The Masters Athlete Survival Guide
We explore thriving as an athlete after 40. Each episode, we’ll dive into tips, hacks, and inspiring stories from seasoned athletes and our personal experience. Whether you’re a weekend warrior or a competitive pro, this podcast is your playbook for staying fit, strong, and motivated
The Masters Athlete Survival Guide
Coach Joe "Big House" Kenn’s Blueprint for Stronger Training After 40
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We sit down with veteran NFL and college strength coach Joe "Big House" Kenn to talk about what actually keeps athletes strong as they age and why the basics beat the flashy tools. We dig into Block Zero, the Tier System, and the mindset shift that helps masters athletes train hard without chasing who they used to be.
• Joe Ken’s coaching background across college football and the NFL
• why mobility, stability, and simple positions come before heavy loading
• Block Zero as an on-ramp for athletes who are not ready to lift hard
• masters athletes as “100% of who you are today” rather than a comparison to past PRs
• preactivity preparation with bands, activation, and readiness work as non-negotiable
• how language changes effort: preparation progression sets instead of warm-up sets
• the Tier System as exercise choice and order, not a single periodization style
• adapting training to time available and injury history
• strongman, armlifting, grip strength, and staying in the game without catastrophic risk
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Masters Mindset Minutes should be your new performance habit every Sunday night
Welcome And The Masters Mission
SPEAKER_02Welcome to the Masters Athlete Survival Guide, where we explore the secrets to thriving in sports after 40. I'm John Catalinus, and along with Scott Feich, we'll dive into training tips, nutrition hacks, and inspiring stories from seasoned athletes who defy age limits. Whether you're a weekend warrior or a competitive pro, this podcast is your playbook for staying fit, strong, and motivated. Let's get started. And we're back. I'm John. I'm Scott. And we have a guest today, Scott. We have the big house, Joe Ken. Hi, Joe. I know, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, how y'all doing, man? I uh appreciate you having me on and kind of set this up pretty fast.
SPEAKER_02So glad it worked out for everybody. No, you're the best. You're the best. Oh yeah, definitely. Before we get into too much, Joe, you want to give us just the highlights of your storied career, please? Thanks. Little Who We are.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so uh nine years in the NFL is probably what most people would recognize me for later in my career. Earlier in my career, I spent 19 years at four different universities. Well, uh five, excuse me. Uh I ran the overall program at Boise State, Utah, and Arizona State, football only at Louisville. Started my college coaching career back in my alma mater, Wake Forest. Did start as a high school strength coach, football coach, and wrestling coach at a prep school in Fort Lauderdale. And then I had uh did a little bit of time in the private sector before I landed the Panther job. And now I am the vice president of performance education for dynamic fitness and strength. That's based out of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Oh.
Mobility First And No Bells
SPEAKER_02So, ladies and gentlemen, that means that Joe knows stuff. Just listen to him and believe him. Knows a lot of stuff. You know, it's funny, Joe, and knowing you the little I do running into you at like the Shaw and the Arnold and stuff. Um I I became aware you existed through Buddy Morris.
SPEAKER_00And oh wow, that's a long time ago.
SPEAKER_02But but I mean, you guys are yeah, because I when I was, I don't know, top 20 in the world in Highland for for my age, not not a big thing. Um, Buddy happened to be here in Buffalo, New York, working at UP um, because his wife is from here, and I got the opportunity to train with him for about a year. So I walk in day one, day one, and this is exactly who you are too. I'm thinking he's gonna take my 600-pound squat and make it an 800-pound squat, and he's gonna do, you know, we're gonna, we're just gonna hang and bang, right?
SPEAKER_00I did walk but not buddy.
SPEAKER_02I did walking lunges for three months with his like high school softball clients. Uh, it was you know, I did so much mobility stuff. I'm like, and you know, I walked in there thinking, this is this is horrible, this is dumb. I would walk out of there like, oh, I guess I really need mobility work. And and I feel like you're you're culturally cut from the same cloth as Buddy for sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, Buddy's extremely, extremely knowledgeable. I mean, people forget that there was a five-year time that Buddy spent literally working side by side with orthopedics, and he would watch, he would be able to go in and watch the surgeries himself, and that's why I believe, like right now, uh his role may change, but the last few years he was the return-to-play specialist for the Cardinals after serving as the head strength coach. But Buddy is one of the most intelligent and smartest strength coaches that may have ever walked the face of the earth, to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_02It was a great experience, and honestly.
SPEAKER_00He's the um super, super, super, super good guy. And a lot of times, a lot of people forget he's one of the first strength coaches, too. He doesn't get a, you know, Buddy, Buddy beats to Buddy's drum, yeah, and he doesn't he doesn't promote, he does what he does. Yeah, he doesn't really care to be uh in the limelight, so to speak. But Buddy is one of the pioneers of the strength and conditioning profession that doesn't get talked about enough, if you if you want me to tell you the truth.
SPEAKER_02No, and honestly, and again, this is why I think you're cut from the same cloth. And I did not necessarily learn how to be a great trainee from Buddy, but what he taught me was there's really not a lot new under the sun, and he would pull out these dim copies of Soviet training manuals, and he's like, they figured this stuff out 30 years ago, and you know, a speed ladder is not gonna make you a better athlete. These are the things that are gonna make you a better athlete.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I I when I was in the private sector, I used no tools. I call, you know, the you know, the bells and whistles world that we're in now. Uh, they they were calling me Mr. Miyagi because of some of the things we were doing. And again, a lot of it was ISO hold lunges, Nordic curls, planks, uh working on pistol squat work and things like that that most 10-year-old kids weren't doing. They were running with parachutes and speed ladders, like you said. And uh, a lot of times I don't think they were looking at the long-term development of the athlete. They were looking at uh eight-week course costs, you know, how much money, and we just need to turn that over to another eight-week program, which never really changes. It's a lot of times with those types of programming, it's it's on repeat. I always said, yeah, after eight weeks, we go to week nine.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And a lot of people don't look at it that way in the private sector. So we we looked at things very, very differently than most. There was a lot of times where when I explained our programming, well, can we do that work with you and then go do speed work somewhere else? I go, no, this is speed work. Like, yeah, and then when we finally did allow them to sprint, so to speak, yeah, everybody was like freaking out because they they couldn't understand what we were doing. Well, we were getting them stronger, we were getting them stable, we were getting them mobile, and the the running parts, the easiest part of that matter, to be honest with you. And a lot of times, you know, there's kids pulling sleds and running with parachutes, they're not even strong enough to walk correctly, let alone run.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So there's that that's a pet peeve of mine when it, and that's one of the biggest reasons why I created the block zero concept, because I saw a mis uh, I don't I want to say a misdiagnosis, but we were just in a position as strength coaches not to really understand what we were trying to do because most of us in the college setting, in the high school setting was get them in the weight room, start them lifting weights. But some of them, be honest with you, freshmen in college were not prepared. Early in my career, I I would tell kids on their recruiting trips, I could care less if you lift a weight. Just come here in shape, I'll figure out the rest.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because most of the time early on, when high school strength conditioning was pretty much negligible. It's it's light years ahead of it now. It's it's a kind of it's gone on a huge trajectory super, super fast. But back then we spent the first year teaching them anyway, so that's when I became more inclined to what can we do for these young kids that are coming in to help build this process. And it really took me multiple years later when I had the confidence and maybe the let's let's say the professional respect from coaches, sport coaches, as well as my peers, where I was like, okay, now I feel confident enough that I can walk into a football coach and say, hey, when our freshmen come in, they're they're lifting minimal weights the first six, the first six weeks they're there. And when I explained why, it made sense. And and I always go back to this. It's kind of one of my things I do now. In most sport, let's remember lifting was taboo.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, until recently.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think a lot of people forget that. So I I I I remind people when they start talking about the extravagant things they're doing in the weight room. I'm like, oh, let's slow down a little bit because years ago it was taboo to lift weights. Lifting weights was going to make you slower, muscle bound. We want we want none of our athletes lifting weights. And then they realize, wait a second, there may be something there. But before that happened, let's just take football, for example. It's an easier example.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00Friday nights, Saturdays, and Sundays, they were playing some level of football without lifting weights. Then all of a sudden, weights become important. And on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, they play some level of football. And if we change the rules again and said no more lifting weights, guess what's going to happen on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday this fall? They're going to play football. So slow down. There's value, there's no doubt there's value. But let's be smart when it comes to how we choose to do things, because in the end, we supplement the sport. The sport doesn't supplement the lift. That's if you want to be great at lifting, go be a sp a strength sport athlete. If you're going to be a what I call an athletic-based sport athlete where you're going in the ball and stick, court or field, etc., yeah, but you who knows where strength training falls in the hierarchy of your of your development. I mean, it could it probably changes the longer you invest in that sport, but it's not first, I can tell you that.
SPEAKER_01I think, you know, to to sort of jump in here, if I may, one of the things that John and I have talked about both on this podcast and when we have worked with masters athletes is in essence exactly what you're just saying. Because, you know, you've got these men who are 40, 50, 60 years old plus. No, don't jump into the weight room. Can you stand up? You know, can you kneel down and get back up? Those types of things. Their balance is off, their grip is off. All those types of things. So I think what you're saying, you're talking about it with the younger athletes. I mean, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it sort of moves up to the older athletes as well.
SPEAKER_00I think, well, I I mean, if we really want to look at it from the standpoint of just relative strength or gymnastic strength and certain movements, I've worked with pro athletes that can't do certain things that I taught 10-year-olds because they were never asked to. I mean, how many people can now on this day with CrossFit it's changed, but when you talk about a team sport or an athletic-based sport athlete, how many people can really do a pistol squat? Yeah, not as how many yeah, how how many people can literally do a dead hang pull-up over 300 pounds? Not many. I mean, how many people can do a Nordic leg curl? Negligible.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
Stop Chasing Your Old Numbers
SPEAKER_00But these were things that, you know, when I left the private sector, all my 10-year-olds can do at least one. And there's there's value in that. And I think when we were, you know, we are all in the same era. When it was time, when it was, when you, when they allegedly said you were old enough to lift weights, they threw you in a weight room no matter whether you were w ready or not. And I think that's where a lot of these more realistic ways of getting strong were thrown out. Like I'm weight room strong. I am not a naturally, I mean, I would rate myself below average on natural strength when it comes to pull-ups and all these body weight stuff. And that's why I was very methodical with both my sons, because they were not going to be me when it came to came to training. And they're not, and they were. My oldest son, if CrossFit was coming up when he was in high school, there's no doubt he could have been a CrossFitter. He was 5'10, 205. He front squatted, you know, right at 400 as a high school senior. He he power cleaned with a full squat catch. I think 275, had a 36-inch vertical, had a 30-plus-inch one one leg vertical, could do pistol squats any which way I wanted with weight. He did 50 Nordic curls at the end of a weight room uh at the end of a weight program by himself with no assistance. He was able to do you know chin-ups, dead hang chin-ups. Hell, the first day he came in a weight room, he could do a dead hang chin-up. And my and my oldest son with my younger son was a harder gainer, but right now he's he can do multiple sets of of ten of a dead hang chin-up at 250 pounds. And when he first started in block zero, he couldn't do a negative chin for five seconds. So these are things that I think are imperative. And when you get to our age, I don't like to use the term regression because it seems like it's a I I look at it as a negative concept to your mind and the mental. I look at layers, but I would say most of the people in our age could drop the weights and start back with a lot of that stuff and get more out of it than trying to see if they could still, you know, heave 400 off of a bench press or even 315 or 225 for that matter. I think you'd be better off. And and like you said, with the mobility program, like I I do some type of mobility two to three times a week, and everybody goes, Are you seeing any improvements? I said, I don't know if I'm seeing any improvements, but I'm not getting worse. Exactly. And that's a big thing too, is you don't you don't want to fall behind. And there's little things that I see here and here that get better, but I do know this. I'm not getting worse. Yeah, so that's a good thing. So I think that there's a there's a lot to talk about when you talk about different age athletes. And as y'all know, being a master's athlete yourselves, you find that the one thing that you have to be very self-conscious of is you can't look back what you used to do. You're 100% is who you are today. Oh, I love that.
SPEAKER_02I mean it's perfect. Yeah, because that definitely that is that is definitely a pitfall, right? Because everybody does that. Well, you know, back in college, I could uh squat seven, seven. Oh wait, that's me. Um, yeah, I get you, Joe. That that's yeah. I mean, like I tell people every day.
SPEAKER_00Every day I go in the weight room, if I pick up a five-pound dumbbell, I set a new record, I set a new age record.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Nice.
SPEAKER_00You know, like, hey, you're you're 59 and 106 days and an hour old, and I just did, you know, 25-pound dumbbell curl record.
SPEAKER_02Nice.
SPEAKER_00You know, like well done. But I mean, I I re and it's harder for more successful strength athletes to to accept that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like the higher the level you are, I think it's I think in all sports, it's very hard for them when they've been at the peak of these sports, to realize that, hey, you're just a different you and you're 100% now. Just be the best 100% you can. Like I went through two major rotator cuff surgeries and another knee scope last year. I'm never gonna be what I was two years ago, but that doesn't mean I can't be the best version of myself now when it comes to different forms of strength. Like for me, hey, I just want to be able to dumbbell bench press 75 pounds for 10 to 15 reps, and maybe I can sneak 100 for three to five. I'm not looking to, I don't could care less to bench uh a plate or two plates or three plates.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00If it happens, it happens. But I have uh, you know, I just want to be, you know, like I've told people all the time, don't judge my box squat height because that's pain-free for me at 59. I mean, I think I'm from the time I did box squats when I competed, like I'm up four inches in height. Like that's disappointing to me. But it allows me to squat pay pain free, and that's just the way it is. So for me, I have to accept that. Like, I look at my pictures of me squatting, you know, basement, you know, 30 years ago, and you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Your basement's a lot different now.
SPEAKER_02So I could do that once. Well, I could do it half, I could get down. I don't know about getting back up ever again. You know, it's funny, Joe, because I tripped over a video of you with Juju Mufu. Oh I mean, you are a big dude, folks. He's not called Big House for no reason. And I was shocked. And this again, this is where the parallels to people like Buddy Morris came in. You guys are doing mobility work with a band. You know, you're not squatting 500 pounds for 37 reps. You're you're really doing the work. You know, the the the I'm getting older, these are the things I need to address. And I was so impressed. Like that self-realization is is hard. It's it's hard to step away from what you used to be and still get after it. So that was cool.
Preactivity Prep And Better Language
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, for me, I'll be honest with you, my pre-activity prep template is I'm not, I'm, I mean, it's about as dialed in as you can get the way I've structured it to a point where I could probably literally train masters athletes just on what I consider prep without any hesitation of getting them improved. But that's what I but what you saw on that video was what I need in my mind and in my based off my injury history, mobility issues, that's what I need to do to get under a squat bar. And if that's gonna take 30 minutes and you can't wait, then don't squat with me. But Jude, what I like about Juji, and he does this a lot, whoever the individual he is that he may be visiting or working with, if he jumps into the training, he's gonna do exactly the training session that you're doing. So that was probably one of the best collabs that I've ever done. And he genuinely was receptive and and really asking some pretty impressive questions about it, about why I'm doing it or how did I figure out this stuff. But you know, the band stuff for most of it has been a is just a lot of recreation of Dick Hartzell's stuff back in the day, and then it becomes a matter of what else can you do off of what Coach Hartzell showed us. I mean, you see it, you see it a lot. I mean, I'm not I I don't know the individual personally, but you see Donnie Thompson, he posts a lot of things that he'll tell you were based off of Hartzell's work with bands. And well, you know, sharp dude, he's recreating certain things. And so then you come up with your own mobility uh drill, so to speak. I call them activation work when I use the bands, but and I know uh in strongman in particular, Brian Shaw brought bands and prep into strongman after interning with us in 2005. Nobody was doing that stuff. Now you go in the back of the room at the arm, everybody's got a band.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_00Everybody's doing some type of, you know, a lot of people call it prehab stuff, but everybody's doing some version of a prep. I just prefer to call it preactivity preparation versus warming up because I think from a mental concept, uh nomenclature in terms can affect the psyche of how you approach this. If if I say you're warming up, a lot of people that's a laxadaisical, half-hearted effort. If I tell you we're preparing, and that's a visualized focus on specific exercise and movements that are are preparing you for what lies ahead. Same thing with warm-up sets. We don't call them warm-up sets, we call them preparation progression sets because we are progressively preparing you to hit a big weight. And that's things that I think are fundamentally sound in in how we approach things because a lot of times people talk about you know practice makes purpose. I mean, excuse me, practice makes perfect. No, no, no. You you can't be perfect, you can be purposeful, and you're purposeful by how you approach things and how you explain things to not only yourself but to the athletes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean we we hung out with Juju once uh actually at the Shah at the Shaw. And uh we talked to him for a while, and what impressed me for him, and whatever his public persona is, it it's definitely one thing, but he is that like scholar athlete. Like he wants to get he wants to have a conversation with you and he wants to absorb what works for you, what you're doing, what your take is. Uh and you know, since I've seen him do a couple things, and like you're right, I mean, if he's hanging and banging with strong men, he's pushing his body, but he's also gymnastically, you know, outstanding. Oh, the movements, the the sort of well that and that's where he came.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he he he called himself a strength acrobat back in the day.
The Tier System And Why Order Matters
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, you hit on the concept of getting ready, you know, progressively moving forward. When I started getting more involved in strongman, I started taking bands with me, you know, because you go different parts of the country for competitions or the state or whatever. Oh, yeah. And I started prep areas suck. Oh, yeah. Oh no. This old man finds his own little spot over away from everybody else, and you know, the bag is full of bands, it's full of the rollers and everything else to sort of get my body ready. So when you walk out, no matter what the weight is, you're right. If it's a 25-pound dumbbell or if it's you know a 600-pound yoke, or it doesn't matter. You're ready, you're there. And I think that mental side of it, and sometimes with people, it's that placebo effect of the words that you're using, it's important. Um, I I want to I want to sort of steer you one way because one of the things, if I could, that stuck out when I started doing more research. I mean, I had heard of you, I you know, I knew that you were a strength coach for the NFL, for the Panthers for a number of years. When John said to me, He says, Hey, you know, after we had walked away from you just this past weekend, he said, That's who this was. I'm like, Oh crap, I wish I'd have known. Because you know, you have questions and stuff like that. Surprise. But one of the things is your tier system. You know, tell us a little bit about that, if you would, please, because I don't know how many of how many people, number one, but how many of the masters athletes that listen to us know anything about that? So could you tell us a little bit about this?
SPEAKER_02It seems super applicable. Yeah. Super duper applicable.
SPEAKER_00So the best way to say this is, and I give all credit to June D'Arthur, the women's basketball coach at Boise State at the time, I met uh women's hoops, volleyball, gymnastics, tennis, those were my top teams, track and field when I first got into my first real job at Boise State. And, you know, at that time in the 90s, really when those the non they called them non-revenue sports back then, before they called them Olympic sports. Right. And, you know, the truth of the matter was they were just getting into strength training. So a lot of times, the you know, the staffs were very minimal. A lot of times it was, in my case, it was the head strength coach, and I was the GA, and we had 17 sports. Now, you got 17 sports, you may have 20 strength coaches. Right. And it's a whole different ball game, which I'm glad that I came up the way I did. But I was I was pretty much in charge of all the Olympic sports. And back then, really what they really got was old football programs. Okay. Mm-hmm. Is what they did. So when I met with Coach Dharty, and this was my first real meeting as a strength coach, it was her, her staff, her husband was on staff. They both played basketball at Ohio State. And June had just come from being an assistant for Tara Vandervee at Stanford. And if you know anything about women's hoops in the 90s, Stanford's women's hoops is what Tennessee was in the 2000s and what what UConn is right now. They were the creme de la creme of the of women's hoops. Right. So she uh she knew what she wanted. Like she wasn't, she was the boss, and rightfully so. And she wasn't necessarily saying this to me personally, she was saying it in general of I'm just tired of getting the old football programs. And you know what? Cannot disagree with her, right? No, 100%. But there, you know, but there are a lot of similarities to train and strength power athletes. I think that that's something that sometimes gets lost in the message. And she made a great point. Luckily for me, I in my in my journey of strength, my college strength coach was a high-intensity training strength coach. So we trained pretty much majority machines, once at the failure, we did some structural lifts, but I understood three days a week with a what what I call now a whole-body approach.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Unlike the HIT, although it really helped me understand tempo repetitions, how what a quality repetition means, I wasn't necessarily a fan of the machine stuff because I enjoyed lifting big weights because that's what we did in high school. We squatted, we deadlifted, we did, you know, lap pull downs for sets and reps, and et cetera, et cetera. So I valued the whole body approach early in my career because it made sense to me coaching athletes. You know, the the the four-day split really was something that was developed through most of the strength coach's backgrounds as a power lifter. You throw in some Olympic lifts, but generally back then the programs were being derived specifically from a strength sport, which made sense because most of the strength coaches that were being hired early on were people who that had a passion for lifting weights, even some bodybuilders at that time. I looked at it early on. My approach was who am I training? Why are they training? And always remember they don't love it as much as you do.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00And so I started doing this deep dive of digging how the the HIT programming was made from a more of a body part, specific body part uh so uh order, exercise choice and order, and how I can manipulate things with the big lifts at that time. And with that being said, long story short, we came up with this three-day approach that rotated three movement categories to fill out a whole body approach with daily variation of exercise, choice, and order to keep the athlete engaged and not to get bored because a lot of times it was the same workout, you know, four days a week for the four or five years you were there.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00And for us, it became, you know, 15 exercises a week. We would adjust exercises on the bottom half as accessories. At that point, we continued to train the foundation lift, so-called foundation lifts year-round. But in the end, we were breaking certain traditional programming protocols based off of the so-called experts writing the textbooks. And when we first put out the article, I took a beating because my exercise choice and order didn't fit what they believed. And they kept going, well, this is not protocol. You can't do an Olympic lift third in the order. You always got to do Olympic lifts first, you know, fast exercises first, then strength exercises. And long story short, there's a lot of long story short to this.
SPEAKER_02You have a long career. You have a lot of long stories shorts.
SPEAKER_00I finally said, Well, what protocols are you talking about? And they were like, Well, you know, weightlifting. I go, Well, that's great. I don't coach weightlifters. So none of these protocols of how to coach weightlifting and how weightlifters should lift have anything to do with the teams that I coach. So there is, that's the great thing about coaching team sport, athletic-based sport athletes, ball and stick, court and field, et cetera, is it really doesn't matter how you train them as long as it's structured and you're getting the KPIs production you want.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00And the number one KPI is the team winning. And the number two KPI is how healthy are they. So in the end, yeah, I think my program is top-notch when it comes to athletic-based strength training. It's not the only one because that's been proven uh successful across the board. I mean, Dan Riley won three Super Bowls doing one set to failure, HIT with the Redskins.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00And at that point in time, I believe three-quarters of the teams in the NFL were doing machine-based three-day-a-week, one set to failure, HIT protocols. So my processes of three days a week took took the, I don't want to say the world by storm, but the industry by storm, because back then there was a big split. If you train three days a week back then, you were HIT. If you train four days a week, you were free weights, etc. Well, here I come with, oh, I'm gonna train three days a week and I'm doing free weights.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think I think your program, I'm sorry to interrupt. I think your program is so scalable for the masters athlete because of two things. It's simple and damn, it's time efficient. You you you get in and you get out. It's it's got a great structure. Um, you you don't have to, I mean, basically, you don't have to be you to uh to understand it and implement it. And you know the deal, and I'm sure you've seen it, especially in the modern gym, you know, where 70% of the people training now at our age are basically just doing what they learned in high school or college. And it's not pretty much it's not super applicable anymore.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, again, so yeah, my my I've always had, and that's why I call it athletic-based strength training, because you can scale it however you want. Like I would even say for a master's athlete, I wouldn't even do a three by five program. I'd do a three by three and then do accessory medleys specific to certain let's call um what's the right word? Uh improvement areas, so to speak.
SPEAKER_02Addressing the things that hurt when you get up in the morning.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And do some medley and some like uh meta, you know, metabolic conditioning work where a lot of circuit work at the end hit your big lifts up front. You know, you like again, like I I work in now, uh I I consider strongman movements, total body movements. I consider hip, anything hip extension is total body, so deadlift. So there's a lot of ways to classify things. But long story short, in the end, a lot of the programs now that are free weight derivatives and use some version of a three-day-a-week approach. I I really believe it was because I was willing to take a little bit of a beating, so to speak. And I don't mind that. Like I tell people now with some of the stuff I'm working on now, I don't mind people challenging me or or coming at me. I'll I'll I'm more than willing to take those take those hits because when my stuff hits, everybody's gonna follow, which has happened before and is gonna happen again with this stuff I'm working on now with peak velocity versus average velocity tracking. Ooh, I saw you.
SPEAKER_02I saw you with one of those velocity meters. I was gonna ask you about velocity-based training.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So yeah, I've got a whole different I've got a whole different paradigm shift we're moving towards. I've got a lot of people on my side. I've got some, I've got the Kansas Jayhawk Performance Lab doing some research on the back end for me until we can really get a qualified research study up. A lot of it is practice-based evidence, but it definitely has merit. It definitely has a a lot of assumptions are now becoming true. But but we'll back up. So long again, long story. Long story short. The tier system is now a worldwide approach that's known, and it's known worldwide as a very legitimate approach to athletic-based strength training.
SPEAKER_02Cool.
SPEAKER_00And that's probably one of the reasons why I gotta have to, now that I have the time to do it, I'll be speaking overseas twice this summer. Cool. And one of them is a seminar I'm holding by myself. And a lot of it will be obviously tier system and how that's evolved. And I'm I'm hoping within the next year it's started, they'll have the updated uh tier system plan in place where to go into a lot of the pre-activity prep stuff and really take a deep a deeper dive in the exercise pool and some other things. So I'm pretty excited about that. Cool. And then the block zero concept and all these things. So I I've been I've been fortunate enough that some of the things that I that I've developed, and again, I developed this stuff to make my athletes better. I I was not super concerned that I was going to wind up becoming what I've been fortunate enough to be in a pretty good position in in the strength world. I was doing it for one and only reason. My job was to do the best job I could so the athletes could achieve all their goals, not for them to help me achieve mine, but yet they helped me achieve mine because they believed in what we did and they made me look real good.
SPEAKER_02So there is that.
SPEAKER_00I mean, that's the thing is I mean, the great Judd Logan used to say there's not there's not there's not great coaches, there's good coaches, and the athletes make them great. And I believe that to be true. I mean, that there's a rural, you know, look at all these people who are alleged goats of coaching because they've won numerous championships. But then if you really dig, what have they done for the field of the profession that that I mean winning's easy if you got the right people? Good point. I mean, I mean, you know, a lot of times, you know, if you got the right, like in this day and age, you got the right booster who can cough up cash. You're going from zero to a hundred real quick. Not it the days of getting a kid and red shirting him at five years later, you hope he hits are over.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You're you're buying you're buying greatness. So there's a lot of there's a lot of different things to talk about. But again, I I'm super grateful to the athletes and the coaches who believed in what I had to offer. And then for them to go, for us to do a good job as a staff of having them understand it to the best of their abilities at that time, but to show the results not only in the KPIs, we've we've been super successful across many sports when it's come to championships as teams and all-American and all-conference athletes, and for those who can move on to professional sports or Olympic type athletes. So, and that's across the board. That's not just football, it's across the board. So that also tells you how adaptable the program is. And it's not, once you get away from the core of certain things that are early on fundamentals, the key to the template success is you can plug in pretty much any exercise you want based off of who you are, what you believe. Just you cannot break the integrity of the exercise order. It's ordered for a specific reason each day. Now you can rotate the days. You don't necessarily have to do, you know, session T on Monday, session L on Wednesday, and session U on Friday. You can rotate that however you deem fit, which is the most uh advantageous way for the specific team that trains.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And it might even be Tuesday, Thursday, static, but you the one there's one thing I'm adamant about is whatever that rotation is for that session, you can't you can't move around boxes. Right. You can put whatever you want in that box, don't move the box. Like I hate to use don't, but if I have one number one thing you cannot do with the tier system is don't mess with the order of the session.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Everything else is fair play. What cycle you want to use, how you want, because it's not a cyclical program. Everybody thought it was a cyclical program. It's an exercise choice and order program. Uh, you it's easily adaptable to 5-3-1 if you're that person, or triphasic training if you're that person, or if you're just a traditional linear periodization. It's it's it's very, very applicable to anything, any cyclical way you want, undulate, whatever you want to call it, you know, concurrent sequencing. The choice and order, the choice of exercise is yours, the order isn't. That's it. That's the best way to say it. So, and again, it's when I took the NFL job, first thing I heard from a lot of people is you know, House, the NFL's a four-day-a-week program. I go, Yeah, I'll worry about that later. All I know is three days a week got me here, and three days a week I'm gonna prove it. And that uh we were fell short, but we went to a Super Bowl doing pretty much a three-day-a-week program.
SPEAKER_02Hey, we're from Buffalo, so we understand balls short. You got yeah, you guys understand it. We understand. Hey, if I were man on the street or you know, uh aspiring masters athlete, where can I find more information on the tier system? Is it in one of your books? Is it on your webpage? What what's best? Where do I start?
SPEAKER_00I think the easy the easiest way is I mean, I offer it, I offer a hard copy and an ebook version on my website, bighousepower.com. Okay. The the I I will tell the ebook version was is actually the playbook that I gave to our staff. And I think the one that's available, it's older, but it's still the principles don't change. Yeah. And that's why I haven't written the everybody said, when are you gonna write a new book? I go, well, why do I need to write a new book when the first one's so vi still viable in a high way. But there are a lot of things I do need to fill in the blanks and add. So, yeah, the hard copy is a more dialed in edited version of the ebook version.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_00The ebook version is literally what was created out of the heart, the book that was published.
Masters Programming Time Prep Longevity
SPEAKER_01You know, it's I've sort of reinvented myself over the last five-ish years. You know, when I turned 50, it was all right, time to start changing everything because you don't want to be sitting on the couch eating Cheetos and for the rest of your life. You know, and I I started working with a guy named Tony Kalish, who is my trainer. And, you know, you talked about the tier system, and I, and like I said, I knew what it was, I had some ideas about it, but that idea of intensity, certain order, speed, strength, all of those things are a lot of what Tony weaves into what I do. And when I go to my competitions, you can see the difference between people who are working with intelligence versus those who are the you know, the the 50-odd-year-old gym bros who are great in one plane for one motion. So I am not a hundred percent your system because I haven't gone in that direction at this point, but I am a disciple. You know, you do those things to make sure you're doing it. I guess my question goes to, and and John started hitting at it, is so you've got a master's athlete and they're doing this. You're you're sort of prepping them for life as well. What are some of the things that you look at if you're dealing with older athletes to you know make sure that mobility is still there and they're training for longevity as much as anything?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think a lot of that can really be exposed or improved through the peep the extensive preactivity prep.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00I mean, if I if I was training a master's athlete, and the first thing we have to ask is the first thing I would ask is how much time do you have to invest in each session? Like if I train an athlete, if I was training and what I learned a long time ago for me is it's it's not qu it's not quantity of time, it's quality, but my sessions are going to be determined by the amount of time you're available, because I'm not going to just write, you know, true, you know, baseline jabroni ass 60-minute sessions, because most people say you get paid by the hour.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00I get I I would I prefer to be paid by a session.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because then I can't say I don't have to cut you off. Like, if if the session, if I script a session for 75 minutes, I mean we had to teach some stuff and it goes 90 minutes. I don't want to be like a lawyer and say, well, you owe me a quarter, you owe me, you know, I charge a hundred bucks an hour. I went 15 minutes over, you owe me another 25. Right. Like it's that's not that's bullshit. So sorry, I curse. But so for me, it's it's so for me, it's 100%, what am I gonna charge a session? Now the problem is I you most people can't afford what I charge a session. I mean, and but I would tell you that the the regardless the regardless of what you would hope to do, the first thing I gotta ask you is how much time do you have to train? Because for a master's athlete, you're spending at least 30 minutes in preactivity prep. And that preactivity prep is you know core work, which I call root, activation work, which I call reboot, readiness work, which is a you know, kind of I don't want to call it a wanning warm-up, but something in that fashion where we're gonna do strength training for high volumes. But a lot of times in my world, we do most of that work is gonna be single arm or single leg work. We're not gonna do a whole lot of bilateral work, so to speak. So that takes a little bit longer because if I'm going to do three rounds, well, one round isn't three sets, it's six sets.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_00And and the tempo is up high. Then, then, depending on what type of sport you're in, you're gonna do some type of head and neck work. But that and that could fall into some posterior capsule work in your readiness. But then with my athletes, they have a specific part of that that is reinforcement, which is head and neck support. Then uh before before I would even start the clock if I was in session. You would you would be required to come in on your own and do self-myofascial release and reset work, which could be segmental rolling, crawling, after you did foam rolling and soft tissue manipulation with a peanut or a softball. So all that stuff up front is going to be almost auto-regulating what we're going to be able to do when we hit the resistance part, which is the main session of the work. And then from there it would be diagnosed, okay, what sport are you training for? And then we would dial in what exercises you need to be prepared for your sport, especially if you're a lifting sport, and then what accessories you need that can keep you resilient and robust. And that's where I said if you were doing a tier system, that's where after tier three, you're going into a medley. And we're going to roll it, and you're going to and that'll be part of um work capacity, conditioning work, etc. etc.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00So the the program generally the way I structure the programs now outside of professional strongmen because event work, the weight room is their practice field. So if I'm going to practice a football player two and a half, three hours, a strong man's going to be in the weight room for two to two two to three hours.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and but you know, you're also on Brian Shaw's team, so you're working with uh like a Clydesdale of a thoroughbred of an alien of I don't know, we're not the same species.
SPEAKER_00No, and so yeah, so but I but I would say if you wanted my best efforts, if you were to say, hey, even if I did something for you uh uh virtually, yeah, I I I would say if you have 90 minutes to invest in a strength training session, I can give I can I'm gonna give you something that's gonna be very, very productive very, very fast. If not, 60 minutes, small adjustments. Maybe not as many sets, maybe not overall sets and volumes. If you're if you're very determined to try to get as much work as you can, then it becomes okay, we'll just reduce sets. If you're very specific of I want I want to get these lifts up, then some of the accessory work changes, if that makes sense. Yeah, it does. Because we've got to focus on the big list. But the first 20 to 30 minutes, that's non-negotiable. That's PAP work.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that'll be very it's that'll be very much determined on what your what your injury status is as far as previous injuries and overall, like you said, health and mobility issues will determine some of the things that we put in that programming.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. It's funny you say all that because we we interviewed Adrian Wilson, who was one of Judd Logan's best athletes.
SPEAKER_00Yes, Adrian trained my son Peter, helped him go to scholarship.
SPEAKER_02All right, so you know, so you know Adrian. I love Adrian. She's the she's the best.
SPEAKER_00She's now she is one of the most enthusiastic people you will ever meet when it comes to throwing. Yep. Like I saw she came to watch Peter throw in high school once, and she wanted to coach every single thrower that went up. And she probably could have helped 99% of them because some of them were.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that that's how I know her. Throwing hammer at the farm with judges.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, she taught, well, she taught me her and her her ex-husband, Joe Wilson. They taught me how to in Highland games. Yeah. Because they only lived about an hour and a half. We would drive down after practice and train with them at the old uh Sorin X showroom in the big parking lot with Burke. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I think that they have an old um, I think she still trains at that field.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So that's where we would train highlight, we would train Highland games with them. So yeah, they they're the ones who got me into Highland Games when I'd go down there for her to coach my son Peter.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's hysterical. Because actually, I knew her for track and field, and then once on in on social media, she put a thing that she won a shield in some Highland event. And that got me into Highland because I'm like, I want to win swords and see and shields.
SPEAKER_00So and she's a multi-time world champion. Oh god.
SPEAKER_02She's so good. And the why I really brought her up is that when we interviewed her, she was adamant. Like, I do 30 to 40 minutes of you know, what you know, preparation, uh, mobility, whatever, however you want to label it. I mean, she's got bands and she's doing these little movements, and and she told us straight out if I don't have time to train, I will just do the mobility. I will that is not negotiable.
SPEAKER_00And she like my like I said, my pre-activity prep at one point will be my training session. Sure. We'll we'll be 80. It'll be closer by the 80, but we're living, man.
SPEAKER_02We're living absolutely. Um, you know, I again I I cyber stalked you, and I saw you do two things. The velocity thing, I don't want to get off. But I I saw you do something that I've always been interested in. You kind of semi-grastined uh horse linament into your knee. Is that on ju that was on juji's? I don't know where I saw that, but all I know is on Juju's I have been in Farm and Fleet more than once looking at that big jug going, I have heard this is great. I don't necessarily have the the cojones to do it, but then I saw you do it, and I'm like, damn it.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, I got I learned that from uh Louis Simmons and Dave Tate and Westside back in the day. That's all they I actually I was just at elite training, yeah, and sure enough, they had a couple of bottles of horse linemen up there.
SPEAKER_02Still, oh man, I know where I'm going tomorrow. Damn it.
SPEAKER_00I knew yeah, you can get uh yeah, I I got stuff, I think I got a couple of things in my gym at the house that have a horse on it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, nice. My wife's a veterinarian. I'm good. Oh, there you go. Yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_00Hey, if it's good enough for those monsters, it's definitely good enough for me. Exactly. Amen. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02And there's there's more money on them performing than there is on me.
SPEAKER_00So that's for sure.
Strongman Work Armlifting And Arnold Stories
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Hey, you know, to get away a little from the hardcore science stuff. We ran into you at the Arnold, and I know you were probably working with Brian and the Pro Strongmen, but did you walk around the the festival at all?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was actually working with Tom Evans. Brian Brian, Brian being retired, I worked with Brian on special projects, and I work with him through his app, uh him at Carrie's app, sure, elite app. And uh so Tom, I started working with Tom for as an assistant coach, prepping for world's strongest man last year, and then after that, he made some decisions, hard decisions for him, and then he asked me to take over as the lead strength coach, and then I helped put together his team, and we've had some pretty good success since then. Yeah, but yeah, I walk I I didn't have as much time as I liked because I mean literally from 10 a.m. till I want to say five or six Friday Saturday.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, everything so every every event was going on.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so but I I do um I did walk around some Sunday. It was still pretty packed, and I just read where they had such good success for the you know, biggest crowds in ten years that next year they are actually opening the exhibit, the expo Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday next year.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we saw that.
SPEAKER_00I do, you know, like you guys, and I do mean this with sincerity. I I when I got into the arm lifting a few years back because it really intrigued me, like we had talked about, I think it's just a great transition for, like I said, and I told you my wife can't believe I said it, to have some fun, but still test your metal a little bit. Yep. So I I still have a goal to compete in arm lifting at the Arnold. Hopefully, I'll be healthy enough to do that next year.
SPEAKER_02As long as you stay over 110 kilos, I don't care.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, it pushes you into my own. Remember, don't get it twisted. I'm I'm about as average as can be. It was so funny because I was talking to somebody the the other day, and we were talking, I said, Look, man, I've been a I was a class two powerlifter. I mean, I was as average as average can be. And I said, then I got into this armlifting, and what was it? I think it was two years ago before I had all my surgeries. They had that two-event deal for like the world, what was it called? That uh Ricardo called it, though. It was across the world. It was some challenge. The super series, yeah. Yeah, the super series, yeah. And sure enough, after the two two events, I looked at the numbers like the 50 plus and whatever, and I was like, right in the middle, like a man, I'm still average. Like I'm right, I'm the I'm that bell curve guy. Like I can't get above it anyway.
SPEAKER_02The top third of the sport, their hands are like dinner plates. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00That also that doesn't matter how big you are, you got a monster mit this game on. But I enjoy it because, like you said, you can pick up heavy things, but I don't know if they're heavy enough to put you in a catastrophic catastrophic injury. And I and I and again, I think it's a cool way to stay involved in the strength game with and and like for me like based off of injuries, the only thing I was able to still do for the last third of probably my powerlifting career was just a deadlift. Like I became a deadlift. Most people become bench press specialists, I became a deadlift specialist. And to be honest, based off the how I feel now, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do that anymore. But that doesn't mean I can't deadlift enough weight in the grip competitions.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that's the thing. You know, your hands eventually we talk about all the time. You go, go, go, and then it's a cliff.
SPEAKER_02You know, your hands give out before your strength gives out for sure. That's it.
SPEAKER_00And that's and that's what's good about it. But but even then, like as you know, you do a double overhand axle, as that weight, even if the weight isn't what you could deadlift, you better, you better dial in your technique or you're still gonna pull your low back. Like it's oh yeah, you you better not be a clown on that stuff. But yeah, I'm I'm excited to get I've like I said, I had fun, and I've never had fun because I took it so serious that hey man, this is this means something. But the the grip, like I even talked to a guy about not that I would do anything worth a damn, even doing like a strict curl just to say I did it. Like I I like doing that stuff, like uh I I I'm because like even when two years ago my goal was to pull 500 pounds for my fourth decade in powerlifting. Okay. My first two dec uh I think in what was it in the nineties? No, I started, excuse me, let me see. Yeah, in the nineties I pulled six, in the two thousands I pulled over six, two thousand tens I pulled five, and then so it was 2020, and I was like, man, I'm getting let me try to make one more run. And and my goal was to pull 501. I pulled 529 and I was beat the hell up. I I I mean, both my shoulders was falling off. I was ready to blow a bicep, my my knee cartilage was screwed, I couldn't squat the last month. I had I had uh proximal, bilateral, hamstring, tendinopathy, and both, you know, obviously in both, that was every three weeks that I had the deadlift heavy, it was just can I get through it healthy enough so I got two weeks to recover for the next one. Right. And and I I know this to be true, but you know, you are who you are. Like I pulled 529, which sucks because it's not 530, right? Right, right. And I I honestly believe if I didn't have the issues I had, I could have easily pulled 550. Yeah, there was no, and that would have been for me my best ever was 611. So that would have been a high percentage of my best ever. Yeah, that's it and it was still and five to twenty-nine was still a high percentage, but you know, and again, like when people say, I was like, Look, man, I I did so I it had nothing to do with what you do. It was, hey man, if it's 2020s, if I pull 500, that's four decades that I've pulled over 500 pounds. And as a class two lifter, with your best ever being 6'11, it's not a bad pull.
SPEAKER_02No, no, no. And you know, you gotta get to be an old man to realize what it feels like to have that kind of weight in your hands as an old man.
SPEAKER_00I mean and I and I and I had converted to hook grip. So I hooked, you know, I was a sumo, so I'm not gonna lie. Oh, that's just what my yeah, but here's what I'll tell you. Like, okay, so here's what I'll tell you, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just brought it up. As your body changes, mobility changes, uh huh, uh injuries change, you have to adapt. Like, I can honestly tell you my best ever deadlift was a 611 sumo, but I've pulled 600 conventional.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_00So I was on that Ed Code train early in my career where the the closer your two lifts are, tell you you don't have as much weakness as you think. Like, not you know, because Ed could go back and forth. He can pull 900 conventional or sumo in the same meat if he wanted to. So I felt at that point in my career, I thought, okay, obviously my lower body overall strength is pretty symmetrical because I'm pretty even. As I got older and mobility changed and flexibility changed, it was more conducive to me to be a sumo deadlifter than a conventional. But but I was also get, but it was funny because on my vert pull deadlifts or like a straight leg deadlift from the deck, yeah. I I actually was really good. I for some reason I couldn't convert the straight leg vert pull deadlift into a conventional deadlift with any success. So I used that as my high-level accessory supplemental movement to get my sumo up.
SPEAKER_02Oh, cool. Cool. Well, I think we're getting near the hour. Um, okay, so let's do a quick scenario. I am a very amateur 40-year-old athlete. I come to Joe Ken, who's wandering around the Arnold, although he I probably can't find him in amongst all the 19-year-old broccoli headed dudes in the line for young LA.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, isn't it isn't it, isn't it crazy how people how much younger God how much younger the group is than when we first started going? Oh my god. So young. How many of these kids are already on special supplements and they don't even know how to lift weights?
SPEAKER_02Did you notice that there was a booth actually selling peptides that had like a doctor at the booth and would be like I didn't know I didn't see the doctor, but I did see the peptide. Like, like, you know, and these kids, I hate to be this way because I'm just an old idiot. But a lot of these 19-year-olds with their backward hats and their backpacks collecting all the free gear, they didn't look like they trained. I mean, they looked like they wanted to train. It was a very and it was busy. Holy crap. I'm so no, I oh yeah. I am so glad they added Thursday.
SPEAKER_01It's the influencer audience.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01I mean, we talked about that as we were walking around. Precious and few were the people there that we could not be their fathers.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_01Oh no, yeah. I mean, it's getting hit, man.
SPEAKER_00It has really changed. Yeah, like and it seemed like it was younger than it was last year.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, the influencers had hour-long lines, and you know, you'd walk by like Lee Haney, who's just standing there in a booth. Like, hey, isn't that fun?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, trend trend twins get thrown out. Right. Lee Haney can't get somebody to give him a bridge.
SPEAKER_02He's like, You want you want me to sign my sign my book for five dollars? Yeah, I know. It was it was funny.
SPEAKER_00Well, see, that's the other thing, too. Like, hey man, I'm not I'm not waiting in line for you to sign a book that I bought. Yep. That I gotta pay you to sign it. Exactly. I've already paid you. I bought the book.
SPEAKER_02I know, and it made me feel so old that that whole young ALA booth was filled with people that I really never heard of.
SPEAKER_00It's like they spent two million dollars on that book.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I believe it. Oh my god, it was a th it was a third of the of the place.
SPEAKER_00It was yeah, I mean, I can't but and it it just goes to show you that in the end, yeah, man. Will Will, you're gonna pay me two million. You could have the whole exhibit hall if you want.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00But I was I mean, I've been now three years in a row for sure. Okay maybe four out of the last five. It's and it and it had and it is, it's grown exponentially in the last three years. I mean, I uh the the time the first time I went was in 2010, and it was ridiculous back then. Like it was that's when the people walk in. Remember, you could get like five thousand dollars of product. That was before you only got a sample.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Those were the days where you walk by a protein bar place, they gave you the whole box.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00You went by a uh protein, whey protein, they gave you the whole tub, not these little single serving packets that these kids now go online 30 times so they can take a picture of the hall they got and post it on Instagram. I remember those.
SPEAKER_02Have you seen those? Like the layout of like, oh, look, here's the 400 energy drinks that I took.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like I mean, but yeah, you had to wait, you had to go online a thousand times. Back in the day, you could have got all those on one time.
SPEAKER_01It's not even that it's not even that long ago. I mean, no, I went COVID year. Yeah, I went COVID year, and I that was the first time I competed in arm lifting. We I'm competing, and we sent my son over to get some energy drinks. He comes back and he's got like cargo shorts on, and there's like energy drinks in each one of them. You know, he walks out and he puts like six of them up there, and everybody just starts grabbing a drink. Now, I mean the rain booth. Yeah, we were we're like okay, I do it.
SPEAKER_00I have it, I have a deal with rain. They they they put out they s they gave out 29 over 70,000 cans.
SPEAKER_02I believe it. I believe it. But this was the first year where you couldn't just kind of swoop by and have the value of three of them.
SPEAKER_00Oh no, they yeah, they had you all dialed up.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the lines were quite something.
SPEAKER_00But uh, they did, and they did a good job of getting people through their lines compared to others.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. Oh, the ghost line. I mean, ghost, I know that's a much younger drink when it comes to that, but we're standing there, and the competing lines were Young LA going in one direction and ghost going in the other direction. I'm like, there is nothing short of my family that I will wait in a line that long for. Are you kidding me? I you know, I'm a master, I've got some money. I I'll go to you know, a corner store and buy a case. Yeah. Jesus.
SPEAKER_02All right, Joe. Well, thanks for everything, and I hope we see you. Uh it'd be awesome to see you on the armlifting stage. Uh my my hope is that with the uh the additional day, maybe they'll throw the masters on the stage on like a Thursday, which would be ideal because all I'm gonna I'll just tell Ricardo if you want me to come, you're putting the masters on the base stage. Nice. Joe Joe Ken is my favorite cheerleader now.
SPEAKER_01But the thing is, though, Joe, and you're gonna love this. One of the greatest things about lifting with us old guys, yeah, it is all about busting balls and then cheering you up when you're up there. And that's and you will be in my group because I am um what does John call me the old, I don't know, not so svelt. Yeah, not so svelt. Yeah. So yes, I'm in the right.
SPEAKER_00I mean, yeah, I would my goal, my goal would be I I always my goal would be to be 125k. Great 275.
SPEAKER_02I accept that. I love that. Yeah, that looks good on you. I think you're gonna be amazing at that. Uh can you tell I'm trying to keep them trying to keep them out of my way?
SPEAKER_00Believe me, I yeah, you're worried about nothing. Like you're worried about nothing with my 30-pound pinch grip. I'll tell you, uh, you know, it's funny though, I was looking at the numbers, and I think with training, I have a realistic shot. Where is that notebook? Yeah, well, it's one of it's an iron mine grip challenge. Like you have to squeeze the number two gripper challenge. Yeah, you have to pinch grip, uh, I think it was 42 pounds, and then you had to. I'm I'm close. Yeah, like the number two grippers, but on the pinch grip, I'm I'm close. I think I did 37 and a half, and then I can't remember the fourth one was like a rolling thunder, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, probably single long. Probably. I don't know off the top of my head, but probably.
SPEAKER_00But I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna train for that because I think Bert or Adrian, I know Pops used to be able to certify you in Iron Mine stuff, but if if Bert or Adrian can do it, then I would drive down and do it at Sorenx.
SPEAKER_02I'm sure someone at Sorenex can, because I mean I had I actually have a Pops signed number three uh gripper before he passed. Um because you know they were so I mean he was the guy with blobs, like he was the original blob guy, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I remember he was the first guy who brought grit to the Arnold.
SPEAKER_02Yep. I gotta tell you, the day when I met him, he shook my hand and I knew immediately because he again is one of those people with like dinner plates for hands.
SPEAKER_01That's it. You reach out, and I mean our hands aren't small. You reach out and they're eclipsed, and it's like, Jesus.
SPEAKER_02Yep, yep, yep.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it just Oh no, and he was yeah, he he have you ever been to Sorenex? I've never been.
SPEAKER_02No, I wanted to go to the summer series once. It's it's worth it's worth going just to see Pops' the museum. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, sounds like John and I have a road trip for the future.
SPEAKER_02Road trip.
SPEAKER_01Masters athlete survival guide on tour. I like it. I like it.
SPEAKER_00Well, and I'm only And I'm only about an hour and a half away from them. Oh, cool. Oh, cool. Oh, there's a plan. Yeah, there's a plan. Yeah, I live about what that's why me and Juji got together a couple times. I live about an hour from Juji. Oh, you're all down there.
Where To Find Joe And Closing
SPEAKER_02Oh, that sounds like we have a goal. All right, Joe, we're gonna let you go. I really appreciate your time. We learned a lot. People go out and find the tier system because it it's your key to happiness. And definitely reach out to you.
SPEAKER_00And if you want to see a bunch of if you want to see a guy trying to think he knows anything, I spend most of my time on Instagram.
SPEAKER_02Cool. What's your what's your website again? Big HousePower Dr.
SPEAKER_00BighousePower.com and then Instagram at Big HousePower.
SPEAKER_01Scroovy. Definitely. Joe, thank you so very much for joining us.
SPEAKER_00Oh man, thanks for thinking of me. I'm glad we ran into each other at the Arnold and that would be awesome to take a picture with you guys next year, actually competing with you.
SPEAKER_02Yep, I love it. It'd be a hard honor. All right, we'll talk to you soon. Bye bye.
SPEAKER_00All right, thanks a lot, guys. Have a great night. You too. Thanks. Bye. We'll see you.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post it on your social media, or leave a review. To catch all the latest from us, you can follow us on Instagram at Masters Athlete Survival Guide. Thanks again. Now get off our lawn, you damn kids.