Cal Dietz — Strength & Conditioning Coach, Author, and Creator of Triphasic Training

This week, Shanon sits down for a conversation with Cal Dietz—one of the world’s leading strength and conditioning coaches and the longtime Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at the University of Minnesota. 

Cal is best known as the creator of Triphasic Training, an influential training system focused on how athletes produce, absorb, and control force to improve performance and resilience. Throughout his career, Cal has helped prepare more than 50 Olympians representing 11 countries, worked with athletes who have earned more than 40 Olympic medals, and contributed to 11 NCAA National Championship teams. His experience also includes working with professional athletes across the NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB, MMA, and boxing. 

Beyond the championships and medals, Cal has spent decades studying what allows people to continually adapt and improve. His work offers lessons that extend well beyond elite sport—from building strength and resilience to recovering from setbacks, aging well, and developing the capacity to keep doing what matters most.

In this episode, Cal Dietz shares insights from decades of coaching elite athletes, emphasizing movement principles, mental tenacity, and habits that promote health span and longevity. Whether you're an athlete, coach, or anyone seeking to improve their quality of life, this conversation is a good reminder that you don't have to be training for the Olympics to train like someone who believes their best years are still to come.

Transcript

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Alright y'all, welcome back to the Redefine What's Possible podcast where we explore the habits, mindsets, and stories that help us live healthier, more meaningful lives. Today's guest is someone I've wanted to have on for quite a while now. Cal Dietz has spent decades studying a simple question. How do elite athletes move better and maybe differently throughout the course of their careers?

As the head strength and conditioning coach at the University of Minnesota, Cal has helped prepare more than 50 Olympians representing 11 countries, worked with athletes who've earned over 40 Olympic medals, including Team USA's ice hockey gold medal win this year, which was epic. And Cal has also contributed to 11 NCAA national championship teams and influenced countless of professional athletes.

He's also the creator of Triphasic Training, a system that has changed how coaches around the world think about developing strength, power, and resilience. But today's conversation isn't just for coaches or athletes. It's for anyone who wants to move in a way that elevates the game of life. Whether that's to perform better at work, stay healthier as they age, recover more effectively, and continue doing the things they love to do for decades to come.

There's also a fun layer of personal connection here. My wife, Kelly Stevens-Tysland, played hockey at the University of Minnesota under Coach Laura Halderson, and Cal was the strength coach during those incredible years. They won back-to-back national championships, and three offensive players on Kelly's line went on to represent Team USA at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino together. Kelly has often shared how influential Cal was not only in helping her become a stronger athlete, but in teaching lessons that have stayed with her long after her hockey career. Cal, welcome to the podcast. Well, thanks for having me. And yes, you know, you saying that bring back memories of Kelly. She had some tenacity. Like, I'll tell you what, if all of our athletes had her tenacity across the board now, not even if they were an Olympian like she was.

We'd win every game, right? I I tell people this. I train pro athletes, but I've only trained a handful of professionals over the years. And and people are like, What's the difference between a pro and a professional? I'm like, Well, pros, they get paid. Professionals do what they're supposed to do when they're supposed to do it, the way they're supposed to do it, every day. I love that. Right? I love that. And she was a professional. Yeah. She was an absolute professional.

I've trained professionals that never went on to play pro, but they did what they had to do when they had to do it, the way it was supposed to be done every day. So yeah. She was she was wonderful. I honestly an athlete like that is harder to find nowadays. Yeah. Harder to find. I love that tenacity. She continues that tenacity in her life today. It's there, it's just in her DNA. I'm sure. I'm curious, Cal, when you look back at that team, they had an awesome line back in the day.

What do you feel made that back-to-back national championship team so unique? It was just the will of the players, the leaders on that team. They led, and then the ones behind them believed in that leadership. So, like their leadership and their their willingness to compete. They competed. And it started with that first line. Obviously, Kelly was part of that leadership. The others were willing to be led.

And followed suit and they knew their role. Yeah. I think we're pairing that when you talk about knowing your role. I just finished watching the World Cup, you know, Spain came out and you look at like the athletes, and there wasn't a big name on the team, but they had a team, they all knew their role, and they just came out on top, which yeah, I I think that you name that pretty rare today. Yeah, there's no doubt. So Cal, you've coached Olympians, national champs, athletes in a variety of sports. Are elite athletes actually wired differently? Or do they simply approach improvement differently? It's yes and yes, and no and no, right? I'm fortunate that I do get to talk to some parents. What I like about this athlete and what makes them tick. Well, they had it when they were young, right? So when he when he rode his bike, he had to, he, he rode the bike harder. She played this sport intensely. Didn't even like that sport, but and played it hard, right? So then are they created over time? I think it's nature, but it's also nurture too, right? Because you have to want something and just that willingness to compete. And I've seen athletes that don't like to compete in the sports as much as they like to compete in other things. And it really just boils down to the person. So find your passion, right? If you have an elite person that moves really well, well they they've had

many thousands of repetition from when they were a kid because they had two older brothers and supportive parents that gave them every opportunity to to compete. Ultimately, you know, it's the right combination of opportunities, genetics, you know, things like that. Absolutely. And I think we've all seen the the athletes that have the talent, but maybe not the tenacity or the drive. And then you have the athletes that maybe don't have the talent, but they have the tenacity or drive. Who would you rather coach?

I need the effort. Without the drive, with all the talent, like in the end, I found that they they're not there in the end. Because when everybody is playing violently hard, those people don't show up. If you don't have the drive. Yeah. So I tell people I don't care who I train. People like, you train pro athletes, Olympians. I mean, yeah, but I need to I need a pro effort. For me, that's what I want. I want the pro effort and not the pro athlete.

I love that. One of the things we say is applaud the effort, not the result. And how how can we put the effort in? I think that carries through to life, whether you're in the weight room, the gym, the floor, the arena, whatever it is, like just give the effort. Yeah. That's why I created so much stuff out there. I ask questions and then I test principles. And when I test like exercises or concepts, I realize something might not be working as well as I thought.

In today's age, people don't like to test things. Like the NHL just dropped testing procedures when you walk into camp, you know. So in the NHL, you can't test your players anymore. So how do you know if they worked at all this summer or they got any better? I've had a number of people left, went trained somewhere else, moved to another city, came back eventually. And when we test them, because I have all their numbers that they spent seven, eight years with me, they're not even in the ballpark.

And if they were in the ballpark and they had something special, I would fly there and ask that person or pay them to tell me what they were doing, right? And I test my own methods and found out, well, this particular thing's not working that well. And over the years, basically I question everything I do, which creates problems that I didn't even know I had. And then I find solutions. So I'm not creative, but I'm a problem solver by nature. Question everything I do, test it.

Find out what's not working, figure out why it's not working, and make the solution. A couple things, a couple of jams out of there. What what resonates to me is you can't manage what you don't measure. So if you're not measuring what the how the athletes are doing, like how how can they improve? And I think that carries through to life. Yeah. And the other thing is curiosity. Like I'm listening to you. And I think what I appreciate, what you've shared already, and what I know of you to be is that your work,

It doesn't seem like you're as focused on the winning as much as you're fascinated on improving. And that curiosity, where did that begin for you? Well, you know what? I think in childhood, man, if I saw a woods that I had didn't know, I would go explore that woods for me and my buddies on our bikes or going down a river, like looking for this hole that we could swim in or something, right? Just finding something unique. Now it takes a million dollars worth of testing equipment that I have to do that exploring. My exploring is on the human body and the way it moves now. So if I was just still coaching only exercises and stuff, like I'd probably be a little bit bored. Obviously, I know I'd be bored, but what brings me to work every day is that hey, that what's the next thing I'm gonna find and figure out? That's what keeps me going, learning, talking to professionals. I can't see myself ever not trying to keep going down that route.

Yeah.

I feel like when when you're sharing that I have four kiddos and we were camping this weekend and our kids are out on the beach and they're just like building these forts out of driftwood and doing they're just curious, right? And I feel like in life, curiosity gets beat out of us. Like just do this, don't think about something else. And to actually stay curious is

quite an accomplishment. I mean, there's some tenacity in staying curious because I believe the system has you memorize something, learn something, memorize it, do it, and not ask the question, well, what if or why, or can it be done differently? And it seems like you've stayed curious. How have you trained yourself to stay in that childlike mindset, if you will? 

I guess it always drove me to to keep asking questions, right? Well, as a kid, it gets you in trouble too. Yeah, you're right. I I I'm not so sure that schools always are set up to facilitate that. I'll be honest with you, like in chemistry, I I struggled because it was about memorization, at least the way I was taught. Versus, you know, I go into a really hard biomechanics course, which involved tons of physics, and I never had to study and I I once they

taught me that and it made sense. I I I absolutely learned it and I was like a top three in that class where I I was barely good past chemistry. But physics made sense and it brought more questions, which maybe helped me learn it and memorize it like instantly. Back to the elite athletes. I'm curious, are there habits that almost every elite athlete shares? Consistency, right? They keep processing and they keep learning daily what seems to work best for them. Hey, this what's gets me the best results when I go to bed at night. I think once you have consistency, then you can make some changes and see if it's effective for you. You know, and like there's so many good tools nowadays compared to when Kelly was training in regards to like whether it's the Whoop band or the Oura ring. Like it was so unique to make them aware, hey, if I had three drinks at a party, my sleep became very poor.

So I could have two at a party and that would be my limit, right? Like just those little things. It's like cracking a safe to make sure that I can still get my good sleep. And, you know, just those types of things where feedback that I think have made a major change. And just in my friends alone that are high performers in the business world. Hey, my Oura ring, like I can't believe if I get this much sleep, how much more functional I am in the office. It's amazing. We I I wear a whoop.

Kelly and I wear a whoop. And it's just like you're absolutely right. That HRV, like following that recovery, is something that's been a game changer for us. And just alcohol. What how how soon before bed do we eat? Like these little variables that impact our sleep and just waking up restored or feeling like garbage. At least getting in a better spot. Like you can't always be perfect, right? There's just no way.

Especially with four kids. Like there's no way you could be perfect. You know what I mean? But like those feedback loops and taking a look at yourself and you know, it's it's not too hard. I mean, the feedback some of those things give you now is is pretty spot on. Yeah. Yeah, they're pretty remarkable. So, Cal, I have a question for you on elite performers. And this is a little bit personal as well. My daughter's going into her junior year. She loves running, track, cross country. Those are her her sports. Do you think elite performers think differently about discomfort or going to the pain cave or that that hurting. I I'm and I'm watching her on her journey of like, I'm nervous to like hurt a little bit. And each season she's willing to push herself a little bit more. And I think you're working with athletes, I've seen some of your videos. I know when they're working like they're in pain. They're they're in the not like joint pain, bad pain, but their their VO2 engines are just like redlining. 

I believe they've over time they've become conditioned because they've I assume like through their younger years they would push themselves, right? And become uncomfortable. So they're they're willing to to stay in that uncomfortable spot. Take a David Plummer. David, for those who doesn't know, David was a Olympic gold and silver medalist in swimming. 

He would go to race. You turn yourself inside and out, right? You would literally like it was it was profound, his forty-five, forty-second bursts. You're going, This human being, there's something like nobody wants to make themselves that way. Same with the 400 meter runners. We had two here, Mitch and Adam at Minnesota, probably around the time Kelly was here. And and they they had ran the world's fastest times to date at two weeks apart. But you know, when they would run that 400 date, like at the end, sometimes they would vomit. Right? Because there's just so much lactate running through their body. So that discomfort and they're willing to keep competing in that uncomfortable spot. Yeah. So and when you talk about elite performers, right? But you got elite performers in business who nothing phases them right. They're okay with performing under pressure. I I think too there's a belief in yourself at some point you have to

Get to like, hey, I can manage this and handle it, right? And then I'm okay with this uncomfortableness. Cause yeah, it's this is just what it is. That's a good segue. Many of our listeners are business owners and leaders. So the similarities, what what are they between coaching elite athletes and leading high-performing teams? Leadership. Like I try to deal with three or four of my team members mostly. And then I think those people have to have their groups, right? 

So. But in in the business world, it appears that there's a lot more dynamic. I mean, you have to look at like all types of things, like from logistics to sales to marketing. Like there's the business world is pretty dynamic. So then realistically, you have to lean on a lot of people to make it all work. It's pretty magical. It's pretty magical. 

Okay, Cal, one of the reasons I really wanted to have you on was your work has changed the way I think about movement. I've incorporated some of your infinity loop and work from triphasic training with our physical therapy clients, with our fitness clients. And for someone hearing that term for the very first time, triphasic training. What is triphasic training? And can you explain it like you're talking to my seventh grader? Triphasic, obviously, it's three phases. When I studied people the way they move.

Let's say when your foot goes and strikes the ground, when your foot lands, your body goes down and puts all the weight on there, right? And that's just one phase of movement. And like it's really called the eccentric. Or when you go to throw a football or a baseball, when you cock the arm back right into that position, that's an eccentric phase of movement. And that ended up being very, very important phase because if you can't stop your weight, or if you can't

stop your arm fairly fast and it's not under a controlled movement that's fast, then you can't gain all this free power that is available in your ligaments and tendons. Because when those things become stretched, they're like a rubber band shooting you forward. And that's what elite athletes have, is they have that eccentric component that they can stop things very fast, gain free energy to propel them forward. The second phase that happens once you land is a brief, strictly brief isometric phase. And then the movement going forward, whether you're running forward, pushing off your foot that landed, and then or throwing the ball forward, is the concentric. So eccentric, iso, concentric is the three phases. And basically, I broke those phases up to make sure that they're all very efficient and we focused on those phases of training.

And then when you put them all together, it was pretty profound the results that we got. Because I found when I broke those phases up, if somebody had a weak link, it just got rid of that weak phase. And then all their phases became strong and got better. And we got some crazy good results. And look, I didn't even have a name for it when I was training Kelly through that whole thing. Yeah. I just would do eccentric, iso, and concentric phases. And then you're going, Well, it's it's a

Triphasic phase, because actually I I read later in the Supertraining, Mel Siff, right? A book where he identified each human dynamic human movement from running, jumping, all has three phases in it. And I was like, well, that's what I'm doing. That's what gets us results. So I call it triphasic. 

And so for our listeners, those words, if you if you're not familiar, ecentric, isometric, concentric. Can you explain those for us, Cal?

Yeah, the eccentric is the is just the part of a movement. Let's say you're standing and you have dumbbells in your hand and you're going down in the squat nice and slow and controlled, right? That's an eccentric movement where you're under load and you're going slow and controlled down. If you're gonna do a jump, you're gonna go down to load yourself in the eccentric fashion. And then at a brief moment, at that mid when you reverse the action, there's a brief moment in there where your your muscles that have are stopped. Now, other muscles in the area may be moving, or part of that muscle stopped, and the other part of the muscles contracting, but there's a brief isometric component. And then the concentric is when you reverse and go up, right? So those are the three parts. It's just how it's a basic movement. And I broke it down. We focus on each part for two or three weeks. And the reason I think triphasic was so popular was because.

People didn't have to change their current weight lift. If you're doing a bicep curl, right, and you're gonna do it eccentrically focused, all you're gonna do is put on weight and then go down super slow, like a six count, maybe, right, on a bicep curl. And then do and then lift it up normally and then do do it again, maybe two or three reps, which you're under under that bar for 20 seconds, maybe. And then to isometrically, you're gonna load, load the weight up and you're just gonna hold it in a position.

Like a bench press, you'd hold it at the bottom by your chest off your chest. And you could hold it for five to seven, 10 seconds, whatever you wanted to do, and do two or three reps of that, which is pretty, pretty intense because it's 30 seconds under load, right? But you didn't have to change a completely new exercise to do the triphasic system. People people that just did machine based training just said, Hey, I changed this up for my client and we got some crazy good results, joint pain and things. And I'm like, yep.

Like it it works. It's fairly simple. There's there's not like I I only say you can only do this exercise. No, it's it's a principle that if you just use it, and I would say honestly, two, three times a year is a is for for a good rule of thumb. I'd say, you know, if you're over 35, 40, maybe twice a year is all you really need it, especially if you've done it already. You know what I'm saying? Let's let's be honest. And that's four to six weeks to change up your training a little bit, to have healthier joints, to increase certain functions in your vascular system and cardio system too, to be honest with you, but that's it in a nutshell. 

Okay. I love that. And someone who's at the gym quite a bit, always looking to tweak my programs, to tweak my routine for myself personally. Cal, our podcast spends a lot of time talking about health span, not simply living longer, but living better longer.

If you were designing a training program for longevity instead of Olympic medals, what would that include? 

I would do a lot of cross crawl is one. I do the goat drill, right? Which the infinity walks that we talked about, people can look those up. One of the big things that I teach is I call it the toe glute reflex. And everyone talks about the glutes. That's great.

But then let's say you did five, 700 reps total while you're in the gym perfectly with your glutes actually working and you're focusing on firing first. That's great. But if you walk out of that gym and walk 5,000 steps that day without using your big toe, then your glutes are not optimally used when you walk. So you kind of erased what what I'm talking about, right? If people are maybe listening, but I'm gonna pull the insole out of my shoe and

As you can see, where my big toe touches my insole is completely worn out because my big toe, I've found over the years, especially in the elite people, is directly tied to glute function. So when somebody walks, your foot strikes the ground, that big toe should smash into the ground, maybe shorten a little bit, and then it activates the glute to drive you forward. And when that glute fires correctly, the spine works optimally. I could go on and on and lecture about how many things fall into place at that point. 

So for our listeners out there, use the big toe. When you're walking, feel that big toe before you pick your foot up. Like, let's get that big toe on the ground. That's gonna help activate your glute. It's gonna help you move better and maybe prevent some of that back pain. Cal, what have you seen about backwards walking? I feel like as a as a physical therapist, we'll do backwards walking to load that big toe, you don't have a choice. It just like hits the ground first and kind of reverses it. What are your thoughts on that? 

Yeah, there's two things. Obviously in the foot, it does it it's wonderful. And we and now you actually add that in. The other thing to my understanding, there's been some research come out that it it kind of activates some aspects of the brain that kind of go dormant, right? So

You know, you gotta be looking up, you gotta be walking backwards and taking in your environment. And and it doesn't take much to activate it to my understanding. Yeah. Yeah. Walking backwards is definitely a dynamic tool, should say. I would also do like do a lunge on one leg and then when you come up, maybe do a shoulder press on the opposite side. And so like a lot of contralateral, which would be left leg doing a step up with your left leg and maybe a shoulder press with your right arm, right? And then do the opposite side, right? Where

I'm doing things where it's contralateral because it involves the hips balancing themselves and the spine and the interaction and coordination. And then one of the things I found for rehabbing my athletes or return to play is that they don't have great capacity when they're coming back. And I call it fiber-specific density training. What you do is you go into an isometric hole for like 40 seconds. And I, and what I did is I tested a bunch of

Things and 40 seconds was the limit before the muscle became pretty acidic. You can work on the like the quad, single-leg quad, where you're holding a single-leg quad contraction without whatever exercise you want for 40 seconds. With the muscle being contracted, it stops the blood flow. So it's kind of a natural inclusion training concept. But when that blood flow stops, the only thing that's contracting during that 40 seconds is the fast switch fibers because the slow twitch fibers don't work without oxygen. And then what you do is I also want to train the slow twitch fibers. So then I take that muscle. After I do that, rest 20 seconds is all it took. The blood came back in, and then we do the same, maybe a different movement with really light load under contraction for one minute, super slow. And I get about 15 to 20 reps.

Okay, just going super slow. And what that did, it burned a little bit at the end, but it trained the slow twitch fibers for one minute straight. And now what that did was it trained the fast twitch fibers and the slow twitch fibers. And guess what happened in my elite athletes? The work capacity goes through the roof in a muscle that wasn't working very well, which then tells me, and both of us probably, that there's an increase in mitochondria function.

Because you've isolated those two concepts. And I have found so many of my like especially my former athletes who, hey, I had surgery, I'm I'm done playing. What do you I recommend this? And they just get some pretty beneficial results, especially just daily life, because it improves the work capacity of muscle. Now they feel like if if they do those 40 seconds of the isometric in stretched movements, like chest at the bottom of the bench or the like the bench press.

And they're stretching the muscle under load, it it actually gets some great mobility results. So you're actually getting mobility and strength training in the same movement for that first 40 seconds when you're doing a heavier load. Just give it a try. And it's kind of boring, I'm not gonna lie. But do it for two weeks at a time, four or five times a year. Love it. So as our bodies continue to age, what declines first do you see?

It would be work capacity, your capacity to keep doing the work. And then when you become fatigued, if you haven't done something in a while, and then you come back and you're exercising, well, this is what I did like three weeks ago. Well, you're a little fatigued now, more fatigued, then the coordination the elite athlete has all the time, you don't have that. So then maybe your quad is tired and you're not contracting it in the right sequence, and then

You know, the kneecap tracking's not good. And then they have to come see you after they've been trained in the room with that, you know, without the the honestly, it's the it's the the capacity of the muscle, capacity of the lungs, and even the capacity of the nervous system to stay coordinated. Yeah. Yeah. And it doesn't take long. No, I I feel like if I miss three days of not working out and I go back to the gym at my age, I can feel a decline. Absolutely. One habit of mine now is yesterday I was busy, couldn't work out, but I got up and the second a phone rings, I walk outside, it was a wonderful day, and I I walk outside and talk on the phone. 

And then, you know, I got 17,000 steps in doing that yesterday because as soon as it ended, I'm walking around my arena, right? And you know, I'm talking to coaches, I'm talking to my athletes to call whatever. And then I go back in. As soon as I'm done, I walk back in and I get on my computer, or we had workouts all morning. I was doing that, but ultimately

If I can just get into habit, hey, I my phone goes off. I'm just gonna start pacing back and forth in the I'll do it in the building too. If I stay active to some level versus being sedentary, then I find what you're saying when I come back isn't as bad. It's not it's still not the same as getting the workouts. I and I love the concept of you walking around the dining room table talking, talking to your daughter. And I wanna say there was a study done where it looked at house cleaners.

Where they were told that, hey, you're walking 18,000 steps a day just by cleaning the houses that you're cleaning, because they were saying, I don't have time to exercise. And so in this study, it showed when they reframed their brain and started looking at their job as movement, physiologically, things started to change. And so

I I I'm curious if you've heard that study. I have not, but you know what? That makes complete sense. Well, well, just think about it though. Like to me, that would say, I'm actually moving and kind of working out, which is a positive thought. So I'm I'm being double productive here. Yes. Right? Yes. We all know the power of positive thought. And you're like, hey, I'm not able to exercise, but today that I'm working, I'm getting 18, 20,000 steps in. That's that's good enough.

Yeah, you're right. It's good enough. Yes. Right? Yes. Yes. You know what? That I I would have to believe that they're spot on with that study. Yes. 

So, Cal, you've coached hundreds, thousands of athletes in your career. When you zoom out, I'm curious, what have these athletes taught you? You know what? One of the most gratifying things in my coaching career that I would at the beginning I never thought would be was coaching my female athletes, right?

They they will give me perspective. I've had conversations with them that have made me aware of things. They bring a different perspective than just, you know, the male wrestler, football player that I grew up playing sports with. It's been very gratifying. They taught me a lot about managing them. You know, when I say, hey, what, you know, and if you're willing to listen, say, hey, what could I have done better to like

You know, hey coach, you you did a good job. Maybe in this situation, right, like you would have just mentioned this, that would be bad. You know, just small things, right? That now I think sometimes I have to say less to be effective. Kids nowadays, like we rip on them at times for for not having some awareness, but some of the social awareness that they have is is pretty profound.

For example, my my teams right now, if we do have kids that are walk-ons and that don't get to play much. And if I acknowledge them, the walk-on who's always working hard, they like lose it for excitement. Even though that kid's never probably gonna play or not play much, they are aware that that person who and what they do for this team, that they work hard always. They show up every day without.

A chance most likely they're not going to play. And if they do, it's not going to much. So, so me to acknowledge that person more than what I used to has been one thing that it also builds the team morale. Right. We all want to be seen. Yeah, but even my leaders want that person to be seen even more than themselves, right? And it's almost a servant leadership. You know what I'm saying? So my superstars, they, they, they're seeing their

Hundred thousand social media followers, right? If you're on the Olympic team, it's it's eight hundred thousand for your best player, right? They're seen, but they want the other people that might not be seen to be recognized. And they've taught me that as a coach, I need to make sure that those people are recognized too. that's beautiful. And I don't know how you would do that in a business setting. I'm I I mean, hey, the little things, right? Yeah that people do, those things are recognized. Like, hey, we appreciate you. Hey.

You had to stay late. You you answered the call for us. This team is greatly appreciated. Yep. Absolutely. And and I see that in my I mean, we have eighty-five team members and our newest newest team members are are aides, you know, the college students coming in, getting volunteer work or just doing the jobs to to get to the next level. They can be looked past, but when you invest in them, like they've come back to be some of our best team members. Like the the youngest team members are now running general managers of some of our locations. So

And with that, I I think like people are struggling today and they don't even know it that they they're they need a cause. Right. And if they believe in something that's a cause and a purpose, like, hey, we want you to manage a a new location. Well, I'm gonna help people. We're gonna make people better. And they they can embrace that cause, you get so much more out of them. Yeah.

It fills you both up because it's rewarding when you see that team member work through the ranks and now here they are, your your right hand person 15 years later. Absolutely, right? Like it's definitely rewarding. 

Okay, Cal, I got a lightning round here. I just want to blitz you with some quick questions, one word, short answers, whatever comes to your mind. Sure. What what is your favorite exercise? For me personally, a deadlift. Okay. I love a deadlift.

Single leg deadlift or double leg deadlift? I do like to double. Single's much healthier for you, but I do like to double for myself. Yeah. What is the most underrated exercise out there? I don't know. I still like any form of squatting, right? Yeah. Okay. Squatting. What's the most overrated exercise? You know what? I think that some of the core training exercises, I think, like if you're squatting and doing a lot of the big stuff, then

I think you're you're getting your core trained, right? So I think it's people overdo it a little bit. One recovery habit everyone should prioritize. I tested many and the most effective was a 20-minute walk. Any time of day? Well, if you want to get specific, the last hour of sun in the evening, which it facilitates sleep. It starts a cascade of things to happen in your brain, but that 20 minute walk was the best single recovery. I tested all recovery methods with various machines. 20 minute walk. And you can do it two or three times a day. What's the book you've recommended the most? Supertraining. Supertraining? Yeah. By Mel Siff. It's a tough read for physiology professionals. For a non physiology professional. What was the the one with the all blacks legacy? I do like that one. Yeah. Yeah.

What is one health metric everyone should track? The steps, whatever it may be, right? Honestly. And you could do those with a weight vest, right? That's that's really effective. Yeah. What is the best piece of coaching advice Cal has ever received? I think it was you you're not you fully don't understand what this person's endured their life until they came to you.

So you don't know why they're reacting the way they are. And I have to understand that. Be aware that that's always a possibility. That's huge. That's huge. Coffee. Do you drink coffee before training? That would be my pre-workout. That's my favorite. Okay. I do it. I drink decaf in the evening because I just like coffee. Yeah. I'm right there with you. What is Cal working on to improve right now? I'm kind of working on profiling athletes and working on their

How they respond to stress through neurotransmitter profiling. And then I could put them in a program that's very specific to how they're going to respond. Who's had the greatest influence on the person you've become? Coaches when I was young, a few mentors that taught me to just keep asking questions. my that track coach I mentioned, Phil Landine and Mel Siff, the author of Supertraining. And then in the last 20 years, it's been the athletes that I learned from the young kids that have less life experience than me, right? Because you can learn from anybody and those those people have taught me the most. Because I have great conversations with them. Yeah. Yeah. Keep that beginner's mind going. We are on the Redefine What's Possible podcast. What does redefining what's possible mean to you? You don't know what the possibilities are if we don't keep looking. How do we know what's even possible if we don't keep trying to get better? And then at some point, right, I maybe

If I retire, I don't know if I'll ever retire, but like slow down and and do this less, I realize then I need to get people to a point where they could keep doing the questions that I'm asking right. And then they can keep moving on and help them move on and and keep that process going. Absolutely. And Cal, what do you hope people will remember about you after they've forgotten the sets, the reps, the championships, the Olympic medals? 

I just hope they realized that I was here to help them. And that they passed that on. My football coach, I won two national titles with him, and he just passed last month. And going there to his funeral, like realizing how many people have gone on to have businesses, employ people, coach. I mean, thousands of athletes he coached over 30 years. Many have gone on to coach at the NFL, at all levels, right? And he

His tree of impact, which is in my all these, all these athletes I've trained came from him too, and my coaches in college, right? So I was very fortunate. And I just hope that people recognize that the people at least close to me that have gone on to help people realize that that's this whole thing is part of a a process of human beings just keep giving. Even the ones they don't, they don't know my football coach, but he made an impact on them. If I made an impact, right?

I love that word impact. It's invisible, but it's so powerful. So, Cal, you've spent years, you know, helping Olympians improve by fractions of a second or fractions of a percent. Right. For someone listening today who isn't trying to win the gold medal but simply wants to champion their own life, more energy, healthier body, more meaningful years. What's the one piece of advice you'd leave them with? Get your movement in, look to eat healthy as possible. Don't always have to, but enjoy that life. But then you go back to the other part that the thought process of positive thought in the the workers that they realized how much they were moving then sought that as exercise of the people that were, you know, cleaning the houses. That made a positive physiology impact. So realize that any little thing you're doing can be a positive effect on you. I think it's all outlook. A coach told me, hey, you're either getting

Crapped or you're getting fertilized. It's just how you look at it, right? Quote of the day. You're either getting crapped on or you're getting fertilized. Right? Like it's just your perspective on what's going on. So yeah. that's beautiful. I'll take that piece of advice with me. Well, Cal, this has been a gift. I appreciate you so much for taking the time to be here. You've reminded us that principles that create elite athletes aren't just reserved for

elite athletes. And for our listeners, whether you're leading a business, recovering from an injury, raising kids, or simply trying to age with strength and purpose, improvement is available to all of us. And thank you for spending time with us and for the countless lives you've impacted through your coaching. Appreciate that, Cal. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah.

And to everyone listening, remember you don't have to be training for the Olympics to train like someone who believes their best years are still ahead. Until next time, keep redefining what's possible.