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Olympian Mindset and Lessons Learned w/ Sam Loch
12 Plays1 month ago
In this episode, I talk to Sam Loch about what it takes to be an Olympian and the lessons he learned from that pursuit. Sam Loch is an Australian Olympian, world record-holding rower, and elite strength athlete known for his relentless work ethic and unmatched power on the erg. With a career spanning two Olympic Games (2008, 2012) and numerous world records in indoor rowing, Sam embodies the spirit of athletic resilience and high-performance mindset. Beyond the boat, he’s a dedicated coach, speaker, and advocate for pushing physical and mental limits. Join us as we dive into his journey, exploring the grit, discipline, and unwavering determination that fuel his success both on and off the water
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Transcript
Introduction to Sam Lott's Journey
00:00:00
Tony Montgomery
right, joining us today, we have Sam Lott. Thanks for coming on the podcast, man.
00:00:05
Sam
Thanks, Tony. Great to be here.
00:00:07
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, no, it's a pleasure. I met you whenever you moved to Portland, started training at my gym. um And I was just always, always had really good conversations or fun guy to talk to.
00:00:18
Tony Montgomery
um You've done a lot with your life. So I figured why not talk to you some more and um not only your level ah of training and intelligence, but just the the life that you live and the things that you pursued, I think would make for a really fun conversation.
00:00:32
Sam
Yeah, hopefully. And I remember those times well, because we'd moved internationally, but I was also ah getting more into the weeds of powerlifting. That was the first time I'd trained at a proper strength gym after training, mostly in sports.
00:00:50
Sam
state-funded Olympic training centres, which you've got people certainly training, they're pushing it hard, but it's a different it's a different vibe. And then
Strength and Mindset in Athletic Training
00:01:01
Sam
to see you were lifting heavy at the time, but ah in particular, i'm thinking Sean Doyle and his professional
00:01:08
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:01:10
Sam
like to to To me, i still, one of the more remarkable things I saw at Strength Union was him at about 165 kilos. I'm not sure what that is in pounds, probably ah mid threes, high threes. And he was doing standing at wheel rollouts.
00:01:31
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:01:31
Sam
And I'd been thinking, I'm a bigger guy, so you know like those are challenging and maybe maybe that's out of reach.
00:01:31
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:01:38
Sam
And then I just watch him, no warm-up, pop, and I'm like, okay, well, that's sort of reframing ah my idea of what's possible, which I love, that i want to train with people that are better than me.
00:01:45
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:01:51
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Sean was very good at reframing what you thought was possible and making look easy.
00:01:54
Sam
Yeah.
00:01:56
Sam
Yeah. And also the way he went about it because he was –
00:01:56
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:01:57
Tony Montgomery
Great.
00:01:59
Sam
doing shift work whilst ah getting on the podium at big Big Dogs and he's got a very unassuming way about him, like almost no ego and he was happy just to to do the work and not do as he was told, but do as he was guided and not really questioning the the process, but more about doing it.
00:02:21
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, yeah. Great guy. um He's gone through a couple injuries here lately, so hopefully he'll recover and who knows what what he'll do after that.
00:02:27
Sam
Yeah.
00:02:30
Tony Montgomery
But yeah, for those of you who don't know, Sean Doyle was an old training partner of ours and he totaled 2,400 pounds in a powerlifting meet in Australia at right around like 320.
00:02:39
Sam
Yep.
00:02:42
Tony Montgomery
Did a couple meets at 308.
00:02:43
Sam
Yeah.
00:02:44
Tony Montgomery
yeah, one of the strongest guys I've ever seen in my life and one of the one of the best dudes I've ever met too. So great man.
00:02:50
Sam
Yep. Yep.
00:02:52
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. So speaking of training hard, what's
00:02:52
Sam
For sure.
Sam's Rowing Background and Olympic Aspirations
00:02:55
Tony Montgomery
kind of, what, what, like, what's the mindset?
00:02:58
Tony Montgomery
what's like What's the, what's the framework that it takes to pursue like Olympic, um Olympic status, right? You were, you were a crew row. um Correct me if I'm, if I'm saying it poorly, but.
00:03:11
Sam
You can say a rower you know but is basically, you know, a rower is to rowing as a powerlifter is to powerlifting.
00:03:20
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah.
00:03:20
Sam
Yeah.
00:03:21
Sam
And some people more or less, you know, more or less, they they ah they attach themselves to that. You know, it's ah there's a rower, someone I self-identifies as a rower, and for a period of time, that's what I was. I look back at it now as I was probably an athlete that rowed.
00:03:21
Tony Montgomery
So what, what,
00:03:40
Sam
like an athlete that powerlifts as opposed to someone that's, you know, I'm a powerlifter and making it their whole identity all about it.
00:03:46
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:03:48
Sam
um But it basically gets to a point where for me, I realized pretty early on, that ah in the sport of rowing there was going to be a talent deficit for me basically anyone that was elite so i was the shortest guy in any crew that i was in from high school onwards and where i went to college at princeton was also the base for the u.s national team
00:04:20
Sam
So by the time I was at college, um my freshman year ended in 2002. Had a couple of years there where watching the guys in the U.S. national team in around 2004, 2004 Athens Olympics, the U.S. men's eight won gold medal.
00:04:39
Sam
And so that's guys I knew. in the boat class that I wanted to compete in, the men's eight, that won gold. And at that stage in 2004, I wanted to compete the Olympics.
00:04:50
Sam
I just didn't know what sport ah because I felt like rowing, there was a way forward there.
00:04:52
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:04:57
Sam
i knew people at that level, which wasn't the case in a lot of other sports. um But I also knew that most of those guys were 6'6",
00:05:11
Sam
6'8", is sort of the range for most elite heavyweight oarsmen. And I was six one and heavier than all those guys. So 235 as a freshman, is that's a fullback in football.
00:05:27
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:05:27
Sam
That's that's not a... That's not ah an oarsman whose prototypical would be in that range of height and maybe 205 to 225.
00:05:37
Sam
So too thick, too short. ah But then they won gold and they thought, well it seemed very achievable because they knew those guys and it didn't seem... like it was this completely different realm, it seemed achievable. So at that point, by Christmas of 2004, I was graduating in mid-2006. And so I remember having a conversation with my parents when I flew home for the Christmas break to be like, hey, just so you know, in two years when I graduate, I'm training to go to Beijing, not I'm going to try and go to the Beijing Olympics, not
00:06:13
Sam
we'll see how it goes is like, this is what I'm doing to say, I'm gonna go about this as serious as a heart attack, no negotiation, but also I'm not gonna be putting on a suit and going into an office and doing a job in finance. So if you had any of those aspirations for me that just, you need to know that's not on the table,
00:06:36
Sam
now but potentially ever and so i was from that point on committed and then it was basically doing whatever was possible to make that dream a reality which is to answer your question you do whatever's needed and A teammate of mine who we rode together at high school and then also rode together at the Olympics.
00:07:01
Sam
And so we've had a lot of shared experiences and we would talk about, you know, the things that we would do.
00:07:04
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:07:09
Sam
ah if related or not, like literally, and not to just completely disgust all of your listeners at the outset, but like, would you eat a teaspoon of my shit in order to an Olympic gold medal?
00:07:25
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:07:26
Sam
And it's like, with this sitting there at dinner, you know, guys in their early mid-20s thinking, oh, yeah, for sure, I need a tablespoon of your shit. like if
00:07:36
Sam
And, of course, that's not going to bring you any closer to the prize, but it's basically a willingness to to do what what's whatever is required.
00:07:36
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:42
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:07:45
Sam
Yeah. which is nothing nefarious. It's just all within the boundary conditions of what you can do that's legal and ethical to firstly, you' got to get on the team and then to be as competitive as possible. those are two different things, which I could elaborate on, but that's basically the mindset, at least that was the mindset for for myself, knowing that I couldn't even show up to do just the best that I could within training or workouts because if i ah only did the same amount as the guys the other guys on my team that had more talent, then how would I improve at a rate
00:08:26
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:08:30
Sam
that was faster than them so i would was prepared to do more work more research watch more races um push the nutrition push body composition push my understanding of the sport and performance and training in order to get as much to the top of that pile as possible with whatever talent i had
00:08:53
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, no, I mean, I understand that completely the idea that I think they did research on Olympians and asked them, you know, if if you had to take a pill, and within the next two years, you would die, but you would win a gold medal who would do it.
00:09:06
Tony Montgomery
And, you know, hypothetically, a lot of them said they would do it push come to shove, you never know if they would actually do it or not.
00:09:12
Sam
For sure.
00:09:12
Tony Montgomery
But that is that is kind of the mindset, right? It's like, I'll do whatever it takes. um and Especially if you feel like you you lack the talent, and I'd be curious to know, with the the people that you
00:09:16
Sam
Yep.
00:09:23
Tony Montgomery
rode with um the ones that had the frame. um One kind of, I guess, explain why that frame is is superior, kind of with the with the averages and stuff like that.
00:09:31
Sam
Yep.
00:09:33
Tony Montgomery
But also did, did they have that same work ethic and and mentality? Or were they just so talented, that that they didn't have that because you would assume at the Olympic level, everyone has that mindset.
00:09:46
Tony Montgomery
And then the the genetic pool is kind of what separates the the gold medalist from from everyone else.
00:09:52
Sam
Yeah, there's a few things in there. so on the talent side, yeah compared to elite oarsmen for the two-kilometer distance, which is the Olympic distance, I had certain deficiencies. But I'm also still a genetic outlier compared to most people. So if I go, there's there's only ah handful of gyms in the world where I'm not going to go into it now.
00:10:20
Sam
and be probably the strongest and the fittest person there. Now, that there will be some exceptions, but compared to the normal population, I'm an outlier. But if I'm comparing to the relevant population, which is Olympic oarsmen and realistically Olympic medalist oarsmen, then you see that deficiency. So i had a 6.3 litre VO2, was probably at my weight at the time over... over 70 milliliters per per kilo per minute um and we're stronger than you know in terms of uh absolute strength than most other guys but then that's not
00:11:03
Sam
really the most relevant attribute. VO2 is, um it's not going to line up perfectly as a perfect corollary for performance, but in terms of markers that you can measure in a lab that are going to show up as relevant, that's one of them. And some of the guys on the
Role of Sports Science and Mental Training
00:11:21
Sam
team that I was in there are amongst the highest ever recorded
00:11:25
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:11:25
Sam
in history so uh but in terms of the frame itself just you it's basically a sport where it's leverages and so if you've got longer reach longer legs then you can move the the boat the boat more per stroke so if you're shorty you either need to apply more power within that stroke or you need to
00:11:27
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:11:48
Sam
row through a longer range of motion, which is going to put you in more vulnerable, more you know you're more compressed and more extended at either end of the stroke, which just makes it less efficient, all else being equal.
00:12:01
Sam
So it's not even down to just taller and broader. It's the specific limb segments that make more or less of a difference. So femur length, humerus length, all of those, when we've done
00:12:13
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:12:17
Sam
in-depth anthropometry over time, those are even more important than height. So height's going to be correlated, but not as closely correlated as those particular segments.
00:12:30
Sam
So li ah leg length is more important than even sitting height. So my sitting height was close up, but it's less relevant. So the actual deficiencies were magnified.
00:12:42
Sam
Then you start starting to account for ah your armor span, but that's also not as relevant. Then there's the technical component, but that's basically...
00:12:56
Sam
that's a leveler in that everyone has, there's going to be talent involved, but you really can get better at that. Of course, if you are rowing within, you're not like as extended or as compressed within the stroke cycle, that makes it easier.
00:13:05
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:13:12
Sam
um The guys that had my attitude that were a bit more of a prototypical Olympic oarsman in in terms of frame and physiology, those are Olympic gold medalists.
00:13:27
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:13:27
Sam
That's the the the difference. And it's a sport where everyone at the top level has talent and everyone's done the work, but then you you're separating these percents and half percent. So in the Olympic final in 2012,
00:13:48
Sam
we were ah i think three seconds from gold but three seconds from gold but 0.5 from silver and we were sixth so between first and six it's like
00:14:02
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah. That's why I'm with margins. Yeah.
00:14:05
Sam
i don't turn turn and and you can take a photo there's the guys that want silver are there and we're in the thanks very much for coming you you there's not even we're not even getting a brown paper bag you get a participation certificate and then everyone else's well half the field is going to be going home with um with medals in a six boat final and it's so those are the the points of differences yeah
00:14:11
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:14:16
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:14:26
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:14:29
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah. So when you're talking milliseconds like that, how much sports science goes into what you guys do? Or is it like that old school mentality of like, we're just going to outwork everyone? Like, were you guys doing lactate threshold testing? Were you, you know, training within a certain lactate range and they were pricking you and doing all like, what, what was the sports science behind it? Or was it just like run your head into the wall or both?
00:14:55
Sam
It's fit's both, but there's there was physio physiological oversight. So we had physiologists full-time on staff. um So we were doing, yeah lactate testing, not every day of the week, but certain sessions would be,
00:15:10
Sam
either on row machines or on the water. So you imagine you're doing a bit of workload a piece and then you pull it in pretty quickly onto the bank, ear pricks back out, either same or different intensity.
00:15:24
Sam
And yeah, so they're measuring workload, but also fatigue. So if you're working hard, but producing low lactate, then that could be a sign of improved fitness, but also could be,
00:15:38
Sam
that you're just totally low on glycogen and you can't even push hard enough to ah produce lactic acid. And because I'm a bigger body type ah in terms of thicker for for rowers, I was basically keeping my body weight down for...
00:15:56
Sam
the whole time I was rowing internationally. So my set points probably around 235 and I was basically 205 to 210 for my whole 20s, which meant that for the only time I'd be in a real surplus would be
00:16:07
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:16:15
Sam
like refeeds here and there, but also in the the window in the week or two after the Olympics of World Champs. And then the other 50 weeks of the year, pretty much in a deficit when you're trying and to do all that workload. So at times...
00:16:31
Sam
um you're going to come and get come up against being pretty depleted and that'll show up in the in the testing too but we would do ah lab testing as well so vo2 testing on the on the rowing machine because it it it makes it super objective there's no condition environmental factors um what's a great thing about that apparatus um
00:16:49
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:16:56
Sam
Skin folds, ah DEXA scans, all of that stuff could be done in-house.
00:17:01
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. BMR and stuff like that as well.
00:17:04
Sam
Yeah, um they would with some people, and it usually was people that couldn't
00:17:08
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:17:11
Sam
that had a hard time gaining weight, which is, so I'm thinking of a teammate of mine who, he was six eight and if he is constantly yeah basically doing whatever he could every day to have his weight around that 220 mark, but if he had a day or two,
00:17:33
Sam
of not great eating, he'd be 205. And then you've got a 205 guy that's maybe a little on the fragile and could be a little underpowered.
00:17:36
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:17:45
Sam
So that guy's responsibility was eat, eat, eat. And mine was eat enough and and try not to eat more, which I think i in retrospect, I probably could have been a little less...
00:17:56
Tony Montgomery
Right.
00:18:00
Sam
dramatic um with that my skin folds in the end like i had on dexter and i was six eight percent and the skin folds were more comparable to the lightweights um and so you're just pushing up against the well you can't fuel the training as well and your resilience is going to be a little bit depressed like i couldn't towards the end of a lot of the racing seasons i couldn't get in the plunge pool that much because i would i just kind of be shivering instantly and it's a more trouble than it's worth so you you're making these trade-offs though when you're pushing the limits in any sport
00:18:21
Tony Montgomery
right
00:18:38
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:18:43
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, no, you definitely are Was there any physiological differences with like lactate and the elite performers being able to maintain higher workloads at higher lactate thresholds?
00:18:56
Tony Montgomery
Did you see that as well?
00:18:57
Sam
You get that, so like higher lactic tolerance. ah That was and and is um one of my attributes in that I can produce a lot of lactic acid and tolerate it, um especially in like a two to three, like I reckon two to three minutes,
00:19:19
Sam
of effort and the lactate that comes along with that, that would probably be where on a global population, I'd be the closest to the top.
00:19:30
Sam
But that's not as useful as being able to minimize lactate production at those higher thresholds. So that's that's where you see some of the real freaks is they're at this high output and they're not really accumulating a lot of lactic acid.
00:19:49
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. And that's also genetically predetermined a lot of times for people, lung volume, lung capacity, your ability to buffer metabolites and all that stuff.
00:19:49
Sam
Yeah.
00:19:55
Sam
Yeah.
00:19:59
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, you can train and and work for it. But like, yeah, some people are always going to have those advantages and they typically find the sport that best suits them. Right.
00:20:07
Sam
Yeah. And then they, those people that tend to be, once those, those measures can be observed, then they get, this subconscious and otherwise more favorable treatment because people recognize that there's, like if someone in football,
00:20:25
Tony Montgomery
Right.
00:20:29
Sam
has a really good 40 and they're a wide receiver, but their hand skills aren't that great on balance with some other guy that isn't as fast, then they'll get given a couple more reps because people wanna see if that talent can go somewhere.
00:20:43
Tony Montgomery
right
00:20:46
Sam
Whereas the inverse is also true. So if you're undersized or under height and your VO2 is good, not great, then you you sort of have to fight for opportunities, yeah, and which...
00:20:59
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah, you got to earn earn your opportunity as opposed to get treated like your opportunity is there for you.
00:21:06
Sam
Yeah.
00:21:08
Tony Montgomery
And you just have to, you know, foresee it like you have to magnify it through the through the training and stuff.
00:21:12
Sam
For sure. and even insist on it.
00:21:14
Tony Montgomery
Yeah,
00:21:17
Sam
you also, i had teammates who's, parents rode at the Olympics. So there's they've got your pedigree, they grew up with it, there's ah genetic a contribution that's visible.
00:21:23
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:21:30
Sam
If my kids will have an easier go in that regard, then i will because it's been proven that someone of that genetic line can do things at that level.
00:21:34
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Right. Yeah.
00:21:41
Tony Montgomery
right
00:21:42
Sam
Whereas that when that's not the case, that's not the case. And in the end, like I'm a big believer in this historic concept, the dichotomy of control, the things you can control, you do, and the things you can't, you have to let go of.
00:21:56
Sam
And so, you we're having a conversation about But... um but what i thought about on a day-to-day basis was not that at all you don't you're not looking in terms of your deficiencies you just well what are the things i can do i'm aware of the circumstance but let's get on with it and most of it was well i'm just going to fuck up these people um yeah like when it comes down to it let's just get competitive because that's all you can control yeah
00:21:56
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:22:20
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:22:25
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Right. And we've seen those people have success, right? You have like the Rocky Marcianos that just try to outwork everyone and and went undefeated. You have the Khabibs, you have, you know, the Tom Brady's of the world who get drafted in the sixth round.
00:22:40
Sam
Yeah.
00:22:41
Tony Montgomery
Right. So you do have those people who, um, for whatever reason, mentally, they're just tougher than everyone else. And they're willing to do whatever it takes.
00:22:49
Sam
Yep.
00:22:51
Tony Montgomery
Right. And, um you know, yeah, yeah, for sure.
00:22:53
Sam
And that's a talent too.
00:22:56
Tony Montgomery
There's always a talent there.
00:22:56
Sam
Yep.
00:22:57
Tony Montgomery
Like, like you said, like there's, there's 99% of the population and then there's the 1%, right.
00:23:02
Sam
Yeah.
00:23:03
Tony Montgomery
And then.
00:23:03
Sam
ah But what I'm saying is there' that the of all the attributes that you can have, jumping higher is one that we look at and go, okay, vertically, some people have more or less um genetic capacity to do that regardless of training.
00:23:04
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:23:11
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:23:20
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:23:20
Sam
ah Some people... either through, so always the combination of nurture and nature, they are more resilient or have, um they're more combative. So when they're in a challenging situation, they're going to show up and keep pushing forward and some people will fall away. And like like the ability to jump, it's something that is, you're born with to more or less extent, but that you can also improve. And that too is a,
00:23:52
Sam
a talent. So, you know, of the talents I did have, that is, that's probably one of them.
00:23:54
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:23:58
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:59
Sam
And then it's just a matter of, well, how much is it a talent versus, um you something that you cultivate, but in the end, it doesn't matter other than, you know, when we're talking about it,
00:24:08
Tony Montgomery
yeah
Transition from Athlete to Coach and Personal Growth
00:24:11
Sam
that's, that's where it matters.
00:24:12
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. And the interesting thing with like the stress resilience research, right, is a lot of it is based off of reframing and the locus of control and like focusing on what I can, getting rid of what I can't. It's like you're you're trying to eliminate as much stress as possible that you are able to be as resilient as you can be.
00:24:30
Tony Montgomery
And what they're trying to do now, they're trying to find these biomarkers, whether it be through brain scans or
00:24:34
Sam
m
00:24:36
Tony Montgomery
or blood tests to see who potentially could be more resilient in you know warlike conditions. So they've done research where they would um do all these scans, do all these tests on soldiers about three months before they deployed.
00:24:50
Tony Montgomery
And then when they got back, they were able to predict who was going to get PTSD and who wasn't. and So they're able to start to look at these brain areas, these these contributions, these traits that make people more resilient.
00:25:03
Tony Montgomery
And they're able to maybe identify like, maybe you shouldn't be ah combat soldier. Maybe you should be, you know, admin, right? And still do your job, still serve your country.
00:25:12
Sam
sure
00:25:14
Tony Montgomery
But the the idea that we are able to find those things and we are able to make them more robust in nature, right? We know that through any type of training, we can enlarge certain brain areas to become more resilient.
00:25:26
Tony Montgomery
um But it has to be that idea of like, it's mental training as well as as physical training. And like you said, just being able to shift your perspectives on things to reduce your stress response to stuff is going to make you as resilient as possible, you know, and if you are in a deficit and you are having all these other things to pull away, maybe some of that glucose from the brain, right, you have to get rid of all that stress, you have to get rid of all that or else you would crumble, right?
00:25:50
Sam
Yeah. Yeah. Unless you're so resilient, then you can play that game, but whether or not it's sustainable.
00:26:01
Sam
um For example, I think that because I felt like the first thing you need to do is get selected and that if there was any reason to not select me, then I wouldn't be.
00:26:15
Sam
because of the reasons we've explained. And so I got into a mindset which was a bit like, well, fuck you, I'm not going to, it it wasn't It was a an unhelpful mindset of, I'm going to make it impossible for you to not select me as opposed to do what's necessary for you to select me.
00:26:15
Tony Montgomery
yeah yeah
00:26:36
Sam
So it was very combative in how I went about things, but also in my mindset. And I was talking with my wife about this yesterday by chance and saying,
00:26:36
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:26:50
Sam
that there was a period of time where i was this in a perpetual calorie deficit and training six hours a day and would still, my normal idling level was just below psychotic in that in traffic I was,
00:27:06
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:27:09
Sam
like pretty aggressive, like keeping a lid on it, but ready to to boil over at anything. Like I was always ready for a fight about anything at any time. And that comes with a cost.
00:27:21
Sam
And so over time, i'd say I've mellowed or learned to control that, but that is something I would have done differently.
00:27:21
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:27:31
Sam
little the the The real separation isn't in talent between... Olympians and Olympic medalists, it's the the guys that won medals, especially gold medals, if everyone's working hard, they're focusing on working well.
00:27:50
Sam
ah with Hard work is a given to the point where we're not even thinking about that anymore. We're not trying to see who can do the most work. We're trying to see who's who can who can be the best, and then which is a slight evolution but a real...
00:28:05
Sam
really necessary one, which, um you know, if given the time again, then there's just a a subtle shift of emphasis to instead of I'm trying to fight all of you, it's like I'm i'm honing my craft
00:28:20
Sam
i'm um and and knowing a lot of Olympic medalists, that's what they were able to do at the right time.
00:28:20
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:28:28
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, I mean, it sounds a lot like, you know, their ability to autonomically balance their nervous system was just a little bit more in tune. And it does seem like based on what you're saying, you were probably in one of the worst situations you could be in like you probably had extreme levels of HPA dysregulation, high cortisol inflammation, glucocorticoids just running through your body because you're always in that fight or flight response.
00:28:52
Sam
Yeah.
00:28:55
Sam
Yeah.
00:28:55
Tony Montgomery
So the fact that you were able to do that in a low calorie deficit and still recover and still train is absolutely amazing.
00:29:03
Sam
Well, that's why I can say, oh, the resilience is probably the the talent because i was making it harder for myself.
00:29:03
Tony Montgomery
Like, right.
00:29:09
Tony Montgomery
right
00:29:09
Sam
um And there was times as I got further on, it it got better, not worse. But um upon reflection, there was times when that balance was just a little bit off.
00:29:16
Tony Montgomery
yeah.
00:29:23
Sam
And that's... I also... knew that that my personality could have showed up in another sport where there maybe would have been more and more natural alignment.
00:29:36
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:29:36
Sam
In a rowing event, you need to pace yourself over six minutes, which is, if you compare it an elite miler, is another 50%. fifty percent So it's an endurance event and pacing is really ah important.
00:29:51
Sam
but i I want to attack. um
00:29:53
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:29:54
Sam
and And so i was able to do what I was able to do in in my chosen sport for that period of time. But the real upside is that if you reflect on it, then you get to learn from it. And then now we can have conversations like this and the people I work with, I have an additional perspective where if I had ah been purpose built for that sport had gone really well there'd been less struggle um maybe i would feel better in terms of achievement but have less insights from that journey
00:30:29
Tony Montgomery
know
00:30:32
Tony Montgomery
yeah our greatest strengths can always be our greatest weaknesses all at the same time and it's one of those things that you always have to to balance and as you as you go through life you understand that balance much better right from like a business perspective if you're always driven to pursue growing your business then you realize quickly like you're never present in the moment and you're never satisfied and you're never happy with your life
00:30:35
Sam
yeah for sure
00:30:55
Tony Montgomery
right? So sure, you're a hard worker and you're driving to build something and you'll be really successful, but then like, are you actually enjoying it? And how can you enjoy it? Because your drive is outpowering that ability to to enjoy those things.
00:31:08
Tony Montgomery
And it's always that push and pull, right? Like with with mental health disorders, i always think of that. It's like people that are depressed, they're not able to form like happy memories. All their memories are negative.
00:31:19
Tony Montgomery
Everything's negative valent for them. So they're so far pulled in that one direction that happiness is just something that they can never they can never reach in their mind right so there's always and wherever you go you're losing something else right and the more you go into it um the more you you lose the the other thing and it's it's hard to find your way out of that and that that's one of the things i was going to ask you is like what like what is your personal life at that moment right you just talked about your wife you guys been together for a long time but like
00:31:28
Sam
Yeah.
00:31:32
Sam
Yeah.
00:31:49
Tony Montgomery
what was like What was your personal life training for the Olympics um compared to like maybe someone who had a different personality? like Were you noticing other people were like able to live a life and you were just kind of like the guy who lived with a bed on the ground and you know a table and ah bowl of chicken and rice?
00:32:10
Sam
I mean, that's basically bed on the ground.
00:32:12
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:32:14
Sam
Yeah, that's what it was. um Yeah, that's the that version was far more likely reflective of what it was ah up until...
00:32:26
Sam
my late I was rowing up until i was about 30 and then started coaching and pursuing world records on the indoor rowing machine. So there was a ah long transition and then powerlifting for a few years there, about three years, um when you you know right about the time you and I met.
00:32:47
Sam
um So there's a long tail to the... a late full-time side of things, but it was very monastic and that's what I wanted.
00:33:02
Sam
Anytime that I ah strayed from that because there were guys in the squad that were more normal and wanted more normalcy, so they might be more inclined to go out or have a meal, that just like a regular meal at a regular place, ah which anytime I did that to kind of because these are still my friends and you want to spend time with them. And there's a sense of well, maybe I shouldn't be like quite so constrained or weird. Uh, and then i would do those things, especially on like a night out,
00:33:37
Sam
Never would I feel more misaligned with my actual goals than if I'm out and it's past my bedtime and I've had five drinks and that's, I could have spent the money just even on those drinks on something that would have actually contributed to my goals.
00:33:41
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:33:56
Sam
And I would just feel totally ill at ease with that. And, if i I think I should have just been more okay with being who I was and not trying to ever be normal. And I really wasn't trying that hard to be to be normal.
00:34:15
Sam
But, um yeah, it was definitely that... ah The first house I lived in after graduating, so imagine yeah graduating from Princeton, you've got a world of opportunities. In the house I lived in, we were three guys.
00:34:29
Sam
Two of us had beds on the floor. um We had a coffee table built out of pizza boxes. We had one bit of cutlery, which was a a knife that was used for peanut butter.
00:34:43
Sam
that it would just go into the peanut butter and then back on the...
00:34:44
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah,
00:34:46
Sam
um Now, to be fair, because where' there was a cafeteria that we were... It's not like that's...
00:34:52
Tony Montgomery
yeah, yeah.
00:34:52
Sam
But even then, when you when you're eating at a cafeteria from a tray, that's a different sort of lifestyle. But then that was my normal until I was 30,
Life After Sports: Family and New Goals
00:35:01
Sam
was pretty institutionalized, pretty like on this day of the week we do this, that's really was and is my normal. That's I still hang on to that. Everything but living eating from a tray, although I still say to my wife, like, I really enjoy eating from a tray.
00:35:19
Tony Montgomery
Yeah,
00:35:21
Sam
Yeah, I think people, like some of my mates thought, okay, well, it's sort of either, you know, what are the the logical progressions here? It's like prison, you know, there's lot of the same structure and you're like, you know, you eat from a tray, but maybe you don't want to end up there.
00:35:31
Tony Montgomery
yeah, yeah. yeah
00:35:37
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. So with rowing though, it is ah it is a team sport and it seemed like with having that um mentality that you had, were you able to build that camaraderie still or was that something that was a lot more difficult? Was that challenging for you to do to to be able to um interact and to be able to to build that camaraderie with your team?
00:35:59
Sam
i yeah Not difficult. It was more natural for some guys in that they... There are certain guys that they're very good athletes, but they can kind of only train hard if they're in a squad situation and getting told what to do. Whereas for me, i didn't need that at all. Like...
00:36:19
Sam
I don't need anyone around to do the work. Um, but I also wasn't good enough to do it by myself in that you in rowing, if you're going to row by yourself, you've basically got the single skull and that's a one person boat that those guys are the number one standout freak from their country.
00:36:43
Sam
And, That ah just was not talented enough. And I also wanted to be in the eight, which is the fastest boat class that probably has the most machismo. It's the most... The bigger the boat, the more people, the faster it is, the shorter the race, the more on a continuum of let's focus on efficiency versus let's focus on power.
00:37:08
Sam
It's more power-oriented, which ah had more alignment with.
00:37:10
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:37:12
Sam
It's also... What I grew up doing, so three years of high school and four years of college, that was all rowing eights. And ah played rugby for 12 years.
00:37:23
Sam
I grew up doing primarily team sports. It was basketball for a little bit, rugby for a long time. the only thing I did by myself was throw the shot put.
00:37:35
Sam
And that's just because I was a ah bigger kid that could take a portion of the year to...
00:37:40
Tony Montgomery
Thank you.
00:37:40
Sam
lift weights and throw the shot put before rugby season, but mostly it was team sports. So you that was more normal for me than not. And then you realize, well, ah you you're part of a team and that means that you have to operate in the interest of the team, ah which means that you have to be able to interact with other people, bring the best out of them.
00:38:04
Sam
think about more than yourself, which is these the benefits of being in a team and why people would say for kids, you want them in team sports, they're going to learn all these lessons. And that applies all the way through to adulthood, especially if you're, ah it's your, maybe not your natural inclination. So I would just try and find a balance of,
00:38:26
Sam
I'm doing all the team things. I'm mindful of my teammates. I'm trying to support them, although although sometimes my support was leading by example and just being pretty, these are what the expectations are.
00:38:43
Sam
I expect you to be at that level. If you're not, I'm probably going to make you feel shit about yourself. ah So it's a certain sort of encouragement. And then there were times that ah ah i have I can think of a friend that would call me Solo Sam because every now and then I just have to be like, okay, I'm going go and go over here by myself um and just in order to make the whole thing sustainable.
00:39:03
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:39:09
Sam
But again, I look back and think, well, what the differences between us being on the podium and not in the eight? It was the boat that I was in for two Olympics and we had sufficient talent um and I could look at all the things that were managerial issues where we weren't as supported as well as we could have been.
00:39:29
Sam
the There were issues in terms of the preparation, the things outside of my control, and I've reflected on those. But you've to get to a point where it's like, well what was my influence that I could have done better?
00:39:41
Sam
And I think that I could have just been straight up more supportive in –
00:39:41
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:39:48
Sam
yeah in the way that most people think about it. So instead of basically being like a just having a bar, the a standard that needed to be reached, it would have been if someone was deficient of that, it wouldn't just be, okay, well, you're shit and I'm disappointed with you. would have been, hey, mate, what's the limiting factor here and and actually taking the time to help them work through it as opposed to just indicating it my displeasure.
00:40:15
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, no, that makes sense. And so I guess with the idea of like isolation comes a lot of like introspection and self awareness. And you're talking about that now, as looking back and and kind of seeing where your faults were and looking at, is that something that you always had? Or did you develop that like after your Olympic run?
00:40:34
Sam
After. and Mostly because, well, when you, it starts after the first Olympic Games in Beijing's 2008 tournament.
00:40:47
Sam
They were in our squad. There's three boats, the pair, the four, the eight. They're the sweet boats on any national team that are going to be at the Olympics if they all qualify. And the pair got gold, the four got silver, and we came six.
00:41:05
Sam
And so i could there were guys, that friends, teammates, very similar standard that were the guys that won gold. They're different.
00:41:17
Sam
they're a bit older and and it was that wasn't the comparison, but the guys that won silver in the four, we're all literally in the same squad. And they just got it to better got to together better and executed, but we didn't. And then you have all these experiences where – on the plane on the way back, the medalists sit in business and first class.
00:41:38
Sam
Whereas if you don't, they're like, get in the back.
00:41:38
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:41:40
Sam
So there's these real immediate points of difference. They're doing interviews with media. You're not. You're doing a welcome home parade. They go to every city. You do your home city. And then...
00:41:52
Sam
The thing I remember is, you know, yeah're you're saying hi to little kids, doing all these high fives, and you've got these mates of yours that are showing, you know, this is my medal the little kids. And I remember little kids saying to me,
00:42:05
Sam
um did you get a medal? And I'm like, oh, no, actually they don't have medals for sixth place. And they're kind of looking at you like maybe there's some dog shit on their shoe just because if that guy's a medalist and you're not, well, we've already got some separation and you've got all of your own disappointment because if you're on the Australian rowing team, and a medal is not an unrealistic expectation.
00:42:23
Tony Montgomery
Thank
00:42:31
Sam
And so to have that experience with different variables ah twice, you are reflecting on what went wrong and what could have been better, partly because I've been asked.
00:42:46
Sam
um If someone asks you about your Olympic experience, if it's more nuanced than... well, it this is the result and it normally is if you can reflect upon that at all.
00:42:59
Sam
And especially if it didn't go the way that you want, then you just, it's just, well, why not?
00:43:04
Tony Montgomery
All right.
00:43:05
Sam
If it's not, if it was an ability, then it was execution and preparation. And then you think, well, what were the things that, influenced us that I couldn't control.
00:43:16
Sam
and then then there's all the things that I could have. And those are the the real things to learn from and then hopefully adopt. But also if someone's listening to me and they have some similarities and they're in the thick of it right now and they can influence the outcome by modulating their behavior in a way that's achievable and it will achieve a better result or even just make them feel better about it, then...
00:43:42
Sam
then that's the reason to to talk about it. So, and also because I went on to be a rowing coach, that's you're on the other side of it.
00:43:50
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:43:52
Sam
You need to cultivate that environment. And so you you have this perspective as well with age. So I think I'm pretty introspective. I'm very mindful of the, what goes into any performance and then what are the limiting factors?
00:44:11
Sam
And then if I've got these big, like I've got the Olympic rings tattooed on me, which means that, and I probably wasn't aware of this at the time, maybe not fully consciously, but people will ask you, they'll say, oh, you went to the Olympics.
00:44:24
Sam
And you go, yep. And they go, oh, how'd you go? Did you get a medal? And you go, no. And then so yeah it it it comes up. just to And some people will go, oh, it's so great that you went.
00:44:33
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Right. Yeah.
00:44:36
Sam
But because that's from their perspective, It is like, that would be, it's and it's amazing. But for me, by the time you're there, you're not thinking about how good it is to go or get the tracks that you're there to to compete.
00:44:50
Sam
So I've had this bittersweet, took me eight years to get the tattoo because it was about like, I got it when I was in Poland.
00:44:51
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:44:58
Sam
two quadrenniums after I'd earned it because it'd taken me that long to be at peace with being able to even talk about the the result.
00:45:12
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Did you go through any like mental health struggles once you guys didn't make it or even when you decided like I'm going to hang it up? Was there any issues with depression or any type of mental health irregularities at all?
00:45:25
Sam
No, I mean, I've always felt somewhat irregular mentally, but I'm never on the depression continuum. um I'd say one thing that was helpful was that I was still considering going again for Rio and was physically able and willing like I just would have gotten another four years better.
00:45:50
Sam
But because wanted to be in the... in the eight again, ah because I'd felt like I committed to that bow class and the Australian eight has never won gold.
00:46:01
Sam
That was the project I was invested in. But then the bigger the bow class, the more bodies, the more at the mercy of the the broader team and the management it is.
00:46:12
Sam
So a pair can kind of do well in spite of, but the eight, Not so much. 2013, this is a year post olympics into 2014 was still thinking of rowing and was still in the boat quite a bit. I was doing some other things. I broke 24 hour world record with one of my teammates from London, the same guy, Matt Ryan. We went together at high school, rowed together you at the Olympics.
00:46:41
Sam
And then he and I did 20 minute rotations for 24 hours on the rowing machine to raise some money for charity, break a world record. And was contemplating going back, but it didn't look like it would be a different result for the things that were outside of my control.
00:46:56
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:46:59
Sam
So I thought, okay, well, i one I've always wanted the opportunity to be able to do more of my own training. it with the, have the autonomy to things to go well, for things not to go well and not have it impact my teammates adversely at all. Like I could live and die.
00:47:21
Sam
with my preparation and my performances. And there's records on the indoor row machine over distances that more suited my physiology. So then that's what i did. And then as, cause the time domain is shorter, the emphasis on strength is more.
00:47:37
Sam
So I could actually i allow my myself to fill out my frame and get stronger for the first time as an adult. Like i I didn't do any overhead movements for a decade because
00:47:48
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:47:50
Sam
It just was not going to be helpful. so ah And then i because I was getting decently strong, just training for indoor rowing, my deadlift would have then been about...
00:48:03
Sam
you know, 660 just as a ah means to an end. And then I was like, okay, well, I kind of i like the heavy lifting. There's power lifting just kind of right there.
00:48:16
Sam
and so once kind of slayed all the dragons or at least fought all the dragons that I wanted to in the indoor rowing world, then I just – moved to powerlifting where my level was lower, but my experience was lower as well. So I just approached it like a experienced novice where i could just train and get better, have the experience that most people want, pretty low on performance expectations relative to anyone else.
00:48:49
Sam
So this transition powerlifting finishing rowing well the olympics in 2012 basically took me until 2020 because i was doing all this other stuff and so then by the time you get to that well it's a you kind of transitioned so i didn't really wasn't you know kicking a can down the road going oh coulda shoulda woulda and i had enough time to get to the point where i thought well if i'd uh if i'd won an olympic gold medal
00:49:21
Sam
How would that have made things better now? And I realized, well, I'd probably, i don't know if I'd be resting on my laurels, but because everyone around me though would go, look at how good that thing was that you did.
00:49:36
Sam
Then you're kind of connected to this thing that happened eight years ago. And you can see a lot of Olympic gold medalists. They spend the next 40 years talking about the thing they did when they were in their twenty s
00:49:47
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
00:49:47
Sam
But because i don't that didn't happen, um'm not i don't connect to it is look at this great thing that I'd done. i look at it as though there's that's a life experience that learned from. And so then I just got to continue doing that and then believe that was the that was the real benefit from not only the rowing side of things, but the athletic...
00:50:13
Sam
um you know, a career or experience is that it has been learning and evolving. Whereas if I was so connected to some singular past performance, then i'd be, that's probably not a person I'd want to be, even if I would have very much liked that result.
00:50:35
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, so I guess the idea would be then you stop one pursuit to go to another pursuit to go to another pursuit, all with this athletic endeavor.
00:50:48
Tony Montgomery
Are you still with that mindset of like, what's the next athletic achievement? And what do you think it's going to be like when you can't do that or you don't do that.
00:50:59
Sam
Mmm.
00:51:00
Tony Montgomery
you know You have two kids.
00:51:02
Sam
Mmm.
00:51:03
Tony Montgomery
I don't know if you guys are gonna have any more, but like eventually they're gonna have their athletic career. And I would have to imagine you're gonna begin to devote more your time to their career than yours. So do you think that that's gonna be a ah struggle? Is that something that you think about is like, when does my athletic career end and theirs begin? Or like what's life after an athletic career?
00:51:26
Sam
Yeah, i I think about all those things and that too has been an evolution. There was... So if I were to take it back to 2020 pandemic in Poland, I think a lot of people were making some life changes because maybe they were given some time to reflect. I know that you did.
00:51:49
Sam
um i was plus... to seventy plus just trying to fill out my my frame to be as strong as possible because, hey, we're we're powerlifting in and that's the that's the goal.
00:52:04
Tony Montgomery
Nice.
00:52:05
Sam
And then there was no meets anytime soon. And then my wife got pregnant and I was thinking, I've i've kind of... been pushing it pretty hard for 20 years and I'd never even slightly prioritized health at all.
00:52:25
Sam
In fact, I was totally willing to compromise it for the sake of performance without even a moment's hesitation.
00:52:29
Tony Montgomery
hi
00:52:33
Sam
And then you yeah have a kid on the way and then the kid arrives and you're thinking, okay, I actually want to stick around as long as possible and in being good order. So i I undertook a period where I was focused on improving health, so body weight down, more attention to some of the accumulated niggles that had accrued over the years, and thinking in terms of, well, not just for me, but for what does it look like for athletes when they're at and an elite or very serious level,
00:53:14
Sam
and they need to transition to something else, they still need to train because we want to maintain muscle mass and function for as long as possible. There needs to be some sort of cardiovascular training, how you package that. There's many ways to do it.
00:53:31
Sam
Then there's the mental component of if you're pushing training so hard that sometimes it gets taken away from you because you're injured, you're this tool that's, it's more necessary and beneficial than the athletic outlet. So you're just getting the, ah endorphin, ah benefits of this exercise. And if you lose that because you're chasing performance at a certain point that,
00:54:00
Sam
that doesn't make sense. So we better think of a way to train in a way that's tra that's um interesting and sustainable and enjoyable, but where the goal is actually to feel good rather than just to absolutely eke out every molecule of performance.
00:54:19
Sam
And so I did that for a period of time and was Basically, yeah trying to figure out what this would look like and how it would feel. and But yet most of the people I was coaching are most of the people that I would talk to via social media. I'm talking about this concept of you know what is it actually like to train to feel good. ah this is That was new for me. I wasn't saying, hey, I'm the expert on this. I'm like, this is something I'm trying to figure out. My quads were legitimately tender to the touch for...
00:54:54
Sam
at least 15 years. and that a like just So that that becomes your your normal. And and you for me, I had my interoception of how do I feel was something I'd dimmed to the point of just no connection with, because if you wake up in the morning, least for me, in this deficit, doing all this work with people that are more suited to the sport that I'm in how how do I feel? I feel tired. I feel tired and beat up. And that would be the answer every day. So you get to a point where you're like, no longer asking the question. If the answer doesn't have any impact on what you need to do today, it just makes it harder because you're connected with how tired you are.
00:55:39
Sam
you just don't bother even thinking about it. But then if you're coaching yourself, you need to manage yourself for the rest of your life. That's a skill you need. I had to reconnect with how I actually felt as I was doing the work.
00:55:48
Tony Montgomery
I mean.
00:55:53
Sam
And then you get to a point where you're like, okay, kid, the kid arrives, I sat arrived. He's now, he's a toddler. he we've got another baby. yeah,
00:56:05
Sam
they're all They're good. And then you think, well, what example do i want to set? And also, there's still things I want to do. There's still dragons to slay. So I've always wanted to run a sub-three-hour marathon. I 3.14 2009, a few months after the Beijing Olympics. And there were a lot of things that didn't go well in the preparation and in the race itself to think that sub-three was achievable.
00:56:35
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
00:56:35
Sam
but it hasn't really presented itself ah because i kind of went in the other direction towards the, with powerlifting, you know, like um every every effort that I was making was further away from that goal.
00:56:45
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:56:50
Sam
And then as dropped my body weight, the idea of running again started to seem more feasible. And then i it occurred to me where I could take,
00:57:02
Sam
two boxes here, which are I have always been there on the things I want to do. And it's not just about doing them. Like I want to tick those boxes, but I also want to have the experience of preparing for it and executing it so I can kind of check it out. Like to me, that's a bit like a like having a kid or having a mushroom trip, these are all experiences that you can either have or you don't.
00:57:31
Sam
And these athletic experiences of, or preparing and executing and learning from it, there's no way to replicate that or have that insight without doing it.
00:57:32
Tony Montgomery
and
00:57:43
Sam
And so now the goal is a 300 kilo deadlift and a sub three hour marathon, on the same day or the same weekend i'm still trying to figure out how that's going to go down and part because it hasn't been done before and because i think it's possible not easy um so i've gone from this you know let's pay attention to how we feel back to let's try and slay some dragons. So I had that perspective and I do think that's how most people should train most of the time, even if they're pursuing goals, probably taking a quarter of the year to work on
00:58:27
Sam
improving the function of the body, ah reconnecting with how a person feels, working on deficiencies that aren't specifically related to that goal, and then having a good chunk of time where the emphasis is on the pursuit.
00:58:41
Sam
ah But as you get older, it realistically should be more of the stuff where it's a bit more nurturing as opposed to extracting.
00:58:53
Sam
But in saying that, i
Identity, Authenticity, and Personal Fulfillment
00:58:55
Sam
as your kids get older, and this is part of your question, and they start to have their own athletic careers or experiences, you they're also coming in online and being more observant of what's around them
00:59:11
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah.
00:59:13
Sam
So there my son now is at the age where he'll be able to know that that's what I'm doing. So you get to actually set the example.
00:59:21
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:59:21
Sam
And is the example when i that I want to set, well, we're paying attention to our feelings and you just do what feels good and don't get too tired and don't push it too hard. Well, like probably probably not.
00:59:33
Sam
um And i like he has started, my son Ernest is –
00:59:34
Tony Montgomery
yeah
00:59:39
Sam
He's been doing BJJ for a few weeks now, but he's been training since he was two. The kid has to carry medicine balls around the kitchen to, so like, that's his normal is training.
00:59:53
Sam
So i think it's going to be a thing where it's what we do as a family is we will get after it.
00:59:58
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:00:00
Sam
And it's not the expectation, but that will be, the normal, I think it'll get to a point where they only realize how abnormal we are by once they determine what normal is because their normal is not.
01:00:17
Tony Montgomery
yeah it's the sign of normal is yeah
01:00:20
Sam
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:00:21
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. What do you think? What what do you think it is about you that like this idea of chasing dragons of trying to do hard things? Like, why does that? ah Why does that appeal to you? And has it always appealed to you?
01:00:33
Sam
I think once I realized in, as I said, 14, 15 year old that I could have been playing sport my whole my whole life. you know Before I was conscious, ah it's a bit like my son in that he was doing jujitsu before he could say jujitsu.
01:00:52
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
01:00:53
Sam
ah I was skiing and playing rugby as i was coming online. And then that's your your normal. But I just knew that you just show up at practice, go home when it's finished, and that's all you're doing. And not super engaged. I really didn't know how. There wasn't...
01:01:14
Sam
anyone saying there to me like, hey, this is how you can show up more for those opportunities and why you'd want you might want to. But by the time i got to 14 or 15, there was just a couple of moments where I realized I could go and train by myself and I'd accelerate my progress relative to my peers in this how good I was was not set in stone, that that was something I could very much affect and then was able to see an acceleration and also probably timed with um my puberty in the ah sort of a cascade of shifting from one version of a person to another. But it felt like my the my willingness to be involved with my own development was the
01:02:05
Sam
going to be the key contributor ah to my success. And by the time I finished high school, i was just completely on the hook for I can do things, I want to do things, I take responsibility for when it goes well and when it doesn't.
01:02:18
Sam
And that became reinforced and then normalized. And then that's basically... all I've known since I was a teenager. And I don't know if therefore, if that's who I am or something that I've cultivated, I'll never be able to separate you know which were the the contributors because it all goes in the soup.
01:02:45
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah. Does it feel the same though? Does it feel the same to be training for this 300 kilo deadlift in this three hour marathon as it did training for the Olympics? Like, does that mentality, obviously not as isolated cause you have your wife and and kids and then you have your business and stuff like that, but is that mentality this like, what's the difference now versus then?
01:02:59
Sam
Yeah.
01:03:05
Tony Montgomery
um Because it's still an extreme goal, right? It's not an Olympic goal, but it is like you said, no one's ever done it before.
01:03:07
Sam
Yeah. yeah
01:03:11
Tony Montgomery
So you're doing something that,
01:03:11
Sam
yeah
01:03:13
Tony Montgomery
you're approaching something that's never been broached before or thought of before or sexualized.
01:03:17
Sam
Yeah.
01:03:18
Tony Montgomery
So like, what's the difference now versus then?
01:03:22
Sam
ah A lot of it is the same in that from when I'm training, like in training in terms of sets and reps or minutes or when I'm in the thing, it's the same.
01:03:35
Tony Montgomery
hmm.
01:03:35
Sam
ah The space I have other side that allows for compromise is just a lot different because
01:03:43
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:03:43
Sam
ah the kids don't care about what, you know, if they have to wake up in the middle of the night too because someone needs their nose blown and I don't get back to sleep for whatever reason, that's totally normal and great and fine and no begrudging it, but there wouldn't have been space or any reason for an equivalent experience when I was in my twenty s And so my my wife and my kids, to the extent that they even know they care, my wife's just as supportive as she could be.
01:04:14
Sam
but yeah you said that maybe it's a bit more, a bit less isolated because I have ah family, but there's no physio or physiologist, nutritionist, psychologist, head coach and assistant coach and the teammates.
01:04:26
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
01:04:33
Sam
and the goal isn't as... I think for most people, especially if you've gone the Olympics, that's up here. So the care factor for other people is high.
01:04:45
Sam
And people that are aware of are certainly supportive of this guy, at least say feel support. I don't really derive any of energy from other people being on board with it or not. It all comes within, so it doesn't make too much of a difference other than ah no one cares especially um not as much as the olympics but i i care just as much even when i was powerlifting at some you know a kabuki and there's ah two dozen people when i'm walking out to take my first squat attempt that's
01:05:26
Sam
not that dissimilar to sitting on the start line at the olympics because you're you're showing up with i'm going to give my absolute best under the circumstance and if the extent to which other people care is not the the main thing that's relevant is how much you care then to me it's far more similar than not i just have a little less time to
01:05:29
Tony Montgomery
and
01:05:48
Sam
ah work on maintaining my body around sessions so i need to be far more discriminant with intensity and volume and that's reflected in my normal micro cycle which should have it's more restorative stuff than but that was also a transition that i made even as i was closer to my elite rowing career that i realized worked well for me in that I could i could do maybe more work than anyone. Like I could survive it.
01:06:25
Sam
But then that became the thing that you're hanging your hat on. It's like, well, I can do all of this. I probably should. like No, i do think it's a more of a minimal effective dosage makes sense. you It's less risk. And ah if we take it back to the goal, it's not who works the hardest. It's who's the best.
01:06:47
Sam
Hard work is a necessary component, but that's not it's not the goal.
01:06:47
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:06:51
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. No, I agree. what about What about the anger part, though? seems like the anger part's no longer there, right? the Or are you still that guy in traffic that wants to ram people? like It seems like that part, did the did your wife and kids soften that up an in you? Or is that...
01:07:07
Sam
Oh, I think it was me softening that over time, but it's not it's not extinguished. It's just a little bit more... Like, that's so it that that's still very much feels normal, but I also have this part now where I'm like...
01:07:27
Sam
is it is the juice worth the squeeze? And if the the juice is my discontent with A, B, and what's the the benefit of that?
01:07:30
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
01:07:39
Sam
Is it... is it a net positive for me and the people I'm around or is it more of a cost and then so if you just have a little bit of perspective and then there's more scope to opt in or opt out but I still have this sense of well put it this way I when I coached high school rowers I would say to them something along the lines of i don't
01:08:01
Tony Montgomery
Right. Yeah.
01:08:05
Sam
I don't want any of you to ever get into a fight because i think that was poor decision-making, lack of self-control, and it would be something for us that we'd have to deal with on the other side. There's just a lot of risk with that.
01:08:18
Sam
You could hurt someone, be in trouble. You could get hurt. All that being said, I kind of want guys that want to get into a fight, though.
01:08:26
Sam
like guy Yeah, i want someone that wants to get in into fights but has the discipline not to.
01:08:27
Tony Montgomery
right
01:08:27
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:08:32
Tony Montgomery
Calm
01:08:32
Sam
and so that's how i feel it's like i'm i feel like i'm a hair's breadth away for fighting the death about anything at any time especially ah anything to do with my family like this like super ultra protective um sense is is there all the time and there's just the the practical part of me that knows well it's no one's coming to kill your family so maybe you just But in a restaurant, and and I know this is not abnormal, but i'm it's probably just hypervigilance.
01:09:01
Tony Montgomery
um
01:09:08
Sam
I'm scanning for threats. it's um I'm back to the corner because I want to see what's coming in. ah So, mate, that's just my normal, I think.
01:09:19
Tony Montgomery
very military. Right.
01:09:20
Sam
it It is. Yeah, my my dad, who was military, i remember him saying...
01:09:22
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:09:26
Sam
you know because he's thinking about being a good date, he's like, you face the corner so that the woman you're on a date with can see the room. They've got basically a better view. It's better for them.
01:09:39
Sam
And I thought that's actually just, i'm I'm aware that that might be the case, but that's not, that's assuming that there's only good actors involved.
01:09:48
Sam
in the world, I'm like, what what do I want more for the person I'm on a date with? Do I want them to enjoy the view or to ensure their safety?
01:09:48
Tony Montgomery
right
01:09:59
Tony Montgomery
Is this conscious or unconscious?
01:10:03
Sam
well it's conscious now because if my wife and I go out, that's how we
01:10:05
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:10:10
Sam
we sit
01:10:11
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:10:12
Sam
And she's just she's either like, okay, that makes sense or, okay, that makes sense to you. So she doesn't care so much which way we're oriented.
01:10:19
Tony Montgomery
It's good to go. Yeah.
01:10:24
Sam
But yeah, this is the stuff that the I think about.
01:10:26
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah.
01:10:27
Sam
But then you realize that's not, there's there's other people that think like that. They just, yeah, they're more likely military.
01:10:36
Sam
But then I probably felt like that that could have been a ah fun place for me to
01:10:36
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:10:36
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:10:41
Sam
have ended up too like my my in my family dad was army granddad was navy first cousins army navy so i know you served that that becomes very normal and people that like structure and hierarchy and responsibility that went to a a school with a pretty heavy military emphasis uh so that
01:10:42
Tony Montgomery
thank
01:11:02
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:11:10
Sam
always made sense but then in twenty your 20s when you would go and do that I was rowing so um you know there's forks in the road
01:11:16
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:11:19
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah. And when you were talking about Rowan and one thing you talked about was like, accepting who you were, like, you don't want to go out and drink with the guys because it misaligned with who you were internally.
01:11:32
Sam
yep
01:11:32
Tony Montgomery
um And that's ah that's a hard thing for a lot of people.
01:11:34
Tony Montgomery
And it seems like the transition may have been easier for you because you accepted who you were. You accepted that you are the guy that's vigilant and that's going to be chasing dragons his whole life.
01:11:45
Tony Montgomery
um Is that something, was that hard to do? Is it still hard to do Are you trying to make changes? Are you trying to like, do you see faults in the way that you think? it or are you just simply like, I am who I am. i i accept it.
01:12:02
Tony Montgomery
And, you know, and I'm just going to go from there. Like, how do you approach that idea?
01:12:06
Sam
I accept it, but I'm also don't think it's this fixed, like I'm trying to evolve. And when it comes to the, you know, being social and therefore sometimes compromising the thing that just me, that I want to do,
01:12:24
Sam
um But in an instance, for example, when rowing or not, there's times where if I'm in a team and have mates ah and they get something out of this and they get something out of me being there, then that's a ah different sort of compromise in that it's not exactly what I want to do, but...
01:12:47
Sam
it has a benefit that extends to other people, including myself, because we have more of a ah cohesive unit, then that's a slightly different proposition. So I could do that and be more at peace with it. But then that was largely due to this, a little layer of additional perspective as to, you know, what's going on. And I wrote my junior thesis,
01:13:14
Sam
in college about team dynamics. So this is not entirely uncharted or undiscovered territory, but it's all it's all an evolution. At the moment, there's no, like between family, work, training, managing a property,
01:13:37
Sam
um' there's not I'm not going to the pub, which is a very normal thing in Australia.
01:13:40
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:13:42
Sam
And the last time I did was when my dad died and I had mates fly to be there for me for that. And that was... a moment where I could lean into it. Basically funerals and weddings, um, few other isolated occasions, i will assimilate.
01:14:05
Sam
Um, but mostly i would think if I'm out at a club or a bar or a pub, uh,
01:14:05
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:14:15
Sam
And it's been a while, so I'm thinking more about what it was like, but there just a lot of times where i was thinking, this is this is not in alignment with my goals. These aren't people that I want to spend my time with, not my friends, but everyone else.
01:14:28
Sam
Like these people don't have the same aspirations as me. We're not the same. We're barely even the same species. Why am I here? and then And then normally wouldn't be if I was paying attention.
01:14:41
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, and there's something about like accepting who you are that translates into people gravitating towards that, right? Because like they know what they're going to get with you because you are who you are. You're not trying to put on this front or you're not trying to put on this mask to create this idea that you're you're somebody else. And the fact that your're your mates are were able to that flew out there to spend time with you when your dad passed like that tells you that like, sure, you may have thought of yourself in an isolated way, but you made a big impact on them just being who you were.
01:15:12
Tony Montgomery
Right. And I think when you
01:15:13
Sam
yeah
01:15:14
Tony Montgomery
that person, right, you create trust and like, friendship, relationships can only survive off of trust. And if you don't know who you are, and accept who you are, then how is anyone ever going to trust you? Right? So I think that mentality is is is a great one to have with the idea that like, yeah, you still want to evolve.
01:15:31
Tony Montgomery
But like, don't treat yourself like a ah piece of shit, because you're different than everyone else, right?
01:15:38
Sam
If you want to be authentic, you have to be who you are. you either ah being who you are.
01:15:43
Tony Montgomery
It's hard but for a lot of people.
01:15:45
Sam
but ah Yeah, I i guess so. It just seems like the cost of not being that is high because you need to live with the Delta of who you are acting like versus who you actually are. And maybe you don't, you're not even aware that there's a difference because you're not, you're just caught up with the momentum of expectations. And yeah,
01:16:11
Sam
But I would like to think with my mates, they they know who a lot of them are guys I rode with. So you have these shared experiences.
01:16:21
Sam
You've seen people um up against it, ah sometimes overcoming, sometimes not.
01:16:21
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:16:28
Sam
You realize that there are differences. And if like case in point, we used to have this, there's a provincial race race in Australia called the King's Cup. It's been held for over 100 years. It's between New South Wales, Queensland, basically the States ah in Australia in in eight oar boats, so in the boat class.
01:16:52
Sam
And we – it's all the the boats, the boats that I was in were filled out with Olympians and elite oarsmen.
01:16:54
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
01:17:02
Sam
The standard is really high. These are guys we're normally – training with on the national team or fighting against for seats. And then we'd kind had this side project when were you're going to race against your teammates on the national team for bragging rights.
01:17:17
Sam
And the only way we could even prepare for that would be to take a weekend that we would have off from training to go train in this crew. But there were guys in the crew that they were going to take that opportunity to like, well, we're going to go out in the piss and we're going to have like 40 beers and then we're going to go rowing the following morning.
01:17:40
Sam
And I used to hate it in that we're going to go row with a hangover, which is just awful.
01:17:46
Tony Montgomery
Right.
01:17:46
Sam
I'm like, this is not ideal from a, just a pure performance side of things. But yeah, I did it without resistance because I knew that a lot of the other guys in the crew, they really got something from it and it made us a tighter unit because we'd gone through the experience of having to back up. Everyone's feeling terrible because they're hung over and we're going to rowing anyway. You've got these younger guys that they'd be on camp for the first time and they can barely walk. And they're like, sure, we're not going rowing. And we're like, basically let's get on the water. um
01:18:22
Sam
And so I knew that really filled up the cup for my teammates.
01:18:27
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
01:18:27
Sam
And even though it was not at all what I would do if it was just up to me in isolation. So the respect, you know, it has to it has to go both ways.
01:18:38
Sam
And so I like to think, you know after a while you you want the best for your friends and you want them to show up as the best version of themselves, but you realize that's going to look a little different for each person. And then, you know,
01:18:51
Sam
I don't really know any differently other than, know, always felt slightly different and then you either own that or I don't know what the alternative is.
01:19:02
Sam
That's not good. Like, I don't know, you you probably would figure that compared to most people, like when you go most places in public, they haven't done the things that you've done.
01:19:04
Tony Montgomery
Thank
01:19:14
Sam
they We don't have the perspective that they do. They're not... have the same level of inquiry that you do. So therefore, you' there's no judgment about anyone else, but you know that you stand apart from it.
01:19:28
Sam
So how do you deal with that?
01:19:33
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, so you know going through this PhD and learning a lot about psychology and and trying to have empathy towards other people um also creates like acceptance within myself as well of like who I am, what I enjoy, but I do enjoy.
01:19:50
Sam
Yeah.
01:19:52
Tony Montgomery
I'm very much of the mindset of like I do the things that I enjoy and if I'm in a situation that I don't enjoy it you know i'll i'll take myself out of it i'll leave um you know and and i won't make that mistake twice right so like i go out with friends and i'm like man this is foreign this is not what i wanted this is not what i expected you know only make that mistake like once right but that doesn't really disassociate my ability to
01:20:08
Sam
Yeah.
01:20:18
Sam
yeah
01:20:21
Tony Montgomery
maintain a relationship with them. It's just not going to be as as tight as it as it could have been because we are so different in the way we view the world um in those aspects.
01:20:31
Sam
Yeah.
01:20:32
Tony Montgomery
So you definitely, for me, it's like you're trying to find people who are very curious about the world because that makes for fun interactions and fun conversations. And people that are ambitious, because it doesn't have to be in athletics, it doesn't, it just has to be in something, right?
01:20:46
Sam
yeah
01:20:46
Tony Montgomery
And that's, that's what I look for is like, I want people that are interested to talk to that I can learn from.
01:20:52
Tony Montgomery
And if you can't provide that, um then you kind of know that right away. Like it's it's something that's immediate, right? It's like, yeah, based off of like, what are you what are you doing on the weekend? Oh, this is what we do every weekend.
01:21:02
Sam
Yeah.
01:21:02
Tony Montgomery
It's like, okay, well, you're probably not the person that
01:21:06
Tony Montgomery
I want to spend a lot of time with. Right.
01:21:07
Sam
yeah
01:21:08
Tony Montgomery
um So that's kind of the way that that I approach it is like people have their certain tendencies that they reveal to you through interactions and you can quickly tell which ones are going to be a good fit and which ones which ones aren't.
01:21:21
Tony Montgomery
um And that does take an understanding of knowing who you are, what you what you want out of life and and who you want to be in it, because like we talked about, time is something that we we have to value the most. Right. And we don't want to waste time um doing something because we don't want to hurt other people's feelings or doing something because um we feel like were we're indebted to do it. You know, like if somebody asks you, hey, you know, I'm going to a graduation party this weekend. Do you want to come? It's like, no. Like, what time does it start?
01:21:54
Tony Montgomery
9 p.m.?
01:21:54
Sam
Yeah.
01:21:55
Tony Montgomery
Like, no, I'm in bed by 8 or 9. Like, I'm good with that, right? But, you know, I'll go have lunch with you.
01:21:59
Sam
Yeah.
01:22:00
Tony Montgomery
I'll go have coffee with you or something like that.
01:22:02
Sam
Yeah.
01:22:03
Tony Montgomery
So definitely very less flexible with, how I spend my time. um And that does eliminate some friendships. But again, if it's not the lifestyle that you want, then those friendships can become more acquaintances. And then I'm ah i'm okay with that too. as like As I've gotten older, my friend group has gotten much, much smaller due to the things that you're kind of talking about as you you know who you are you know what you want out of life and you just want those people in there that you can cultivate something for them and they can cultivate something for you and it's like this just beautiful healthy dynamic of like we're on the same page we're moving in the same direction yeah
01:22:40
Sam
Yeah, makes sense. I think as well, if you're consistent with who you are, then people more likely to be accepting because it's like, no, this isn't a phase.
01:22:52
Sam
This is just legitimately who this person is. So they're either on board with that or not.
01:22:57
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:23:02
Sam
Yeah. Tough. Yeah.
01:23:02
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:23:03
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. anyone
01:23:03
Sam
so
01:23:04
Tony Montgomery
Anyone that's a friend of mine knows that like if we're going to go do something, I need to know at least like a week or two ahead of time. If you ask me the day before, I'm not i'm not doing it, right?
01:23:13
Sam
yeah tough
01:23:14
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. And that's just the way that's just the way it is.
01:23:14
Sam
yeah
01:23:16
Tony Montgomery
But yeah, you definitely have to be honest. Because if you aren't honest, if you're not who you are, then they're going to have this expectation of like, oh, this is this person. And you're like, no, this is not me at all.
01:23:26
Sam
Yeah.
01:23:27
Sam
Yeah.
01:23:27
Tony Montgomery
right But not their fault.
01:23:28
Tony Montgomery
That's the expectation you presented to them. I do think a lot of people live their lives for other people's expectations instead of their own expectations.
01:23:35
Sam
Yeah.
01:23:37
Tony Montgomery
um And it does take introspection. It does take self-awareness. It does take an an understanding and an acceptance of who you are um with the understanding that like,
01:23:48
Tony Montgomery
you can't be the same person forever, but inside you're that same person forever. Right. But there's like, there micro shifts, right?
01:23:54
Sam
yeah
01:23:56
Tony Montgomery
Like I'm extremely introverted, but if I have to go present at a conference, like I can do that.
01:23:56
Sam
Yeah.
01:24:00
Tony Montgomery
If I can talk, like I can do that stuff, but like in my core, I know who I am and that's what I'm going to always stay true to.
01:24:07
Sam
Yeah, think that's the also when it comes to having goals, whether it's PhD or athletic performance, something you're getting after, there's a choice to be made about to you know to what extent that that's you should share, that that's what you're doing and also how you're approaching it. But the, and that comes with the risk because then you're putting it out there, especially if maybe it doesn't come off, but it does mean that people have a better idea of what you're doing and why, and they can either are on board with the mission
01:24:48
Sam
or not And so I think it's a like a declaration of intent.
01:24:49
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
01:24:52
Sam
I said, this is what I'm doing with regards to the deadlift marathon, because people are like, what do you yeah want to know what you're training for?
01:25:03
Sam
And so i yeah I knew what I was training for. I also knew that by the time I said, hey this is the goal, that it was so far in the horizon. Like, as I said, i want to run out on a three-hour marathon at over 225 that i hadn't gone for a run in years.
01:25:24
Sam
but I knew that that's what I wanted to do and it's and what I believe is achievable, and it also means that I don't have to answer that question again. Really, I want could just point to that.
01:25:35
Sam
That's what I'm doing as opposed to um people just... you know, they know you're doing something, but they can't get on board with it because they don't know what the intent is. And when they do, then they can choose to be in or out, which doesn't really faze me either way, but it's it's just kind of, um it's the same thing with a indicating, hey, here's who I am as a person.
01:26:01
Sam
Part of that is, hey, here is here's what I'm trying to do. at least with one aspect of my life. And either that's going to make sense to you. It doesn't really need to. it It just hopefully makes, you know, it makes sense to me.
01:26:15
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah. I'm definitely that type of person where like, I'm trying to always find myself in something, right. There's always this threshold and it's like, I'm going to do something that like, I don't know if I can accomplish it, but I'm going to find myself along the way.
01:26:28
Sam
Yeah.
01:26:30
Tony Montgomery
Right. Like hundred milers, jujitsu, PhD.
01:26:30
Sam
Yeah.
01:26:34
Tony Montgomery
It's like, I don't know if I'm built for this, but like, I want to find out if I am.
01:26:39
Sam
Yeah, so there's only one way to find out is to do, to like really...
01:26:42
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:26:42
Sam
Yeah.
01:26:43
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. And it has to be like, something that if you don't wake up and do it, you're going to be so scared that you didn't do it because you're going to suffer so much when it's over with.
01:26:52
Sam
yeah
01:26:54
Tony Montgomery
Right. So it's like with a hundred mile race, it's like you train every day because you know, if you don't, that a hundred miles is going to eat you up and it might do it anyway, you know?
01:27:04
Sam
Yeah. And then you have to live with that. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Yeah.
01:27:08
Sam
But then that's still a win because you're like, well, now you know.
01:27:08
Tony Montgomery
And that's
01:27:11
Tony Montgomery
Exactly.
01:27:12
Sam
Yeah.
01:27:13
Tony Montgomery
You're going to find something out about yourself. And I think the people that are comfortable with who they are in terms of not exploring other aspects of their potential, those are people that are hard to conversate with.
01:27:26
Sam
Yeah.
01:27:30
Tony Montgomery
Those are people that are hard to to get along with because they're like,
01:27:36
Tony Montgomery
I'm okay with like, not challenging myself for the rest of my life. Like I've, I've earned this right that I don't need to challenge myself. Life's hard enough. um Why would I make it harder by doing hard things, that type of scenario.
01:27:49
Sam
Yeah.
01:27:49
Tony Montgomery
And for me, it's like, I don't want to, and don't want to be on my deathbed looking back and being like,
01:27:55
Tony Montgomery
who am I? like Did I ever really truly like find myself? Did I put limits?
01:27:59
Sam
Yeah.
01:28:01
Tony Montgomery
like Am I satisfied with who who I am? And that that dynamic can also yield unhappiness in some people, but like that's where that introspection comes in. That's where like being present comes in. like You can do both.
01:28:15
Tony Montgomery
And I found that place where it's like, I do things to find myself, but I love everything that I do.
01:28:16
Sam
yeah
01:28:21
Sam
Yeah.
01:28:22
Tony Montgomery
always happy doing the stuff that I do.
01:28:25
Sam
Which is getting getting after it in one way or another.
01:28:29
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, because what else are you going to do your life?
01:28:30
Sam
Yeah, that's that's the thing. Yeah, well, yeah, I think people go through phases and you'd mentioned that that whole life's hard enough and for some people,
01:28:44
Sam
okay it might be, you know, that they having this additional thing, which is if the goal really is to support your family, then certain endeavors, even if they set a good example, if they, even if they fill up your cup as a person, they, there's not a direct benefit for the family. So if someone else could get into a mode of, well, I'm i going to go to work, I'm going to put food on the table.
01:29:12
Sam
I'm not that in love with how I spend the majority of my waking hours. So then I'm going to go to the pub to sort of, so I can let my hair down and make the whole thing more tolerable.
01:29:25
Sam
And then that just becomes normal, which is what most people are doing some variant or they're gambling or whatever activity that's not, that they probably know isn't in their best interest.
01:29:28
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:29:40
Sam
And I say this, without judgment because i think we're all vulnerable to this even if we have these other goals. um But think and gets pretty easy to get caught up in momentum for better or worse.
01:29:54
Sam
i think maybe for us, we ah the momentum that we have, like our normal is, like that's a thing. That's probably going to be pretty hard.
01:30:06
Sam
I'd like to see if I could do it.
01:30:08
Sam
One way to find out. And then I find that once I'm get into that point where I'm even having that conversation, then the it's just a matter of, well, I guess that's what I'm doing once I i get to a ah certain threshold of, I'm that curious that I want to know.
01:30:08
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah.
01:30:25
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:30:30
Sam
like it's like asking questions of, like, if i'm I'm asking questions of ah from a place of I want to know. I want to know what you have to say. I want to know how you think about this thing. It's very similar to like, I want to know what I can do. i want to know how the training works. I want to know how it'll work for me.
01:30:49
Sam
There's only one way to to do that. It's the same as for me is like you take your acid. You're like, there's a whole lot of uncertainty.
01:30:59
Sam
Like, I don't know how this is going to go. I have some ah imagination for what it might be like, but the only way
01:31:01
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
01:31:09
Sam
real way to real way to know is to do. and then to me, the most significant version of that is is having kids because there's all sorts of uncertainty and risk.
01:31:21
Sam
but the only way to check that whole thing out is to dive into it. And and i get the reasons for why people wouldn't, but I'm here trying to have an experience and I'm trying to have my experience, not someone else's. And so you've got to go to the things that appeal to you, but I see those things as far more similar than not. Like there is risk involved. There is uncertainty involved.
01:31:51
Sam
But that's, that's the, that's the fun part.
01:31:55
Tony Montgomery
That is the fun part.
01:31:55
Sam
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:31:55
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. There's this idea for me, it's like, it's all about agency and it's all about like, do you go through life and take control of it? Or do you allow life to take control of you?
01:32:07
Tony Montgomery
Right. And everything that I do is like, how can I have more agency in my life?
01:32:08
Sam
Yeah.
01:32:11
Tony Montgomery
How can I be independent? from these societal norms that define so many people? And how can i continue to restructure my thought process, though that I have more agency, so that I'm able to give myself to everything that I do, right and
01:32:28
Sam
Yeah.
01:32:29
Tony Montgomery
soon as you start to lose that agency, we see that like it comes to this cascade of all kinds of mental health disorders, all kinds of other issues of, you know, I can't do the things that I want to do because I have bills to pay. So I have to do my job and I have to serve my boss and I have to serve my job. have to serve my bills and I have to.
01:32:49
Tony Montgomery
So you're living a life of service to everyone but yourself and your family. And for me, like I'm trying to serve myself, serve my family and have agency so that I can serve everyone that means something to me.
01:32:55
Sam
Yeah.
01:33:05
Tony Montgomery
Right. And I think that way that I just always ah approach things is like, and I'm very, you know, like you said, we're very lucky to have these mindsets.
01:33:05
Sam
Yep.
01:33:13
Tony Montgomery
It's not, something that like we are born lot with a lot of this stuff. So I don't take that for granted. So when people can't do what I do or do what you do, I just say like, oh, they didn't get as lucky as I did. Not that they're lazy, not that they're this, they're that. I feel like it is purely a luck thing of like i had the right parents i found the right mentors or they found me and then you know yada yada yada right it just continues to build and build and build um so i never looked down on people for for doing it but i do know that like i'm not going to waste my time and energy on people that don't really align with what i with what i want going on especially not as i'm getting to 40 years old like
01:33:36
Sam
Yep.
01:33:53
Sam
Sure.
01:33:54
Tony Montgomery
I have time for that anymore. Time is
01:33:55
Sam
Yeah.
Transition Challenges: Military, Sports, and Personal Values
01:33:57
Tony Montgomery
too small and too precious to be wasting it, you know, living in people's lives.
01:34:00
Sam
Yep. Two things that makes me think of, especially when we were talking earlier about soldiers with PTSD and because you're talking about agency, you may be aware of this, but that when it comes to soldiers post-war and their mental health, that special operators, and it may be because there's pre-selection for, you know, that's ah it's a different ah different type of person, but it appears because they have more,
01:34:32
Sam
control over their mission structure and implementation that even if the consequences are the same even if things go tits up because they had more involvement in how things went they're better able to live with the consequences because it feels like something that they self-authored rather than something that happened to them
01:34:42
Tony Montgomery
Thank you.
01:34:54
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that that is a big thing, especially in that community, right? Because the a big part of PTSD in the military is like, I did something that I didn't think I was capable of doing, or I didn't do something that I should have done.
01:35:09
Tony Montgomery
um And I think when you have these special operators, I was lucky enough to serve with 2nd Recon Battalion. So I got to see all these operators in person. Like that group is just so tight.
01:35:19
Tony Montgomery
that no matter what you do over there, you're doing it for your your brothers. So then it's easy to be like justifiable, right?
01:35:24
Sam
Yep.
01:35:27
Tony Montgomery
And I think the hardest thing for these special operators is when they leave that community, that hole is so huge. cause you're never going to have those people in your life again, that tight, that close, that's going to protect you.
01:35:42
Tony Montgomery
And then that's when a lot of them start to struggle with depression and suicidal ideation and things like that is because it's not so much what they did overseas. It's very much of like, i just lost my family, right?
01:35:54
Sam
yeah
01:35:54
Tony Montgomery
Imagine if you just lost your family in a car wreck, like you're going to be devastated, right? That's what they did.
01:35:59
Sam
ye yeah yeah i think that's the the scaled down version of that is this post-olympic depression is that has some similar i think the stakes are a lot lower but the similarities are there in that there's a real mission focus and clarity
01:36:00
Tony Montgomery
And it's just like, and it's just gone, right? There's no easy transition to get out of the military, you know?
01:36:13
Tony Montgomery
right.
01:36:23
Sam
like that the ah life is built around this thing, both who you are and what you do. They're the same thing. And then you're supposed to be a civilian where the people that you're with, they're a different standard.
01:36:33
Tony Montgomery
right
01:36:36
Sam
There's less clarity. There's all this bullshit. There's all more like... minutia that's not mission central. And then like in a sport like rowing, you're also have the same thing where you've got these teammates.
01:36:51
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:36:52
Sam
The the other side of it is that youre you have a mission. you You see them every day. You're in the grind. That is that cohesion. And then that evaporates like a fart in the wind.
01:37:03
Sam
And it has the same effect on on some people. So there's the guys that... ah ah the other end of the continuum to me that drew a lot like ah that that team environment was necessary that they got energy from.
01:37:03
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:37:20
Sam
It's not something that they were just happy to be a part of.
01:37:21
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
01:37:25
Sam
They were like, that was central to them being able to be who they are. And then next thing you know, they're like, wife, kids, go get a job, put on a suit, they're like, well, this isn't very fulfilling very fulfilling, but then there's no way just sort of, it's hard to make a a right turn at that point. And people either, they they come to terms with it um or they find a way to make it agreeable or they find the the resources to to make a shift and that's more in alignment with
01:38:02
Sam
who they want to be. But that's that's tricky once you've got ah financial obligations, mortgage, kids, that sort of stuff.
01:38:07
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that that is one of the things that
01:38:10
Sam
Yeah. Yeah.
01:38:13
Tony Montgomery
you know i i try to shape my life around this alignment idea. right and You're constantly going to be seeking alignment and you can either be seeking it at your own volition or you're going to be seeking it in terms of like, I'm never going to reach it because i put other things ahead of this alignment issue.
01:38:37
Tony Montgomery
right so
01:38:37
Sam
Yeah.
01:38:39
Tony Montgomery
you're going to have issues with self-alignment no matter what. You might as well go towards the place that's going to fill it the most, right? As opposed to, if you're not, then you're going be at this constant battle of like who I want to be versus who I am.
01:38:45
Sam
Yeah.
01:38:52
Sam
yeah
01:38:52
Tony Montgomery
and and then next thing you know, your life's over. And it's like, you never got to be who you actually wanted to be. And to me, yeah.
01:38:58
Sam
Or who I wanted to be, like who I wanted to be and I didn't make those choices and then someone's living with the delta between those two and then we'd have to look at the suicide, increasing suicide rate, particularly males and go, well, how much of that is exactly you're describing?
01:39:21
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, because that delta is always there. It's just which side of like, where do you want to you want be closer to you want to be farther away?
01:39:22
Sam
Yeah. Yeah.
01:39:26
Sam
Yeah.
01:39:27
Tony Montgomery
And are you making choices to get closer to it or not?
01:39:29
Sam
We are here before the war.
01:39:31
Tony Montgomery
And if you're not, then there is like, it's like this whole, you know, ego, superego. And it's like one's trying to pull at the other. you're like, man, you just got to like,
01:39:42
Tony Montgomery
You just gotta go to where your your heart's telling you to and And then you figure out, like when you when you start doing that, you figure like you figure out that like, it's always gonna work, right? Everyone's always scared of like, is it gonna work? Am I gonna put this in jeopardy? am And it's like, once you do it once, you realize that like, if you just work hard at it, it'll work for you.
01:40:03
Sam
Yeah. Yeah.
01:40:04
Tony Montgomery
you know That you gotta to get over that initial fear, that initial resistance.
01:40:08
Sam
Is it going to work? What's going to happen?
01:40:09
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:40:10
Sam
Yeah.
01:40:10
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. And I think when when you have your background of what you've done, you know that like life is about the effort you put into it. Right. And you you somehow ah in high school realized that.
01:40:24
Tony Montgomery
And then that makes every decision you make after that easy because it's like, I can control my effort. I know if I put effort, I see reward. So I'm just do that with every aspect of my life.
01:40:34
Tony Montgomery
Whereas if people have never satisfied that idea that like effort equals reward, then they just don't know what to do.
01:40:34
Sam
yeah
01:40:42
Tony Montgomery
And then that's when it becomes scary.
01:40:42
Sam
yeah i'm also have put in the effort and not had the reward so i know that that's on the table and can therefore be at peace with it so i know that
01:40:56
Tony Montgomery
Mm-hmm.
01:40:59
Sam
work doesn't equal result, but it certainly increases the likelihood of a positive outcome, doesn't guarantee it. But then I think, well, if I try something in work or in athleticism and it doesn't go exactly the way I want, then I can either learn from it and try again or I learn the lesson. And it's not a loss. It's just a learning experience.
Masculinity, Family, and Career Transitions
01:41:25
Sam
And if if you then can...
01:41:26
Tony Montgomery
Yes.
01:41:28
Sam
I guess the stakes may feel a little different when you when there are kids involved and there's this, I think, ah a good thing inside a lot of men where they will tolerate all sorts of things for the betterment of their family. It's a lot of this...
01:41:48
Sam
notions of toxic masculinity but the other side of masculinity is and i think it's potentially more toxic is men will put up with some serious shit for even being told what pieces of shit they are for the betterment of others to the point where it may really cripple who they are in their sense of self and this discontent with the life they've built and their sense of the lack of autonomy and the lack of ability to change things and that they're basically stuck.
01:42:18
Sam
and But I can't think of anything that could be worse because that's not, even if you're doing that for the sake of your family, you're probably not showing up as the best version of yourself.
01:42:27
Tony Montgomery
Right. So you're not, you're, you're sacrificing for your family, but you're really not because your family is going to see that you hate your job, that you're going to the pub afterwards, that you're, you're checked out all the time.
01:42:28
Sam
Yeah.
01:42:40
Sam
Yeah.
01:42:42
Tony Montgomery
So yeah, the idea of like, you're doing it for your family sounds good and and virtuous and altruistic, but you're, but when you look at it, like you're really, you're really not right. You're making the wrong sacrifice.
01:42:52
Sam
Yeah.
01:42:52
Tony Montgomery
Right.
01:42:53
Sam
Yeah.
01:42:53
Tony Montgomery
And that's that's a big problem, right?
01:42:55
Tony Montgomery
Because you like you said, your kids see that and they see like, oh, I guess that that's what it's supposed to be like when I get when i become a adult.
01:42:58
Sam
Yeah.
01:43:03
Tony Montgomery
Like I'm just supposed to like get home and talk about how much I hate my job and you know never interact with it. So you are setting the standard and sometimes the standard is gonna be a scary one that may put you guys at risk.
01:43:16
Tony Montgomery
And I always tell people it's like, well, what's the worst case scenario?
01:43:20
Sam
Hmm.
01:43:20
Tony Montgomery
And then they're like, this is the worst case scenario. I'm like, okay, is that like, is that really that bad? And what's the best case scenario?
01:43:25
Sam
Yeah.
01:43:27
Tony Montgomery
Like, oh, this is the best. And it's like, we're like, what ah exactly? Right.
01:43:32
Sam
and's so ju That's the juice and squeeze. It's like, is the juice worth the squeeze? and so sometimes, yes, sometimes no, but the kids are pretty resilient. they're not They're not reflecting of the things that they don't have for a period of time.
01:43:43
Tony Montgomery
hmm.
01:43:47
Sam
They can have very little and and still thrive.
01:43:50
Tony Montgomery
All they want is love.
01:43:51
Sam
Yeah, yeah.
01:43:52
Tony Montgomery
Like all they want is love. you know
01:43:54
Sam
Yep.
01:43:55
Tony Montgomery
with if I grew up with ah a single mom who came from Columbia. We didn't have a lot. You know, so if like we got a box for Christmas, it's like, oh man, we got to like, and because it was love.
01:44:05
Sam
but about Yeah.
01:44:06
Tony Montgomery
Like she had breakfast, you know, and so we had all this stuff and that's, that's all you want.
01:44:07
Sam
Yeah.
01:44:09
Tony Montgomery
You don't think about what you don't have. You just think about, do I feel safe? Do I feel loved? Right.
01:44:16
Sam
yeah
01:44:16
Tony Montgomery
So it doesn't matter. Like you can have all the money in the world, buy your kids everything, but if they don't know what a hug is from you, then like, what are you, like, what are you doing? Right.
01:44:23
Sam
Yeah. Imagine the gift for your kids.
01:44:25
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:44:26
Sam
If you just suffer in silence for 15, 20 years and then kill yourself bur because, like that' has What's that sort of gift to your kids?
01:44:34
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:44:38
Tony Montgomery
Right. Exactly.
01:44:38
Sam
Yeah.
01:44:39
Tony Montgomery
Exactly. But want to be mindful of your time, Sam.
01:44:42
Sam
I just... Hey, mate, I've got more. I've just got a question for you.
01:44:45
Tony Montgomery
Sure.
01:44:45
Sam
well ah Curiosity is not even a specific question, but you... have gone from this journey from you've like very focused on being as strong as you could for a period of time.
01:44:56
Tony Montgomery
Mm hmm.
01:44:57
Sam
And you've had more of an endurance and jujitsu focus. So obviously strength and resiliency, uh, components, but you had to,
01:45:11
Sam
downsize in terms of your frame you had to shift uh your aspirations and because i'm doing have some similar some similarities and i could see that you're you're running not only long distances and have done but also at a decent clip um and so you're putting out some some stuff that I'm like, okay, it's like pretty serious. you're not getting there without having done the work, but I also know where you were. So I know it's been a journey and I'm curious as to, know, there's insights that if someone wants to do that, ah things that you've learned. And I think the main way for these conversations to be useful is to, you know,
01:46:03
Sam
if we're trying stuff and having these experiences, but then can reflect on them so that others benefit from us doing those sort of things, then I'm curious what you've learned from from that journey, things you did well and things you ah didn't so that the rest of us can have a more streamlined experience.
01:46:26
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, yeah, I think the biggest thing for me was the idea that people usually overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in a year.
01:46:35
Sam
Yeah.
01:46:35
Tony Montgomery
Right. So when I went from powerlifting to running, I started off like, as if I've never ran before, because my my mind, I was like, if I don't get injured, um I can always run.
01:46:43
Sam
m
01:46:47
Tony Montgomery
Right. So I was just trying to think injury prevention, you know, so I started off with like run walks.
01:46:53
Sam
yeah
01:46:53
Tony Montgomery
And as embarrassing as that was to do around my neighborhood, you know, and it took me like two months to actually get to a place where I could jog for three miles. Right. But the idea was like, I want to build resilience in my body and I want to do it in an intelligent manner. Like I want to control the volume because we know that as if you can't control your volume, then you're going to get injured because volume is the thing that drives injury. Right.
01:47:19
Sam
Yeah.
01:47:19
Tony Montgomery
I was just very cognizant of that.
01:47:22
Tony Montgomery
And then it was very, it was just being very mindful of like, okay, I'm going to do a 5k. I'm going to do a 10k. I'm going to, it wasn't like, I'm going to do a hundred miles right out the bat. Right.
01:47:32
Tony Montgomery
So there was this progression scheme that.
01:47:32
Sam
Yeah. Did you, would you, was that, did you think you might end up there or were you literally just, I want to start running and then let's say,
01:47:41
Tony Montgomery
No, I wanted I wanted to end up there.
01:47:44
Sam
yeah but you weren't, you weren't rushing because you knew you couldn't.
01:47:44
Tony Montgomery
Like,
01:47:47
Tony Montgomery
Right, exactly.
01:47:48
Sam
Yeah.
01:47:49
Sam
Yeah.
01:47:49
Tony Montgomery
Exactly.
01:47:49
Tony Montgomery
I knew I had to earn the right to run 100 miles.
01:47:52
Sam
Yeah.
01:47:53
Tony Montgomery
you know And yeah, when I was in Portland, and I was like, it's so beautiful here. like It would be amazing to just go backpacking and hiking and just get lost in the woods.
01:48:00
Sam
Yeah.
01:48:01
Tony Montgomery
so I was like, yeah, I'm going to do this eventually. um and then most of my training became, you know how can stay healthy? how can i stay healthy How can I create... um balance within my framework so that i'm able to run and knowing that i need to control volume in the gym so i can do the thing that i care about which running or jiu-jitsu like whatever it was at at the time and it was just very being very mindful of the idea that you know your your mind is still very much 20 years old
01:48:23
Sam
Yep.
01:48:33
Sam
Yep.
01:48:33
Tony Montgomery
your body is 39, right?
01:48:36
Sam
Yep.
01:48:37
Tony Montgomery
And recovery is the thing that is the most precious as you get older, right? So it's not it's not how much you can train, it's what can you recover from that's gonna determine if you're gonna make progress, if you're gonna get injured, right?
01:48:42
Sam
yeah
01:48:51
Tony Montgomery
And that's one of the things that I noticed. It was like, my strength didn't drop until like I quit actually strength, but like all the all those things stayed the same. I just couldn't train as much as I used to.
01:49:03
Sam
Yeah.
01:49:03
Tony Montgomery
So I got very comfortable with the idea that less is more in the beginning.
01:49:09
Sam
Yeah.
01:49:10
Tony Montgomery
And so many people get scared of that. Like I work with athletes and I'm like, all right, we're gonna pull back on your volume. They're like, no, no It's like, you're gonna get stronger if we like you're in a point, you're buying a house, you're going through a breakup.
01:49:19
Sam
Yeah.
01:49:24
Tony Montgomery
like Stress is stress, right? We need to reduce the volume and I promise you, you'll get better.
01:49:25
Sam
yeah yeah
01:49:29
Tony Montgomery
So I just had that mindset of like, you know, ease into a baby steps. Like you said, like you're starting from this white belt mentality and it's like, I don't have to be the best right away. I'm never going to be the best because I'm not built to be the best.
01:49:45
Tony Montgomery
So I'm just going to do like, I'm just going to enjoy it and just slowly build into it.
01:49:49
Sam
Yeah.
01:49:50
Tony Montgomery
And then that was,
01:49:51
Sam
You can be your best, but there's no rush on that.
01:49:53
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
01:49:54
Sam
Yeah.
01:49:55
Tony Montgomery
Exactly. Because like I said, if I can if i can always train, I'll get better. if I get injured, i can't train. I'm going to get worse, right?
01:50:03
Sam
Yeah.
01:50:03
Tony Montgomery
That's the way it goes. So everything I do is built on this idea of like, how can I stay as resilient and safe as possible?
01:50:05
Sam
Yeah.
01:50:11
Tony Montgomery
And then, you know, and then I just gauge progress and pull back or push forward or do things like that. um But then it's always too, like I'm always doing stuff that I love to do. It's hard training, but man, do I love it, right?
01:50:24
Sam
Yeah. Yeah.
01:50:25
Tony Montgomery
it's never hard so even on the days where it is hard, it's never hard, right? And for me, I always have this perspective too, which is I'm lucky enough to have this perspective and and unlucky, yeah,
01:50:30
Sam
Yeah.
01:50:39
Tony Montgomery
I live a lot of my life in service of my friends who died when I was in the military, when we went overseas. And and so it's always this idea of like, am i am i living a life that they would be proud of because they no longer get to do it.
01:50:56
Tony Montgomery
So then whenever I go run, you know, and it's a hard run, I'll look up in the sky, I'll think of them, I'll enjoy it, you know, so it is, it is a mindset shift too of like, Are you doing it to do it?
01:51:09
Tony Montgomery
are you like, what does it bring in you? What is the, where where is it manifest in itself?
01:51:12
Sam
Yeah.
01:51:13
Tony Montgomery
And for me, it's always this intrinsic beauty of of life that I get to explore and find who I am as a person by doing these, these challenging things so and, and just trying to be as smart about it as possible.
01:51:29
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:51:29
Sam
yeah
01:51:30
Sam
It's super unsexy to be, to highlight the, the priority of not getting injured, but then there's that, that thing of the best ability is availability.
01:51:30
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:51:42
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, it's the most important thing.
01:51:43
Sam
Yeah. But how do you, it's how do you flame it when, you know, you and I go, yeah that makes sense. and And then you act in a way where that's the priority, like you respect the reality, but then you also need to make that, that,
01:52:01
Sam
make it so that there's buy-in for people that maybe you really don't fully comprehend it. especially if you're coaching people, how do you convey, look, we need to really prioritize not being injured here when that isn't the thing that you kind of want anyone to be thinking about on a day-to-day basis as the goal. But yet if it's not a priority, then it's a liability.
01:52:26
Sam
Yeah.
01:52:26
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah. I learned this from Jordan Shallow. It was the idea of like, you, it's like when you try to give a kid vegetables, you know, you got to kind of grind it up so they don't know they're eating it.
01:52:38
Tony Montgomery
So if you're good at programming, you're going to, it's going to be in there without them knowing it's going to be in there.
01:52:41
Sam
Yeah.
01:52:43
Tony Montgomery
Right. So, and also I learned from like Joe DeFranco too.
01:52:45
Sam
Yeah.
01:52:47
Tony Montgomery
he was one of the guys that, I learned so much from in the beginning, and but it was like, you give them, you give them 50% of what they want and you give them 50% of what they need. Right. And then you mix it up in a way to where it's like, oh, I'm doing everything that I want to do.
01:53:01
Sam
Yeah, it's indistinguishable.
01:53:01
Tony Montgomery
Right.
01:53:03
Sam
yeah that's that's Yeah, that makes sense.
01:53:03
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:53:03
Tony Montgomery
That's what makes you a good coach.
01:53:06
Sam
Yeah. And then there's, with your programming for yourself though, then you you like ye know, like I'm blending up the vegetables here, but that that's okay as well.
01:53:08
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:53:16
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, you got it.
01:53:17
Sam
Like, yeah.
01:53:17
Tony Montgomery
If you're doing it for yourself, I learned a long time ago, if you're doing it for yourself, because I've always coached myself is like, you have to eliminate ego.
01:53:18
Sam
Yeah.
Endurance Training and Long-Distance Running
01:53:28
Sam
Yeah.
01:53:29
Sam
yeah yeah
01:53:29
Tony Montgomery
Every day, every day, you get you're like, is my ego telling me to do this?
01:53:34
Tony Montgomery
Or am I going to be smart about it? Like you have to do that. and as you get older, it's, it's much easier to do to let your ego not drive the boat.
01:53:39
Sam
Yeah.
01:53:42
Sam
In the end, the the stuff that you want to do and the stuff that you should do end up becoming the same thing.
01:53:48
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, yeah.
01:53:48
Sam
Cause you're like, i'll do the stuff that brings me closer towards the goals that I want to achieve. And then that's where, that's what I enjoy. Cause that's what I'm trying to do.
01:53:59
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, yeah.
01:54:00
Sam
Um, what does a normal training week look like for you at the moment?
01:54:06
Tony Montgomery
So right now I'm training for a hundred miler in October. um So it's three days a week of full body resistance training, and mostly with kettlebells because I have them in my house.
01:54:18
Tony Montgomery
So I do that. um A lot of single leg stuff, a lot of unilateral stuff. And then right now running, it's very much base maintenance miles. So I'm getting ah around 50 miles a week.
01:54:32
Tony Montgomery
So no speed work, none of that stuff. It's really just trying to get time on my feet and trying to get as much as possible, especially because I'm in Oklahoma right now. We don't have mountains. We don't have things.
01:54:43
Tony Montgomery
So it's very much just trying to get as much time on my feet as I can. And that's right now is around 50 miles. This next block of training, I'll bump it up. And it's like zone two. So it's between like 140, 150 beats per minute right now.
01:54:53
Sam
Yep.
01:54:56
Tony Montgomery
So it's not fun. It's not sexy.
01:54:57
Sam
How many runs is that spread over?
01:55:00
Tony Montgomery
So I run every day.
01:55:01
Sam
Every day, okay.
01:55:02
Tony Montgomery
Just again, because I'm trying to get that resilience. I'm trying to feel what it feels like to run on heavy legs because you're going have heavy legs in the race and stuff like that.
01:55:06
Sam
Yep.
01:55:12
Tony Montgomery
um And then like, then it's like, why did I have heavy legs today, but not, not the next day? What, what did I do different? So every day, if I have these feedbacks that it's given me, I'm able to micromanage what I have throughout the day in terms of like sleep, nutrition, recovery, stuff like that.
01:55:28
Tony Montgomery
um and then the next block it'll start to be going between like 50 and 70 miles and then adding in some stairs um going to some uh trails in arkansas that are about three hours away and doing some like 20 30 mile days just to get used to that and then also get the nutrition down because you know i think it's like 70 of people who drop out of these ultra endurance races is because of gi distress
01:55:55
Sam
Yeah.
01:55:55
Tony Montgomery
So you have to practice that. You have to get good at it. You have to understand what works well for you. So it's a lot of, i mean, and that's why I like doing it because it is trial and error the whole time. Like 10 miles in, you're like, i feel pretty good. 15 miles in, you're like, i feel like shit. What do i need to do? Do I need to drink more? Do I need to like slow my pace?
01:56:12
Tony Montgomery
and And same thing with jujitsu. It's like problem solving on the fly. And that's why I love doing that type of stuff.
01:56:18
Sam
So are you still rolling on top of?
01:56:18
Tony Montgomery
um
01:56:21
Tony Montgomery
No.
01:56:22
Sam
not at the moment.
01:56:23
Tony Montgomery
No, between the, the, the lack of gyms in Stillwater because Stillwater, Oklahoma is this like really small college town.
01:56:30
Sam
Yeah.
01:56:32
Tony Montgomery
So there's really not, the the best gym was like an hour away. And with getting my PhD and training for an ultra, i I don't have two hour drives in me.
01:56:36
Sam
That's tough.
01:56:40
Sam
Yeah, no, no, that's that's that's a juice and squeeze type situation right there.
01:56:42
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:56:45
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:56:46
Sam
Yeah, I was thinking, i'm like,
01:56:46
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:56:49
Sam
there's a lot that could be on your plate, but you've still got a like, I have no doubt that there's part of you that wishes you were rolling every day of the week and maybe you'll get back there, but you can't, it's like that, um that thing of you can't chase two chickens at once.
01:56:58
Tony Montgomery
yeah
01:57:06
Tony Montgomery
Right. Yeah.
01:57:06
Sam
Yeah.
01:57:07
Tony Montgomery
And I, I don't know if I'll get back into Jiu Jitsu because I like to compete in Jiu Jitsu and I'm a purple belt now. And that's when they can start doing leg locks on you. And I'm not going to blow my knee out.
01:57:17
Sam
Yeah.
01:57:18
Tony Montgomery
Like I have, I have my P I have a career that I love. I love doing my research. I love mentoring and then I love to run. I'm not going to get my, by some my figures.
01:57:28
Sam
Yeah, that's the reason I don't is because i i went to sign up my my son and the black belt owner of the studio is immediately like, you know, you want to like the open mat is on at 10 a.m.
01:57:33
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:57:46
Sam
m on Saturdays and like you have no idea how much that there's a part of me that wants to do that.
01:57:47
Tony Montgomery
Thank you.
Research in Exercise and Mental Health
01:57:53
Sam
I want to i want to roll with you to see, Like, cause there's, I have the belief that I could rag doll you, but I also have the, the cognizance to know that that really might not be the case. And I want to find out, but the only way to do that is to take risks that I don't, I don't need to And most of my self-defense currently is avoiding situations and looking like someone where there's just, that it's not worth risking
01:58:22
Tony Montgomery
That's the best defense. Yeah.
01:58:23
Sam
And that's that's worked for last 18 years, but then there's still the part of me that wants to roll.
01:58:24
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:58:28
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Oh, yeah. yeah
01:58:31
Sam
um
01:58:31
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. I mean, if I could roll black belts every day, I would because they know how to roll.
01:58:32
Sam
What...
01:58:36
Tony Montgomery
It's not the black belts that you worry about. It's the young kids who are trying to prove themselves.
01:58:41
Sam
Yeah.
01:58:41
Tony Montgomery
And that's when you're just like, yeah, yeah, exactly.
01:58:43
Sam
Blue belts that... Yeah.
01:58:45
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
01:58:46
Sam
Yeah. One last question for me, because I see some of the stuff you're putting out there online and you're sharing a little bit more and it's related to your field of study. But then I was thinking to myself, as like what is your area of focus for your PhD? Yeah.
01:59:06
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, so right now my PhD very interdisciplinary between psychology and and exercise. um So it's mostly trying to use cognitive behavioral strategies in conjunction with exercise to improve exercise adherence, motivation, and depression.
01:59:25
Tony Montgomery
um So we just finished up a study. We have a couple of papers out under review. And within this study, we were using cognitive reappraisal while people were doing time to exhaustion trials versus a group that just got motivation by itself.
01:59:34
Sam
Hmm. Hmm.
01:59:38
Tony Montgomery
um And what we found was that with the cognitive reappraisal group, um There was no changes in in mood, ah motivation, adherence, or depression after the intervention. it was a seven-day intervention, so seven days of exhaustive exercise.
01:59:54
Tony Montgomery
And then there was starting to be a trend towards a difference in the three-week follow-up. And then the six-week follow-up, it was a it was a big day. It was significant on all those markers. So that told us that this idea of teaching people cognitive reappraisal doing an exhaustive exercise was able to be something temporally that they could bring with them throughout their life. And it made each week it made their life just a little bit better, a little bit better.
02:00:17
Tony Montgomery
They enjoyed exercise, they more intrinsic motivation exercise, as the other group kind of just didn't write all those things kind of dropped off. um And we did this with active participants, um which you normally see like very smaller deviations and in mood.
02:00:34
Tony Montgomery
And we actually pretty moderate medium to large effect sizes.
02:00:34
Sam
yeah
02:00:37
Tony Montgomery
So i was I was really happy about that. So now it's very much trying to figure out like, okay, what can we do to solve this mental health crisis and this sedentary lifestyle crisis that we're going through?
02:00:49
Tony Montgomery
oh exercise does that, but People that are doing this stuff don't like to exercise. So how can we motivate them through cognitive behavioral therapy to do it? And we're just trying to meld those two together as as much as possible.
02:00:58
Sam
m
02:01:02
Sam
That's cool. You CBT was influenced a lot by Stoicism.
02:01:08
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, yeah.
02:01:08
Sam
So it's a lot of the same tenets. But Stoicism, I'd say, is a more practical ancient philosophy. And then they've taken the most practical elements and converted that into Yeah.
02:01:24
Sam
I'm like, that that makes sense.
02:01:24
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
02:01:26
Sam
What would be an example of a cognitive reappraisal that you may have implemented, like, specifically?
02:01:26
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
02:01:33
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. So we would tell them, you know, instead of, um, as you do time to exhaustion trials, as you can imagine, there's going to be some boredom because they're on a stationary bike. So we said, as boredom creeps into your mind, instead of thinking about boredom, try to reframe that idea into how far can I continue to push? Like how can, how,
02:01:52
Tony Montgomery
is I try to enjoy the challenge of it. Like, can I push myself further? Can I push through this? And then, you know, and then it's like, if you have pain or discomfort in your legs, you know, instead of thinking about like, oh, this sucks. Think about like, if I can keep pushing through this, I'm going to have better adaptations. I'm going to better mental health. I'm going to have all these changes. So it's anytime there's a negative difference.
02:02:14
Tony Montgomery
valence stimuli, emotion or anything like that. It was like reframe to a positive, reframe to a positive. And then we would just give them, you know, different examples of that. Another one would be, we did some distance in self appraisal.
02:02:26
Tony Montgomery
So it's like, when you, a week from today, are are you going to look back and be like, I'm proud of the person I did, I was that day, right?
02:02:32
Sam
And
02:02:34
Sam
who
02:02:34
Tony Montgomery
you know or it's like compared to the hardest thing that you've ever done is this even close and if not can you push yourself a little bit more so it's like those reappraisal reframing strategies that have been so effective in depression anxiety ptsd we're trying to use that to create better mood and affect and motivation
02:02:53
Sam
and Over time, are you measuring improvements in performance, in survey responses, or how you, yeah.
02:03:00
Tony Montgomery
yeah all that yeah
02:03:02
Sam
How you, are you taking blood at all?
02:03:05
Tony Montgomery
No, and you got to get funding for that, man. Blood's expensive.
02:03:07
Sam
Okay. Okay.
02:03:08
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, I wanted to. i wanted to look at BDNF samples and some other stuff, but you're talking about for we did 30 participants. It would be roughly around $20,000 blood work on one one marker
02:03:23
Sam
Okay. Really? On one marker across the whole,
02:03:25
Tony Montgomery
yeah
02:03:27
Sam
okay Maybe you could do a pilot. It would just be interesting because I know even in rowers when they've provided different coaching strategies to different athletes and being able to see how that's reflected, cortisol, testosterone,
02:03:47
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
02:03:48
Sam
different different Different feedback for different athletes out different circumstances.
02:03:52
Tony Montgomery
yeah Yeah, we did measure HRV and what we found is there was no difference during exercise, but at at the cool down mark, the cognitive reappraisal group had better autonomic balance. So they had better HFLF ratio and they had better um mean root square. So they were able to decrease their breath rate,
02:04:17
Tony Montgomery
But they were also able to drive sympathetic arousal and then pull it back down to parasympathetic arousal better than than the other group, even though they exercised the same.
02:04:23
Sam
Hmm.
02:04:24
Tony Montgomery
It was all contingent on this reappraisal strategy.
02:04:27
Sam
Yeah. And even if they may have worked harder, know, like within the workload, which are arguably more sympathetic, so they just had better response.
02:04:36
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, because we tracked their heart rates and there was no difference between heart rates.
02:04:37
Sam
Yeah.
02:04:40
Tony Montgomery
So everybody worked just as hard.
02:04:42
Sam
Yeah.
02:04:42
Tony Montgomery
you know So they were all reaching physiological markers of of effort. um But the cognitive reappraisal group was able to adapt this idea that it was, it was intrinsic.
02:04:54
Tony Montgomery
It was more fun. And then that has benefits to ah your vagal tone that has benefits to your prefrontal cortex, right? It starts to dampen your amygdala response and that's all going to help you cool down much faster.
02:05:08
Tony Montgomery
So instead of ending the exercise bike, we're like, man, this really sucked. You're ending it with like, i got better today. Right.
02:05:15
Sam
Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah think i need
02:05:16
Tony Montgomery
And just that reframing is a huge difference.
02:05:18
Sam
I think I need a dap of my amygdala response. I think that would come in.
02:05:22
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Based on what we're talking about, maybe.
02:05:23
Sam
Come in, Hattie, maybe. Maybe you could do saliva testing less intrusive.
02:05:29
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
02:05:30
Sam
That's yeah.
02:05:31
Tony Montgomery
Still got to get funding, though.
02:05:33
Sam
Yeah.
02:05:33
Tony Montgomery
And with...
02:05:34
Sam
Either really, really cool stuff.
02:05:35
Tony Montgomery
Yeah, within a PhD, it's a little bit more difficult to get funding.
02:05:39
Sam
Yeah.
02:05:39
Tony Montgomery
um Once I graduate, I'll be able to really push some of these ideas that I want to do and get some more biomarkers. um I also want to get into a little bit more of the neuroscience side of things using some EEG, maybe some repetitive TMS type stuff. So it'll be fun to explore that um once I graduate.
02:05:58
Sam
Cool. And then there's the, you work at a lab at universities that the, yeah, cool.
02:06:04
Tony Montgomery
goal, yeah. Yeah.
02:06:06
Sam
Great.
02:06:06
Tony Montgomery
If there's still universities by the time I graduate, who knows under this situation.
02:06:09
Sam
Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's a few, um, variables to account for state side at the moment.
02:06:17
Tony Montgomery
Yes.
02:06:18
Sam
Like, geez, it's not since the time i can remember it's it been just, uh, so up in the air in in terms of, you know,
02:06:26
Tony Montgomery
is. Uncertainty is the worst feeling in the world, man.
02:06:30
Sam
yeah unless you can then that becomes another thing that you can be at peace with on the resilience continuum is you know being okay yeah that's right it's like especially especially those decisions there's not there's not anything you can influence other than how you respond to it
02:06:39
Tony Montgomery
can't do anything about it. So what are you going to do? Can't stress it.
02:06:47
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. What am I going to do? Be like, Oh, there's uncertainty. I'm going to drop out of my PhD program because I don't know what's going to Like, no, of course not.
02:06:53
Sam
yeah yeah you said you love it so that's basically the only that's the thing that matters
02:06:55
Tony Montgomery
Like
02:06:59
Tony Montgomery
it's the best man.
02:07:00
Sam
Yeah, yeah.
02:07:00
Tony Montgomery
It's the best.
02:07:01
Sam
what are like a um it Wouldn't you just want that for anyone you cared about to feel ah in love with the work that they're doing?
02:07:01
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
02:07:10
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah. And then just when people leave the lab working with sedentary people and they're like, I didn't think I would be able to do this. And I did. And and thank you so much for helping me through. I'm like, yeah, that's all I want.
02:07:20
Sam
Yeah, ah yeah, yeah.
02:07:21
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
02:07:22
Sam
And then that may positively influence them for henceforth.
02:07:27
Tony Montgomery
At least for six weeks.
02:07:28
Sam
Yeah. Yeah.
02:07:29
Sam
But you know, six weeks is enough to that can stick with like with some of them that'll stick with them.
02:07:29
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
02:07:35
Tony Montgomery
Pretty sticky changes.
02:07:36
Sam
Yeah.
02:07:36
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Six weeks, pretty sticky.
02:07:37
Sam
Yeah.
02:07:38
Tony Montgomery
Yeah.
02:07:38
Sam
Yeah. Cool.
02:07:39
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I appreciate you coming on the show, man. was great catching up with you.
02:07:43
Sam
Thanks for having me. Yeah. Good to chat. It's been a while. Appreciate, appreciate having me.
02:07:47
Tony Montgomery
Yeah. Keep doing the great work that you're doing, Sam.
02:07:49
Sam
I will add you Tony.
02:07:51
Tony Montgomery
Thank you, man.
02:07:52
Sam
Thanks,