Strength Coach Collective

Richard Aceves on Why Coaching Must Go Beyond the Physical

• twobrainbusiness@gmail.com • Season 1 • Episode 15

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Not all movement problems are physical. Great coaches must be able to dig deeper.

In this episode of the “Strength Coach Collective” podcast, host Kenny Markwardt talks with Richard Aceves, founder of Moved Academy, about the mental, emotional and spiritual components of training and their impact on physical performance and pain.

Richard explains why clients’ physical limitations can be rooted in mental and emotional stress and how coaches can create lasting change by understanding movement as a reflection of the whole person.

Richard also shares practical ways to alleviate tension and help clients build resilience and overcome limiting beliefs through movement.

Tune in to learn how to uncover what’s really holding your clients back—and what to do about it.

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Strength Coach Collective

1:29 - Richard’s coaching philosophy

10:53 - Beyond the physical

18:22 - The neuroscience behind coaching

28:07 - The psychological aspect of training

37:21 - Focusing on the client’s needs

SPEAKER_01:

As coaches, we're trained to train people how to move correctly. What if they can't move correctly? How do we know if it's due to pain, dysfunction, stress, or even emotional well-being? Richard DeSavis is here from Moved Academy to tell us how and what to do about it. Welcome to the Strength Coach Collective, a podcast brought to you by Two Brain Business. We are here to help advance the strength and conditioning coaching community by bringing you a wide range of experts in the field. Join our group at strengthcoachcollective.com. For today's episode, I'm your host, Kenny Marquardt. Richard, welcome.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for having me, man.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, starting to get this put together. You were in my neck of the woods, which is a little corner of the U.S. last year. It's too bad we didn't get to connect in person then.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think I'll probably be up there soon, though. I have a few coaches that are up there, so.

SPEAKER_01:

I'll show you around. I'll show you the local side of Sandpoint, Idaho.

SPEAKER_00:

I love

SPEAKER_01:

it. Just don't tell anybody. Don't post it

SPEAKER_00:

on TikTok.

SPEAKER_01:

Our little secret up here, which is now being broadcast to all of our listeners. We were chatting a little bit before we got on here. Can you give me some of the background, like what your coaching perspective is? This is super interesting. It's definitely different than anything I think I've heard before. So this is cool.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So I approach coaching as working with the... I always say I'm a human specifist. I'm a no niche coach. I work with whoever comes in front of me. That doesn't mean that I want to... I can work with anybody that comes in front of me. It doesn't mean I should work with anybody that comes in front of me. But I had a... At 18 years of age, I had a rock climbing accident, a mountaineering accident in Mexico, broke my hip, broke my ulna, spent almost five months in bed, did most of my recovery because the doctor said I was going to be riddled in pain and be sitting in the chair for most of my time and lucky to be walking. And I was like, two big middle fingers. Sorry for your audience. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And I was

SPEAKER_00:

like, yeah, I don't think so. That's not what I'm going to do. So I started to just really get into, get into fitness, but more so in the, you know, I was into fitness before I was doing CrossFit to get prepared for the mountaineering adventure before the accident. And so afterwards it's more about just learning how the body actually works and what is the best way for me to learn to walk and deadlift and get things going again. So I, after I, taught myself to walk in a pool. And then after that, I went and started deadlifting again and doing pull-ups. And six months later, I was deadlifting 400, 500 pounds. So I had to go through a few bumps in the road and get hardware taken out and such. But that got me into just really Going through my own process of my own PTSD and my own learning curves as a coach, as an athlete. I owned and operated a CrossFit gym for eight years, had a corporate wellness program. And then after that, I went off to teach people how to get out of pain. I was... a very strong lifter. So I had a six 50 deadlift. And every time I go to six 55, my back would pop out and it would take me like six weeks to come back to, you know, so I had the whole, the whole rehab down stat of the physiotherapist, the chiropractor, the acupuncture, the cryotherapy at the time before cold plunges, you know, the whole, the whole thing I had, I had them on speed dial. So I knew of like six weeks here comes six 55, boom, pop the back. And so, um, I was like, there's something, something has to change. Nobody's giving me solutions. And the same thing would happen with my shoulder. I could, I was stuck at a 235 pound strict shoulder press. And I just, I could not get past it. And eventually, you know, the shoulder starts to get hurt. And, you know, if there's many, you know, functional fitnesses out there, you kind of get that pain in that front delt and you're always mashing the trap and the serratus and in between the scapula and you're doing all of these rehab, rehab, stupid exercises that don't do shit because there's pain comes back as soon as you go back for that PR press, right? And so I was like, something needs to change. And the physical therapist would only... would only give me the symptoms, but not the solutions. And that's where I was really frustrated. So you have inflamed infraspinatus, you have upper trap dominance. I was like, okay, and how do we resolve these? Oh, do these exercises. But those exercises never really took the pain. They, they numb down the symptoms or the intensity of the discomfort, but it would always come back. And so at some point, they're like, oh, well, you're doing strength training, you know, like, we've all heard it like, You're training. You're doing a sport. You're going to get hurt. It's part of the game. I was like, there's got to be something. There's something missing.

SPEAKER_01:

Eternal frustration of mine. That drives me. I had that conversation yesterday

SPEAKER_00:

in my gym. It's miserable, man. That led me down this rabbit hole of trying to figure out somebody that has solutions. I started looking for coaches. I came across Julian Pinot. At the time, I'm still fit, but I was very physically fit. And, you know, some of the say I may have had the body of a Greek God. That's sarcasm for people out there. But I was pretty jacked. And, you know, I did this whole assessment with him this whole one on one session. He's like, Oh, yeah, you just need to build up your left lap. And I was like, dude, like, I'm a fucking flying squirrel. What do you mean? It just hurt my ego. I was like, you can go fuck yourself. I just paid you$300 for this, dude. Come on, man. Thanks a lot. And so I'm driving home, and I was like, well, shit. I mean, he's the only one that's actually said, this needs to work for you to not be in pain. I was like, well, maybe there's something there. And so I went home, and I was like, all right, let's go through every single lat exercise there is, and let's get the lats to be sore. And so that was, you know, he kind of became a mentor for a few years and no pain. And then we're like, all right, cool. Like, let's move on from here. And so we just kind of started going and going and going and worked with Team Invictus and got to work with some bigger athletes. And then we just started doing seminars around the world, basically teaching people that we need to coach through a scope of tension, not through a scope of position. Because yes, everybody should be able to press overhead, it doesn't mean that everybody can press overhead today. And so if we neglect that, we need to understand what it takes to get from point A to point B. What does it take for you to get that barbell, that dumbbell, that object overhead? What muscles need to stay engaged? And so this is always kind of a thinking point for coaches and physical therapists, because the point is the articulation, the joint is capable of getting up here. But what happens with people with frozen shoulder or people that feel like they don't have the mobility? Well, it's a neurological issue. So that came into the talk, right? So the nervous system helps dictate your range of motion based on if it's safe or not safe to be in that position. Yeah. But we have the mindset of athletes and, you know, looking at the body as a cadaver or a machine that should be capable of doing this. And so, therefore, we have the thought process of I think, therefore, I am. But it's not true. You are, therefore, you can think. And so this is where you start to look at if the body doesn't feel safe, it's going to show you by thinking communication and how does it communicate? It can only communicate through pain. And so I just started to connect everything together of not just the physiological and not just the methodologies of strength and conditioning or CrossFit, but how can we put everything together and actually put the human perspective behind it and understand that the body is essentially a reinforcement learning machine, right? That's why your first snatch compared to your 10,000 snatch is much better. more different.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Hopefully.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Hopefully. Right. But that's also where you start to get into like the social components. So if my coach is telling me that I need to get here, I'm going to find any way possible to do that. Yeah. Which means that you start to displace tension to get to that overhead position. Yeah. Yep. And so if you start to displace the tension to the wrong muscles, that's where intensity comes up because that's, You know, I always in my head when I visualize like muscles talking and everything, I think of like the movie Inside Out going like, hey, guys, right? Like they're kind of communicating. Unfortunately, that's not the case. So the only way that muscles can communicate is through intensity, through pain.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So the reason that the shoulder is hurting is not for you to go smash it out so you can get back to that range of motion. The shoulder is hurting because it's going, dude, if you don't stop, something is going to break.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. It's a protective thing. It's a protective mechanism. Yeah, right, right. Got it.

SPEAKER_00:

Right? And so the point here is, for me, was like, okay, so what does that protective mechanism mean? Why, you know, if everybody should be squatting below parallel, how come some people can't? Or how come some people it looks really ugly? And it looks ugly because that's how their body keeps the tension. Like when you see the butt wink, it's not that the tailbone and the pelvic is tucking under. I mean, yes, but why is it tucking under? Because it's trying to stay under the right tension, which is meaning it's wanting to keep the external obliques active to brace the core. So there's no flexion extension of the spine through the movement. Because if you can keep the core braced, the spine doesn't flex or extend, your spine is going to stay healthy.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Right? So that led me down a whole rabbit hole of kind of, doing a lot of assessments and one-on-ones with clients and then starting to find patterns and behavioral traits and the pain that they're having. So I can essentially see the life that somebody has had and the survival mechanisms that they've had to put together based on how the body is holding onto stress.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, it's good. And I think some of my like pause there is I. in some of our chatting before it was like, this is not just physical. And I think we'll get into that, but there's emotion. There's some emotional stuff too tied in with your,

SPEAKER_02:

with

SPEAKER_01:

your work. Yeah. So maybe we'll stay on one track at a time and I don't want to try to keep it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I

SPEAKER_01:

could go for hours. That was my pod. Like, man, okay. There's a lot here.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, for like the coaches that are out there listening, like it might seem overwhelming, but it can be very simple. So I've, I've tried to simplify everything and then, you know, you slowly start to build. And so, um, For me, the way that I've simplified it is the body, you know, we can always think of like an arch concept, right? And you have like the keystone at the top. And so when we're talking about movement training exercise, there is a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual or belief system behind each movement or each exercise, each training session that you do, right? And so depending on what kind of session you're doing for the day depends on how much physical and mental rationalization strategy you need to be doing. And then there's some exercises that become spiritual. I mean, you know, for anybody out there that is a CrossFit coach, the first Fran that you've ever done, like that's a spiritual awakening, isn't it? You know what I mean? Like you go from full physical to full, just what the hell's going on. And then all of a sudden you're, you're hooked. You don't even know why, because it's so painful. Yeah. You know what I mean? Oh yeah. And so, you know, like if you think of, especially in the U S like Memorial day Murph for me is one of the most emotional workouts, like physical, a little bit like it's hard. I get it. It's difficult. It's a lot of workload, but anybody can do it. And the point is that it doesn't even matter what that workout is. We can, you can modify, you can make it harder, easier. The whole point is the emotional component behind the workout that drives everybody to push forward.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And you see that Baird, I think a lot too, more than more than some people might recognize if they're not coaches, um, which I think most of our listeners are, but if you're not like, you see that beard, like at the end of these, like you see some major breakdowns, you see them, you see tears, you see, you know, I think you could probably, yeah, it is. You can see it. You'll, I mean, I think even if they haven't seen that in person, like you'll see people finish marathons or you're like mass, these massive physical accomplishments. And then they just like, they're just, their whole soul is comes

SPEAKER_00:

out of their body. Like you can see it happen. For sure. So that's, for me, it's, you know, it's a way for coaches to start to look and think of, okay, so I think, so let me kind of preface this with coaches have a lot more power in the well-being and the influence in their clients than the doctor, the physiotherapist, the therapist, than anybody else. Because you're seeing your clients day in, day out. The kid has a bad day, you go see your coach, you go work hard. You're having a breakup, you go to the gym, you work out, you talk to the coach, you cry on your coach's shoulder. The coaches have a lot of power and influence. And so for me, it's wanting to get the coaches to understand, especially the, you know, I think the up and coming thing in the US and the fitness industry, you're going to start to see a lot more of is these boutique garage rooted gyms like CrossFit was back in 2005. Like this is going to start to make another big, big comeback. So you're going to have either super high end gyms, which you're seeing right now that are doing the, you know, hormonal testing, blood tests, like the whole testing panel and, you know, the super high end. And then there's going to be like this sort of rooted back to grassroots, like garage gym, boutique gyms. And I think that the, there is a, a beauty in these boutique grassroots gyms because the coaches there understand that I'm not making billions out of this. You know what I mean? But I can make a comfortable living. And more importantly, I'm just passionate about helping people. And that's the beauty of it. So if we can just give coaches and those coaches, more importantly, the right tools and the right understanding, the right knowledge, you could be a hundred times more impactful. And that's the beauty of it.

SPEAKER_01:

Totally. And I totally, I see the same thing. And I've noticed that with some of my, a lot of my clients, it's like, this has evolved so much further than the physical. It's way further than the nutrition. It's way further than the sleep. It's way, there's just like every layer we peel back that relationship. We build this, like this relationship of, of, I don't know, coach. Like, I guess that's like at the end of the day, coach is such a like easy term to say, but but a real, like the coaching that we're trying to do is so deep and so powerful and so impactful. Like, I love what you're saying. And I, and I totally agree. I think that's starting to go back that direction towards that. Like, okay, cool. Like this is

SPEAKER_00:

a, you know, there's a, there's a beauty in, it's a hard thing because you get labeled. And I think for a lot of, you know, your coaches out there, there is this imposter syndrome. I mean, I still suffer with imposter syndrome, dude. You know, like I think for coaches, because, you know, most of us, I mean, a big majority of the coaches didn't necessarily go to university for strength and conditioning or for kinesiology or whatever it may be. Like we found ourselves in this space where you're empathetic. You take on this leadership role because you're passionate about movement. You can see things that other people can't. You start to help out. And then I know you're like, bro, I'm a coach. Holy shit. I opened up a gym. I mean, dude, I opened up my gym at 19. Yeah, I was turning 19, opened up the gym. gym and I was like, all right, I got my level one, opened up the gym. I was like, holy shit, what do I do? But what I, the one thing I knew is that I cared the shit out of my clients. Like I had a client that didn't show up for three days. I went to her work and I was like, Hey, so are we going to work out today? Are you just going to go home again and have some, some Ben and Jerry's or like what's going on? You know what I mean? So it's like, you get, you get put in this position and you're seeing these amazing results and then you have, you know, People are going like, stay in your lane or you're just a coach or you're just, and you're like, oh. And so it's, I think that we're coming to this point where there is no, we're getting to a point in the world where it's discipline-less, you know? So I'm a coach and I can coach any discipline. I don't need to, now, again, I'm a human specialist. Like I focus on the human in front of me and I go, this is what needs to change. I'm not going to tell you how to strategize the quarter or how to run this play, but I can become very specific on understanding that your knee pain is only going to make you perform worse and worse and worse. Yep. Right. And I know what you need to do in order to change it. And so like, that's the, yeah, I think like coaches right now are having a hard time because you either become, you know, if you're wanting to grow in social media, just pick one thing and talk about it over and over and over and over and over again. I'm like, I can't, I mean, just in this conversation, I think I've jumped like 40, 40 different topics, you know, but it's, it's, it's hard to, it's hard to do. So I think for coaches, it's like, let's just understand that training is physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual slash your belief system. Meaning that I can have you change your perception through movement.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And then from there, then we just need the stimulus. And that's where, you know, I work with coaches and giving them a simple way to understand the nervous system and more importantly, the neuroscience behind it. So, you know, we've been told that we're, you know, depending where you're reading between 60 to 80% reactive and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We're actually very predictive, right? The body is always

SPEAKER_01:

learning. You're saying, or human?

SPEAKER_00:

Just as humans, just as a human. Yeah, as humans, we've been told that we're sort of reactive, right? We react to things that are happening, but we're actually predictive. And the body is constantly observing. And so it observes from what you see, what you hear, what you taste, what you smell. It observes also through tension. So that's why you have the Golgi tendon organ. And so if you threw out your back at a certain weight, Have you ever noticed that you start to go to the gym and you start to see that weight and you're like, oh my God, right? You're like, oh no, anxiety goes up. You already know you're going to fail, but the coach is there, your mates are there. You're like, no, no, no, I got this. But internally, you already know. The body's already made a prediction and it wants to live out that prediction. It wants to experience exactly what it predicted because then it's known. So changing that is the change of belief system.

SPEAKER_01:

Got it. Interesting. Yeah. No, I know exactly the methods of what you're about to hopefully explain, which I know you will. But it's like I've seen it a million times. I've experienced it myself. There's that trepidation. There's the fear. There's the this. It's like you said before, it's like the self-protective, like your body wants to stay alive. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

It wants to survive. That's what it's good for, right? It's here to survive. And the best way to survive is to keep the communication, the nervous system, able to communicate.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Right? And so... That's where for me, when we look at the nervous system, it's like the body's observing and it says, okay, so this is how I'm going to feel in this experience. And it has a lot less to do with the cognitive brain and a lot more to do with what the physical response is. So the, the job of the Golgi tendon organ is to essentially shut off the neural connection to the muscle. If it thinks it's going to tear. Yep. Yeah. And so, When we look at, you know, and this is where I always go to practical application versus what science says, because a lot of the Golgi tendon studies that I've read are done on cat cadavers and they're just electrocute them. So, you know, and then you read it and you look at it and you're like, how do you even find, you've never tried it, right? So like the best example that you get in sports medicine is you're doing a bicep curl And now you have to hold 100 kilos or 100 pounds, and you can't hold 100 pounds. So what the science says is that the Golgi tendon organ is going to let go of the bicep, and it's going to contract very hard on the tricep to let go of the barbell or the dumbbell. And I go, okay, so this is called fragmentation. You're trying this on somebody that has no conscious and no ego. Because I know that if I put a bunch of CrossFitters out there with 100 pounds and say, whoever holds it here the longest wins, you are going to do whatever you want to not let go of that barbell first. And so what's the first thing that you would see if it's too heavy on the bicep? You would displace the tension towards the mid-trap, towards the shoulders, side delt. So it just goes to prove that you can't necessarily trust all objective science without subjective experiences. We need a mix of both. And so for me, that's where I started to realize, okay, so the Golgi tendon organ communicates with nanoreceptors immediately. So you getting psyched out already because you see that heavy barbell that threw your back out six weeks ago, the body's already recognized and goes, ha, buy hamstrings, buy Glutmax, because I know that if I use those, I'm not strong enough. My structure's not strong enough and it's going to tear. And so- What happens? You go to your back and you fail to lift and you pop your back.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. No, it's an interesting like bypass. I have read a couple of studies on this, had some conversations, but it's like there's this weird like bypass, like detour that the body will take as a self-protective thing. Like, okay, well, we can't do this. This intersection is not open. This has caused this. And so we're going to go this way instead. So it's kind of fascinating. It's

SPEAKER_00:

super fascinating. I mean, we'll keep it on the pure physical side and we won't go towards PTSD and anxiety and everything. Right. But even though essentially looking at that barbell and getting a high heart rate is anxiety, but essentially what you're doing is in order for you to change how you feel about that barbell deadlift, there needs to be a new version of you, which means there needs to be a new belief system. So that's going back to training as physical, mental, emotional, and then a belief system or spiritual. So what, I do and what I teach the coaches to do is I go, okay, so rather than looking at saying Bulgarian split squats are going to build my booty, we go, are they using the glute max when they're doing Bulgarian split squats? I mean, that should be a good question to ask, right? Like I see lots of people doing deadlifts and their butt still flat as a pancake. You know what I mean? I see people doing bench press and their chest doesn't grow. So what's missing. There's a missing component there. And so part of it is they're not physically, mentally, and emotionally present with the movement, right? So I don't know if you've ever had these clients that are doing assault bike sprints or they're doing barbell kings. They're like, oh my gosh, I had the craziest, most vivid sexual dream last night. And it was crazy, right? And you're like, Doing cleans, work, you know what I mean? Like people will just not be present. And part of it is because they're wanting to be part of the community and the society, but their body doesn't feel safe doing the exercise. So they displace attention physically. And if you're not there physically, then how do you expect the change to happen? So that's one of the things that we talk about is like you need active movement, not passive movement. Because we go at strength training and at functional fitness and a show of success by skill acquisition. Can I get from point A to point B? Not how we're getting from point A to point B. In order to develop strength, before we can develop the skill, we should develop neural output of the right muscles, muscle quality in those muscles so they can have the tension at that end range of position. And then we can go into the skill. So when you have that issue with the back going out on the deadlift, I go, well, no wonder you're not using your glute, right? Let's keep that as an example. The left glutes not firing at all. Neither is the left hamstring. So what do I have to do? I have to shift my weight to my left. I hyperextend my knee on my right. And now my right lumbar erector and right glute max are doing all of the work and my left mid back. So, What I do is on a physical standpoint, I find any exercise that I can think of that that person can try and do. And we have a whole list of skill to intensity ratio that we kind of work on. And we essentially force that person to feel the glutes first, build neural output. Once they build the neural output, we can build muscle quality. And then we can go back to the deadlift because now the body has changed the belief system that the glute isn't strong enough to handle the deadlift. So it's changing the belief system from a physical perspective.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And what's interesting, I mean, one of the better things about CrossFit is the compound. Like we're going to look at movement patterns and move away from isolation. It sounds like there's a little bit of like revert to isolation in an effort to rebuild the pattern. Am I hearing that right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And again, I'm not so... No, right. That's not a

SPEAKER_01:

criticism. That's just an observation of like, yeah, let's rebuild the foundation off of the isolation if we need

SPEAKER_00:

to. And what you see with CrossFitters, which would lead me to my last part of my guiding principles, I have like the guiding principle for Moved Academy and how I look at the body, right? So the first part is training. That's physical, mental, emotional, spiritual belief system. Then you have, with that, you need stimulus, which is understanding the nervous system and getting people to go towards a sympathetic fight and win that fight in order to be able to get into the flow state, which lowers your perception of stress. And then you have the objective. So all clients come to you for a goal, right? An objective. And so if you really narrow it down to three settings, their goals are always either to build safety in their body and outside of their body, So safety to move without pain, the capacity to have confidence in themselves, internally and externally, and the capacity to perform. So to do a deadlift or to lose 10 pounds or whatever it may be. But you cannot lose the 10 or 15 pounds if you don't have safety in your body. And so that's because, again, if the body doesn't feel safe, most of the weight gain is a protective mechanism.

SPEAKER_01:

Did you elaborate on that a little bit? Yeah. You mean because of the lack of movement, because of the lack of confidence, because of the...

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, there could be all kinds of deep-rooted issues. And again, this goes more towards the psychological aspect of training. But essentially, when you have people that are overweight, it could be macros, right? It could be diet is definitely a part of it. But it's also how they handle stress. Meaning if you have a low capacity to handle stress, what's the first thing that happens when you get overstressed for most people? Chips, Ben and Jerry's, fast food, whatever it may be, right? So usually food is a way for you to not deal with your problems because it gives you instant gratification and makes you not think about the problems. Yeah. Because now you're

SPEAKER_01:

rewarded. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

for sure. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that could be part of it. And then when you go towards the behavioral side of things, there's a reason that the body is protecting or not protecting. flowing correctly. Shall we say there's a miscommunication, a somatic error between the physical observation, the prediction and the experience that the body's going to have, the human's going to have. And so when you have these somatic errors, I mean, I've, I don't know if you've had clients like this that follow, will follow any diet rigorously and the body aesthetic or the body composition doesn't change.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. That's because there's something missing. They're just not either they're physically, mentally or emotionally not being present.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And so that's what I mean about active movement versus passive movement. And this is where you get in trouble because you're, I'm not saying you don't have the capacity to learn the skill. I'm saying that you're not building the neural output of the muscles correctly. So you're passively training.

UNKNOWN:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00:

which sounds kind of weird to think, especially if you're thinking like a CrossFit workout or a functional fitness workout. But in reality, how many clients do you have that are training? And then you can tell that they're thinking about their taxes or their meetings or this or that. And they finish the workout and they run out of the gym. They don't even have time to decompress. Or you do a workout like Fran and they're like, all right, so what's next? The intent wasn't there. You know what I mean? So this is where... especially within functional fitness as an observation, they will pretend that they're confident by adding volume, not intensity.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So clients come in, they come three times a week, then it's five times a week, then it's two a day, and they keep wanting to do more volume to gain change rather than doing more intensity. So rather than doing an all-out effort sled sprint that just leaves you on the floor puking and thinking you're having a brain aneurysm, they'd rather go do a three-hour type workout, which builds anxiety, essentially. It fluctuates the lactate incorrectly. But what that does is if you cannot, you build volume, you build safety with volume. You build confidence with intensity, and then you can test the performance, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

so I'm with you. I use the example, how does a kid learn how to walk? He falls 5,000 times until he learns 5,000 ways not to walk and his way to walk, right? And once he walks, what's the intensity? The running or the sprinting or the slight jumps or bumps or uneven surfaces. And the performance is being able to be an adult that can walk and handle and have perception of steps, so on and so forth. That's a simple example, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

we start to not be able to handle the intensity. So what we do is we strategize and we create more volume, especially within functional fitness. So look at High Rocks is a perfect example, right? CrossFit was a perfect example. I mean, I was one-on-one right there, right? Where it was like, oh, we'll just do more and more and more, but then you never do anything 100% of the way.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Because you're always afraid that after this workout, I have the cool down. After the cool down, my buddies may want to do an extra mile run for fun. And then after that, we might go ice bath and sauna. So you're always anxious about what's going to come. So you can never truly give a 100% to 45-second all-out effort sprints. Even for the 45-second all-out, let's put it this way. If you were to tell your class today, all we are doing is 1% 45 second all out effort sprint on the assault bike. Give me everything you have. They'd be like, what are we going to do for the rest of the 59 minutes? Right. So as coaches that don't have the confidence to go, you're going to lie on the floor and hope that you can recover quickly enough. Right. And see what happens. And then we go from there. But what happens? We're like, oh, no, we have to provide that service. So now rather than doing an all out effort, one set, what do you do? We're going to do 10 seconds, 45 seconds on 15 seconds off. I'll be the first one to go, I'm going to go super slow on the first one. Are you kidding me? I've been here before. And especially when you have clients, right? Crossfitters that have been doing it or functional fitnessers or bodybuilders that have been doing this for some time, they know what they're going to experience. So they strategize. So you never go towards that emotional belief system change like when you first did Fran. Like even if I think of Fran right now, which I'm extremely out of shape and I'm like, all right, I'm going to break it up like this. I'm going to do like this. Which is not the point of Fran. The whole point of Fran was to go all out until you die. The reason Greg Glassman, if you're a newer coach, but the founder of CrossFit, the reason he did 21 is he couldn't do 22. The reason he did 15, he couldn't do 16. And the reason he did nine is because he started puking.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Right? So maybe we start to change the guidelines of, hey, we're going to do thrusters and pull-ups, superset, no rest, three rounds.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

that will get you a different result.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. So it's, it's, it's just, it's a way to change the scope of how you're coaching clients in order for them to best positively adapt or become more resilient to stress.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think what I'm hearing, correct me if I'm wrong, but like intensity and presence are like similar. They're kind of in a similar vein and like the intensity of the, like as a, as a, Self-example, like the times I've been hurt, which is luckily very rarely, but I know I haven't been in the moment. Like I've been doing something, not paying attention. I haven't been as focused. I have been thinking about something else. Like I've been not as focused as I need to be to do the thing as perfectly as I know that I possibly can. And I think that's what leads to that. And one example, I think, am I hearing you right in the intensity and presence are similarly in the same vein?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, it's how... How present can you stay within the intensity?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, and that's why I think ice baths have such a, are, are becoming so trendy and in the capacity that it forces you to be present with that intensity.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Can't hide.

SPEAKER_00:

But there's a difference, you know, there's, there's a difference between I'm getting in the ice bath and the ice bath is going to help me have these results.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That approach is different.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And so, You know, I do, when I have clients, like I do crazy workouts and I go, you go when you're ready. And I can tell if somebody, you know, going back to the nervous system, you have different states to be in. And when you're starting to show up to the gym in a survival state, you're not going to be doing so hot. And therefore inflammation goes up, cortisol goes up because the body doesn't want to be there. So there's times where I'm like, well, if you don't want to be here, don't be here. It's probably better for you not to be here. Go find something you enjoy doing. That's where that thrive is going to come from. Right. So I'm not saying that you don't need discipline and you don't need to push, but there is a point where if the body is going like, dude, nah, it's not going to happen. And you're kind of like, Oh, I really don't want to be there. Then there could be something underlying there that needs to be, needs to be asked. Right. And so, um, It's intensity comes with the capacity to stay present through the hardest of things.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Which the body is great at surviving. And so therefore it finds ways to displace tension. And so again, when you're looking at a CrossFit class or a group setting, the whole point of being there is because you enjoy the community. That's what drives these boutique gyms is community. So imagine if you were to be exiled from that community, how you would feel. It'd be horrible. So you're going to do whatever the leader says. Press overhead, you got it, boss. Hips below parallel, all right. Even though the hip hurts, even though the shoulder hurts. So what do you see is they push pretending they have confidence, but in reality, they're just doing more and more volume. So you start to see people showing up 30 minutes early to mash and to quiet all of the pain points off so that they can survive the class. They start to become too sore to do the weekend stuff with the family that, you know what I mean? Like you start to see these sort of buildups. And I think that there's not, I think there is a better way to approach how we coach our clients and how we can program for the overall health of our clients, right? And so that's a system that I've been creating now is essentially how can we start to really focus on what the client's needs are? Because all you face the stress in the gym is exactly how you're facing the stress outside of the gym. So the behavior is correlated, right? So stress is, you know, we can think of stress as an input or a download. And then the expression that you give up, the movement is the upload, right? So there's an input and an output. So stress, no matter what, is the same thing. It's an input coming in. It's a trigger coming in, going to the body, going, all right, I observed this. I'm going to behave like this. I predict this is how it's going to feel.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. So I always say stress is a romantic comedy. It's a rom-com. All rom-coms are the same shit, dude. Different actors, different cities. It's the

SPEAKER_01:

same

SPEAKER_00:

thing. It's the same thing. Yeah. So stress is the same thing. So how I see somebody move in the gym is the same way that I'm going to see them when they're fighting with their spouse. It's the same way that I'm going to see them when they're stressed out about taxes, when their boss starts yelling at them. So that's why when you start to see people in CrossFit gyms, their whole aura starts to change, their posture starts to change. That's true because... doing CrossFit is allowing you to handle stress better.

SPEAKER_01:

Totally.

SPEAKER_00:

But if it starts to go south, then what happens, right? So like the most perfect example is people show up to the gym and we'll put a 10 pound plate, a 25 pound plate, a two and a half pound plate, a 10 pound plate, don't give a shit. And the, the, the senior person comes, what are you, what are you doing, man? Like take all this off and put one 45, the same thing. Wait, wait. Right. And then I used to have people in my gym that would get territorial about the squat rack. Like, no, no, no. It's squatted. This is my spot. Like I need this squat rack. Right. And you can't have the weights on the cracks of the mats and you can't. Right. So they become almost OCD. Like, yes, that's anxiety. Yeah. Yeah. And that's because the body is like, I need to have control of this environment because I've tweaked my back because I've been so sore. So it's a form of PTSD. You're trying to have control of an environment. And so that starts to translate over to outside of the gym.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, I'm tracking now. I think it was a good summation of the thing, like the protective side of it. And then learning how to deal with that appropriately afterwards. and lean into it and gain confidence through it and building a new identity, which is something you said in the beginning. Like around the response and the apprehension or trying to overcome that apprehension around and building the confidence to deal with it and tolerate the stress.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and this is where you have to understand that the exercise is the byproduct. And so this is where everyone's like, well, we've been training like this and I still have anxiety or depression or this or that, which I always say like, Even like Peter Attia, right? If you guys haven't heard of him, but he's one of the top health gurus out there. Like still talks about his OCD and his, you know, anxiety spurts and depression spurts. Yet he's always training. So then what you're professing and what you're doing clash. But because he's looking at it at a form, he's looking at a protocol and not looking at the human. You know what I mean? And so this is where the exercise is the byproduct. So the behavioral change in the belief system doesn't come from the exercises you're doing. It comes from the neural connection and the muscle quality that you have. There's a direct correlation between the neural connection of the muscle and how you behave. And that's where I have a system. I call it emotional mapping. I can see people's traumas and people's behaviors based on how their body holds tension. Because who says that bench press is going to build self-love if the pecs never work? Right? Who says that pull-ups are going to build confidence if your lats aren't working but your trap starts to take over? Yeah. So for me, I can tell exactly how somebody... how somebody is observing the world without their verbal justifications by how the body is moving under stress and load. Totally. Yep. And so that's the, that's the feedback of, of changing the belief system and changing the, you know, the behavior for the better.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I love it. That's super interesting. I mean, all that's the psychological aspects of that. I mean, as you're talking about that, I'm seeing examples in my, like, and having done some of that myself, like it, The tolerance to it and the apprehension and that, and just the behavioral stuff, but overcoming it through the, the experience and using the tools of exercise. Right. And so demonstrable and the people that are willing to embrace it and challenge themselves in that way and be present in that. What do, what do, what do coaches do about this at this point? Like, you know, where, where do they go from? Like you said, some of us, like, like I did, I started my gym, got my L one and like, Oh, here we go. A lot of us are, you know, I think that, what's been powerful for me and it sounds like for you is like, okay, I see a problem and I go learn how to solve the problem. Like this is a thing. This is a problem. What do coaches do about learning how to, how to, how to deal with this?

SPEAKER_00:

They can come see

SPEAKER_01:

me

SPEAKER_00:

not to plug myself in there. Yeah. But so I, you know, I think that there is, there is a change happening in the fitness space. Like I said earlier, um, And I said this in a podcast about in 2017. And I said, there is going to be a massive shift in the next decade where the prominent use for exercise is going to be for mental health. And you're seeing it now, right? Like everybody's talking about anxiety and training and depression and training. There's actually a great article that was just posted. on the types of training that are best suited for depression. And so it's coming this way. And so if you're a boutique owner, if you're a coach, you need to get on top of that. And I think the best way is challenging the status quo that's currently out there and train with intuition, but then also start to understand that the body is an ecosystem and you cannot fragment it. So you cannot just look at the pure physiological because the pure physiological is still connected to the conscious. It's still connected to the nervous system. It's still connected to breathing. It's still connected to nutrition. They're all feedback loops, the diaphragm, the heart. So everything is working in unison. And so I think as a coach, not to overwhelm people, but it's just look at the person in front of you and teach them how to squat. Don't just teach the squat to that person. which is something that I think as a new coach, you walk out, you know, and you're like, oh, a squat, you know, legs outside shoulder width, slightly open toed, hips back, back down, big chest, you know, like start to really understand that each person is unique. And as you spend more time working with clients, you get that better. And from there, start to understand the body works intention. It based on what muscles need to be firing through that range of motion is based on the range of motion for that person.

SPEAKER_02:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00:

And then from there, you know, you can kind of start to play. So, you know, I have, like, that's why I started Moved Academy. So we teach coaches, you know, I teach them the fundamentals. We start with purely physical, how to look at the body, you know, some basic techniques. practical anatomy with it when you're at the in the gym floor you can start to seek so you know there's so many people that you're like i see this whole weird shoulder press but i don't know what the fuck to do with it you know try these exercises and see if it helps so just what are you actually seeing when you see this salsa dancing back squat you know what i mean and then from there we start to connect the nervous system and how we can really simplify using breathing with movement you know i created moved academy and and so i always say as a coach you have four pillars right you have your Your philosophical person, your philosophical pillar, like how well you are at telling the stories and communicating what you want and looking at movement and training as a whole. You have your stuntman, the capacity to do what you're teaching and preaching, you know, walking the walk, talking the talk. You have the scientist, the capacity to understand, you know, articles and really get into the geeky and nerding out on percentages and this and that, the other and breathing mechanisms of CO2 and O2. And you have your businessman.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Which is where you're you're killing it. I focus on the first three. And that's the one thing that I always tell people. I'm always like, if they're if somebody is selling you a coaching course to become a better coach or a better teacher. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. For me, I was like, I don't teach the business stuff. And there's much better people like you guys that are out there to do that. Because my vocation, my craft, what I really focus on is purely how do we make the human in front of us get the performance and the results that they need? And not necessarily by giving them what they want, right? It's more about what do they truly need? And how can we get to that core issue if it's a mental or emotional issue? thing, you know, cause there's a lot of people don't realize like how much, how much of a belief system is stored and memories and thoughts are stored in certain muscles. So if you unlock something, I mean, we've, I've been there many times where I've had somebody just start crying in the middle of a work. Are you like, Oh my, like, what do I give you a hug? Do you want time? You know what I mean? What do we do here? Because you're, you're unlocking things that you're not really sure of. And so that's been my, road in the last 16 years is like, okay, so let's unlock this and figure it out because I'm not going to just brush it off and be like, oh, go see somebody else.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. No, I love it. And I think that's a good, I think that's a good summation. I think like we started talking about how coaches are, are becoming these resources, like these one-on-one resources for people across the whole holistic, you know, whether it's nutrition, physical, like emotional, there's a whole gamut of things. And I love the, the summation there where it's, you are just that, that for every, like not everyone, but for your people, like you can be all those things. And I think it's such a powerful role that we get to play.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I think, you know, and it's, I, that's where I really think, you know, CrossFit revolutionized the fitness industry because it allowed people to be like, let's go outside of the box. And you started to see, you know, coaches just become nutritionist and, you know, you need to sort of become all of these facets because people were coming to you with problems.

SPEAKER_01:

And

SPEAKER_00:

so, you know, for, for me, it was always a, if I don't know, I'm going to go find out. And so that's that, you know, that's the fun part of being a coach. It's like people come when you're like, well, I don't know, but let's go find out.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, totally. Exactly. Yeah. Let's go find the person who knows and then let's go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So that's, you know, that's the, that, but that's the key is that we can get coaches to understand the value. If we can give coaches the confidence and value that, then the business part becomes simpler, right? Because it's, you know, I always say like, I mean, you have insurance that might cover physical therapists and stuff, but there's still a huge gap between that physical therapy and the strength and conditioning side of things. And there's a huge gap between, you know, kind of, the nutritionist and do you really need to go see a full blown nutritionist or do you just need some guidelines to help you make better decisions? Right. Right. So they're all kind of tied into this. And so I think it's a, the more that we can equip the coaches with the knowledge, not just information, but just the actual knowledge, then the more confidently they can go. I know your back is hurting and the doctors told you not to lift anything, but I'm going to give you 150 pounds sandbag. We're going to go walk with it.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And they're going to go, what? You're crazy. I'm like, I know you think I'm crazy. I always say, if I break you, I'll buy you a burrito and a beer, you know, but you know, it's, it's being able, if you say that confidently, they'll be like, okay. And then they do. And they're like, holy cow, my back feels better. And then you go, yeah, well, that's because, you know, your back was hurting because you were being given exercises that weren't activating the glutes, the transverse abdominus, the obliques, the hamstrings. Once we activate all of that, the lumbar erectors can relax and now your spine can actually move freely and not have inflammation around it. There were just intensity signals. There were just pain signals telling you you were doing something wrong. There are simple solutions out there. And so I think for coaches, it's like, gain the knowledge and the wisdom, not just by reading the books or taking courses, but by practicing. Like you have to practice what you preach. And if it's not working, then you have to question it. You know, when I was giving seminars around the world, I would go to all these CrossFit gyms and I would be doing these seminars with coaches and they're like, oh no, CrossFit is great. CrossFit is healthy. I was like, Oh, do you do CrossFit? Oh no, no, man. I'm not anymore. My back got blown up. And I'm like, what are we doing here guys? You know? So it's like, you know, find somebody that practices what they preach and that's going to instill knowledge in you. That's going to force you to challenge the status quo. It's going to challenge you to go do things that you're not comfortable with.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And go test it out. There's a lot of people out there that, you know, will regurgitate information and, and, you can always tell because if you keep asking, they'll come to a point where they just won't have an answer. Right. And if you don't have an answer, that's okay. But it's a, there's a difference between information and knowledge. And I think that for a lot of these, a lot of the coaches out there, like you just need to you need to put in the hours in the gym, not just managing classes and getting your paycheck or, you know, kind of, I know it gets tiring, but like I spent hours, I still spend hours. I'll go to the gym and I just kind of sit there and watch people move and do assessments in my head of how they're moving and why they're moving that way. And, you know, it's, it's a, it's a, it's an obsession. Right. And I think the more you get into it, then you start to, it starts to make sense. You know, you start to compile the amount of knowledge that you have and then you you know, you have, I have clients that come to me that nobody's been able to answer double hip replacements. They didn't need to double hip replacements, CRPS syndromes, you know, depression, suicide, name it, you know, but when you, when you care enough about the person in front of you and you have the tools, you go test it out and it works.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, totally. And what you said to you about this, I will wrap it up here, but I think what you said to you about the, like it gets tiring. It, it gets monotonous. If you do the same thing day in, day out, you're doing it like with, I don't find it to be tired. Cause I was there. I don't find it to be tiring anymore when I've, built my level of knowledge enough to like solve new problems and help well round like round out what i can do for people like i find it to be so exciting like certainly at the end of the day i could be i can run out of gas but man what you just said about like there's so much to provide so much to learn and so much to bring and watch and like it's just like i don't i find it to be if you want to be a coach like i think that stuff is is invigorating more than it is exhausting a lot of the time

SPEAKER_00:

for sure yeah it's you know it's a matter of I've seen a turn where people kind of get burnt out because it is a lot of energy that you're spending with clients and everything. But I think the burnout comes from just stagnancy. Yeah, same. Don't become a coach because you want to spend more time in the gym working out. Become a coach because you want to help people. You know what I mean? And so I think that's a, you know, it's always something to kind of ask yourself. Like, I always find a fascinating way to do seminars or people in my mentoring program. And they're not coaches, but they're just like, yeah, like, I just want to learn more about the body. And you have answers. I was like, cool. And I'm like, they're like, I told my coaches about you, but I don't know why they don't want to join or they don't. And I'm like, I find that fascinating. Like if I had some, if I had, you know, even now, like if you tell me to go check a guy out or something, I'd be super stoked and let's see what we can learn, you know, there's always something to learn. So it's, you know, you, you see these cycles where, you know, I've, I've, coached and done a lot of seminars and i see these coaches that are now you know they start to get like that seven to eight year and it's the same thing with the relationship right you get like that seven year itch like oh no we're going back to finance or i'm going back to this or i'm going to go do that and i think that those are the people that thought that coaching was a lot easier than it was going to be

SPEAKER_01:

yeah

SPEAKER_00:

and they weren't truly passionate about helping clients

SPEAKER_01:

and

SPEAKER_00:

maybe they they weren't given the right direction to find their voice and their confidence to truly share what they have with the world.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And so, you know, I think as the gym owner out there, always invest in your coaches and get them learning and get them excited. And as a coach out there, always be with people that want to, don't want to see you grow and get better.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, we want to create leaders in the space, not just soldiers.

SPEAKER_01:

Love it, man. Thank you very much. Where can people find you?

SPEAKER_00:

On Instagram, rarebearacuda and moved underscore academy and movement underscore ayahuasca.

SPEAKER_01:

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00:

All these things. But rarebearacuda is the main account and you guys can go from there.

SPEAKER_01:

Cool. Richard, thanks again, man. Talk to you soon. Yeah, absolutely. A pleasure.

SPEAKER_00:

Have a

SPEAKER_01:

good one. As always, thanks so much for listening. Don't forget, you can join our group at strengthcoachcollective.com.