The State of Strength and Conditioning with Tom Barry | Episode 14

In this episode of UNRACKED, we sit down with Tom Barry, CEO of Westside Barbell.

We dig into the art and science of coaching, the various paths to success in our field, and how to craft your own unique style. In addition, Tom discusses lineage, his favorite coaches since Louie's passing, and what the future looks like for new coaches.

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UNRACKED is a live conversation series from BridgeAthletic where top coaches break down the training systems, methods, and philosophies that drive performance at the highest level. Hosted by Bridge coach Cooper Napoli, the show pulls back the curtain on how elite coaches think, adapt, and solve problems in the trenches.

🎧 Watch this episode to learn from one of the best in the game—and elevate your own coaching game.

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Join us live for each episode. Follow @BridgeAthletic on Instagram to catch monthly announcements and be part of the conversation as it happens.

Watch the full video on our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWugDFLfxg9yEcS3hPXIMlupx9gmIFFDN

What is BridgeAthletic? BridgeAthletic is the leading training software for coaching professionals. Design programs, track progress, and deliver world-class training at scale. Start your free trial today. 

Use code "COOPER" at checkout to get your second month of Bridge at 50% off. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Hey, what's up, folks? Uh as always, as we start these episodes, we'll take a minute or two to kind of hear where everybody's from in the chat. Um, so just let us know where you're where you're coming in from today. I know coaches are coming uh from sessions, so you know, like to give them a few buffer to kind of get settled and and hop on the stream. But yeah, let us know where you're from in the chat. We'll get going soon. Jason, what's up, dog?

SPEAKER_04 0:27

How you doing, man? Hope you're well, brother.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Yeah, welcome.

SPEAKER_04 1:00

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10

Sweet. I love it, folks. We'll keep keep keep a messaging in um as we go, but I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of read the little preamble here and we'll we'll get going. Unwrapped is a live conversation series from Bridge Athletic. Bridge provides coaching tools to world-renowned organizations like the Atlanta Falcons, Naval Special Warfare, University of Arizona, and Wesai Barbara. They provide those very same tools for coaches like we knew to use in our communities to deepen the training program. Unwrapped is a free educational series Bridge puts on to break down the training systems, methods, and philosophies that drive performance at the highest level. Each episode takes on inside a specific approach. How it's built, how it's applied, and how it evolves under real-world control. The views expressed by our guests are their own and don't necessarily reflect the positions of Bridge Athletic or a partner. Uh coming from the one and only Westside barbell, Tom Barry and the broader Westside team have a unique perspective on the totality of the strength in production field. Tom has worked with professional athletes across multiple disciplines with a deep and current focus on the martial arts, tactical, functional fitness, and the cross worlds. Tom has seen trends come and go, tech that helps and hurts progress, and equipment that helps athletes build into world record territory. The field has more degrees, more data, and more equipment than ever, but has any of it actually made coaches better? That's what we want to answer today. So, Tom, welcome to the show, man.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Pleasure to be here. Thank you so much. And thanks, Reverend, for tuning in. And may I say that was a very corporate introduction. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

I know. Yeah. Well, we're we'll we'll go off with Cubs a little bit more from here. I gotta do my my my bridge blessing on the show. Um, but you know, I I I want to start off, man, with like triangulating our attendees. Um, you know, because I think it's important to set the stage before we dive into this topic. Um personally, I'm at my first decade uh as a coach this year, uh, and I've seen like a ton of cycles and changes come and go over the years. I think the, you know, uh history of our profession is like a really awesome place to start today. And obviously you've got like two decades of experience here. So uh I want to kind of uh go over like a broad overview of what SNC was like when Louie first started coaching, as well as when you first started coaching and how those things have kind of evolved into today.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Okay. Um if we start off with with Lou and when he first got into it. I think anyone who's been following Westside knows anything about Lou. Lou did not start off as a strength and conditioning coach, he did not sign up for a job, he basically backed into it through mastery, um, through the practical setting. Um yeah, and the the industry as a whole, when Louis started, which is what the 70s, um, was really only just starting. If you look at Al Roy, I think he's credited as the first professional strength conditioning coach, you had Boyd Epley come through here and think before that. You had uh Bob Hoffman, Joe Weeder, who were really just promoting um strength training in general. Um, so there's kind of two sides to the coin. You had Louis coming up more in the the private sector, if you want to call it that, and then you had someone like Terry Todd who kind of jumped in between both. Um, so everything was new, and Louis didn't start off as a strength coach. He was a self-trained athlete. And the more his training partners and then developed, he was just an absolute hound for information of how can we make this better, because they left a lot of their best lifts in the gym and then didn't produce it into uh powerlifting meets and just deep research through trial and error, and sadly through injury, um, kind of made Louis what he was and why we all came to follow Westside. And he knew how to make people unbelievably strong. And coaches, as they grew through the industry, reach out to him to go, Well, how are you doing this? And that's how people like Johnny Parker back in the day would talk to Lou and so on and so forth. Um, so Louis wasn't your the typical strength conditioning coach that is now, and uh, I really think Louie was the strength coach of strength coach. He hated been called a coach too. Um, but everything was through mastery, of which I think is somewhat getting lost today. And this whole thing from my perspective is not the crap of strength conditioning. I think we're in a phenomenal area, our uh industry and age of we can get access to information, but I do think context is getting lost and context of lineage. If you're looking at the history of like how many people know about Alver Meal, how many people know about like Alvin Roy, uh Terry Todd, uh Bill Starr, all these people who started bringing stuff into the industry. Um, but yeah, back to back to Lou, I think he has said he he backed into coaching through mastery about trying to make his athletes as strong as possible and trying to figure out ways to train them. And then as time went past, he had other people coming through, whether it was football, basketball. I mean, we had people from Cirque de Soleil, cricket, BMX, everything came through here just wondering, hey, how do you develop strength?

SPEAKER_03 6:20

Yeah, that's cool. And I I feel like that's uh one thing that Louis did better than anyone was kind of get information out to the people, so to speak. Uh and I think you know, that is a big reason why I kind of believe in running the show the way we do and keeping it free. Um, how do you feel like that component has kind of kind of evolved since Louis? Where do you think that's out right now? And how do you sort of see that element?

SPEAKER_00 6:46

In terms of giving out content?

SPEAKER_03 6:48

Yeah, yeah, like sharing content, you know, kind of making it available for people. I'm curious like what you see in the industry right now and how you approach that.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Well, like thankfully, we get a lot of coaches come visit through here and through our pathway. We talk, we've got about 300 coaches, so we kind of have our earth-gram pretty well. When I first started, you would consume as much free information because you couldn't believe it was free. And and we still put out a bunch of articles and blogs for people to read, but I think the value of free has changed that I think a lot of people uh going through cannot believe like if we're giving for free, it mustn't be that good. Of which that wasn't the case like 15, 10 years ago. Um, we still do. I think there's a lot of value, and then obviously it helps with traffic too. Don't get me wrong, there's two sides to it. Um, but I do believe like there is an aspect of us trying to give back and to give out information, especially if people can't afford to come here or can't afford to go through courses, that at least through podcasts and through writ aspects, there's enough knowledge to go out there to help people in their strength training journeys. So I think it is hugely important, but I do think you can see it through the lens of that it is not as valuable as it once was because free, I think, equals not premium.

SPEAKER_03 8:07

Yeah. Yeah, no, I I would agree with you on that point. I think, like you said, the double-edged sword there. Now, I guess somewhat of like a follow-up to that is like, you know, back in the day when Louis was coaching, it sounded like based on what you were saying, you know, a lot of free content. He was just working on mastering the craft, kind of like, you know, almost had blinders on a little bit to it. But like, what about yourself when you started in the industry? Like, what was the general, you know, themes around just the the sentiment around the industry overall at the time?

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Mine is a little bit different. Like I came from Ireland and strength conditioning was really just starting. So when I came through academics, I went in through exercise and health. Um, other people went in through exercise physiology. Um, but a professional strength coach in Ireland was not a hugely popular position. And but what attracted it, attracted me to it, and I think is a part that's potentially getting lost today, is that it's for the team. Like you want to work uh for your athletes, like you want to help your athletes reach their dreams, not your dreams. And like that comes from Al Vermeal, all like through watching what Louis did. Um so when I graduated from college, uh, I think you have that first year when you come out and you know everything. I'm like, I got this, I know absolutely everything. And then you get some practical experience. You're like, oh, I have I have not been taught how to handle a group of 30 or 50, or when you have multiple people who need multiple different aspects of training, you're like, oh, I I lack the practical experience. Even from the internship aspect, I wasn't as thorough as um practical experience. And then when I came to Westside, I just remember my uh first day benching. I was doing the ACSM down for four, up for two. And then Louis was like, What the what are you doing? Like, I'm benching. He's like, That's not benching. I'm like, that's news to me. It's in the book, the book says it is, and then for the next seven years, I was just like, Oh, I was just trying to drink it all in because the practical experience far outweighed what the theory uh has taught. And it's something wrong, the theory is important, but I truly believe that our profession is closer to um being an electrician or an apprentice-based aspect than it is a truly academic-based aspect. And the merging of the two is huge. So that practical um education I got from Lou, and then watching how he coached athletes, uh, how he coaches powerlifters and how he talked to coaches, and you had this slew of different people coming in. I was pretty privileged to go through that. But as we have more and more young coaches come through, and people going through their first year of college, and they're all setting up websites, been trainers, and you're like, you don't have any of the practical experience. And um, I think that is getting lost. And then your orientation of being a strength coach is always for the betterment of the athlete, and you want to help them live their dreams rather than you want to become the most Instagram famous strength coach there is, as just a like a just a natural phenomenon of the time. Um, but I do think that a lot of context is getting uh missed, and a lot of that's on us, like our generational strength conditioning coaches of we have to be a lot better mentors to try guide uh the next generation through. And we have to stop trying to throw each other under the bus every two seconds we get of like, hey, that doesn't work when objectively, like everyone fights about systems and training, and well, you gotta do this, or hey, I'm a speed-only coach. And it's like it's if it's all for the betterment of the athletes and you have objective data to to pass on what your training is doing, like good for you. But um, we're a very strange industry of egoism, um, not a lot of unity.

SPEAKER_03 11:54

You know, it's it's it's funny you you mentioned the lack of unity because I I started my career at an Equinox uh location in Chicago before I interned with you guys. And I remember like I got there and it was like, look, you got like three clicks. This is how everybody trains at this club, and you're gonna be in one of three camps. And, you know, I just remember being like, but all these camps like kind of suck a little bit, you know what I mean? Like in their own right, they're great at you know, like X, Y, and Z. But you know, it kind of was the thing that I felt like almost socially made me look into you guys at the time, like as a source of education, figuring out a system that was like, like, why can't we just use the best parts of these things and you know discard the shit that doesn't work? And you know, I think that's kind of true for what the conjugate method is, really at its core, and what Louie, you know, really pioneered with it was you know being able to apply it to so many different problems and be able to solve that problem accordingly. Um you know, to your point, like on the practical outweighing theory, like I I know the difference between you as a coach from client one to client one hundred or athlete one to athlete one hundred, like there there's no doubt that there's a significant change that occurs. I mean, even you talked about, you know, with with like some of the jiu-jitsu programs you guys do, like once you're like some of these guys are looking at like plant four, you know, like that's like a completely different ballgame in terms of programming than like programming what you have available like at the club and such. So I guess like my follow-up to all that is we're kind of at this place where it doesn't seem like there's a lot of really easy routes or from a practical perspective to get to that point. Now, your path, right? Um, and tell me if I'm wrong at any stage of this, but it was like internship, then you were kind of full-time coaching at Westside, and now you're obviously like the CEO, right? The standard path of kind of being able to work with athletes, you know, of the caliber that you guys work with is like for degree or internship for free. When you compete with like a thousand coaches applying for the same, like typically poor paying job, like for so I I guess like my follow-up to that is like there's there's two things here, right? Like, does your path even exist today? And like the second element of this is and let me organize my thoughts a little bit, like uh Do you believe that formalizing the entry point actually like helps produce better coaches? Uh or does it just make it like more expensive to get into the field?

SPEAKER_00 14:39

There's a lot to unpack. Let me go through with um I would say my pathway is very unique, but the principles are universal, in that uh how did I end up at West Side Barbell? Well, I reached out to every strength coach or anyone who I uh I was very interested in and seeing what they were doing, I would try schedule a call with them, send them emails, and just try to see what information they would give out. And thankfully, a lot of the generation of the the 90s, early 90s to 2000s, strength coaches, like they're very generous with their time. Um, very few would charge you for it. And if they did, I would gladly pay. But um then I sent a Hail Mary email over to Louie, and that's how I ended up here. Um the the internship aspect, I think, is um hugely important. And it's like there's internships, but I think the better word is apprenticeship, because if you look at some of the best ones um out there, I look at the like the D1 powerhouses of like anyone who goes through that internship, it's really an apprenticeship. And look at the lineage of coaches that go through some of these head coaches now. Um, but like you said, it's hard to get in because there's only a certain amount of offerings. And if you look at the amount of D1, D2 spaces and the spectrum of payment, it's all over the shop. And um I think everyone is looking at like the top guys who are making the the a lot of money, but well, that becomes a lot of responsibility. And I'm not sure if you understand how much time and sacrifice it takes to get to that level. Um, but back to the universal principles, I wasn't afraid to ask questions, reach out to coaches, and then work hard. Um, the best piece of advice I ever got was to train people for free at the start to gain experience, and then you never know where it's gonna get you. And then whether an internship was paid or unpaid, if you got an opportunity to get your foot in the door somewhere, you did it. And that's how I got into Westside. It's supposed to be for two weeks and into two months. And I've been here since 2011. You just don't know. But that element of luck comes when you work hard and put your head down, and then you know where you want to get to. Um, and I think it's kind of just the industry has just changed a little bit in that there's so many avenues now to become famous, and revenue is hugely important. Like you want to have uh make a good life for yourself. I get that. Um, but the strength and conditioning aspect, it's has always been around teams. I haven't met a strength coach that came through here that doesn't talk about their athletes 24-7, what can they do for them? Um, they're all about the team. They got different personalities, different perspectives, but it's always their athletes first, and then whatever happens to them is second. And usually if you do your job well, you get to live out your dreams because your athletes are reaching theirs.

SPEAKER_03 17:28

Okay, interesting. So this concept of like, you know, hey, what what can I do about my team? I want to dig a little deeper on that. Um because I I do feel like a lot of coaches kind of enter this like martyrdom mindset where they're always willing to do stuff for free. They're always kind of, you know taking taking it on the chin, so to speak, for the betterment of their athletes. Like what how do you kind of formulate like the healthy boundaries around that stuff and making sure that like you are getting paid well, you are, you know, I guess getting the respect and the the dues that you're owed, you know, when you are a quality coach?

SPEAKER_00 18:08

I guess it's knowing where you want to get to and to keep applying to the I guess the mentorship you want to get into. Um it's easier said than done because there's an overabundance of people getting into strength conditioning. Now, whether they want to be strength coaches or not, um most people come in through academics, through um exercise physics kinesiology, etc. Uh, so some go into sports science, um, some get into strength conditioning. Um, but it's there's only a few opportunities in it to really make legitimate money. Um but I think it's just willing to just work hard and try to go. And that's only in America, like worldwide, like there is opportunity. Um again, I traveled from Ireland to come here. Did not expect to stay here, but I was willing to pack up everything and come here uh for two weeks, which turned out to be a lot more than that. But it's just taking those opportunities and um it's not easy, I'll give you around because there's a lot of challenges for it. But I will say you can see the difference of people who really want to be a strength coach and are willing to work, willing to come. We have people who come here for two weeks, not looking for money, just looking for experience and to learn from us because we can give at least a perspective into it. And nearly all of them are ultra successful because they've either went to the private sector or found the mentorship and guidance that they needed.

SPEAKER_03 19:30

Yeah, and uh, you know, I know you guys have had people come all the way from like Korea, right? And and stay with you guys for a while or you know, Chile, right? So I I guess talk about like talk a little bit more about those, I don't know, I guess, personality factors that do make the strength coach that wants to be in the industry.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

I think they're they're trying to simplify what they're doing, they're trying to look at stuff from a first principle's perspective. They're not getting lost in the sauce of um I guess like changing their workouts every month based on what's coming out. Um, a question that we ask a lot of people is well, who is your lineage? And a lot of this game, like uh there's a strength coach I talked to a lot from overseas Marshall, and he's like a lot into lineage, but we're like, well, who's your influence, who's your lineage, and then tell us what is your system, like how do you train? And the worst answers we get is like, well, I mix in this coach, this coach, this coach, and like I understand who they are, what they do, but I want to know what is your philosophy and strength and conditioning. Because if you don't have your own system of principles, you can't refine it. So you're gonna be prone to new information or new workout comes out in two or three months, and then you completely change your system around it rather than having anything based on your own uh set of values and principles. Um, so that's a common denominator of these. They're trying to enrich their own self-education and refine their own system of training by taking bits of what we're doing. Like conjugate system is a way uh to train, it's not the only way. I think Louis earned the right to be absolute in what he said because he lived that lifestyle and got the results he did. My job is to pass on like, here's how we train, here's how we interpret. Go take aspects of this and put into your system. I'm not asking you to completely change how you train athletes by verbatim copying us because you can't. Our facilities are different, the way we work with athletes is different. And I've been pretty lucky I get to go watch some teams train. And if you watch a D1 football team train, you realize like there is a lot more going on than just strength conditioning. Um, there's a lot of aspects of two with recruitment and that that the long term development of an athlete primarily is going to happen in high school now than it does in college. Um, so understanding these aspects is a huge part, but like uh I'll give you one one thing that we're seeing now is uh the private sector coaches with the NIL and stuff coming in, you have Young athletes who have their own private strength coaches and yet they train at a D1 level. Well, the disconnect between the private coach and the coaches that are working with the team is huge. So you get some time to go home for rest and recovery, but now your private coach is training you, putting a social media look who I'm training. And instead of recovering, you've just done multiple sessions. Now you're going back instead of rested. And that's what I encourage people is to reach out and talk, especially in the private sector. Because I don't think you realize how much work they are doing from a skill acquisition aspect, from sports training aspect, and the strength conditioning aspect there, because they're adapting to context of who's in front of them. So you might have a player for one year before he goes, you might have for two years. And are they going to do a traditional strength training session? No, they're trying to get the best football players in the field. Like you're not trying to take an athlete and turn into a football player, you're taking a football player and making them more athletic. There's a big difference in that.

SPEAKER_03 22:59

Yeah, because I I think one thing a lot of coaches, and this is true across all levels, is they they get a little bit of main character syndrome, especially when working with the team. Um, and they try to make like almost strength and conditioning the sport, so to speak, as opposed to the thing that helps them get better at the sport. Um so I I I I definitely reckon what you're uh what you're throwing there. And and I guess one one follow-up question I have to tell that, because I think there's there's so much to unpack, but uh the the thing that really stuck out to me was someone building confidence in their own system to be able to kind of resist like essentially the noise um in in the industry. So how might a coach become confident enough in their own system?

SPEAKER_00 23:49

It's experience. Like it's the the amount of stuff I did incorrectly at the start was like a lot, and then over time and Louis would give me enough room to either dig a hole um or find my way out of it. Um but it's an experience doesn't come fast. That's the thing. I think everyone wants to have the best, uh, be the best training conditioning coach in the first two or three years. And like it just doesn't work like that. Now you can learn from the the greats before us for sure, but finding your own voice, finding who you are, if you're introverted or extroverted, like you might be a master motivator, um, you might be really good at programming, you might it's it's finding out who you are and then trying to be true to that. And that takes a minute, and then it's constantly refining uh what you're doing, and then reflection, self-reflection, all those things are are huge. And understanding educating your athletes is equally important. Like um words matter, and I think uh a lot of nomenclature is getting jumbled up. Um, I go back to like you have velocity-based coaches and you have people saying like intent, and like what all what do all these mean? Like they're if you're not if you're not using them correctly, they're gonna get watered down and be used in the wrong context. And I think that's a lot of uh what you learn throughout the years of you're trying to educate your athletes from the warm-up aspect to the actual workouts. It's like, did you explain warm-ups to your athletes? And it's a lot of people are just going through the motions of like, I'm just throwing in a warm-up or I'm just following a piece of paper and you're not adapting to the context right in front of you. You're not giving the athletes enough education. You should empower the athletes. If you see how we run a group here and anyone's more than welcome to come see it, the athletes pretty much run the show. We are there just helping, facilitating. And um, if and if we see anything, we'll point it out maybe at the end of the session. But our goal was to make the athletes, and this is from Lou, the best strength coaches for themselves. And that's through education and through guidance. Um, but back to the original thing is time. And I don't think people are willing to rush, or they're they're they're trying to rush through this, and then I see it like um I'm not much for social media anymore, but I do get some clips and stuff, and then these are unbelievable coaches who've been in it for 30 or 40 years putting out um information, and then you got people saying that's not gonna work. You're like, that's insane to me. Now, opinions are opinions, don't get me wrong, but everything is based off experience and objective data. Um yeah, so it's I'm kind of waffling on here a little bit, but it's it comes down to it just takes time, and but principles is creating your principles and not straying from them. It's been willing to experiment on yourself first, then go see your athletes, and then choosing someone as a mentor. Like that, that is, and whether if you can't get into someone physically, well, Louis, most of his mentors were from books, like uh Verkoshansky, Zatziorsky, uh, Kers, Medvedev, all that he got these uh Russian manuals and lived it and then interpreted into like the modern-day conjugate system, which is basically bending concurrent and conjugate together. Um but that that's who he used as his mentors, but having some orientation, then developing and refining your own system. And um at the end of the day, is at the end of the day, you're trying to make your athlete strong and fast and more robust. That's it, so they can get the best opportunity for skill acquisition.

SPEAKER_03 27:15

And do you find a lot of people miss those basic points? Strong, robust, fast, and I forget the last thing you said, but you know, just better at better at skill acquisition.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

I think, yeah, it's it's hard not to like get lost because there's so many ways to train. And they're like, well, I'm a velocity-based strength coach. Like, I don't know what these things mean. You're either a strength conditioning coach or you're not, and you may have areas of where you're big into speed, but what is it? And and I'm Robin words, I won't drop the coach's name, but when um you're saying you're you're looking at averages, if you bring in an athlete and go, hey, we're gonna do an average training session, they're gonna go, there's no way. Like you're looking at peak. So if you're gonna do speed, you're gonna do speed work. If you're gonna do max effort work, you're gonna be doing stuff for stress in this training. Like this is it's pretty simple. Like you try to bring it down to first principles and then try not get lost in the sauce of, well, this guy is doing this, this is doing that. If you look at all the NFL organizations, uh, if you look at B1, there's all differences of programs. And it's just trying to figure out which one you can implement the best and refine and bring with you. Because that's your that's what you do as a strength coach. You have your own system and methodology and you bring it with you everywhere you go. And if you keep chopping and changing that, you have no attraction, you've got no principles, you're willing to like turn left and right at any moment, just seeing which way the the industry is going.

SPEAKER_03 28:45

Yeah, that's a really good point, I think, because you know, you your your system can you almost don't know how good your system is at that point because you haven't actually forced it to stand on its own two feet. So that's that's that's really interesting. And and like I think that a lot of this comes back to a problem that we have with with like the content-driven economy of the world. So, you know, or I think we see a lot of negatives. But also, like to tell a little bit of a like a my own story, like I don't think I would have found you guys without social media. You know what I mean? So there's a lot of positives to reap. And, you know, I I certainly consider myself as part of the the West Side lineage, and like, you know, you guys were my mentors for for a solid period of time, and like just feel like, you know, need a little help kind of mapping this stuff out. Like, how do you guys see the influencer strength coach? Um, you know, and like how do they kind of run in parallel, I guess, to like just the actual like working strength coach who's who's out there just getting it done with their athletes?

SPEAKER_00 29:50

I'm not I'm not going to here to belittle anyone who is a strength coach or or who's an influencer in strength conditioning. Um, we all try to get out our information. I think we try to keep ours as objective and clean as possible. And yeah, you're right. You found us through social media, but you took the trip down here too.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

And I don't think we've never refused anyone for information. If someone came through here, paying or not paying, like our door is always open for anyone who wants to learn. It's just looking at the credibility of the person who is talking. I've like look at their lineage, how long have they been in the sport, are they regurgitating other people's work? And it goes back down to reading. Like, theory is great until you actually practically put it in. Like there's a big difference too than uh learning how to teach or how to train a person, but then when you have 20 people in front of you, it's not linear. Like, there's so many things contextually you have to change up for that. And a lot of that comes from experience. Um, so it's a great way to get information, and then people make money doing influencing. Like, good for you. Like you found uh part of our industry where was not there before and you're making income on it. I respect that. Um, but I go back down to strength conditioning practitioners, to where you have to go further than just a theory. You have to go look at. I just remember a change when you started reading articles and blogs, and then references just stopped. And I was one of the people like I like looking at the references because I want to deep dive into where did all this come from. Um, so it's the same thing as like if you see something that's cool online through influencers, like great, but try to explore it more. Just don't take a verbatim, especially if they've been in industry for five or six years. Um you just want to just to to question it and then see how it fits within your system. But at the end of the day, as a strength coach, you're trying to develop your own voice, your own system based on the information coming in. And I think there is a lot to research and a lot to reading, like physical books. Like I am part of that generation that still likes physical books and highlighting and dog ear and corners.

SPEAKER_03 31:50

In the same way, man, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

But with technology too, you can research a lot faster. You can go down into deep rabbit holes. But once that comes into context, once you're back into like I am doing this for the betterment of the athletes, I am not here trying to become the most famous strength coach in the world. I go back down to Louis. Louis did not want to be famous at all. Not one bit. It just happened over time. And I think people need to look back at the elders in our industry and look to them and like start picking their brains because they're giving out information left, right, and center, and have most of them don't charge. And looking for the strength coaches that just retired that are coming out. Like, those are the people you should be looking to the elders. And I think the NSCA and all these organizations who are like our gateways into strength conditioning should be pushing elders more of like, hey, here's what the field manual is, here's what the practical approach to this is, here's what it means to actually care for your athletes and how to adapt on the fly. Um, and try to get rid of this absolutism because there's there is absolutely no absolutes. You have your principles, which are universal, don't get me wrong, but uh a big thing we get is well, you max your athletes out year long. I'm like, no, we don't. We use the max effort method, but but it's in context of when we need to use it and when we don't.

SPEAKER_03 33:06

And I guess the the the question I have related to that stuff is like it's so it's so easy for people to get access to information right now, especially like because you can just click chat to you know, click into chat GPT and asking a question that can give you 7 billion resources and like the right to go deeper or I know you've sort of alluded to this element of like you know, trusting the elders or understanding you know, kind of the the underpinning things that led them to making those decisions, or I guess a more a more general, more broad question that I have around or how you guys go after information is like how do you personally vet like new stuff that's coming out of the industry? And then how do you go about the process of experiment experimentation on it in the actual facility?

SPEAKER_00 34:04

That's I guess everyone's different. I try to go through articles, blogs, and talking to coaches and seeing what they're doing, what's working. Then if I find something that's really interesting, then it comes into our own training. Then we try to experiment with it. And this is what followed from Lou. Like Lou made me read every other book outside of his books and to learn how to cross-reference. You have to read three books at one time. Because if you only read one book, you would think that's the best book ever. But if you've got three books and now you're cross-referencing, um, then we'll have we'll pull a small cohort because we can do that here. I know that many people can, and then we'll see if it carries over. But I make sure it still aligns with the principles, it still aligns with the culture, and it still aligns with the athletes first. If it doesn't fit within that, even if it looks great, if it doesn't fit within those things, then we won't do it. And I can give you an example. Um, a couple of years ago, I went, oh, too far down the rabbit hole of um, I don't have to tell the company's name, but where you get devices that measures force. And I got absolutely everything that they had. And I thought, oh, this is I was just geeking out. And um within two months I had to try to give it all back because it just didn't fit the cultural values of to where the athletes weren't buying into it in terms of like they would do it because I'm asking to do it, but you could just see it was just changing the culture in the gym. And I'm like, okay, this is going against that. So that's how I cross-reference everything from the principles, the cultural value. And well, are the athletes do they need it? Are they getting better? Because there's so much stuff you can do, and it may have benefit, but do you really need to do it? And back to first principles. And we try to make training pretty simple, it's not sexy, but it's simple in effect.

SPEAKER_03 35:46

Elaborate on the reason that that changed the culture in the gym.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

Uh so we only have athletes for a certain amount of time per week, and when they come in here um doing dynamic effort and the other days, max efforts, depending on where they're at. Uh, we put these in as a secondary, and they it just wasn't giving them the carryover that they thought, and it wasn't it was too clinical, should I say? Like it has great um aspects if it's in a therapy aspect or if it's a manual therapist or an athletic trainer's using it, but it took the strength out of strength conditioning, and I'm like, oh, okay, that's that's uh that was my fault in that one. So we took it out, and that's the thing. I want to at least keep strength in the strength conditioning aspect because I want my athletes to be stronger and faster.

SPEAKER_03 36:38

Okay, and so so I guess what took the strength out of strength and conditioning? Was it that you were looking at these like measurable outputs, but it was like reducing intent, or was it literally just taking time away in the session to do something that you saw no return on?

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Correct. It was taking time away from the session for stuff that I knew had carryover and to implement this because I thought we could objectively train the joints. Like that's what I thought. But we could train the joints other ways we're doing it and was just as effective. And it didn't ruin the flow of the training session, it didn't ruin the flow of the culture of the athletes. Um and it was just again, just too clinical for our setting. I'm not saying it's incorrect, other people use it to great effect, but um, that's one thing is like it deviated from our cultural values.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

And at the I'm here for the athletes. So if if they're saying, like, hey, we're not really going into this, respectfully, they'll do what we ask them to do. But it's a synergistic relationship because no one pays to train here. Um, so it's a we want, and because of that, they buy into us, we buy into them, and it's a synergy if when they get better through it. Um, so you just listen to the feedback from it. It just wasn't for our culture, which I think is a big thing, is to where there's a place and a time for the sports science, but it wasn't within the strength training.

SPEAKER_03 37:58

Okay, yeah. And you know, it's it's interesting looking at let's take a NFL football team and how many departments they have, and how many of the athletes go between those departments in a given day for various sessions, various training, various like whatever. Right. You guys almost seem to be part of preserving this level of purity or with that as what you guys are. You're not physical therapists or not, you know, uh anything else in that bucket. So I want to understand like how do you think about these coaches that almost appear to be like hybrid in nature, where it's like, oh, I do physical therapy and I do strength and conditioning, or I do, you know, like sports science stuff and strength and conditioning, you know, like any anything in that kind of multidisciplinary coaching aspect, like how do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 38:56

Uh more power to them. I can't do it. Sure. I want to I want to be very good at one thing. Yeah. And uh I'd much rather work with people who are experts in their field. And then what you have is a really good feedback loop with other experts rather than, and this is from my perspective, if I'm trying to do everything, then I'm just talking to myself. But if I'm talking to a physical therapist, if I'm talking to a dietitian, if I'm talking to a sports scientist, now you got four eyes on one. And um, we're able to generate like a lot more objective data rather than one person trying to uh do everything. So if people are able to do that, more power to them. I just that's not for me. Like Louis, like one of many of Louis's quotes that he stole was from The Rock was know your role. And I know my role is just a strength coach. Like I love strength conditioning, I love the tools of strength conditioning from barbells to bands to different types of machines to stuff where you're actually lifting weights. And one of the unique aspects we have in the gym is objective adversity. Like you know if you're getting better because you're either doing more sets, more reps, lifting more weight. So it's really good for goal setting. Like that's what I love about the aspect of strength training. There's no subjective aspect to it. Um, yeah. So it's but if they're able to do it, good for them. I'm just, I know I'm not.

SPEAKER_03 40:15

I just I just you know, to your point, like I love what you're saying there. I also feel like I don't see a lot of coaches that think the way you think about that, right? Where they're obsessed with equipment, they're obsessed with like what you know a Psybax leg extension does versus a prime leg extension and and and things of that nature. Like, do you think that's something we're we're losing with a lot of the tech in the space?

SPEAKER_00 40:41

Yes and no. I think technology is great, it's a great feedback mechanism. I think it'll be an issue if you let technology dictate and takes the art out of coaching and what you're doing, but like equipment is equipment. Like I um, and I know people nerd out about it. Don't get me wrong, and I like I do myself in some things, but at the end of the day, I'm trying what's the simplest way I can train an athlete? And I'm not a big advocate of um, I don't know, it's I like technology and I like it to give us feedback uh of like, hey, are we on the right track? Is there stuff here? But I don't ever let it become the master. And it's the same with um like tendo units, like they're back in vogue again, like things come in cycles. And like I want our athletes to go as fast as they need to go. Um, or we're looking at like peak velocity. I'm not trying to do the average like Louie really put out there the 0.7 to 0.8 meters, which is years ago with the first tendo units, and like stuff has evolved since then. Um, they're a great tool, but I don't let it dictate the training sessions, and nor like would I subscribe to well, they're going slower, I'm gonna keep stripping off weight until they get that that rate of force development. And like you're just taking strength out of the strength training. Like, my goal is this, and to where if you want to do speed, then do just do speed work, like do actual peak velocity work where you're going after the top end. As I said, I don't I don't really subscribe to the the averages a whole lot because I don't really want average athletes.

SPEAKER_03 42:14

Yeah, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I I I like what you're saying there for sure. And obviously, you guys have so much like education that you put out into the industry, right? So I think we talked a lot about how you guys kind of intake and evolve with the education. But you I feel like you guys have always been a loud player in the space between the seminars or just the brand in general. You know, like you guys are charged for some of it, or you also put out a ton for free. And I'm really curious like where's the line in the sand for you guys in terms of like something that you charge for versus something that's that's really free? Let's let's talk through that real quick, that aspect of your education.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

Well, we gotta keep the lights on, and we have to keep the the like like uh it's it's not all philanthropic, don't get me wrong. But yeah, uh Louie never created Westside to be a business, it was a club. That's first and foremost, like Westside and like my job is split in two. One is the legacy side of where we have the old school gym here, where was the club, the record board, everything. And a part of that is to ensure people know that legacy and lineage where stuff comes from, because if not, someone else will try to say it was theirs and they'll go off uh and try have critical acclaim and strength space. And the other side is that we need athletes in the gym and uh we need to learn from them and pass on that information. So we try balance it as best we can. I don't think we ever go too overboard with our social media posts. I would say we're pretty mundane, um, educational. Like we're not known to be in very funny or put out these things. Like Louie back in the day, they put out monstrous lifts, don't get me wrong. Um, then the other side is like. Nothing is free. Like we're trying to keep the website going, keep the business going. So we try and make everything at a fair price. And we really try to underpromise and over-deliver everything we do. But that's really it. I would say our business model, people can't believe we don't charge athletes. And I'm like, well, the athletes is where we get our education from. And that's how when coaches come here and they talk to us and see how we train, they know it's not theoretical. It's not based on people who are not there. So that's a huge part of what we what we do. And then we just try to balance it as best we can. Like we want to make some money, we want to make all of it.

SPEAKER_03 44:36

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's interesting to think about because obviously you make the money, you make putting the conjugate method out there. But then I also feel like I see a ton of grifters who kind of take what you guys put and almost claim it as their own. Like, do you ever feel like you're cannibalizing yourselves or working against yourselves by putting stuff out there?

SPEAKER_00 45:01

No, because I want to see people's interpretation. Like I want people to go out, do their own thing with conjugate. And once you give credit to where the source or where you're getting from, like to where if it wasn't for Louis, we wouldn't know really about conjugal concurrent training. Like he was the one who put it out there and like sleds, bands, camber bars, bore press, like a lot of that was either invented or popularized by Louis and the Westside Barbell athletes. Um, but yeah, the whole idea is like we don't want to keep this in here. We want to pass on and like we want to see people's interpretation. Like in our pathway, seeing people how they've interpreted the conjugate method for themselves is phenomenal. Um I don't want to begrudge people uh like making revenue off that. Like that's what we want. We want there to be we want to support the coaches that come through here that use conjugate. Uh and then like there's you're gonna have that if you're if you do anything that's good, you're gonna have people who are gonna try create their own version of it. But I much rather interpretation and then people advancing it and refining it. Um it's all part and parcel, but yeah, it's uh teacher. I just don't like people to put out bad information. Uh that like Louis, uh, he had a trademark often imitated, always irritated. And that came after two things. One, people will copy his equipment, but they never make it better. And two, they would try to copy his uh education, but they never advance it.

SPEAKER_03 46:24

That's interesting. That's really interesting. Now what part of you guys sort of I guess looks at the broader industry and says, like hi, or better better way to ask this question. How do you know when you've seen a good evolution?

SPEAKER_00 46:48

I think when you start seeing, and we we've had a few come through here of newer strength coaches who you can clearly see their lineage. You can see they got good mentorship. Um, they understand how to read a room, they understand uh the importance of athletic training, they're not stuck in absolutes, they ask really good questions. To me, that's when you see everything evolving because they're willing to do the research of like, hey, maybe this was invented before me, or maybe I'm not coming up with something new. Um, so that's when I think you you see evolution going in a positive direction. Uh in a negative is when you have kids that are coming in here in their first year, and they are, and I don't begrudge people making money, but when you're trying to train people uh and charge for it, you better be an expert in it. And um they have no understanding of history. Like that's I think it's just very important to understand the understanding the past. Like you don't have to reinvent it, but uh understanding where everything came from, then you're way better suited and to find mentors, whether real mentors, or if it's online and pick a lineage, pick something that you believe in and to uh start creating your own principles and your own system to work from.

SPEAKER_03 48:07

Okay. Yeah, I dig that. And and so let's let's talk about like building your own system and and diving into that a little bit. And and I think there's a massive community element. So I want to start with uh kind of exploring like how is the SNC community kind of improved since you've gotten into the industry. I also want to know how it's gotten worse, and then I want to dive into like you know, kind of leveraging that to really in the modern era, you know, as a coach, build your own system confidently.

SPEAKER_00 48:41

Let me like start with a caveat of like I'm in a very unique position that we get a lot of coaches from around the world and like to come in through here just to chat it up. Um, but there's probably better representations for the professional strength conditioning field than there is for me. Um so understand that with everything I'm about to say. Um the I don't know how to put it, but this the strength coaches, I think there's something special again about those 90s to 2000 strength coaches, and um, I think leaning into those um and trying to see where they came from and understanding their thought processes and understanding of uh what worked for them but what didn't work for them. Because if if you can find out what not to do, it's very easy to create what to do. So if you can avoid mistakes and pitfalls while you're developing your own principles and systems, that's a huge thing. And I think that's where you got to look to the past and look to the people who are walking the pathway that you want to walk with. And that goes through like maybe you don't want to be a strength conditioning coach, maybe you want to be a personal trainer, maybe you want to be an online influencer, or at least pick some track that you can follow and then avoid the pit stops of what not to do. Um I have digressed in my head to another answer, but I want to go. Can you recap the question again, Coop?

SPEAKER_03 50:00

Yeah, I think I'm just curious, like, you know, the so point A here, right, is understanding like how the SNC community has improved over the last like let's say, say, two decades. How has it gotten worse? And I want to use those two points to kind of form the discussion further on how a coach can be super confident in their system. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

Um, so from point A, it's easier to connect and get information than it ever has been. And I think that's a huge improvement. And I think you have people out there who are putting out great content. And I think you have access to elders in the community that want to give back, like that are truly philanthropic. They have reached the highs of the highs, and now they want to give back a mentor and teach. And I think access to that is huge. If you I think back in Lou's, there was just books, like maybe letters, and then it was phone calls and meetings. And um one thing that I'll give like I give Lou so much credit for everything, but with the calls. He would take 30 or 40 calls a day. I'm like, why would you do it? And it wasn't until we started the pathway talking to coaches every day. I'm like, oh, because it's just passing information. You're learning what people are not understanding, uh, and then trying to educate them. So I think that is a great thing with the industry. And the other side of it is there's so much. There's um, I think there's tribalism, and then there's absolutism that is trying to make people pick this one camp over the other. And if you're a good strength education coach, you're never going to throw out any tools or any methods or any systems you're trying to learn from it. Um, I think there needs to be somewhat more unity of strength coaches. You don't have to, we can debate and disagree on uh systems, but if you train athletes and they're getting better in their sport and they're more robust, and I tell you, hey, Coop, your system doesn't work, it's useless. Well, objectively, I'm just telling a lie.

unknown 51:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

And that doesn't benefit anyone. And like I'm not, this is not some kumbaya, let's get together. I mean, there just needs to be some professional standards of like how we interact and raise ourselves up. If you look at the industries of athletic therapists and all of them, they all stick together pretty well. Strength conditioning coaches seem to be a lot more fractured. Of and again, there's a monetary aspects, there's been I get that, but there needs to be some commonality of like, well, what is a good strength coach, what is a bad strength coach? There's no strength coaches rating system. They had that in the Soviet Union back in the day where Louis and all this stuff. They had some sort of rating systems for coaches. But how what's a good coach, what's a bad coach? And I think like hopefully our the the gatekeepers and educators of the strength connection world will like figure out like some universal aspects of that. Because I think that'll be very helpful to describe.

SPEAKER_03 52:40

How would you do it? Yeah, how would you do it?

SPEAKER_00 52:42

I'm too dumb to cope with that. Don't far above my pay grade.

SPEAKER_03 52:47

Fair enough. And well, let's let's talk a little bit about you know some of the organizing bodies around this. Like, one thing I think that coaches have to come to terms with is like you are going to have to get for certain jobs, you're gonna have to get a degree, you're probably gonna have to get a master's degree and or a PhD, and you're going to have to pass, you know, like a CSCS. Like do you think that all of that creates good coaches? Do you think that that's like like how should that evolve?

SPEAKER_00 53:23

I mean, that's a far bigger question. I think be better put to people more in that industry. But what I do know is not all the highly educated strength coaches are the best train coaches. Some of the best strength coaches in the world never, like Malgotaloo, never went to college. Barely, but he got into strength conditioning through mastery of figuring out actual strength training. Um, so I don't think it's the be-all and end all. Um, how that evolves, that is probably one for the organizations more so than uh a guy here in the peanuts gallery trying to kind of tell people. But um yeah, I think there's there's some sort of balance to it. But I just I just truly believe just because I went through, I came from academics, got into website, and then the practical experience was just out of this world. And it took me about seven years. It might take people faster, but I was lucky I was in that position, was able to do it. Um, but I think there should be a lot more emphasis put on if you're going through academics for strength conditioning, that there needs to be an apprenticeship aspect. I know there is internships, but not all internships are equal. And um I just think there needs to be more put into the practical approaches, and I think you need to get more diverse um, I guess, looks into strengths conditioning, that you're not just solely in one demographic. So I think that will the more broader or more well-rounded you are from different types of athletes, I think the better your imagination interpretation of how to uh adapt strength conditioning helps.

SPEAKER_03 54:55

What would you recommend then for coaches to obviously, like they can travel to you guys, like we we we know that we've talked about that, but like this I'm I'm I want to dive a little deeper into the unity of strength and conditioning coaches and kind of this intern and apprenticeship model. Like you you mentioned let's start with the unity element. You you mentioned that that that really stood out to me as like what needs to be different in order for us to have unity, and like what would the outcome be where you know that we're more unified as an industry?

SPEAKER_00 55:35

Well, I think one is normalizing uh nomenclature that it's all used correctly. I think that will help, I mean, just unify how people coach and talk, and like that's not about just cueing, it's about general understanding what um everything is. Um the other aspect of is I'm all for debate, but it has to be healthy debate and not like um trying to chop everyone down, like this whole meathead aspect of like, yep, there's people who love the gym, yep, there's people who love sports science, but it's just having some common ground in between. And how you do it, I I don't know, but uh like it has been done before. Um, like back, I mean, back and lose it in everyone. Like they all talked and cross-trained. And you I think that's what it comes down to is people actually talk more physically, or at least on the phone, rather than via posts or um authority hijacking based videos of breaking down or tearing down this because that's entertainment and like people can do that all day long. But for strength and conditioning, I just think people need to talk more, especially the people who've been in it for a longer period of time. Um, which you can make the argument that's where the conferences are from, but not everyone go to an SCA conference or a C SCCA conference, or um yeah, I just think it would make people getting information or their ability to get information a lot easier if they knew, like, okay, these are all legitimate um strength coaches that are passing that information.

SPEAKER_03 57:13

So I feel like that plays into this internship apprenticeship element. Like, what in in a perfect world, like what would that model look like to you?

SPEAKER_00 57:25

Like I'm not saying that this is the way or that this has been fully thought out, but I do like the apprenticeship-based model of if you do a trade. I think strength conditioning, there's an aspect of strength conditioning that is a trade. Now, if you want to get into sports science or excise physiology, 100% like the academic is there. Yeah, and then a doctor, right?

SPEAKER_03 57:46

Like you gotta go to medical school or a lawyer, you gotta go to law school.

SPEAKER_00 57:49

Into a laboratory, and like they're hugely important. But I do believe that strength and conditioning is a trade, and that the more you if you have more apprentice-based aspects to it, along with I don't know how they do the trades here, but back home, you have an element of college and you have an element of practical. But I think the practical has to be weighed, if not more important or as important as the theoretical aspect, and that um that internships can't just be willy-nilly, like to where I'm gonna do my internship, I'm gonna like throw out my name to different places. Like it has to mean something that you're actually gonna learn something, but an apprenticeship, you have to prove that practically you know what you're doing.

SPEAKER_03 58:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 58:31

And I think that's that'd be a huge step for the weight room aspect. And I think for the sports science aspect, but just for the strength conditioning aspect.

SPEAKER_03 58:38

And so then what is the art of coaching in your in your own terms?

SPEAKER_00 58:44

Oh, the ability to read the room, adapt to what's in front of you, not get stuck in absolutes, and um have your own set of principles, cultural values, and be able to mold them around your athletes. And at the end of the day, have your athletes reach their potential or reach the dreams that they want to get to. But the the art of coaching is just I think it's been able to manipulate what's in front of you based on your experiences.

SPEAKER_03 59:13

And almost be able to make those instantaneous changes, right? Like one thing I always admired about Louis like uh one of my favorite things in my internship with you guys was like just standing there in silence and just watching how Louis approached the morning crew, right? And the way he would break down what went wrong in someone's lift or or then go select exercises on the doctor, right? That they would go do to address that work and then boom have them go execute. I uh that to me was like watching true artist report in in in my mind. So you know, over time, experience, portions, those are all kind of ways, but there is this underlying element of science, right? That that gives you the confidence to make those decisions and know that like for sure this is going to work. So like I do want to talk about that science side, you know, like how like what is the intersection in the marriage of the art and science there?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:16

I it's sports science and strength science is important, but there's a lot of time the weight room is far ahead of the science. Yes, yeah. Um, simply because you got ethics boards to get past to do these experiments, even some of the studies that are only coming out on resistance bands. This is stuff we knew 20 years ago. Yeah, yeah. But like there is um, so it's it's hard again to where I think there's sports science is hugely important. Um, but it doesn't have to be the be-all and end-all for a string coach to understand sports science to a scientist uh well to an academic level. And again, it's it should be a feedback mechanism of is what I'm doing working the way I want it to work, is there anywhere else we can improve upon? And I think if sports science, data science becomes the be-all and end-all, because I think it's making huge steps uh to reduce overtraining. I think science has been a huge part into that, of like they're not being run the ran to death, they're actually getting objective measures to go, hey, when you sprint or hit the ground with your feet, it is an impact and it does take its toll. So I think like there's huge aspects, but I'm particularly talking about the weight room. There's a there's a time to have sports science, but like I don't want to bring a scalpel into a weight room. I want to build sledgehammers, like that's where I want like that aspect to go through. So um, if you're in the sports science aspect, I mean it's it's a booming industry, but just be in sports science. Don't be a strength coach, sports scientist, or data scientist. Like you're either a strength coach or you're this is my opinion, um you're into sports science or your data scientists, and you're feeding back into it. And I think there needs to be a head, like the head strength coach should be now. This is, I would say, depending on what side of the fence you're on, I think like they should be in charge of the weight room and athletic training. And either that or you got two, and I think uh when I did a podcast with Joe Ken, he talked about this of like you at least have two people at the head, but if strength and conditioning is under athletic training, which it is in a lot of things, I think you're gonna have some sort of a watering down of that. Um back to like I think the presentations of strength and conditioning coaches of like they know the athletes inside and out. Um, I've never understood why the strength coach is on the sidelines for some football games, pulling back the managers or give them water. Like I just don't think it amplifies the position because I think they're far more important. Um, like uh I can't remember who was, but like if you're a get back coach, that's not what you want to be. Like you're a strength coach. And I think there needs to be some more professionalism aspect into the strength aspect of it. But um, I'm digressing here, but uh I think the source sports science is important as a feedback mechanism. But if you're into sports science, you go down the road of sports science, which again, if you do, you have to be in a laboratory, right? You're not going to theoretically learn this through books, you have to do it through actual practical application.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:15

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:16

You have to learn, you know. My my wife's uh a biostatistician, like, you have to learn some crazy shit. You know what I mean? In the lab, like it's like the lab is becoming the art, the art of creating a study, the art of creating like all these things is where like, well, you have to go learn that. And that but that's different than you know, at that point from the art of coaching work, right? Well, I thought I think you're right, those lines get muddled in the marriage of those two things or uh, you know, something that more typically are than divorce or um, you know, when when applied appropriately. So you know at the at the same time, like just the human population though, right? We're getting access to like what we've never had before or software. Um you know, it's been cool to kind of see how uh like you know, on the broad side of things how we're leveraging around to help augment our you know performance things across the world, or even just like mom and pop strength coaches who've been on Excel spreadsheets. So like you know, I'm I'm curious from your perspective to dive into the weeds of technology. And maybe it's the the the best place to start is just like an overview of how you guys at West Side view technology in the pursuit of strength.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:33

I think it's great for capturing data. Like obviously we use bridge for tracking a lot of athletes' volumes, progress. Um, I mean, we we dive pretty deep into AI. Like we've got Nitro AI, which basically we took everything that Louie has ever said, wrote articles, and it gives us our own database that we can cross-reference really quickly. Um, so I think there's a huge advantage to it. Uh I do think there's an aspect of you're gonna have a generation of AI coaches who are just gonna type in stuff, take it, but not have any context. And the reason I say that is when I'm using AI to try to develop a website of which I have no clue what I'm doing. I'm just telling, hey, this magical AI god, make this. I think it looks great, but I got no context whether the back end is correct. And then I just think, well, if I'm doing that for someone else's industry and they're gonna do that for hours, you're gonna have a lot of people getting screwed up because there's there's no context been brought in. But it's phenomenal for research. It's phenomenal to like if you look at Notebook LM, been able to digest information really quickly, there's huge advantage of it to like to educate yourself fast. So like we're not opposed to it, but I think we're just we're cautiously optimistic of um how it's how it's used and put in. But nothing to me is ever going to replace been actually in the gym and talking to the athletes. And it's just a marriage. Like you have that and then you have your feedback, and for self reflection, going back, looking through Louis is calculating volume, it was just done in his head. Like his he was just unbelievable at that.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:04

Freaking brilliant, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:05

But um that's where technology helps. And if if you're in a time crunch and you've used tender units to measure velocities because you've got huge amounts of athletes in front of you, like yeah, just use it, but don't let it be the dictating force of how training is going. Like have it as tools, and that's the way we see them. They're very useful feedback tools to give you um data to see if you need to course correct, but they're not something that is like a GPS. I'm gonna follow technology blindly.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:33

Yeah, okay, I like that. I like that a lot because I think we're gonna have more people, and we already do, who are convinced that they're like really fucking smart at something they have like no mastery in because the AI told them that this is the way to do it, and you know, use some flowery language um about you know, then be like, oh, so my bad, you were actually right. You know what I mean? So so you know, I think it puts more of an emphasis now on making sure that coaches get to the the crux of mastery, right? And um, you know, I want to know like in in your terms and how you guys think about it, like this mastery piece, right? Because I'll and I'll use an example and and dive into it. Hopefully I'll have more wealth. But the brief I was putting together for someone were, you know. Maybe doing some partnership stuff with him. What we found was that the more um the more information I put in that was my own creation, I did 80% of the work, and it just helped me get that last 20% right to look clean and to like be authentic to to the the element I'm trying to get. So what I guess I'm trying to say is is when it comes to mastery, right, and getting to that 80%, so to speak, of like stuff that you know works, like where do you feel like coaches need to focus the most inside of a session with athletes live to start to get mastery.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:47

That is a good question. I would think if we're just going off how I learned the most, was to keep your eyes open, keep your mouth closed, and to listen, and then get really good at uh asking questions. The athletes will tell you more about um training than you may think. So just developing those relationships um is huge, and then the more you empower your athletes in the weight room, the more you can actually coach and observe. If you have to do absolutely everything for them, well, then they're just going to become an assembly line. Um, but if they're self-sufficient, you can actually watch and observe and make either mental or physical notes. I think that is a form of it. I think mastery really just comes over time. As much when after my first three to six months on Westside, I thought I got this down 100%. I can go and do this. And then after a year, like, oh, I don't know anything. And then after it was really seven years through this, I'm like, okay, I feel like I got a good idea of who I am as a coach, and then I just refined that. But I think it's just watching, observing, asking questions, and talking to your athletes. And um then trying to make it how can I make this as simple as possible? It's not going to be sexy, especially in our leg, it's not going to be sexy, but is it going to be effective? And um, do like do the athletes have respect for you? Like, do they respect what you're doing? Like, are you helping them? I think that all comes after time. Just I think just giving a crap is a huge thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:18

Yeah, give a shit factor is important.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:20

Well, uh, when I worked with Matt Brown when I first got here, yeah, I used to check in on him. He's like, What are you doing? I'm like, just checking in. He was like, Holy shit, I didn't realize like you cared. And like, well, that's kind of like my job. And I think that's the thing. It's just actually care is a big thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:34

Yeah. How do you how do you care about your athletes? Like, what do you think goes into that process? Not that that has to be something super mechanical here, but I'm curious.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:43

It's not like I'm always thinking about what we can do better. I self-reflect on our um training every week. Um, I'd say I'm not the best at texting or communicating, like that's I think pretty well renowned here. Um, but when they're in there, I always make myself available. And if an athlete needs help, they get help. Like that's yeah, really it. But I'm also just trying to figure out what they're doing, small little conversations in the gym. Um, because the answer is always within the gym. And um, that's really it. But the self-reflection is a big thing, and just looking back at like can we do anything better? Um, but the I think the biggest thing is just the athlete feedback loop of talking to them, like talking to them before and after the sessions, like not saying, hey, stop your training session, have a big conversation, but those little conversations before and after give you a whole bunch of stuff, and they know if they ever need anything, they can come or move heaven and earth to try to help them.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:36

That's that's beautiful, man. I mean, I I want to know, like what did you learn from the athletes in the old era? So, like 90s, 2000s, you kind of mentioned, versus like what are you learning from the athletes in the modern era and how is that informing the training?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:55

I can't really speak onto the athlete in the 90s because I was not here then, but that was just through Lou. But um, I mean, just seeing how Lou interacted with his athletes and how he coached and guided, like Louie was not a tyrant, like was not didn't Dennis didn't punish athletes by giving them more stuff. Like, I think the best punishment is taking weights away from athletes than it is like giving it to them. Um, but just seeing how he interacted like with them, and everything was for the club, so it's for the betterment of the club, and that helps the athlete. And just seeing um yeah, his interactions uh compared to now, I think they're far more um they're far more educated. And we we hammer a whole lot of trying to educate it like just last week at the end of the training session, we had a quick recap on cultural values, a quick recap on technique, and um that way they get to ask us questions, but to become better strength coaches themselves. Uh for their interest. So I think they're they're more educated and have more empowerment over their own training, which is huge.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:01

And yeah, I think that's a real that's a really unique thing, is like how much better educated the average athlete is on the fundamentals of strength and conditioning. Do you feel like talk to me a little bit more about you you brought it up a few times, but making the athlete almost like a self-coach and equipping them? Like what is what does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:24

I mean, it's really good for logistics. If if we talk to enough strength coaches, like you might have a high school strength coach who it might just be them, or they might have an assistant, might have 30 to 50 athletes. There is no way you can be a strength coach to them all. So if you put in some time to put in some fundamentals, uh break up into groups, have group leaders, then you can actually work with a bigger group. So the more you can educate them, and I said high school athletes, strength coaches are to me the most important, especially now. Like this is where you're gonna get long-term development. Um, so the more you can educate your athletes on one training, the gym culture, how to be a good training partner, how to spot, how to load, how to talk, communicate. If someone's going for a PR, they shout over to you. Um, these things are huge, like uh for strength coaches who are trying to do everything. So it allows you to actually manage large groups better. And then when these high school athletes develop into collegiate or pro-athletes, they know what good training is. They've got good uh foundations, the fundamentals of development. Um, so that's huge. So then you know you can trust your athletes that they're gonna do the right thing, they're gonna know what bad training is, what is good training, but it makes your job as a coach easier to actually help the people who need the most coaching.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:40

Well, and and what I what I love about that is almost fucking none of this is written in a textbook. Actually, none of what you just said, I don't think I've ever read. But I've heard that from so many people and I've learned that from so many various like mentors over time. So I think this is like at least for me going through this is you know, like interviewing you, like I really do think that if I were to synthesize this down, it's like the fastest way to get to mastery, the fastest way to become a better coach is truly to spend time under or someone who's going to meaningfully pour into you and give you those like things that are like hard to do with almost like everything outside the door, you know, and even like the the extra like how do you treat people, how do you talk to them, how do you like foster trust? How does that because that's not that's nothing that's in super training or you know, like maybe it's a brief chapter, like I know I have everybody who uh finished med school and was like you know, so much of what like I'm gonna go do or is gonna be related to an aggression, and we had two pages in a textbook about it, you know, and it was just like had nothing to do with like you know, treating the like actual root cause of the issue. So like I guess where I'm going with that and to not like to avoid waffling a little bit is when you have uh when you have athletes that are like new coming into the gym, right? I want to know like how are you developing buy-in-cause a lot of them are like pro athletes who probably have like a certain amount of beliefs that are pretty strong about how they should be doing things. And you guys do not do things like by any means to like the standard other than your own. So, like, how does that unfold?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:36

I think it just takes time, and it's it's not for everyone, and that's completely fine. Like there's some athletes that are absolute studs, but I just knew personality-wise they would not click in here, and we just refer them to coaches where they would click in really good. It's just time because you can talk up a good game, but if someone's willing to give you at least three or four weeks, then you're like, okay, this is this is real, and um my style of coaching is like I'm pretty hands-off. Like, I'm not a big shouter or motivator, like to where trying to get people to go, but I try to analyze and then try to jump in when necessary, but try and make the athletes run their own training session, like just it's back to empowerment empowerment and trying to develop leaders. So anyone who trains here and they go somewhere else, I'd like to think they would be the leader of the group wherever they're going at. Um, but I think buy-in takes time and it helps when you have other athletes there to where they can look at like, oh well, this person's been here for a while and look at the success that they've had. And I think that's the other thing, too. Strength conditioning is just a cognate. The success, the athletes is successful. Like the we're just there to help get more out of them. It's it's not because it's all the strength conditioning is making them world champions. Um, but I think buy-in takes time. And uh when you're talking about fast tracking mastery, I don't think there really is fast tracking. I just think it takes it just takes time. Like uh I remember Louis was up at the York uh the PowerPoint meet in York, and they wanted to induct him to the York Hall of Fame, and um he told him, like, no fucking way, I still have stuff to do. I don't want to be inducted into anything. But uh I think mastery is just it's earned over a long period of time. Like there's no fast tracking, and I don't even think Louis would he was still a student up until the day he died.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:23

Interesting mindset to take on, right? Especially with someone as with as much of a tenure as what he had, you know, to keep that white belt mindsets uh the impressive thing to say the least. So I kind of want to end off, folks. Like if you have questions, make sure you get them into the into the chat now, um, because we'll be transitioning kind of out of the episode here um in a little bit. But um to kind of wrap us up today, I want to give like some really, really practical advice, especially on this techn technology piece to coaches. All right. So I want to know like what technologies you find useful, and then I want to know like what tech saps performance from the athletes. Um, and you know, as pragmatic as possible from your point of view, where are we at with that?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:16

Um it is not a product promotion, but bridge, like been able to um been able to capture data fast and something easy for athletes to do win. I think that technology has been huge. I love Excel, love Google Sheets, but when you try to ask a 20-year-old to log on to Google Sheets and to input their stuff, they're like, what the heck is this? Um but being able to do that, like that's a huge advantage to technology. Um the wearables, like the the whoops, the auras, um, heart rate monitors, all that is pretty useful feedback. Um, we try, keep a caveat in that I want all our athletes to understand that it will tell you that potentially the day of a game, you're in the red and you shouldn't do anything of like that is going to happen. So don't get so fixated. Uh, because we had one of the guys, I'm like, yeah, you go tell Dana White that your whoop said you can't perform today, see how that goes out. It's not going to work. Um but they they do give useful metrics back, like like the heart rate monitors are still hugely important. I like force plates, force decks, especially for isometrics and for jumps, it just gives back some things. We find a way to put it in where the athlete doesn't interrupt the flow. They just go do their isometrics, we're getting the data. Um, we're very cautious of what we share with the athletes, not because we don't want them to have it, but we don't want them to get so obsessed. And that can happen in a tender unit, like well, how fast did I go? And they're gonna just disrupt the training. Um, tendo units, I think they're good for pre and post. I don't think you need them all the time, especially for our uh way of training. Um, but that's really what we use in the internet and AI. Use it for research, um uh for writing for stuff like that. I am unbelievably dyslexic, so having something that can uh correct grammar and uh spelling has been phenomenal. Um and then two been able to uh video analysis, been able to record videos. That's one thing that we we forgot how valuable that was, but like part of our pathway is you have record bench squat and deadlift. And once you record it, there's stuff that you miss in the mix. You might get some of it, but you don't get all of it, but being able to review video has been huge, especially to fine point um some sort of accessory uh allocation and teaching points to the athlete because a lot of athletes are visual learners and been able to show them the video back not in the middle of the workout at the end or send it to a post-workout, that level of feedback is huge because visually, if they can see it, they can correct it a lot faster and you burn to be trying to teach them.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:56

Okay. I like that you show the video after the training session. I hadn't heard that before. And it sounds like that's stemming from not wanting to disrupt the training session. Yep. So what does it mean to disrupt the training session?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:12

You you kill the natural flow of a session. If you come into like you go into a weight room that is in the middle of a session, you should be able to feel it. The palpable feeling of like, oh, they're they're getting after it, the music's blaring, there's people working out, they're trying to push each other. But if you try, hey, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, let's work on this now, like there's a there's a a place for that. So uh like for me, the the gym is a sacred space for everyone to train, and there's a time and a place before or after uh to give the information, unless it's gonna be detriment to their health and have to stop them straight away. But of course, yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:46

Yeah. I like I like this idea of keeping the the the gym sacred, man. That's that's fucking important. Um yeah, I just I think that's that's that's a really cool way of putting that. Okay. All right. Well, I think that will wrap us up for today in terms of you know questions I've got. Now I want to kind of take more of a look at at what the group here had for the day. Um, so first question uh from Reno. Tom, can you give an example of how you calculate the load per minute on the combined dynamic effort day?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:17

Yeah, we do a very simple version of the load per minute is when the athlete is finished, everything goes up into bridge, and we take the total volume and divide it by the total training time. So that's how we get our volume load per minute. And then we we compare it pre and post. So um it gives them a metric to where if you shave a minute off the time, then that goes up, or if you increase weight, it goes up. It just gives a very valuable metric and adds uh to the training density a whole lot for dynamic effort. That's how we do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:50

And is it the like do you always measure the session like okay, all these same exercises, and then in like 12 weeks, if we do the same thing again, is that when you take the measurement, or is it like week to week?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:01

Uh week to week, we'll take it and then we'll do uh year to year. Um and you'll see the VLPM will go up. It'll like it it incrementally goes up, but if you see last year to this year, there's about an average VLPM jump even from week one between 250 to 750 pounds, depending on the athlete. So it's it's just a good metric and it makes dynamic effort day more competitive. Because like yeah, like we want competitive athletes. So if we can give them something that doesn't disrupt the training session, and we kind of we had to break a few eggs to make the omelet at the start, it got too competitive. So we had to put in caveats for technique of like, hey, you can't throw technique to the wind. So we have like a percentage, like a 5%, maybe 10% grace, and then how you stack accessories helps. So you you try to put stuff in to break up the aspect of it, so you can't cheat the system. But it does teach athletes a lot of things. One, it's how to work within a group. Um, some turns out to be a team leader brings people through it. Two is how to strategically choose how to do the accessories. Just because they're they're just say listed in one way, doesn't mean you have to do them that way. And so they're problem solving as they're they're going through it, and then there's competition between all the groups. So it's it's been a huge value add for our athletes. And I like I don't want to use the word fun, but I like the word competition. Like it makes them it it sparks that competitive aspect, and they're doing a lot of volume in under an hour, which people said couldn't be done.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:30

Can you can you kind of like give us some numbers here just to geek out on what you're doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:35

I would say like that the yeah, I will. Like, I think the the biggest one we've done is 550,000 pounds of volume. Uh here's the in an hour, in 55 minutes, and here's the caveat. Most of that volume comes from sled work. Like sleds is a huge aspect. So you put in a sled, you put in a wheelbarrow, yeah, and you put in a weighted farmer's walk. Like that's how you increase volume. Sleds, I think people sleep on, like they are the killer to add volume into any workout. Um, the safest unilateral exercise you can do, great for conditioning, um, great for keeping strength in. But yeah, and we don't do that all the time, but like that's when I would say we're going through uh a peak volume phase, we'll start creeping up there, but you you'll see like the sleds been thrown in.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:22

Yeah, and they're just they're just getting a grueling amount of like almost per step, you know, like at that point.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:28

I would say on average, like that they'll execute anywhere from 125,000 to 175,000 in about 28 to 35 minutes.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:36

Do you find that there's any normative data here between athletes between different sports?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:43

Um our our full body dynamic every day is it's a pretty good equalizer because you got people who are strong, maybe not great in endurance, you got people who are endurance not really strong. So they end up pretty pretty similar. I think the biggest the biggest driver is body weight, just because some people are there's no coefficient factor. If there was, like then it'd be a lot more normative, but um no, but I just go back into like sleds, sleds are just a huge part of our yeah, love that cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:16

Um next one. So uh this is from James. Thanks, Tom Cooper. Love your perspectives on strength training. Uh the future is in good hands, appreciate that, man. Um, a final thought. I worked with many athletes, but I had an opportunity to work with Jules Bacon, late 80s, early 90s. He helped me realize practice slash observation is most important. Question Louis was your mentor, but who else would you say influenced you early on? And I'll extend that question to who influences you influences you now as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:48

Um early on, obviously, like to this day, like I was I read a lot of stuff by Terry Todd. And Terry Todd put out a lot of uh did a lot for the sport. Um like the academics, you look at Kramer. Um uh thanks to that's it's kind of trying to make sure it's not pre-post lu. Um like Zatziorski was huge because uh I was lucky in college that uh uh the science of practice strength training was an optional read of which you're like there's a lot of stuff there. Um but then a a lot of yeah, I think that I I think too like before before I got into the industry, like there was um other coaches or like local coaches, like the the lectures we had, it's a good question. I haven't really thought about that in a while. Um, but I did get a lot from Terry Todd, like Bill Starr, like back in the day, like Elite FTS's website had all like the articles are phenomenal. Um Joe DeFranco before I got here, like it was bigger fast. What was his one? It wasn't bigger, faster stronger, it was uh he had some DVD out, but they had Joe DeFranco and Louis in our college. He had something training, I can't remember what it was, but um those are people before I got uh into West Side that I would say I would research into. Um and then I became I became obsessed with the Soviet literature as soon as I got to West Side. Uh, and then reading outside of the um strength conditioning. Um another good one that I got was uh uh The Game Changer by Ferbus Connolly. I thought that was a really good book.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:33

Uh you showed me that one, I've read about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:35

Thinking in Systems by Donna Meadows, looking at lean manufacturing systems, um, trying to find different ways just out of site strength and conditioning. Um currently, I don't know, there's not I'm more so talking to older coaches than I am reading. I haven't really picked up any new books. There's some coaches that get published by main publishers that I cannot believe they're published because the the content is not exactly riveting. Um but that most of it is just I'm trying to I'm trying to look at as many of the uh elders in our sport and trying to pick their brains before they're not here. Like with Louie. Um I was looking, I picked his brain when he passed. I say a lot of my good questions came then and my crap. So now I'm trying to reach out to anyone who's been in the sport, regardless if they like conjugate, don't like uh conjugate. Um polloquine is another one too, like back in the day.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:31

Yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:32

Um and then like understanding, like looking at what Alvin Roy did, what uh Oliver Meal did, uh Johnny Parker. Um there's so many that I think there was a um Terry uh Terry and John Todd, they wrote a book on the history of uh strength conditioning in the USA. Phenomenal book for anyone to go read. It goes through the whole history of where it started. I recommend that for anyone to wants to know more about the industry, especially here.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:57

That's yeah, I would love to read that. You said Terry Todd.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:00

Yep, Terry and John Todd. I think it was I think Terry was his last book before he passed.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:04

Got it. Okay. I would love to, I would love to, yeah, yeah, dive into that. That's super cool. All right, last question, and you alluded to it a little bit, but like, what do you like to learn from outside of strength and conditioning related stuff that informs what you do in the gym?

SPEAKER_00 1:31:23

Oh, I like I like looking at systems, and I like to understand how people can implement systems for not efficiencies, but look at stuff from a first principles aspect because I tend to overthink and over-analyze, and then it's analysis by paralysis. So I like to look at um yeah, process-based learning and a lot from mana, and I got that from working with equipment for Louis, like just talking to engineers and fabricators. Um I do like watching a lot of um construction-based aspects, just because you see how they put stuff together, and I think there's a lot uh that can be carried over to that. Um and then the uh the book I'm rereading again is uh one called Essentialism by Greg McCune. Really good book. Um, but yeah, it's just processing mindset thinking. Um, but systems, our whole world is in the system. I think the more you can understand it, the better it is.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:21

Love it. Beautiful, brother. Thank you so much for for this awesome, awesome chat today. I feel like that kind of put me in a really good frame of mind for you know where we're at as a strength and conditioning community and you know, some of the important things that I think are you know, we we need to evangelize a little bit. Uh, I think my biggest takeaways today were uh figuring out ways to reach the world, right? As a certain condition community that I think was was the main thing that really stuck out to me. But kind of some of the more stuff like in the nuts and bolts and the weeds, like you know, talking about the the the art of certain conditions and how we should do this more as a trade or than we would as like a you know related thing that we have to, even though we know we have to worry those two things. So you know, I I got a lot out of you know the fact that we just cannot under any circumstances interrupt. Like it has to be there has to be a rhythm. There's always a music to it, you know, that that needs to be preserved. And I I think that's that's something you know I'll I'll definitely take away in addition to just lots of first principles related thinking, man, and making sure that you know we're we're honoring and respecting the elders, but also you know, having the balls to go out and experiment on our own and make something meaningful.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:39

I appreciate the opportunity and like I am definitely not the spokesperson for the strength conditioning community, but just a member of it. But I do think it's worth getting these elders on and having them actually pass on the experience and the stuff because that's who we all want to learn from. Because then that's how we understand what to do and what not to do.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:59

Give me give me some names, man. Who would you want to see on this show?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:02

Oh, I'll give them to you off the record, just in case. Okay. Just in case I put someone out there and they're like, What have you done to me? But I've I've I've I've got a good I've got a good feel for you.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:11

Okay, beautiful. Sounds good. Well, folks, as always, appreciate you making the time to to be here with us. Uh, it it's always so much fun, so cool to see uh you know our our global community get together once a month and and sit here and listen. Um so take care, folks. Enjoy your weekend. Take care of y'all.