weight room. They won't. They have to have all machines so it's not intimidating. And I was like dude, unless that changes, like you're, what are you going to train 30 groups? Like?
Speaker 2:you know and uh. So that's another reason I'm super thankful, like all we have all power racks, dumbbells and barbells. That's all we have really in our weight room, just because we don't have a ton of space. I mean it's awesome we got 16 full racks in there and a ton of dumbbells, so uh, but that was like a real eye-opener. I was like holy cow, we're just gonna be awesome. Average guys are gonna kick ass, you know.
Speaker 1:So that's good and I want to end kind of with the one question I wanted to. I know we went left and right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, listen if you've got any more questions, I'll answer them. I got, you know, oh no, no, no.
Speaker 1:This, this is awesome. No, I just want to kind of touch upon this one thing before we wrap up is you know, in the inception of the 5-3-1, as you're putting this out there, you know, as you're living it and coaching it what any changes that have occurred over that time? And then what's something that you see the most common mistakes people make when they're trying to implement it All?
Speaker 2:right. So the thing that I've changed quite a bit was I lowered our training maxes. I always said 90%. We go uh, I don't really use uh percentages so anymore like for their training max, I just base it on bar speed. If I kids, if I see a weight, I know what it should look like, whatever. But I would probably say, uh, on the squat and the deadlift our training max is probably 75%. It's, it's low, it is super low. Uh, and I know people don't believe it Like how can you get strong? I don't know. I don't understand how it works, because I we will stay at the same training max. This is going to bought. Know how they like every week we do a little bit better, right? Yeah, five pounds.
Speaker 2:No we stay at the same basic weights for eight, 12 weeks. I don't know why it works. Then we we test kids, smoke stuff. I mean we had a kid who's a heaviest weight on the bench was one 95. We just, you know, did what we did. It goes in bench two, 25 or 14 reps.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so that's one. We lower the training max. Every rep is perfect, every rep is perfect. Uh, and I don't get overzealous, like if a kid really like the kid that did 225 for 14, I didn't adjust his training max to account for that, we just went up a little bit, all right. So that's number one. Number two is and this is because all the time working with the young kids, we bomb the assistance work. So we want good, fast reps on the barbell. I want competent reps. I want standards super high. I want competent reps, I want standards super high. And I don't want my kids exhausted after the, you know, after the main lifts. I want, you know you understand what I'm saying. It's not we want the.
Speaker 2:The assistance is where we get big and that's where we start going stuff to failure, because there's less of a chance of getting hurt. You're not going to get smoked after doing barbell curls to failure, right? You will if you're squatting to failure for several sets. So that's where we build our muscle. So that's the other thing. I used to be all about the main lifts and like everything else is like that's the steak and the potatoes for me back in the day. Now it's just part of what we do. So we have explosive reps in the barbell. We bodybuild the assistance.
Speaker 2:The other thing I found out, and I don't know why this happened we do very little lower body work outside of like hamstring, like rdl, kettlebell, dumbbell, snatch kind of stuff. We squat and we trap bar. We do some dumbbell squats, but we don't do a lot of lower body loading and I have found the that I do the stronger the kids get and the better they perform on the field. I don't know if that's a product of these kids just have low GPP and that's what they can handle. I don't know. It's because we do, we always are jumping every day, uh, or we're running every day, but we also push the prowler every single Friday. So that may have something to do with cause.
Speaker 2:That's a. I mean, it's our prowler workouts suck Again. I don't want the kids to throw up. I will adjust rest times, but it is. You will do hard work on Friday. Everyone knows Friday's our prowler day. So I don't know why. That is because when I was growing up it was bomb the legs. Bomb the legs, and I'm glad I did. I just don't know how how effective it was. So that's the other thing that's maybe more global. What was the other thing, uh?
Speaker 1:so, uh, yes, people implemented. But also to your one of your points you're like I don't know how this is happening. What you're explaining is step cycling, right, it's. This is what I love about kettlebells, because I'm I love barbell, don't get me wrong, but I love kettlebells because the old sets used to have, like you would have like an 18, a 24 and a 32, so you would be pressing the 18 right for, yeah, until you got down. So every rep is perfect. Uh, it's light enough where I'm gonna, you know, get the form down technique, but it's just heavy enough where it's going to give me that mechanical stress, yeah, and then you're gonna, now you earn yourself, yeah, up a bell and then you can work there for a little while. But you, what you're doing is you're staying at those weights, like you're saying, and people want this progression. It doesn't life. Doesn't. Life doesn't look like that. It goes like this. You know it goes up a little bit, yeah, the macro picture.
Speaker 2:Is this right? You, you know you hone in it's you know very.
Speaker 2:Does that make sense? Yes, and it's when I started doing that. I started doing that during the season because, uh, cause we trained. We trained fucking hard during the season. Now I'm smart about what we do, but our kids usually end up stronger. If they don't get hurt, they will be stronger. Long story short, we also I already regulate everything we do. Everything we do is auto regulated.
Speaker 2:So I you can walk in and know like, oh, these kids not looking good. Or you watch the first couple of sets, listen, we're backing off today. This is not going to hurt. You know, we had a one year we had to do we cut out the, we trap bar and we bench press. Those are our main lifts during the season. We don't squat at all. Hamstrings get too tired, like the kids. All, everyone almost plays both ways. What's the fucking point? So, long story short, there was a couple um, we trap our on Monday. There was four, three Mondays in a row we didn't trap bar. I'm like no way, the kids just. I can just tell the next. So that's three weeks. The fourth week we come in almost everyone prs and I was like, oh my god, I thought you can't do that because you didn't do 225 for 5, 230 for 5, you know 235. How the fuck did this happen? And I was like, well, it just shows like you just do what you. You do what your body is prepared for that day and then let the chips fall where they may. And the other thing this is during those weeks that we couldn't trap our.
Speaker 2:When we came to Wednesday and bench press, I'm like the kids. I don't want the kids to know that they're weak when they're in the season Okay, cause then they're going to. That's going to carry into their attitude. So when I know that they're not going to bench, well, we just drop to what I call our first set. We just do tons of reps there because they can smoke those reps. So even if they can't maybe they're not that strong they can still get 15 reps and three sets of 15, right, just obnoxious pump work. We did that. Then we again. We go back and hit something heavy. Like six weeks later everyone's bench went up.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh my God, the kids just need to do reps. Imagine that. I was like, oh my God, we don't need to do cluster singles at 90%. No, the kids just need to do this over and over again. I was like, oh my God, it's really weird. And it's almost this season. Every off season and in season, I have a goal. This off season was just do less. We're just doing less. Whatever we're doing, we're doing less of it.
Speaker 2:And as soon as I got away from that, everyone started getting too tired. And then I have a good friend that I call all the time. I always put him in his place and he's like let me tell you what I'm doing. I'm like dude, that sucks, that's just a horrible idea, you know. So we and uh, I I sat down and just talked it out. I'm like I'm doing too much. I'm doing too much.
Speaker 2:You know, we auto-regulate everything, but you have to account for the daily readiness, you know. And the weird thing is you know how, when women are in prison, everyone's cycles. Uh, when you have 60 kids in that weight room and you can hear a pin drop in there, the kids can't train very hard. Like it's like everyone. There's not like half the teams going bananas and the other ones like this. It's like either everyone's good to go or no one's good to go. Obviously not a hundred percent, but it's nuts.
Speaker 2:I remember it, cause our weight room's on the second floor. I was walking up the weight with the stairs and I was like, oh my God, I got the time wrong. Like how do I get the time wrong? We train at you know, whatever time it was, there were 60 kids in there. It was so quiet. I'm like listen, we're just going to do some pushups, some dumbbell bench, we'll do some chin-ups and we're going to leave. That's all we're doing today. And, by the way, you want to see a kid's attitude improved, tell them they're not squatting that day. You know we didn't squat this Monday and I didn't tell anyone until, like, uh, after we got done with the warmup, oh my God, that assistance work.
Speaker 2:The kids were like cause they're all that's when you know the kids aren't you, so to speak, Cause I would have been devastated if I, you know, even if I was right now.
Speaker 1:I've been looking forward to all weekend. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:And so, but it's been. You know, I've done a lot of this stuff. Like all my stuff that I do and my wife does, it's all volunteer work. We don't get paid. I, I think when I started that job and I'm just trying to pass this on because it got passed on to me by my mother I think it's important you give something back. I understand not everyone has that opportunity, but I have. We live so far below our means financially that we're able to do a lot of stuff for free and it's the best thing I've ever done. Not because it's for free, it's because I got a whole small community and I'm part of it now.
Speaker 1:Like I'm going to.
Speaker 2:It's not. I'm not carrying cancer, but guess what? Either are you. You know, no one is, by the way, no one's carrying cancer, and so I just think you know whatever you're good at, if you can, whether it's my mom cooked for the homeless for years and years, and cause she loves cooking and that's what she was good at. So she's like, fine, I'll just do it, and so that's kind of what inspired me.
Speaker 2:So I think and we have a whole group of moms and dads that even when their kids leave like one was a terrific photographer, he does all the comes to every single game and photographs. I mean amazing pictures. We've got moms who help cook, you know, help do this. You know, we had some families take in kids. That's normal, like if a kid, you know, parents, something happens. I'm not going to judge, they take, they adopt them. I mean that's the. That's why I love living in a small community. We, you know, kind of help each other out. So, uh, it's been an awesome experience for me and I'd love to be able to train like the Cleveland Browns, right, but how it's it's, I'd rather train a kid who's five'10", 145 pounds, and turn them into something his senior year and he's changed. You know, his life has changed.
Speaker 1:And just being of service is like one of the best things that you can possibly do with your life. And you know, I appreciate guys like you, your wife and everybody that's involved over there in London, like that's something that's amazing and that community will always have that tight knit, like tight knitness from that and, um, you, you don't see that anymore, you know, or rarely, so I, I'd love that.
Speaker 2:That's amazing, you know, 15 years ago I would have said happiness isn't the most important thing. I mean, I'm not sure how you define that, but now I think, service, I just I still I'm training a couple of kids for free. This, you know, during the summer they come in for you know, I'm like, yeah, if I can do it, I don't care, let's have some fun together. And I'm not saying like, listen, I got plenty of faults and I'm not perfect by any means, but, man, it feels good to be useful, so to speak.
Speaker 2:It really does to be of service, like you said, but that's just the product of getting older too. I still think I will say this I tell every kid that graduates, I write them a little note and I said listen, be selfish in your pursuits and take risks, because you've got a small little window and everything I regret in my life is things I didn't do, not that I did any real dumb shit. Let's just be honest. But take those chances while you're young and be selfish in your pursuit, because when you get to my age, that's when I'm giving, that's now that you know I'm giving back and letting other kids find their, their, their purpose, so to speak, or whatever you want to say. I'm not sure what it is.
Speaker 1:But yeah, no, you know, it's like when I do podcasts sometimes it's like, all right, let's get the detailed sets and reps and percentage, whatever it may be. But no, this is the big like. We barely talked that right, we talked about building character. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, it doesn't matter that much. Eight reps, five. Nebraska possibly the greatest football teams in my generation, the 80s and 90s. They did a lot of sets of 10. Oh my God, you can't be explosive. Yes, you can. Yeah, I always laugh. Eight reps or five reps, I'm like fucking flip a coin, who cares? Are they done perfectly, are they done correctly? It's all right, you're good. Yeah, so yeah, I always I laugh. I got a question the other day about dead stop, deadlifts or touch and go.
Speaker 2:I'm like it doesn't matter, like I remember when this stuff used to matter, I'm like are the reps done right? Are you good to go? Doesn't you good to go? Doesn't really matter that much in the big scheme of things, and I think that comes with experience and maturity and stuff. But I find like, oh my god, people care about this stuff and they do. I understand, because I did too, but it's just uh, when you see the big picture, I'm not terribly concerned.
Speaker 1:So all right, what's, what's the mike boyle saying? It's like we have so, like we have to be like an information filter, just just like, don't worry about like the minutia of everything, like, just get like the basics down and let's, let's, let's rip, let's go.
Speaker 2:I get asked like, do you guys high bar, low bar? I'm like, yeah, whatever the kids want to do, yeah, high bar squats, perfectly. What am I going to do? No, put it down, who cares? The kid wanted a front squat. I'm like I don't give a shit.
Speaker 1:Let who cares. If the kid wanted a front squat, I'm like I don't give a shit.
Speaker 2:Let's front squat, you're gonna be good at front squats?
Speaker 1:I don't care, don't care, so anyway, but yo, this was awesome, it was, it was amazing to talk to you. This was a great, yeah, great conversation. Uh, if people want to find you, um, you know where are you located on like social media for the listeners.
Speaker 2:So there's, uh, I post on Instagram most, I don't know, maybe three or four times a week, and so that's just. I think Jim Wendler uh, I'm sure if you type in my name it'll come up uh, every Friday on YouTube we do a live stream at 10 AM Eastern time, uh, on Fridays. So I just get on basically what you see right here and then I just answer any question that comes on the chat. And then we also I have someone who does all the YouTube shorts, who takes little clips from there and puts them into fancy little things, who does a terrific job, which I love. And then we also have a, the Jim Wendler forum.
Speaker 2:It's a training forum, just like back in the day. It's a it's paid forum. It's a training forum, just like back in the day. It's a, it's paid. It's five bucks a month, uh, and it is 1000 political free.
Speaker 2:It's, if you want to talk training and we've, we've built it up over, I want to say probably 14, 13, 14 years and, uh, tons of good dudes that have been on there forever. We got coaches, we got older guys, we got younger guys, a lot of people with experience, and it's you've got a training question, or one is like, I post Tons of good dudes that have been on there forever. We got coaches, we got older guys, we got younger guys, a lot of people with experience, and if you've got a training question or want to like, I post every single workout we do with the team. You can be absolutely unimpressed with how we train because that's what's going to happen. I had a coach come in one time. A lot of coaches want to come see us and our coach is like nah, that's kind of weird for the kids and he says the same thing. You'd be totally unimpressed if you saw, like, really, that's, you guys did some dumbbell inclines and deadlifts and some curls. I guess what we did today. Oh, all right, so no bands or anything. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no anyway.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I am, I love doing the live streams. I really do. It's been fun for me. I always like I know I'm just talking like we, I've given a million presentations and seminars and stuff, but my favorite thing is when I just sit down in front of an audience and let's just, let's get your questions answered Not saying I have all the answers, cause I certainly don't, but I love doing that stuff. I'd rather do that than prepare a PowerPoint. Now you got a hundred people in the audience Like if you got it, like you came here and paid, so ask me what you want to know. I'm maybe I'm not going to answer all your questions sitting up here with a PowerPoint, it's so you know what I'm saying. I've been to those things and I go.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, there's like a million million words on the slide. You're like oh no, no.
Speaker 2:I got a book one time Dave I didn't, but Dave bought a book about PowerPoint and it was like 50 bucks about how to do PowerPoint and it was. If you saw it you'd be like 50 bucks for this. I learned more about presenting in that $50. It was fucking stapled or like a spiral. It was just put no more than two words or three words on a slide. Have really good pictures. That's it, cause you don't want people up there and I was like, oh my God, that's how important it is to just give a good presentation. It's uh, you provide them the information, but this you know the the slide doesn't, I don't know. The point being is I couldn't believe how great that information was in such a kind of a basic binder and I don't know. But yeah, you're right, I learned that really the hard way Cause I my. Here's what we do on Monday you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2:but anyway, I'm sorry, I'll let you get.
Speaker 1:No, no, no. But again, it's a pleasure to have you on. I'm gonna put all the links in the show notes, uh, so people can stay in touch with you, follow you, go to your website as well. But once again, this was an honor. Thank you so much thank you, I appreciate you you got it and thanks for everybody listening to another episode, the promo foundations podcast.