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#006 - Andrew Kalen Daish - Professional Rugby Player & Coach
171 Plays2 years ago
Andrew Daish is a rugby player and coach having competed up to national level, representing Sweden with 37 caps to his name. Andrew has played both union and 7s and is constantly looking to push the boundaries with his training in order to optimise his performance both on and off the field.
In this episode, we discuss common misconceptions about training and performing at an elite level; the tools and techniques employed in his training; What a maximal effort should really look like; the psychological aspect of elite performance; how to really perform a test of your fitness, and much more.
Andrews ability to test new methods to extract the most from his performance is really interesting. From nasal breathing, to covering data on a screen and working by feel, and even wearing a blackout mask.
Lots of great insight to training and performing at an elite level.
You can find more on Andrew here:
Instagram: @andrewkalendaish
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Transcript
Introduction to Andrew Desch: Rugby Player and Coach
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to perspectives. Today's guest is Andrew Desch, a rugby player and coach having committed at club level all the way up to national level, including representing Sweden with 37 caps to his name.
00:00:15
Speaker
Andrew has played both Union and 7s and supports athletes in extracting the most from their performance as a coach. In this episode, we discuss common misconceptions about training and performing at an elite level, the tools and techniques Andrew uses to perform at his optimal, what a max effort should really look like, the psychological aspect of elite performance and much more.
Journey from Player to Coach
00:00:39
Speaker
It is clear that Andrew is constantly looking for ways to improve from both a psychological and a physiological aspect. And his ability to test new methods to extract the most from his performance is really, really interesting. There is a lot of knowledge here. The guy is an absolute beast. So without further ado, Andrew Desch.
00:01:25
Speaker
Andrew Desch. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Can you just tell us a little bit about your background and your sporting career? Who is Andrew Desch? Oh, there we start with the Prince, I think really. Welsh father, Swedish-based mother. So I didn't really have a choice of what sport I was going to play. Having a Welsh father who played rugby for 28 years, I think he would remind me and tell me
00:01:52
Speaker
how it was in his day. So yeah, start playing rugby at six. Went to a boys school, played rugby there, and then things started getting a bit more serious. 16, 17, signed for London Welsh, played for Wales under 18s, schools and youth, and then played for Wales under 19s. Picked up a pro contract through university, did that with London Welsh, and then moved up to Birmingham.
International Rugby Experiences
00:02:19
Speaker
Played a few years there, pro.
00:02:21
Speaker
did my teacher training as well at the same time, so busy. Father always pushed the sport in context, mother always pushed the back-up plan, just in case, especially in the world of rugby, it's quite brutal, contract-wise and chasing things like that. And then played semi-pro, unfortunately one day, but the professional dream got killed, the club didn't have any money left, so went and got a real job teaching and then played semi-pro.
00:02:47
Speaker
And then alongside that switched allegiance to the well-known rugby nation of Sweden and played 37 caps I think it was for Sweden's 15s and then played over 10 years of 7s for them as well as playing invitational 7s, playing around the world as well.
00:03:09
Speaker
Bit of a wide experience. I've been to some of any different Eastern European countries with Sweden that I've never thought to go on holiday to. So, yeah, it's been an interesting one. Sounds like there's a few stories there for another day, right? Yeah, the likes of going to Moldova for a weekend is the one I recommend.
00:03:29
Speaker
I see you've tried to retire from rugby about three times at this point as well, but you seem to think I'm drawing back into it. Yeah, I retired to retire. We had a great seven years with old Albanians playing semi-pro in national one. We had some really good friends. Tried to retire then and then my very good friend and coach pulled me back in and then tried to retire again.
00:03:58
Speaker
called me back in.
Balancing Coaching and Playing
00:04:00
Speaker
So yeah, keep going in and sort of transferred, now living in Sweden, transferred to the coaching side, really developing myself on the coaching element. But sometimes
00:04:11
Speaker
needs must have to put the boots back on and strap up and go again although pushing 38 now it's like I think it's the body is definitely saying no but the brain still thinks he's I've still got it so but no I don't know it's always been in your DNA isn't it it's something I've loved something I've done for
00:04:31
Speaker
30 plus years now all my life basically it's all I really know so it's lovely to it's great to be out there the boys but three four days afterwards it's it's it's not fun let's put it that way it takes it takes it takes a lot to get out of bed let's put it that way
00:04:47
Speaker
Are you just still a walking callat at this point? Oh yeah, just just held together basically. It's good fun. I love chugging it around especially like to join in training with the boys. Especially on the I've got the great opportunity to coach the assistant coach the men's national team now. So giving back to the team.
Overcoming Injuries and Team Spirit
00:05:05
Speaker
So I love joining in with the boys and and saying the old man still got it. But definitely some of these young, young lads have definitely got it more than I have.
00:05:15
Speaker
I know a few people that played, not to the level you've played at, but they've broken near enough every bone in their body, so I can't imagine what these trees are like at your level as well. Oh yeah, I've got...
00:05:28
Speaker
titanium in one shoulder, Kev Lara in the other shoulder, being a nice wrist surgery, numerous. The list is fairly big, but you just keep going. And that's where some of the, what we'll get into a bit later, some of the stuff about doing it for the team comes into it, of how I trained and how things changed and the mental aspect of it already.
00:05:51
Speaker
So playing at that level, do you think there's any sort of common misconceptions that people have when it comes to being at an elite level?
Misconceptions in Rugby Performance
00:06:00
Speaker
I think there's many misconceptions. I think people from the outside definitely believe that you have the ability to be 100% every time. I think they are obviously if they're paid to watch you, they obviously have a perspective that you are the best, you will be the best, you will give everything. And I think that mindset drips into the team as well about giving everything.
00:06:26
Speaker
Obviously you do it for your team, you do it for the shirt, the greater, the higher power, because that's what is instilled in you to give everything you've got. And sometimes giving everything you've got is actually more than what you actually have. So the ability to
00:06:45
Speaker
keep going through pain, through not knowing where you are, the concussions, the injuries and things like that is actually detrimental, but at the time you don't obviously don't see that, you just see it's either win or lose. Basically, I'll do this for the team.
00:07:00
Speaker
I've seen rugby as a bit of a, well it's been known as a gentleman sport, just to corner a bit of an older fashion term, maybe not so relevant now, but what's it taught you other than the physical elements as well? As I've heard, it's quite a respectful game. I'm not a huge rugby footballer myself, just because I didn't really get into it. I was more down the football route when I was at school. But I played
Camaraderie and Respect in Rugby
00:07:25
Speaker
two games at college and never again. I broke myself.
00:07:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely it's definitely I've made friends all around the world and it's like friends that you can you have got memories and stories with and you shared on field battles with and as friends are played against to your you hate each other for 80 minutes, but then it's like you're back to back to friends afterwards, like you got the pregame chat like catch up and then it's
00:07:54
Speaker
Do you do the job different shirt different? Obviously want to be each other and then it's back to being friends again so it's definitely taught the the element of Bond male bond you can have and the bond we have with each other that the respect I think as well comes with it that I Will run into you as high as I can and I know you were running as to me as hard as you can but come the final whistle like that's done and dusted and now we're move on straight away and
00:08:22
Speaker
I think that's a nice thing about sport is that the element of respect that you see in different sports being played, rugby perhaps being the most prevalent in terms of being respectful for the referee and things like that, to firstly be certain, more madam in the case.
Evolving Coaching Philosophy
00:08:39
Speaker
Yeah, Sarah, madam, definitely there is an element of that appealing, that desire, that football-esque, if I could call it that, that crowding, that opinionated stuff coming in, but
00:08:51
Speaker
There is obviously you just want to win and you will do whatever you can to win and if you think something's unfair and she obviously will appeal it or say something about it. It's just I think it's a natural human instinct to unjust to fight your cause. I just think it's becoming a bit more prevalent in rugby at the moment and I've definitely noticed last like this year as a coach I've had to try and change my
00:09:15
Speaker
changed by thinking on it like my me shouting out something isn't going to change the referee's opinion it's not going to change the decision so just have to have to work with the hand you're dealt with basically and if something goes against you it goes against you there's nothing we can i can do on the on the side of the pitch now um so i'd say my mentality as a coach has definitely changed towards those sort of things i suppose it's quite an easy trap to get
00:09:39
Speaker
sort of fall into really with your opinions and stuff being on the sideline you see it with youngsters coming up and pair and shouting at sidelines in different sports as well but you realize it doesn't as you said it doesn't make a difference if any kind of go against and just annoy people at the end of the day doesn't it you double didn't yeah your sport is emotion in the end it's highs and lows and things are going against you and for you and obviously everyone has an opinion but that's not going to change
00:10:05
Speaker
It's not going to change the person in the middle who's got the whistle and the controller of time and the law and enforcing the law.
Influences and Inspiration in Training
00:10:13
Speaker
So like it's not being emotionless. It's just not using the emotions in the right way.
00:10:21
Speaker
So I've been following your account for a number of years. I think I got into it. I think it might've been Andrew Tracy or something along those. Do you follow? Yeah, I worked with him. I coached him a little bit for his, one of his competitions, the Rainield trials. Yeah.
00:10:36
Speaker
So I followed in for a number of years and saw your account through that. It's going back a few years now. And I've always been really interested in how you combine fitness and the mindset element and also your approaches to training. So I've had a couple of different people on all of very different approaches to how they trade with obviously different goals of mine, different specifics.
Training Philosophy: Internal Focus vs. Data
00:10:55
Speaker
In terms of your approach to training, you talk about using techniques like no data and nasal breathing and things like that. So can you just talk us through some of the approaches that you might use and how came about using those approaches?
00:11:11
Speaker
Yeah, I think definitely the approach came from having that athletic mindset of 100% button is the only button you have. You push it and you go and you go and you go until you can't either A, go any further or B, you're told to not go any further. And that comes from a sporting element of the rugby nature of you just keep going, you just keep going. You might be dead on the bottom of the floor and you've still got time to go.
00:11:37
Speaker
And you've got to get up because your friend's going to get up before you.
Testing vs. Training: Finding Balance
00:11:40
Speaker
So that's where the training element came from, really. I realized I couldn't keep training like that. And it wasn't training. I was testing. I've been in an environment where you test. We have Olympic testing. Because Sevens is now an Olympic sport, so we obviously have support from the Olympic committee.
00:11:59
Speaker
And they want to know results. They want to know how high, how fast, how quick, how you can do everything. So then they can implement their training plan and test again. But the problem I was having, I was testing every day. Every day was a test. Every day I was pushing the limits. How fast, how much.
00:12:17
Speaker
How many could I do and that came to Testing twice a day because once a day wasn't good enough and it was like I kept testing and testing and testing and the problem with testing is what
Self-Awareness in Fitness Training
00:12:31
Speaker
you do when you test a new car safety you design to break and I kept breaking but then as soon as I could test again, I will test again and
00:12:40
Speaker
So it came to the point where I needed to change something. And I was working with Richard and Julian when they were together at StrongFit. We were discussing things and talking about testing. And then this conversation of testing versus training came across of what is the difference? Because we train to test, not test every day. And that's what you see in this CrossFit world. And that's sort of the element of CrossFit is to push, push, push.
00:13:07
Speaker
But for the average person who might have a job, family, other demands, testing isn't the best thing for someone. And then you can put an athletic mind or athlete mindset on it, you are going to ramp it through the roof. So actually, there's no data came away from taking away the aspect of a screen telling me how good I was.
00:13:32
Speaker
Because when it comes to rugby, if I'm playing 15s, I know the referee will start the game. I know the referee will stop the game for half time, start the game again half time and full time. And yeah, I might have a scoreboard ticking away, but is that scoreboard in time with the referee's watch? There's no other data I'm getting there and then in the game telling me how hard I'm working.
00:13:55
Speaker
And so that sort of mindset of actually it's up to me how hard I want to work came across. And that's how then I sort of transferred it to the no data, taking away the screens on the machines, for example, taking away time and just working until I was good.
00:14:11
Speaker
And that took two to three years probably to really understand it because you always want to know you always want. We live in this world where data is so available. Like if you take it back to when we were probably the first era of the Internet coming around for households, you'd have to and trying to get information. You'd have to wait for the dial up to dial up. You'd have to hope that your mom's not on the phone line or someone else is not calling. You'd have to then wait for the page to load and you knew it's going to take ages to load.
00:14:41
Speaker
and then you'd hope you find on the right page. Or the other one is like the library aspect. You want to find information out, you'd have to walk to the library to get a library card, hope the book's in, read the book, take the book back to get another book. And we're used to training our data, data, data, feeding it in all the time. We all have
00:14:59
Speaker
I'd love to know how many people have Apple watches or garments and stuff like that and live and die by it But actually there I always use it the first I think it's 1977 the first polar heart rate monitor was ever invented like I think the first Olympics was 1896 there was a few more years before we actually had data in such a sporting context and such a available ready context for everyone and
00:15:22
Speaker
So it was just a way I just took away the data to try and actually focus on me and focus on I am good enough. I can work hard enough for me. And if that was five minutes, that's five minutes. There's nothing wrong with working out for five minutes. I could achieve a lot in five minutes if I really wanted to blast myself and end myself. But sometimes you just want to go and enjoy training. I think I definitely lost the enjoyment for training because it became a job.
00:15:54
Speaker
Yeah, I've had one of those whip straps for a while and it's just, yeah, I tried it for, I was just on the trial thing and I had, yeah, really cool. Just the amount of metrics you can get from it. But then I came to a point where I was coming to renew it and I was like,
00:16:10
Speaker
I don't, all this data, I don't really know what I'm doing with it. I don't really know how to use it. So I thought for me, it was a bit of a realisation that, yeah, it's cool to know what you're doing. But, you know, it's, I suppose it depends what level you're performing at and things like that. And then it becomes a game of sort of margins really when you're looking at just eking the most out here performance when you start getting to the elite level stuff. But for the average lay person like myself, it's, you know, it's almost a bit too much data.
00:16:38
Speaker
And I had this conversation with someone else as well. I get the WOOP. I understand what it is. But let's just say you wake up and your WOOP band says you're red. You can't train. I don't know. No, but let's just say it's telling you not to train. But you've woken up and you've got the mindset of, I want to work today.
00:16:57
Speaker
What are you gonna believe yourself the person that you are in tune with and you know your body and if your body is feeling great all this very I don't know how they what algorithm I would assume is one algorithm for the whole of the whoop users or unless it's learning from you and It's telling you you shouldn't train you shouldn't do anything today. Well, what are you gonna believe?
00:17:19
Speaker
And this is the issue like I have with this sort of information is that what is true? What are you going to believe? You as yourself? We've lost this human aspect. We've lost this human feeling. I know when I'm good to train. I know when I'm not good to train. I know I wake up and I'm thinking,
00:17:37
Speaker
Yeah, I probably should. I'm not really in the mood to go do this element of training. I fancy doing this instead. We've lost this human touch to want to train for ourselves. And what if you wake up in the opposite way? You feel like you are beaten up and you just don't want to do anything, but that would ban telling you, green, let's go, go, go. And you're like, well,
00:18:03
Speaker
Surely I'm just going to hit a wall then because it's telling me, what do I believe? What do I believe? And now we've got this mental aspect coming into our way of arguing.
00:18:13
Speaker
Am I arguing with a whoop band or am I arguing with my head? Which one's the right one? And for like you said, for the everyday person who is sold on the whoop band or the whatever algorithm, what is the date? What does HRV mean to you? Are you sure this sleep has tracked you properly? Are you this? Why we've lost this human touch to go, I'm tired. It's good, I can have a day off. It's good, life goes on.
00:18:42
Speaker
Why don't I do something else? Why don't I go and do something else enjoyable? Get out, be human, go and move instead of having to smash myself in the gym because my weak band says I'm green. When I'm, I actually feel like, no, I'm not good today. Yeah, that's very true. We were talking, I was talking with the triathlete I was mentioning earlier about RPE, the RPE scale, and we were talking about the use of data as well, actually in reference to some of the work you were doing previously.
00:19:08
Speaker
and so i explained how you use it and how you use it just based on your time you've got in the match and things like that no scoreboards and she was saying that's very true even when she's training or when she's running or doing whatever part of her triathlon she's at at a particular stage of the race
00:19:24
Speaker
she said she may check it like maybe once a kilometer but she also says she does a lot of a lot of sessions based off her rpe as well so she does use the data in terms of the zone training and things like that but there's also times where the rpe scale where only you can tell how you feel on the day and if there's days where she's meant to be doing a session where it's
00:19:46
Speaker
go a bit harder and she doesn't she just doesn't feel recovered enough she says she's got the ability to just take a step back now actually if i push hard i am going to increase the chance of injuring myself at this point so it's probably about having an awareness of
00:20:03
Speaker
yourself and being a bit more in tune rather than just relying on an abundance of information because there is just so much data out there now there's so much information there's so many studies so many bad studies which is another aspect to worry about as well where you just have so much information thrown at you social media there's loads of information thrown at you you've got so-called experts who have got the best method for you and it's just yeah it's just sometimes too much it's just easier to switch off isn't it?
00:20:28
Speaker
Yeah, like I like the RPE, but you need to expose someone to what a 10 is. Yeah, subjective. It's subjective. Like my RPE 10 could be very different to someone else's RPE 10 because I have the ability to physically and mentally withstand more, if that makes sense, compared to someone, I don't know, a 50 year old guy who's getting back into training.
00:20:54
Speaker
Like so you have to, you have to expose someone to truly show them what RPE 10 is because, or sometimes you see the Bork scale going up to 20 because it's a little bit more, a bit more freedom within it as well. But like put you on some windgate into repeated windgate intervals. So 30 seconds with max power output with seven and a half percent of your body weight dropped on it and how you can go.
00:21:21
Speaker
I repeated ones. Yeah, the first one's probably like 18 out of 20. Number two is definitely 20 out of 20. And if it was possible, number three is probably 22 out of 20. But that's true. If it's not taking you four hours to recover from that maximal, maximal, maximal effort or plus, then
00:21:43
Speaker
That's a true test. If you can do, say you do, oh, I hit RPE 10, we'll go back to RPE, but if you say, oh, I can do RPE 10, and then you're up 30 minutes later, you're like, oh, let's go again. No, you cheated yourself. And that's the honesty and the truthfulness you need with yourself. And that's where it comes down to, we lost, we have, some people might disagree with this and say, no, but we live in a scientific world. Yeah, we live in a scientific world, but we've lost the human element to understanding myself and understanding
00:22:13
Speaker
what I am and who I am and what I can achieve and this muscle doesn't work and this hurts and this doesn't hurt and then the whole mentality of quitting actually like we fear failure but actually we're happy to quit.
00:22:30
Speaker
I'd much rather fail and learn from it. Failure is a learning lesson. But we've lost all of that because we just rely on an algorithm or something else to tell me how I should feel. And some fancy data chart, which the majority of people don't actually understand what it is. They just think, oh, look, it looks pretty. But what does it mean? We've lost the meaning of training now, I think.
00:22:53
Speaker
Yeah, I think that you touched on fear as well. I think that's really the one of the main reasons why people don't don't go to RB 10 as well. It's just it's it's an unknown really, isn't it? It's yeah, push himself until it hurts. But there's also it's like a level beyond working hard, isn't it? Where I can comfortably say I've never been to an RB 10. I don't think I've been
00:23:16
Speaker
like working hard and you know tasting sort of like you're sucking on a battery tasting blood as you're like getting to that level but i don't know i'd say that's really close so i've got to an rp how do you measure it i suppose yeah but how do you measure like if if there is an i would probably say the best way to measure it yeah obviously you've got that iron blood taste in your mouth that's a that's a indicator we're getting very close to it but if i
00:23:41
Speaker
I think the easiest thing is if I was to either offer you billions and billions of pounds or hold a gun to your head and say do that again,
00:23:51
Speaker
And you said, no, I'd say that's probably very close to RPE 10. Well, probably is RPE 10. But the fact that people say, oh, I pushed really hard. I went to my limit. And then you jump on and do another thing. Welcome to World CrossFit. Oh, I pushed really hard. And then went to another thing. It's like, no, you don't understand. And that might be controversial. People might not like what I was saying, but I think it's probably pretty real and honest, what I'm saying.
00:24:20
Speaker
people maybe find what I say is controversial in this sort of aspect of training because it's maybe truthful that you don't understand. I've got a few CrossFit fans on here so we're just trying to kill off half my audience please. I'm all happy to discuss how to send you to RBE 10 if you like.
00:24:42
Speaker
To be fair, I know a few people listening probably would be interested in that, to be fair. I'm more than happy to expose the world of actual hurt because I've done fitness testing where I've got to the point of passing out. Don't give me a medal, I don't need, I'm not glorifying.
00:24:59
Speaker
the passing out element or pushing yourself to the actual limit but sometimes when there's 12 shirts in a sevens team available and there's 16 of you fighting for shirts you do what you have to in testing to make sure that you have the best scores.
00:25:15
Speaker
I'm not saying that that shouldn't be done every day. And I've learned the very hard lesson and it's nearly destroyed me in parts that going there every day is not healthy. And so I'm not advocating that you go and go and kill yourself every day. But what I'm saying that sometimes it's nice. You should.
00:25:33
Speaker
Have a little test once every week once every two weeks go and see where you're at go and test yourself go and feel What the actual here and then go back to training then go about so that's 70 80% work that technique where that area weakness you need to improve on
00:25:49
Speaker
But then sometimes open it up and enjoy it, like embrace the RPE 10 because yes, it hurts at the time, but afterwards it still hurts him. But there's that element of, yeah, I've got it. And that's what we miss now. We miss that pride of, yeah, I can go there. I can push that. I can do that.
00:26:08
Speaker
And actually, that's the rewards. It's the investment and reward of training, of improvement. People invest all this time, but we are never happy with the reward. You see it all the time on social media. There's never that embracing of the reward. Yeah, I won. Look at Jack Grealish. How much did he love the reward after all that time and investment of the Champions League?
00:26:36
Speaker
I think he was on the beers for three days, four days, but like that, to join the reward. I'm not saying you have to go on the beers for four days after doing a minute max cow on a salt bike, but I'm saying invest, embrace the reward. Be happy. Be proud of yourself. Love yourself for that reward because you're the one who's invested in the time into it.
00:26:57
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I think CrossFit, I mean, going back to the CrossFit element, I think there was, you know, my other half does CrossFit, and geez, just a couple of leaps about the terms of fitness level. So I think there's merits to using it. Again, it depends what your goal is, I suppose, in terms of general fitness, or you've got something specific you're working towards. Would you say even if you're just looking to push the limit every so often, that testing element comes in, but if you're quite happy, just
00:27:24
Speaker
going in and enjoying their workouts and carrying on, then that testing element is probably not something you need to do. Yeah, for sure. I'm not shunning CrossFit at all. I've done CrossFit quite a few times. I've been around the world, done it. I've done my qualifications, et cetera, to coach and things like that. I'm not shunning. I think it's amazing what it's done to introducing fitness to the world because it has got millions of people
00:27:47
Speaker
touching equipment, moving better, wanting to improve. It's been an amazing thing for it. Yes, it has its downsides. You can open a gym after a two-day training course. My years of studying and background and investment of the
00:28:05
Speaker
That's the one side of it. But no, for the everyday person who just wants to go and get sweaty, get fit, just look after their lifestyle so that their older, when their older self needs to get off the floor or pick up the grandkids or stops to try and stop themselves falling over and things like that. And of course, like,
00:28:26
Speaker
go and enjoy it, go and embrace the community, embrace the events, do the things. But there has to be a realization that that's what you're there for. And if you're happy with that, you're happy with that. But the thing with CrossFit, for me, is that some people take it too far. They don these shirts that say athlete on them. For me, an athlete is someone who's paid to do what they do.
00:28:54
Speaker
I was an athlete I was paid to play rugby that was my job. These people are paying to do fitness so I'm paying to enter this comp to get t-shirts as athlete on me so therefore I'm now the same level as Matt Fraser for example.
00:29:10
Speaker
where you're not, that's the thing. But people have now donned the approach that I am, Matt Fraser, who paid to train, he trained twice, three times a day, he recovered, that's all he did, it was 100% his job. But yet you've got to go, you've got hours of training,
00:29:25
Speaker
Let's show you train in the morning. You don't hit the lift that you should hit. You don't hit the 82.5% that you should do that day because you've had a rubbish sleep. You had stress from the day before, and now you're even more stressed. And now we've gone from, I couldn't even get close to my 82.5% that day. And now I've got to go to work, and now I'm late to work because I was trying to push the limit.
00:29:48
Speaker
And then we have this abundance of just stress rolling and rolling and rolling and rolling and rolling over and over and over. And it's going to get to another breaking point. So now physically I'm breaking because I'm not prepared. I'm not prepared. I'm not ready to go. Now, mentally I'm breaking because I'm not getting what I want from my training. And then I'm going to go and do a local comp for two days. And the amount of people I see who go, it's the classic do the open on a Friday. I need to redo it on the Monday. It's just like, well, you go and do a comp on a Saturday, Sunday, and then you're going back to training on Monday.
00:30:19
Speaker
Mate, you wouldn't see Matt Fraser after the CrossFit Games go back to training the day after. So, and that's his job and then you throw everything else on top. It's just a crushing aspect. I love what CrossFit did for getting people, but people got to realize that they are them and not the spy. Obviously everyone has role models. We can't aspire to be the role model. Maybe use elements of that, but you've got to be your human self.
00:30:47
Speaker
Okay, so someone who's wanting to perhaps do this testing element you referred to before, what would a good session be just to really push limit and see where you're at? You could easily just a simple one jump on this old bike in one minute max calories.
00:31:02
Speaker
Just six seconds, go as hard as you can. 60 seconds, no pacing. Like it's not a pacing event and we're not saving it to the end. Like you go out the gun, you don't see Usain Bolt pacing the first 20 meters. Which is, this is another thing I said to someone like, oh, what should I do for testing? I was like, it's like one minute, let's go. Like what pace should I start at?
00:31:24
Speaker
Well, maximum? Well, what's maximum? Well, I don't know. You tell me what maximum. My maximum could be over 100 RPM for the first eight seconds.
00:31:34
Speaker
Like I can give you my numbers. It's irrelevant to you. I've got different fitness ability. I've got different strength ability of the different power ability. My, I can last longer in 80 PPCs. Like we can go into it all the depths of the science if you want, but actually your one minute is very different to my one minute. All I'm going to say is you're one minute. If you're not falling off the bike at 62 seconds or
00:32:00
Speaker
finding a bucket to spew in, then you have a found maximum. Like there's so many, I've got so many like different versions of it to go, but your one minute should be brutal. 500 meter row for time. Like disgusting. If you, if that row is, if you are not having someone unstrap your feet, then like you're not working 400 meter run.
00:32:26
Speaker
All of those around 60 seconds to 90 seconds, two minute max work. Like a friend of mine once gave me one called the 3030. So 30 calories on the bike, 30 calories on the rower, 30 burpees.
00:32:42
Speaker
Right. Under five minutes. They sound, the food with these workouts, they always sound, I mean, those ones sound brutal, but like, sometimes I see different like circuit workouts and ones where you just go off, it's only 30 seconds, only 30 seconds. I was quite short, but then you, they'd look okay on paper, but then you come to actually do them and they're just horrible. Just yeah.
00:33:08
Speaker
Yeah, the best way to describe it is, let's just say you didn't see the clock and we're doing, let's just say we're doing 60 seconds, let's help back up, just because I love it. And you didn't see the clock and someone sets you 30 seconds left.
00:33:22
Speaker
If your heart doesn't sink and your brain doesn't go, expletive, expletive, expletive, that was only 30 seconds, then we're in the right place. I don't want to know, I don't want to look at that screen. I just want someone to tell me, I just want to hear that machine go beep and tell me when 60 seconds over. If you tell me 30 seconds left, I'm just crying.
00:33:48
Speaker
Probably a definite crying inside probably That's horrible when you've when you've really push in then it's like oh still got 30 seconds. Yeah Oh, we're doing it around. Oh, we're halfway there
00:34:01
Speaker
Halfway there. Yeah, but that's the that's like that's when you'll know you're in there because that's when you know Even I'm like a let's just say you're you're not just training and you can push training still don't get me wrong You can push but it's my sort of thing of pushing training is that? Let's say I finish
00:34:21
Speaker
And within one minute I can get up or two minutes, get up, walk around and like recover and actually have the mental clarity. Go, that was good. I enjoyed that. Or actually I need to, that was okay. I wasn't there today and have that honest conversation with yourself. Then.
00:34:40
Speaker
That's how I would judge my training. Having that as self-checking straight away as soon as we finish training. But there's times when you're having mental conversations with yourself. I worked with Bill Anthony between the years for two years just because every coach needs a coach. And there were sessions he would give me like push a sled for an hour.
00:35:04
Speaker
Like you have some conversations with yourself there of like, literally a stopwatch. And I didn't look at it going off after 16 minutes. And it's like, that was worse than 60 seconds on your salt bike because I'm in my head thinking. So there's so many variations that you can have with training of check-ins of testing. It doesn't have to be 60 seconds on your salt bike. You can test your mental resilience or your actual true physical capability of how long can I go.
00:35:33
Speaker
Have you heard of the 12-hour walk? I haven't heard of the 12-hour walk. He's a chap. He crossed the Antarctic on his own. Okay. And he was basically competing against this things in American chapel. His name's Ben Collins, I think.
00:35:52
Speaker
I forgot that wrong, but yeah, he's calling this thing called the 12-hour walk, and he was basically competing against this other Special Forces guy, both doing the same thing, trying to become the first person to do it. So this was carrying all your kit with you, so I think he was pulling a sled, no assistance for the duration of it, and they were kind of neck and neck, one edging, and they could literally see each other, like one edging in front of the other,
00:36:19
Speaker
and he said there was one day he was like I just got to get in front of this guy so I'm just gonna get my head down and go um and it ended up being like 12 hours and he built up quite a good gap and eventually he went on to become the first man to do it but he off the back of that he said he learned so much in that time that he's sort of coined this thing called the 12 hour walk and it's basically you
00:36:40
Speaker
switch off everything you don't you take your phone for like emergency reasons but there's an app he's built where you it kind of limits contact so you don't have any music you don't have anything else you just literally take yourself for a walk for 12 hours you you can go around the block and sit down for six hours and do as much as you can but the whole business just go go out for 12 hours distraction free and just basically see what happens just see where your mind goes
00:37:06
Speaker
and he said he does that like once a year maybe and it really kind of when he's getting a bit flustered or things are kind of running away from him and he needs a bit of grounding he kind of goes back to this 12-hour walk where
00:37:21
Speaker
he just goes out with nothing and then just comes back and everything kind of settled in his brain he's worked some stuff out but you don't have all the distractions of oh shit i need to look at my phone all one needs to listen to music to be able to get through and imagine it's pretty tough i'm done it yet but it's something no it's not something i'd put on my trading calendar regularly but um
00:37:41
Speaker
No, but working with Bill, we sort of looked at this whole distraction thing and things like that. So, for example, just wearing ear defender plugs, putting them into your session. And actually, we talked about the noise of the breath is the noise of the world by actually hearing your heartbeat.
00:38:01
Speaker
So I jump on the assault bike and I do some intervals or I'll do any sort of type of training. And once you get rid of that noise of the breath and everything, you just feel your heart pumping for you. You feel you hit it in your ears and it's just like that. Actually, you come alive from listening to your heart and that self-love and it gives you clarity to why you're working.
00:38:24
Speaker
shows that you're working your heart is working for you i think there's so much like i learned from him he's an amazing guy like i learned so much from him about taking the back i can train
00:38:39
Speaker
actually the reasoning behind it and getting into the real depths of psychology and the love and the care for yourself through training like the whole Whole soulfulness of it and the whole like just giving yourself that love and it was amazing that we do training with just with a mask on you think you can shut your eyes put a blackout mask on and
00:39:02
Speaker
Like an hour of an hour on that we didn't, I was, I went and visited him in America and we did an hour of, um, sprints on the, uh, echo bike, no music, just a blackout mask on. You have an hour to work as hard as you want. Sprint as many times as you want.
00:39:20
Speaker
recover as many times you want, as long as you want, and you can't see anything. The depths you go to, the thought process, I went to some deep and dark places there of actually realising
00:39:35
Speaker
how much you have to do on your own to improve yourself. Like you can ask for as much help as you want, but if you're not prepared to do the work yourself, then you're not going to get anywhere. So I learned a lot from him and I use it. And I think it's taken my training to a whole new level of understanding me because I would just train, train, train, and there was no full processing. There was no feeling in it. The feeling was, did I destroy myself? Not the feeling of,
00:40:05
Speaker
I've loved I love myself or I've worked hard for myself or I've improved today or I haven't improved but I know where I need to improve that whole actual real depth of thought to it or Training is there and I still use the ear bugs the mask is something
00:40:24
Speaker
I'm a little bit still tentative, scared of. It brought on a lot of anxiety, a lot of awareness of not being feeling safe. I think safety, you have to expose yourself to an unsafe environment to obviously improve and that's testing.
00:40:44
Speaker
Testing is unsafe environment because there you don't know where you're gonna go. You know, it's gonna hurt but actually Losing this one of your senses is quite unnerving. So But now I have the mask I sometimes I feel like I want to use it but I use the earplugs quite a lot I quite enjoy the no music feeling myself especially for long cardio efforts and
00:41:08
Speaker
At the moment I'm just spending a bit more time rebuilding the body and my training at the moment is a bit more kettlebell based, a bit more range of motion, strengthening different planes instead of just being linearly strong. And then some long capacity work of just moving and sweating and just focusing, using some nasal breathing just to control my efforts and to make sure that I'm just working to a nice level. But the earplugs here, taking away the sound is quite a nice one. Do that for some running as well.
00:41:38
Speaker
I've heard about listening to like different types of music as well. So I'll get on to the, you mentioned there's everything so I'll get on to the breath of everything in a second. But the, I saw, I think it might have been the, maybe the Mindful Mover. So I had a guest on the previous episode called the Mindful Mover and they've come from like the movement culture background. So like, training, silly, I think he said he was doing like eight to 10 hours a day of training.
00:42:05
Speaker
be it movement, be it dancing, whatever. And I know you've talked in this with the Stroll Fit guys about that fight or fly response and getting into the sort of stress element. So most people, heavy lifting session,
00:42:23
Speaker
heavy rock heavy metal whatever some sort of heavy bass line something to get you kind of jacked up but i saw the reverse fit as well where people have been using um classical music so try not to get too jacked up but controlling all the lifts and things like that which i thought was quite interesting i don't know if there's any signs or merit behind it but i just thought it was quite an interesting question
00:42:45
Speaker
No, I find that quite interesting. I did listen to, I don't know how you describe it, but I just know that it is house music, but it's very chilled house music, long 7, 8 minutes long. Like lounge. Yeah, lounge style. And I think that's just a nice flow for me. Sometimes, yeah, you want to ramp it up to 180 BPM and
00:43:11
Speaker
have your ears bleeding and that's cool. Like you do whatever you do. I've listened to some classical music. I've listened to podcasts when they do long stuff. I've listened to, you name it, everything else as you go. So yeah, obviously music can affect mood and the music can be the feeling. But no,
00:43:35
Speaker
Yeah, everyone I've seen about the classical music. I haven't tried classical music. Sorry my thing, but I'm up for my training is I'm up for anything and trying anything so Maybe something about what sign have not even classical just something just a bit more relaxing. Yeah, that's all that soulful style stuff. Yes, I like these are it's quite like a
00:43:58
Speaker
Chilled House Band, Rufus to Soul as I was introduced to by Phil. We did an Hour of Burpees listening to Rufus to Soul's new album. I only looked at the clock with two minutes left to go, which was quite interesting.
00:44:13
Speaker
Noice. Yeah, I think this one back to Charles quite good. Yeah, I used to I used to do like a handstand course and she was used to having that It's it was really weird talk about it now, but like handstands are really exploded in popularity the whole cots bit stuff Yeah, but yeah, it was when I was a uni. That was a there's literally a course. It was like, oh, I look cool I'm gonna go that one. So no doubt a handstand. It's quite a party trick to whip out really on it in I'm sure You guys too deep and you're upside down it could
00:44:41
Speaker
Oh yeah, I've gone flat on my back before. Yeah, I was gonna say. So, breath work. Talk to me about breath work. You talked about nasal breathing. How are you using that in your training and why?
00:44:53
Speaker
Yeah, so obviously like this nasal breathing and the breath work whole element has really kicked off. Like there's so many people doing so many variations and obviously there is a physiological benefit to it and stuff. I mainly used it as a limitation, a limiter towards my training because there's only so much
00:45:11
Speaker
breathing in your nose you can do before you naturally want to gasp for more air through your mouth. It wasn't a physiological thing. I didn't really understand the physiological thing. I just used it as a as a limiter basically to to my training in like in terms with using it with the no data work and I just became pretty good at it. I don't I don't have there's many experts out there who will tell you about the
00:45:37
Speaker
hemoglobin count and the oxygen amount and there's obviously lots and lots of books on it and things like that and there's obviously loads of people doing breathwork now so I'm not here to dive into the physiology of it but I just use it as a limiter I used it as an ability to control myself because you can open your mouth and you can go there
00:45:56
Speaker
But actually, there's only so much you can breathe in your nose before you might get this headache up here. Your brain feels like it might explode. Your nose is on fire. So just use it as different elements of style of training, just to change intensity, really. Like a limiter of intensity is how I used it, really. And then I would use nose in, nose, nasal inhale, mouth exhale. Shungvit used it as like a
00:46:23
Speaker
A movement limiter as well. I used it more of an intensity limiter. So there's obviously loads to use towards it. I think it's great to play with. It's great to just to see how it is. Some people sleep with tape on their mouth, which is not really my thing. I've seen, for example, when I've worked with Andrew Harrison, I've seen him use it as well. And he does a lot of it like holding water in your mouth as well.
00:46:46
Speaker
as a feedback, I'd call it, to actually, when you want to spit it out, is actually maybe your limit of where you are nasal reading as well. I'd probably recommend doing that either outside or with a bucket. I'm not sure you would be too appreciative of you spitting water. No, it was just a limited sort of thing. There's obviously lots of physiology on it. There's lots of papers on it now. There's lots of people talking about it. I see it a lot on Instagram and social medias
00:47:17
Speaker
people doing this and stuff like that yeah and it's also there obviously there is a nervous system element to it that fight and flight like taking yourself to the ability to fight with it before you want to run away from it before you go for that because obviously Julian talked about a lot of strong fit like you could happily be walking along
00:47:36
Speaker
in the woods and then you see a bear straight away you go to that panic mode that flight mode and you start breathing your mouth and that you are aren't present so use it as like an internal presence more metric as well to try and like
00:47:48
Speaker
Am I breathing? When do I want to go to our mouths? Do I need to just back it off a little bit? And it's like that, just keeping that presence as I train. So that's what I really used it as. I've used it before, based on what I've seen from you, try to do it a few times, like on the row or like a longer salt bike session. It's going back a few years now anyways, but the feeling I got was very different. I kind of felt a bit more calm, if that makes sense.
00:48:17
Speaker
coming off the bike or it's almost like I suppose that's the limitation element where I've done it on runs before as well where running especially it's easy to get carried away and I think it's very difficult to run slowly. I think that's why we're using breathing through your nose you actually have to force you to run slowly rather than
00:48:36
Speaker
Yeah. Same with swimming, I suppose. Yeah, swimming might be a bit of an interesting one going underwater. He's breathing. He says he's breathing underwater. Yeah, I wouldn't try that. Yeah, I'd say running is an interesting one because it is actually... Some days I was going to go out for a 60-minute run, but I turned into running 10K in 49 minutes. I was going for an easy run and then something just happens and you're like,
00:49:02
Speaker
Oh, well, I'm 5K and I might as well just carry on sort of mentality. But no, I'd say it's a limiter of that pace. Like it allows you to train. It definitely stops you testing. There's no way you could test nasal breathing and do 60 seconds on this help wipe. Like you just, you're not working. It's a training limiter. I'd say it's going to stop you falling off the training cliff and into the testing water. So yeah, and that is a calming
00:49:31
Speaker
Experience is the fact of like you can be I did 60 minutes on this all the other day just pure nasal breathing like I was sweating like it I worked I
00:49:44
Speaker
I had the screen covered as well and still banged out 700 calories in the hour sort of thing, nasal breathing. And I think as I got off, sprayed and cleaned the salt bike and then put it back on for a shower. Like I've worked for 60 minutes. Like it's that whole element of you can train and you can train hard and you can get off and carry on with life. Because in the end, if it's not your job, you've got other aspects of your life, other stresses in your life.
00:50:12
Speaker
I think that's where nasal breathing has been a really big bonus for me and I know it's helped, I've talked to a lot of people about it, actually how it's helped their life, it's helped their ability to be present and you can mix your breathing up as well. I have a great session and I could talk about it with Bill, the sprints with
00:50:33
Speaker
You have a set period of time. Let's just say 30 minutes You have a set period of time 30 minutes on the clock You're gonna get as many hard maximal effort sprints in in that time you define hard you define maximal There's no I'm not gonna tell you what harder maximal is you that's your definition. This is another training thing I like to use it's like you define what your harder maximum is that day and
00:50:55
Speaker
it doesn't matter what it is as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror and this is what i say to people as long as you say to look at yourself in the mirror say i worked and i'm proud and that's good enough that's all i like all you need to do so 30 minutes on the clock as many sprints or
00:51:12
Speaker
I always just use the assault bike because I particularly love it. As many efforts as you can do, but when you're doing your recovery, you have to be nasal breathing. You have to be nasal breathing. And I like to use the fact that my recovery efforts will be, I'll take my feet and hands off the bike, then I'll put my feet on just to keep it ticking over. But as soon as my hands touch that handle, the handles, that's when I'm ready to go.
00:51:40
Speaker
There'll be times when I get like twitchy hand, I'm like, am I ready, am I ready? But then I'll go as hard as I can on that effort. And it's that sort of, I have these training, I don't know how you'd describe it, like performance metrics to say when I'm ready to go. It's like, the first two sprints could have maybe 30 seconds between the last two sprints I do, could have four minutes between. As soon as that hand goes on,
00:52:07
Speaker
My hands go on the handles of that salt bike. I'm going and I'm going until my standard drops and my former standard is until I feel I cannot give maximum. That level might be very different to yours.
00:52:22
Speaker
And that's cool. Like we are still working at our, our maximum. I'm not, we're not working against each other. We're not competing against each other. We could be side by side, but you're training. You could be in a great place that day and want to go super hard and you're smashing them out and like motivating yourself and you're in the zone and you're loving it. I could just be doing, I could do two in 30 minutes and still, we could still walk away with the same feeling of, yeah, I got what I wanted from today. So.
00:52:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting to be fair. I think the sprint duration one's important as well because sometimes I think 30 seconds at work at a max, you may be good at a max for like 10, 15 seconds that it drops right off and then the final five seconds are just like, oh, siding through porridge effect. Yeah, you're suffering then. You're now punishing yourself. If your sprint is 15 seconds, your sprint's 15 seconds. Be honest with yourself. That's my sprint today.
00:53:19
Speaker
my sprint isn't 30 seconds, that's 15 seconds of me working and 15 seconds of me suffering. You're not here to suffer. Another example I have was did a seminar for StrongFit and this guy was like, I need to run 10K.
00:53:35
Speaker
But I don't want to." I was like, well, why do you do it then? He goes, I do it for a CrossFit comp. I was like, OK. So when was the last time it was in a CrossFit comp to run 10K? Well, it hasn't been. I was like, OK. And have you signed up for another CrossFit competition? No. So I was like, OK. So you got to run 10K. You don't do it for any reason. And you're suffering for an hour. I was like, OK. So you're suffering for an hour. And he's like, yeah, it hurts for an hour. I was like, perfect. I'm going to punch you in the face for an hour.
00:54:05
Speaker
That's suffering, you're going to suffer for an hour with me punching you in the face for an hour. Same outcome, it's going to hurt. And he's like, this was in front of 30 people as well, so I'm not sure he took it too well. And it came down to the fact he had spent 500 euros on a Garmin watch, and he had to justify to himself that the reason he had the watch
00:54:29
Speaker
was he was getting value for money, sorry, for the watch. Didn't enjoy it. Well, why would you do something you don't enjoy? Why'd you wake up aching and sore and like, oh, I don't want to go to the gym. Yet you take your sorry ass to the gym and you suffer through an hour of some coach screaming at you, telling you to work harder, faster, keep working, keep working in your face. And then you walk away and you hate the gym even more.
00:54:56
Speaker
We are not designed to suffer. We're designed to keep working and enjoy it. So yeah, I don't know if he ran another 10k off that after I said I'd punch him in the face for an hour. I wouldn't get it for that. You'd follow him behind this. I'm more than happy for him to sit there. I'll do it. It's fine. You need one of those extendable boxing gloves.
00:55:19
Speaker
Yeah, I really want to run the face at the same time like effort. It just shows that we we do it for such external things like the Instagram bonus round. How many times do people actually show their true failings on Instagram or their true rounds or there's this amazing five rounds plus one because I got a film around for the Instagram real.
00:55:41
Speaker
like just train and train just train for you like we don't i don't is it external gratification hence the watch hence the loop band hence the likes on instagram hence the people saying well done like where's the internal gratification of like yeah i've worked hard for myself today and i enjoyed it i've got the most out of my session
00:56:04
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. I've seen some of your posts as well. I remember asking you once, what was it like the objective of your session? And it was a ton calories and your response was connection. That was all you were looking for in a particular session. Yeah. So tell us a bit more about what that means.
00:56:25
Speaker
It just means I'm connecting with myself, like I'm checking in with myself. Reps, calories, time doesn't really mean anything to myself. Like it's like, go until I'm good. We did a lot of work with Bill on this, like go until I'm good because I can, I'll go and I'll keep going and I'll keep going, but I will suffer. But actually like, if I'm good after 30 minutes, I'm good.
00:56:47
Speaker
And actually that connection with you that checking in with yourself understanding yourself where you are in that moment in time actually allows you to be the better version of you for yourself and for people around you in your circle.
00:57:03
Speaker
Like you want to be the best I want to be the best version of me for My two little ones because they get the best version of me and that's if I'm the best version of me for me Then they're gonna get the best version of me for them. So It's a case of that connection and sometimes yeah, I might just say why people I could I get messages people saying Oh, what are you doing? What was it? It's like
00:57:26
Speaker
Because it was for me and people sometimes are like But what did you do and I know it but please see previous message Like I'm quite blunt with it. Yeah. Why what I'm doing what I'm doing is relevant. It's just it's relevant to me I've had a bit in the ground of fear and the grand scheme things so relevancy but relevant for ya
00:57:49
Speaker
Yeah, so I just trained for me, I trained to be the best version of me and that's why this whole like deep dive into the psychological side of it all actually just like sometimes I don't really care about rep sets, sometimes I just want to flow, sometimes like I'm enjoying this kettlebell stuff I'm doing at the moment like I've never really used them and actually learning and it's challenging because
00:58:13
Speaker
I know how to push, I know how to end my life, but actually, I'm learning a new skill. I never knew how hard a kettlebell windmill was. I have got the mobility of a piece of wood in that rotational thing from just so much sport. It's like, well, there's something I need to learn on. I'm enjoying it. I wake up going,
00:58:36
Speaker
I want to go and do something more like I did a session yesterday. I usually use two 12 kilo kettlebells for the whole session and I'm feeling 80. I'm feeling like, oh, that muscle is working and that's not working. Actually, I came away super like learning. It was an experience. It was a lesson. I taught myself a lesson. Actually, it worked. I worked hard in a different way. So you can work hard. Doesn't mean you have to go pedal to the middle for the whole hour.
00:59:06
Speaker
Yeah, I noticed you're quite open about the whole mindset stuff as well, sort of the connection I meant, the digging deep and going to the places and pushing yourself to see where you kind of end up. You mentioned the master training stuff, which sounds horrific by the way. I don't think I'll be going out and buying a blackout mask anytime soon.
00:59:27
Speaker
I feel like mental health's really been pushed into the forefront quite recently, especially in corporate places as well. There's a lot of this whole sort of mental first aid training and sometimes it feels like a bit of a tick box exercise when it comes to sort of corporate stuff. And then you've also got the other side of it, which is like the social media influences who are sort of being raw and authentic, where there was quite a funny clip I saw on Instagram actually of someone
00:59:52
Speaker
They would take it this hour basically just set up a tripod and they were like, oh, this is me. Something happened or whatever. And then they hit record and pretend cry and then like stop. They're like checking to see if they got the right clip. And so it's obviously you've got to take it with a pinch of salt, social media stuff as well.
01:00:10
Speaker
But have you seen, especially maybe in your surroundings and part the game rugby, for example, have you seen like a beneficial sort of shift towards an attitude towards the mental health aspect and being a bit more open and honest about that sort of stuff? Yeah, for sure. I think we live in a world now where, for example, I think suicide is one of the biggest killers of young men. And I think that, like I say to my players, like,
01:00:34
Speaker
I don't care that you have to put on an attitude and a front. If you aren't there, if life is tough, come and talk. I'm very open about talking because I wasn't open about talking for many, many years for my own reasons.
01:00:53
Speaker
There's young men out there who are alone, who fear this judgment of not being able to talk. And it's scary. It's scary because you have to be this macho man.
01:01:07
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes you have to be that person. Sometimes, for example, in the gym, there's that one rep max day, and you want to go and display your biggest, highest amount of testosterone, your true strength, your caveman ability, your macho, whatever you want to call it. But there's times when it's deep and dark and you just want to talk about something, or you're not feeling yourself, or you're not feeling like
01:01:32
Speaker
you want to feel and I think it's important especially in the world of rugby where you have to put this macho side on you're going to this basically glorified sport warfare you're going into battle I think I think there's a lot a lot gone there's a lot of time that actually people need to realize that the Instagram the social media mental health stuff
01:01:56
Speaker
Isn't where it should be like you said about that taking the mic out that person pretending It's just like I think if you are really struggling like you're not the only one and I know people say that all the time But you're not the only one like you think you're the only one trust me like I thought that process I'm the only one struggling I Can't show emotion. It's it's not the right place to show emotion. I shouldn't I'm a man. I shouldn't show emotion and
01:02:22
Speaker
When you do show emotion, it actually shows you really who is there for you and who wants to be there for you. I think we should continue to promote it and advocate talking. I think I sometimes talk a lot and I will just spill it all out.
01:02:42
Speaker
Like when you actually just get it all out, it's the relieving that the weight it feels off your shoulders is incredible. It's the highest of highs like I probably could have of being able to just go, this is how I feel, get it all out there. And actually, like I need, sometimes you just need someone to listen. This is a big thing I'm focusing at the moment. It's like, I just listen to people. I'm not going to tell you my story. I'm not going to tell you you should feel like this.
01:03:09
Speaker
I'm actively just listening to how you feel. There's so much stuff I read about now about active listening and understanding and working with people. Just listening. Just listen. Just the person doesn't want an opinion. I didn't want an opinion. I don't want an opinion if I'm talking. Like if I'm saying how I feel, this is how I feel. I don't need you to tell me it will be okay. Two ears, two ears, one mouth for a reason. Yeah, that classic saying like, yeah, one mouth.
01:03:36
Speaker
Just listen. It's one of the greatest skills I feel, listening is one of the greatest skills that people have lost because it's not a competition. My feelings don't need to be top trumped by your feelings of previous times or what you did. I think this is where the best people are around.
01:04:00
Speaker
I was at a point where I reached out and Bill, who is a trained psychologist and coach and former special soldier and all this sort of stuff he did, he just listened and then he gave me
01:04:14
Speaker
do something like this and like I use things that are cathartic, which I still use now and from which I learned from him, which is more than the hours of, I've done many types of different therapy. I'm not ashamed of it to do it, but actually sometimes you need to find that one person who's going to listen, who's then going to say, have you thought about trying this? That's all I need, like,
01:04:41
Speaker
and then you go and try that, and then do that work? No, did that work? Yes, okay, which part are we going down now? So, I do feel young men, you can say it to the cows come home as they say, but until someone says, I need help. So I always have a rule of three, like if I say, Mike, to one of the players, you okay? I'll ask him three times. And on the third time, I think I usually get the true and honest answer.
01:05:10
Speaker
But yeah, I'd always say to people ask three times. It's not annoying. I think it's a generational thing as well with the whole openness. Because I know definitely with my parents' generation, I know other people that have had like grandads and dads and stuff like that, it was that generation where they just didn't talk about stuff. And it was always just head down and girl with it. Whereas I think now it's
01:05:39
Speaker
becoming a bit more realistic in the fact that you can be open about it and doesn't mean you're weak in any way and the listening elements difficult as well because I feel like anytime someone asks you something you always feel like you have to respond but that's not always the case you don't always feel like you have to have an answer for everything because you don't know the odds to everything as well and I think it's very difficult for people to just not say anything and also admit when they don't know something like
01:06:07
Speaker
I don't know as good an answer is given a full set of well-educated response if you're not educated in that area of existence. Yeah, 100% makes sense. I work with students teaching PE, and they're 14 to 16-year-olds. There might be times where I listen to ISAs and it's listening as a two-way thing. You listen to me, I listen to you because you never know. I learn something from you.
01:06:34
Speaker
Like I've worked with people, students who are young sports people who have said, Oh, well, what we like, we do this, or I've done this, or I don't know. I mean, man, you learn from someone younger as well of their experiences by listening to them is crazy. Listening is such a.
01:06:55
Speaker
listening and absorbing, not just listening and throwing it away. Because people will listen and they're like, nah, information gone. They're actually listening, taking in, thinking about it, analyzing it. And if you don't understand, that's nothing wrong. Go and find out, go and seek more information, go and seek the details, the understanding. Because we're all learning. If you are the complete person, then there's no point carrying on.
01:07:24
Speaker
True. I like the Peterson quote as well, when he says, was it, don't compare yourself to the way yesterday, not who someone else is today. Yeah. When I wrote that the first time, I was like, ah, yeah, that's kind of a nail on the head, because especially with social media now, you get sucked into this kind of comparing yourself with people who are 19, 20, 25, whatever it is, in their 20s, and they're driving around in supercars and making millions.
01:07:54
Speaker
What have I done wrong? What have I done that meant that I cannot be that. Why am I not with you at this point? Why have I failed so much? But it's not that at all. You're just getting a cherry-picked selection of people who either got lucky or were very good at what they do. So it's hard not to compare yourself. But yeah, we'll see what's your antidote to that. Wow.
01:08:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's very hard to compare yourself. Like I lived in a world where you get compared to selection. It's all about selection. But those people on Instagram are driving around like 25 in a year. OK, that's that 15 seconds of your life I've seen where you are pretty set up and have you rented that car? Like let's be the real
01:08:39
Speaker
I don't know. I can't remember the word right now, but the person who's just negative, I'm like, you ran that car. Did you rent that car? Did you actually earn that money? Like, are you actually happy?
01:08:58
Speaker
Are you actually enjoying your life or are you just, I'm on the grind, I'm on the grind, I'm on the grind. So just be happy with what you got. Like I've got a roof over your head. I can do what I like. I enjoy, I want to do what I want to do.
01:09:14
Speaker
I want to be with the people that you want to be with. You want to just go and do what you want to do. Social media is beautiful. There's some great people out there who have great learnings and great knowledge, who share and understand amazing things. There's also people who just use it in such a negative, destructive way to boast about life. Yeah, social media, social media. It's not sometimes true life, as they say, is it? Yeah, take it forward it is.
01:09:44
Speaker
Thank you for what it is. Follow who you want to follow, unfollow who you want to unfollow. That's your choice. Call the herd. Don't kill anything. It's really. All right, Andrew, let's wrap this up. Thank you very much for your time. Really appreciate it. Definitely got some really good takeaways from this. So I'll be looking to beast myself for 60 seconds. I'm going to solo bike and
01:10:05
Speaker
I look forward to it. I'll be waiting for you all to be sent to me in my direct message. That's the account of Willy right there. I'm calling you out. Thanks very much. Much appreciated. No problem.
01:10:41
Speaker
you