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#32 Jacob Ross Pt. 2 | NFL, NBA, MLB Performance Coach
3 Plays3 years ago
We get into wild stories of pro athletes, the layers of strenght training and performance, the conjugate method, westside barbell, Louie Simmons, the problem with periodization training, why olympic weightlifting is not necessary for athletes, how to become explosive, the problem and fascination with CrossFit as well as nutrition for performance and strength.
Jacob Ross is an elite level strength and sport performance coach with a track record of coaching all starts from the NFL, NBA and MLB. He is the co-founder of Smart Strenght and the Strenght & Conditioning Coach of the South Sudanese basketball team.
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SEBASTIAN ENGSTROM
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Transcript
The Surprising Feat of a Wide Receiver
00:00:00
Speaker
The craziest strength thing you've seen from an athlete, not a power lifter. And it was this wide receiver. He weighed like 215 pounds. He came in the gym one day and the linemen were floor pressed. They were doing a fat bar, axle bar floor press. And they had 425 on the bar. They were like almost at the end of their steps. He comes in cold, cold, hops on the floor, takes the bar down to the elbows press on the floor, pauses it, presses it back to him.
Introduction of Episode and Guest
00:00:27
Speaker
Welcome to episode number 32. I am your host, Vashan Engstrom. And today, Jacob Ross joins me for part two. He is an elite level MBA, NFL, MLB professional strength and conditioning coach. He runs his own company called Smart Strength, customized training, as well as he is.
00:00:50
Speaker
For the South Sudanese team, a strength and conditioning coach for the basketball team there. He is just a powerhouse of knowledge. We go into more in depth of training, specifics of how to train to get more explosive, powerful, different methodologies of it.
00:01:08
Speaker
And it's a very fascinating conversation. It's less you can say stories about his past, more about training as well as professional athletes, how they train and how he trained them.
Encouragement for Listener Engagement
00:01:21
Speaker
So enjoy this incredible episode with Jacob Ross.
00:01:26
Speaker
And if you haven't done so far, if you're enjoying the show, please, if you're on Apple, scroll down, hit five stars. It'll be the good deed of the day. This helps us spread the message to more people. And I just want to say a personal thank you for doing this.
Jacob Ross Returns: Insights into Strength Coaching
00:01:41
Speaker
If you're on another platform, hit subscribe, hit like, even write a review. This means the world. So thank you for doing so. And now an uninterrupted podcast with Jacob Ross.
00:01:54
Speaker
Jacob Ross got you back on the podcast, elite strength coach, mastermind when it comes to performance of any type form. Dude. Amazing to have you on again. Thank you for having me. I, you know, we felt like we had more to talk about, uh, last time I was on. So we immediately obviously tried to make some plans to make it happen again. And here we are.
Building a Lasting Career as a Strength Coach
00:02:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:19
Speaker
And, uh, when we start talking about this stuff, and that's what, I mean, we already, what we chatted for 20 minutes and, uh, I realized, okay, well, time flies by when you're having fun. So let's, let's jump into this topic that we're just talking about. Like what, what does it take to be a strength coach and have longevity? What, what does it goes into?
00:02:41
Speaker
And what went into your career in that sense? You were talking about ours. We're talking about one-on-one clients. Yeah. Give us an insight into that and how long does strength coach usually stay in the industry for? Yeah, I would say for me particularly, there's, there's, strength coach is a, it's a continuum, right? Like it's a process. I think the first step in that process is
00:03:12
Speaker
What we talked about last time, like when I was in college, how to train anybody for free. You just need to get a lot of hands on experience with a lot of different kinds of people and athletes. I think the broader you can make that and the deeper you can make that experience. I think it just sets you up to be a better shrink coach because you serve more different types of people. And then you see more outcomes as a result of your, your methodology and your programming.
00:03:37
Speaker
And it just starts helping you prune away, you know, what doesn't work, what does work, where you want to move towards, but you don't want to move towards. And you start to see similarities between certain types of athletes and people. And you know, some things that don't cross over and it has to be specific to that sport or person.
Challenges of Work-Life Balance for Coaches
00:03:52
Speaker
And the faster you can kind of create that well of knowledge, the more effective you become as a stream coach. And that's, but that's earlier in your career. You know, we were talking about this, um, earlier in that, like,
00:04:06
Speaker
That's really a young, like a young person's game, right? I mean, when I was 22, 23, um, I mean, shoot for probably like seven years, I was training Thanksgiving morning. Like I was training people, you know what I mean? Like, because there was a lot of families who are, they're out of school and they're, they're maybe have a workout culture in their family and like, Hey, let's come in at 10 a.m. Thanksgiving morning and work out before, you know, we have lunch and all that stuff. And somebody, somebody's got to train those people, right? Well, I couldn't imagine now.
00:04:36
Speaker
I could imagine it, I guess, but like, you know, having three kids of my own, um, you know, my wife has a large extended family, like being like, Hey guys, like I'll see you Thanksgiving afternoon. I mean, even, even, uh, you know, in retail culture in America, um, stores are shutting down on Thanksgiving now. They're just, they're just not even open to target. Like, like a bunch of these larger stores, Kohl's are like, we're just not even doing it. Like black Friday will start on Friday. Like we're not even doing anything Thanksgiving night.
00:05:06
Speaker
And so you're, you know, seeing that shift towards like family and being around your family. It's tough when you're, as you get older and just your family connections become deeper, sort of like be comfortable and happy doing that.
Financial and Time Constraints in Coaching
00:05:21
Speaker
So that's just an example of, you know, a reality. And the other side of it is vacation.
00:05:27
Speaker
When you have three kids, you kind of have to line up your vacation around their school. You know, when are they out of school? As much as you can. One of those kind of traditional breaks within the school system that you can plan things. And if you're a trainer, you know, and you at one point, you know, I was booked up for like six months in a row, like probably 10 hours a day.
00:05:51
Speaker
Well, if I decide I want to take a vacation, I mean, you're losing, you know, let's just say a couple clients cancel on a given day. Let's say I'm losing eight hours of clients a day for a week. I mean, that's, you know, that's a, that's a lot of money that you're losing because you want to go on vacation and it kind of creates always creates this downward pressure of like, you know, should I really be taking a vacation? Should I just keep working? Um, your clients, even though I had incredible, really like for the most part, really, really good clients.
00:06:20
Speaker
um you also get to this place where they don't quite understand why you're taking a vacation like even if they don't say it it's like well I like the training you train me uh so why are you like leaving you know it'd be like calling for some somebody you know for a haircut and then being like no like I can't do it like it's just it's frustrating for people I think um and when you're training a lot of people
00:06:45
Speaker
you might get on a given week half your clients are like cool with it and the other half like no no I'm really getting ready for this or had this goal in mind I need you there.
Career Advice for Young Coaches
00:06:54
Speaker
So it's just it's tougher as you get older because life becomes definitely more complicated in a good way in terms of your time and it just becomes a difficult thing to do long term and so you know my advice for every young strength coach is the first part of it which is train a lot of people
00:07:12
Speaker
you know, dig that well deeper of knowledge experience, they get wider as well, you know, so that you can kind of cross over to a lot of different people and things. And, but then as you get older, like, you know, start building a house next to that well, that you could go in, shut the door, you know, have a nice hot tub, like something like that. So that it's, you're not constantly going to that well of training for every single thing you do, because you can't,
00:07:39
Speaker
Ideally, keep working for a place where you're trading your time directly for money because if I'm training someone one on one for an hour. That is my time for that hour I can't do anything else I can't answer an email I can't multiply myself I can't
00:07:57
Speaker
you know, market myself, I can't grow anything during that time, other than my clients, you know, strength and conditioning, that's what I'm growing during that
Training Methodologies: Evolution and Individualization
00:08:05
Speaker
time. And that's great. But when you're stacking your whole day with that, over and over and over, you're going to get to a place where you realize that your income is inevitably tied to your time of those people. And I've never seen a 55 year old like strength coach who works in that capacity.
00:08:23
Speaker
Usually, if you're an older strength coach, you work for a team. You know, you're employed by a school. You're somehow working for like a hospital system. Like you have basically enough back backup support to where your job isn't tied to that hourly. Am I training someone? Your job is is more of a overall theme. I'm looking after this program. I'm hiring people. I'm building this like it's not purely training.
00:08:53
Speaker
And so you have to really make sure I think that you're leveraging all that towards that and building something that's really scalable.
00:09:04
Speaker
So when it comes to methodology of training, that is something we didn't necessarily touch on too much. We chatted some back and forth about Olympic weightlifting, but what your specialty seems to be is powerlifting to a degree with smart strength, but there's more to it. I mean, you coach, um,
The Role of Olympic Lifting in Sports
00:09:22
Speaker
professional teams and professional athletes. Like what, what do you say? What would you say your niche is and, uh, do you have one? Like what, what are your strengths?
00:09:32
Speaker
Um, I mean, I think every string coach has a philosophy or tools that they gravitate towards. Um, I've tried, I think to take the attitude of whatever works is the right thing. I should gravitate towards and not get too caught up in what is X philosophy and like follow it until I die. Um, because I've seen so many string coaches go down that road.
00:10:00
Speaker
And the problem with that road of, I think that this particular philosophy is the best and this is what everyone is going to do. The problem with that road is two-sided. One side of it is that you can't definitively prove it wrong, right? Because if you do anything hard enough,
00:10:21
Speaker
with purpose and intensity turns a physical exercise, you're going to get results. If I ask you, you say, Hey, Jacob, I would really like to get leaner and lose a little bit of weight. I'd say, okay. Um, I want you to put on a weighted backpack and I want you to go run a marathon every day. Right.
00:10:40
Speaker
You would lose weight and you would get leaner. Is that the best thing for you to do? No. But if you really believe in it, and for some reason that identifies with you, then you could always come back to me and say it worked. Yeah. And so it's a, it's a very low level argument, but it's a powerful argument because it'd be the, you know, again, the issue with shrink conditioning is.
Alternatives to Olympic Lifting
00:11:00
Speaker
you can see the results, right? You can physically see it, you can observe it very easily. So when someone sees any kind of a result, they equate that with effectiveness and optimization. And that's not true. Because the other side of it is, if I am following x philosophy or program, you know, kind of until the end of the air, so to speak, then I'm doing a disservice to my clients, because I'm serving myself.
00:11:25
Speaker
I'm serving what I, what I want to do. I'm serving, you know, what my prerogative is. And there's a difference between, you know, having expertise and serving your client in, in what you know is best versus serving what, um, you know, I guess like kind of, you have built your training identity around. And so to stop speaking engineering terms and like, just practically speaking, um, I think it's a good segue into what you're talking about with Olympic lifting.
00:11:55
Speaker
You know, Olympic lifting, um, it's changed a lot since I've started string coaching a lot. I've been string coaching and, um, you know, I've been doing this professionally for, I don't know, 12, 14 years, somewhere in that range, depending on where you want to start it. Um, but you know, I've been lifting for 21 years and when I started.
00:12:19
Speaker
Olympic lifting in terms of strength conditioning was still a big deal. You know, every football team does, you know, hang cleans and snatches and, you know, squat cleans and, you know, all this stuff. And then CrossFit started. And when CrossFit started, um, I think it pushed an Olympic lifting back into popularity in a lot of ways, um, because now it's, you need to be good at it. You know, you needed to work on this skill, et cetera. Um, you know, I've trained.
00:12:48
Speaker
eight NFL pro bowlers. I've had an Olympic medalist. I've had NBA All-Star, had MLB All-Stars, you know, I've had tons of collegiate athletes who are really good at their various sports. And I've never done, never done Olympic lifts in any of those people. Not one single time. Have they requested it? The only time I've got it requested is when
00:13:10
Speaker
they have to do it in school and they feel like they'll be behind if they're not doing it in the summer or in the off, whatever program they are with me is when they go back to school because they know that they're going to be tested on it. And I think when you think about it like that, it starts to get really dumb in terms of the reason why you're doing it. Because again, we've all been a kid at some point, even if you don't have kids,
00:13:36
Speaker
And when you were a kid, at some point you were like learning something like, why am I learning this? Well, because it's on the test. Well, is that really helpful? Like this information, is it really furthering my life? Like, oh, no, just learn it for the, just learn the test. And you're like, okay, all right, I guess I will. But like with Olympic lifting, and I'm not anti-Olympic lifting. No, no, please. What is your beef with Olympic lifting? Please share. No, no, no, no. I'm not, I'm not anti-Olympic lifting. You know, if you want an Olympic lift, you know, and that cranks your tracker, go for it. Um, but.
00:14:06
Speaker
you have to think about why is Olympic lifting even popular? Okay. Well, because exercise physiology was the culture was driven for a long time based on research, a very long time. And when you're doing research, what do you conduct research on things that are easily, easily able to replicate the same? Okay, well, a barbell is the same plates are the same, right across the world. So if I'm in a lab,
00:14:34
Speaker
in Sweden or in my lab in the US, it doesn't matter. A barbell is a barbell, a plate is a plate, a snatch is a snatch, a clean is a clean. It's very easy to replicate what those things are. And again, you think back 50 years ago, there wasn't all the devices and exercise equipment and these different tools and modalities that we have now. It was, you know, dumbbells and barbells and, you know, Arthur Jones was starting to crank out a couple of machines at Nautilus and like, that was it. Like there wasn't a ton of stuff like there is now. So,
00:15:03
Speaker
You didn't really have a lot of options either. But if you boil it down to, okay, well, why am I on Olympic lifting as an athlete? If I'm an NFL player, you know, like Matt Forsey was one of my guys, I train multiple pro bowler led the league in yards from scrimmage for several years, one of the best running backs, you know, his generation for sure.
00:15:22
Speaker
Okay, well, Matt had at one point torn his tricep off the bone. He had separated a shoulder. His wrists were always hurt because he stiff-armed people. So if he comes in and says, and I'm saying, hey, Matt, we need to, man, we got to clean today, buddy. We got to keep you explosive. And he's like, Jacob, I can't physically bend my wrists. Like it's been fused together. You know, my tricep is off the bone. I can't get into this position.
00:15:50
Speaker
If my job is what we talked about earlier, if I'm so dogmatic about my belief in Olympic lifting, that that's my answer. I've now done a disservice to my client because it's not what's best for him. So that's part of it. If you've ever trained with real, I say real athletes, not people who are just like, you know, doing this for like weekend warrior stuff, the amount of injuries that these people take from contact, just a result of their sport, puts you in a place where Olympic lifting isn't the best outcome.
00:16:19
Speaker
So from there, you take another logical step and say, okay, why do we Olympic lift to train explosiveness? Okay, well, is the idea of a snatch or a clean, is that responsible for the explosiveness? Does your body really know?
00:16:35
Speaker
what a barbell and like an Olympic clean is, or is it just doing
Research and Results in Athletic Training
00:16:39
Speaker
the motion? And is the motion, in fact, in charge of responsible for it? And the research is really clear. The research says that triple extension, so movements that act at the, you know, hip, knee, and ankle are what's responsible for helping increase power. So if that's the case, then the barbell now just becomes one of many modalities that I can utilize to get that triple extension, right? A box jump would also do it.
00:17:05
Speaker
A med ball throw, triple extension, med ball overhead slam, triple extension, flip a tire, triple extension, push a sled, triple extension. There's a lot of ways that I can get triple extension. And within the last, you know, probably eight years, the research has started to shift towards exploring some of these other modalities. And what they found is that they would look at groups of people who would only vertically power lift and in terms of not like, not like power lifting, but like, you know, Olympic lifts.
00:17:32
Speaker
Yeah. And because any clean stacks on the vertical plane versus people who would do sled work, tire work, it has a horizontal component as well. And those athletes always got faster, jumped higher than the people who only perform vertically, because every sport in the world is a horizontal component to it. There's no sport in the world where you stand in one place and jump straight up and down. It doesn't exist. There's that you have to run right, left, forward, backwards, WKCD. So if there's better options,
00:18:01
Speaker
I can take it. Let's say I take a, uh, an athlete, let's go back down to like the kid level or 12 year old kids. They come in my gym and they want to get more powerful. Okay. Do I need to put them on a PV piece of PVC pipe and teach, you know, front rack position and go through, you know, my first pool, my second pool. Do I need to do that for eight weeks, 12 weeks and then get progressed them to like a 20 pound bar, you know, like our 15 kilo bar, like, and then like slow, like, or.
00:18:28
Speaker
Or could I say, here's an appropriate size tire for you weighs 90 pounds, you know, flip the tire.
00:18:35
Speaker
He goes, Oh, okay. I did. They just bend down and flip it. It takes hardly any coaching. Yeah. So not only can I literally start training them right away, I can actually train them more effectively according to the research. So when you start adding those things up or med ball slam, Hey, pick it up on your toes, slam it down. Box jump, jump on the box. Like if I can simplify their training to a way that the research actually shows is actually more effective than for the athlete.
Safer Alternatives to Powerlifting
00:19:01
Speaker
That's a win.
00:19:02
Speaker
And if now me as a coach, if I was raised up under a guy who really believed in Olympic lifting or a woman who really believed in Olympic lifting, and that's my philosophy, that's my prerogative. I just, I love Olympic lifting. Then by me forcing that athlete to go down that road, am I doing them a service or am I doing myself a service? Right. And these are the questions that I think a lot of strength and conditioning coaches are not asking themselves. They're just blindly following and it doesn't have to be Olympic lifting. Let's take powerlifting, right? Okay. You mentioned powerlifting.
00:19:32
Speaker
So there's a lot of string coaches, especially in football, you know, us football culture where they think that, um, their athletes need to power those. So, you know, they, they squat, they bench, et cetera. Well, is a low bar, straight bar barbell squat, the best thing for someone shoulder and risks pose the same question as Olympic lifting. I would say no. It's someone who trained a lot of NFL players, you know, over a hundred.
00:20:01
Speaker
really good NFL players. We did not straight bar low bar squat. We didn't do it. We would use the safety squad bar. Because why? Why do I need to have them in this, you know, arms back locked in, you know, five, 600 pounds, like pushing on their shoulders or put them in safety spot bar. There's no shoulder mobility restrictions there. You're still squatting. You're still working, you know, posterior chain, you're still getting the same motion. It's just a lot safer and easier to get into. And there's now
00:20:31
Speaker
But the same thing with deadlift. We would very rarely pull a straight bar conventional deadlift on the floor. Again, why? If you're a football player, you need to be strong for football. You need to be strong for powerlifting. So if I can do a trap bar deadlift, and we get a similar effect, or a rack pull, or a wagon wheel deadlift, or a block pull, there's so many ways that are safer to get these responses for an athlete than to go with, quote unquote, like traditional powerlifting. And again, my job as a string coach is to serve my clients, not myself.
00:21:01
Speaker
So I might like to power lift personally. That's fine. But that doesn't mean that every single athlete that I train needs to power lift. Yeah. Sorry. That was a long response. I think that was perfect. I really appreciate that. What would be your top exercises for explosive to create explosiveness in an athlete? Somewhat depends on the age, I think. But in general,
00:21:29
Speaker
I think sled work is highly, highly undervalued. Um, pushing sleds, pulling sleds. You can do slide cleans. Um, I posted that before on Instagram. Um, yeah, you got to see it. It's kind of hard to explain. Um, but like thing about a sled sled work is it's always dynamic, right? It's always movement based and there's no eccentric Senate zero. Right.
00:21:54
Speaker
Aside from whenever your foot hits the turf and that little bit of like stretch reflex but like there's no most soreness happens when training from eccentric and eccentric starting a bad thing I use a lot of temple work. But when I'm talking about training athletes.
00:22:08
Speaker
And I need to get somebody ready for a game or performance. If I can minimize the centrics and still train that I'm doing them a service because I'm not beating them up as much. So sled work, when you step forward, you know, there's a little bit of stretch reflex, but then as soon as you push, it's a concentric push. And when your leg is in a recovery phase, there's no eccentric there.
00:22:27
Speaker
Right. Your leg isn't doing any work. It's not like a squat where you're lowering the weight down. So, um, I think sleds are such an important way to train power and, but also to stay powerful even in season as you're preparing for performances and games. Um, because if you're in shape, it doesn't cost the athlete a lot to continue to do those things. And again, I'm not talking about running somebody into the ground with sleds, like we're doing sled sprints. I'm talking like playing methodical, you know, power sets of sled work.
00:22:55
Speaker
Um, so, so again, for example, um, I trained my athletes under a conjugate style system.
Conjugate Training Methods
00:23:04
Speaker
Now I don't mean conjugate like West Side Barbell, because again, we just talked about like we didn't necessarily power lift. So like, for instance, for us on a max lower day, we, I think athletes need to have these stimulus if they play American football. I mean, if you're talking about a, you know, 260 pound man running, you know,
00:23:21
Speaker
Uh, four, six, 40 running into another 220 pound person. There's a lot of force involved. You have to prepare your tissue for that. So there is some heavy lifting that needs to be done, but you need to do it as safely as possible. And like, one thing you would do is we'd have the prowler, right? Which is like, you know, kind of a triangle slide with the posts on either side. It's okay today for our max effort.
00:23:42
Speaker
We're going to load the Prowler up. What's the heaviest weight you can push for 10 yards? What is that? So they push it in yards. If they did it, great. We throw two plates on, do it again, two plates on. That's heavy stimulus, right? It's not loading them up with like a low bar squat where I'm crushing their shoulders and their neck and everything else. So there there's ways of going about it, modifying these things, serve, you know, to serve your purpose. So I think sled work is great. Um,
00:24:07
Speaker
I think for a lot of younger athletes, I think med ball work is also undervalued. Med ball slams, med ball throws, um, you know, split stance, med ball slams, bed ball throws into the wall. Um, it's again, um, minimal or zero eccentric on those things. Um, it's scalable easily. You can get a four pound med ball up to, you know, the heaviest med ball that are seen as 200 pound med ball. Um, we, we used to have one for our NFL guys and they would break it because, you know,
00:24:37
Speaker
throwing, they're strong enough to throw it, but just the weight of doing about med ball slamming on the over and over and over, like eventually it would break. But we just ordered like four a year and that's just part of doing business. But I think med balls are highly undervalued. I think band work is highly undervalued. You know, band work forces
00:24:57
Speaker
over speedy centrics. Um, it forces you to speed up to that eccentric motion. So if you're talking about a banded squat or, you know, um, even just like a banded row, like you don't even need weight, right? Bands, you can tie on anything. Um, it's a great way to train power. And the other thing about bands is this, it flips the force curve. I don't know if you want to get into this or not, but like normally, normally if you're, um, normally if you're squatting and
00:25:25
Speaker
You're going with freeway, right? As you go down, the way it gets harder, the lower you go, as you stand up, the higher you go, the easier it gets. That's a normal force curve for any lift under the sun. That's gravity, right? Unless you're on a machine. And for some reason, the physics have been flipped. Well, if you're advanced to it, now the opposite is true. As you go down, the band shrinks, which means the weight actually gets lighter. And as you stand up, the band stretches. It means it gets heavier.
00:25:53
Speaker
And if I'm talking about an athlete and we, all we ever do is free weight is they stand up and the weight gets easier. They have to slow down. You have to, you're going to blow your kneecaps out. If you, if you finish your squad, the same speed that you came out of the hole with, right? You slow down as you kind of come to that end. So you're teaching your nervous system to slow down as it's finishing its extension, which is not optimal. When you're talking about that, that's a spot where sprinting happens. That's the spot where running happens when you finish that extension, right?
00:26:22
Speaker
So if you throw bands on it, now it's lifted. I'm teaching them to actually increase the amount of force
The Role of Nutrition in Athletic Performance
00:26:28
Speaker
as they're getting towards like finishing that extension, which is what you want to be most powerful right at that point when they push off of the turf or the port or whatever the case would be. And then also just safety. If people usually don't miss a squat at the top, they miss in the hole, right? So if you're talking about athletes, not powerlifting.
00:26:47
Speaker
then why wouldn't I put my athletes in position to be the load is lightest in the hole and heaviest when it's safest. So there's, there's just so many aspects of this that, that I think a lot of string coaches, I don't want to just knock people and say, they don't think through it like that. Like they're dumb or unintelligent. I think some of this, you have to train because that's what we said at the beginning, you have to train enough people to have experienced these problems. Right.
00:27:14
Speaker
And then based on those experiences and those issues, you now formulate solutions. And so if you don't have the experience with enough people, you haven't had ran into enough problems. And if you haven't ran into enough problems, how can you have the answers? Like, why would you have the answers? If all you've ever sat down for a math test is, you know, one plus one, then why do you need to know anything else? Like, you don't need to. And so
00:27:37
Speaker
Um, I think the experience piece of it is key, but bands, you know, sleds, med balls. Um, I think those are great tools for any athlete, especially younger athletes. Um, and then as you get older, I would say, um, there's a training power. You know, especially bars, bars that change how the weight is, um, hitting your joints so you can continue to train.
00:28:02
Speaker
If the appropriate, you know, intensity and weight for your sport, but not compromise, you know, your joints, because again, we're training movement patterns and muscles. So if you can use a multi grip bar, you know, some people call the football bar or whatever, as opposed to a straight bar bench, you know, straight bar flat bench is probably one of the worst things you can do for your body. And I don't mean that like, like you shouldn't do it. I'm not one of those people like, you know, you should never do this. It's not that it's just, I'm around some of the best power listeners in the world.
00:28:29
Speaker
And it's just not optimal you know your PEC it's funny when you talk to people they don't understand like PEC anatomy and like what does it actually do you know your PEC is a triangle muscle and it literally brings your arm right from your side.
00:28:43
Speaker
down to your body, right? Like adduction, that's, that's literally what it does. So a bench press on a flat is nothing to do with that motion. Hardly anything actually. So you're, and you know, I always tell people too, and if you guys watching this on video, they'll get a crack, they'll get a, you know, they'll crack up about this.
00:29:00
Speaker
But like when you run, you run with your arms by your side. You don't run with your arms up here, like, you know, like this, but that's how you bench. Yeah. Like this is, this is a comfortable or natural in any way, shape or form. This is so your arms are by your side. You can get into that. Like a multi-grip bar allows you to do that. That's how your shoulder likes to slide. That's how you'd like to move to that motion. So again, if you're not powerlifting, if you're not training for a sport, the outcome has to match the training, right?
00:29:30
Speaker
If I'm powerlifting, yeah, you got a straight bar bench, got a straight bar squat, have to do those things. Even that, you know, you can be smart about too, but you have to do those things. If you're an NFL player or basketball player, you know, or an MLB player. Why, why do you have to do those things in a certain way? I think the answer should be what's best for the athlete. And that's, that's the way you should approach it.
00:29:53
Speaker
We can get into a lot of fun topics like the the combine and bench press test how many reps you can do and that should be a testament to how strong your I mean it's, I'm not the biggest fan of the bench press I'll just tell you that even though I have.
00:30:10
Speaker
okay numbers. I've worked my way up to it. But that's the exercise that has injured me the most out of any exercise. It is so freakin detrimental. I mean, you just spoke to the movement pattern and why. But yeah, there is this unfortunate culture of that if you're a man, you should be able to bench press a lot of weight. And it's pretty much yeah, you're gonna wreck your body in one point or another because it's just gonna it's gonna break you down.
Training Frequency and Variation
00:30:37
Speaker
So glad and yeah,
00:30:39
Speaker
Let's say like the thing that I've tried to help younger lifters understand now that I'm a little bit older is look at professional strongmen, right? These guys can log press, you know, um, 200 kilos, some of these guys. And if you can log press, you know, 200 kilos, 440 pounds, whatever that works out to be, what do you think you can bench press? Hmm.
00:31:06
Speaker
500 pounds, 600 pounds, easily, easily because your shoulders are so freaking strong. So I've told people I've never almost, I don't think I've ever seen someone get injured from an overhead press. I don't, I don't think I've ever seen it in my entire life. I don't think I've known anybody to do it.
00:31:21
Speaker
Um, I've seen people with hurt shoulders from sports who can't overhead press, but I've never seen someone get injured from overhead pressing. I've seen a lot of people get injured from bench pressing. I've seen pegs tear. I've rehab, uh, our buddy have been, you know, he's, he's torn both texts off, you know, I rehab the second one. And, um, I've heard my pegs been pressing before power lifting, you know, um, and, and, and to your point, you know, some people would maybe counter with, well, you shouldn't be going heavy on it.
00:31:51
Speaker
And it's like, well, if the sport is powerlifting, you really don't have a choice. That is that is the sport. And also to your point, you know, I've done a lot of heavy spots, and a lot of heavy deadlifts. And I've never significantly injured myself doing those things. Again, not that it's not possible. It's all about mitigating risk. Sure. And just the risk, the risk of the movement is just going to be higher for a bench press. Yeah. You mentioned conjugate style training. But I don't think you really went into that. What's your approach to that?
00:32:21
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I've been to West Side Barbell. I went for two or three days with a friend of mine who used to train there in the eighties. And it's cool because, you know, you can't just show up the website. You have to be invited or you have to reach out and kind of plan it. They don't like people just showing up at the private gym.
00:32:42
Speaker
And, um, so I was able to go with this, which is really cool because I went, uh, three years ago now, you know, Louie's getting up there in age. I don't, I don't, um, you know, gosh, you know, he's almost died a couple of times in his life. So maybe he'll live to be, you know, 150, but you just have to think practically and say, you know, maybe the guy isn't going to make it forever. So, um, I wanted to go see him in person because I think he's one of the, um, you know, most intelligent
00:33:09
Speaker
strength coaches, you know, within our within our time, for sure. Now, Louie would be the first person to tell you he said it many times. He has adopted the original like conjugate style of training, and modified it and optimized it for what West Side Bardo does. But
00:33:28
Speaker
The definition of conjugate training isn't West Side Barbell. They've become synonymous because Louis is so influential and so popular, and he's so opinionated that it's hard for a lot of people to disassociate those two things. But they're not the same thing. Conjugate is a methodology of training, and West Side Barbell is his application of that methodology, right?
00:33:51
Speaker
Um, so like for me, I have my own application of it. Um, I do believe that conjugate is, is a lot smarter method of training. Um, then kind of Western, uh, linear periodization, um, linear periodization, again, if you, if you're not dogmatic in your belief and you're willing to like think through this, uh, is really, really dumb way of training. Again, when you've trained high level athletes, because.
00:34:20
Speaker
If I have, let's just take, let's say Matt Forte again. Okay. You know, Matt Forte retired from NFL at 32, I think. All right. So when he was 28, 27, 26, he'd been league three or four years at that point. Um, they're drafting and bringing in running backs that are three or four years younger than him every single year. And that number gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Now they're five years younger than him. Now they're seven years younger than him, right? Your clock is ticking, buddy. So when you go into mini camp,
00:34:50
Speaker
When is it appropriate for Matt Forte not to be fast? I mean, he can't, even in February, right after the season, March, like when is it appropriate for him not to be fast? It doesn't exist. There's not a time. So if I'm doing linear periodization and I say, you know what, February through April, we're going to just do strength by definition of focusing on one thing. I'm not focusing on other things. I'm not focusing on speed.
Observations on CrossFit Methods
00:35:12
Speaker
I'm not focusing on, you know, some people would say agility. There's a lot of different things you can, you can cut one unquote program. So.
00:35:20
Speaker
For them, I'm doing him a disservice by not working on his speed year-round. I'm doing him a disservice by emphasizing one thing to the point that I'm de-emphasizing other things, because that's not a professional athlete. Being a professional athlete is being at your best and working towards that continuously. And when your job is literally on the line every single year and they're literally hiring your replacement every single year underneath you, people don't understand that. They don't work in those kinds of environments.
00:35:46
Speaker
You can't go to a place where I'm saying, you know what, we're going to show up to mini camp, not in great shape. We're just going to be really strong. The coach is going to say, what's wrong with you? You're so fat. You're slow. Yeah. And then the conversations go right up to the GM. You know, that's not looking so good. I don't know what's going on with this guy. They want you and whether it's right or wrong, it doesn't matter. It's reality. They want you to look the same. The March as they do in summer, as they do on kickoff, they want you to look the same because that gives them confidence that you can be the same.
00:36:15
Speaker
year after year after year. And if you can do that, you can make a lot of money. And if you can't do that, they're just going to replace you because there's literally thousands of people who want your job and are coming out of college every year looking for your job. So the thing I like about conjugate is you work on everything within a week. You work on dynamic effort, you know, which is speed, power work. Um, you work on maximal effort, strength,
00:36:40
Speaker
You work on hypertrophy. You, uh, my stuff always included like prehab every single bit of it, which you could get into mobility and you know, all this kind of stuff, et cetera, et cetera. Um, so my system would combine all those things to work in it within a week, actually four days. And that's how I trained. Um, because again, another problem with, with Western lies, like linear periodization is the amount of time it takes. So again, working with, with high level athletes.
00:37:11
Speaker
If I have a guy for six weeks, right after the season, then they have to go to mini camp for a week. And then their wife says, you know, Hey, we need to get on vacation. They go away for another week and then they come back to me. So six weeks with me, two weeks away, they come back. And I had them go in front of, you know, a strength phase into a power phase. Well, now they've missed two weeks. So where do I go from there? Like.
00:37:34
Speaker
Do I, do I go back? Do I restart the phase? Does it, you know, some people say, Oh, you just go right into the next one. Well, then did the phases really matter then? If I could just willy nilly jump into it, like that Westernized periodization really works best for, um, Sports like Olympic lifting, you know, powerlifting, um, to some extent sprinters where you have complete control for 12, 16 weeks. Right.
00:38:00
Speaker
Some collegiate programs where you have to be there, you don't have a choice like those things make sense. For a professional athlete, a conjugate model is what makes sense. I think for a developing athlete, a conjugate model is what makes sense because they need to be working on everything. You know, if you're 14, 15, 16, I don't need to be emphasizing one thing over the other. I need to be developing the entire athlete.
00:38:21
Speaker
and putting them in position to do so.
Flexibility and Adaptability in Coaching
00:38:24
Speaker
And I would so argue that even if you had control for somebody over, you know, 16 week period that I think conjugate has its upsides. And if you really like drill down and look at some of the better performing teams, like Clemson, Clemson's been, you know, crazy good football team for a long time. They drink hot, they drink conjugate. You know, Alabama, like, and what's funny, this is, this is my favorite thing.
00:38:48
Speaker
There's always everybody trains time to get at some point. If you do strength work, everybody I've seen, I've been around long enough now to see power lifters and other athletes say, Oh, I don't believe in bands. I don't believe in chains and this. And then five, six years later, they're using boxes. They use some chains. They use a slingshot, which is a band. Uh, you know, they're burying, they're burying their methods to get a different outcome. And that's conjugate conjugated saying that I'm going to use whatever tools are in my disposal to work on everything.
00:39:18
Speaker
And people always come around to it because, you know, Louis Simmons says, if I don't want to take credit for it, he's like, the weights aren't going to change. You have to get smarter than they are. The weight's always going to be the weight. Right. So at some point that weight is going to beat you. It's going to, and you have to figure out how can I be smarter than the weights are? How can I, how can I outsmart the weight? What could I be doing for my body to get better than I was before? And it's, you know,
00:39:45
Speaker
usually doing the same thing over and over and over in street training, you get to a place where it does work for a while, but then you start to see performance, you know, decrease, et cetera, et cetera.
Long-term Training Strategies
00:39:56
Speaker
And, you know, basic exercise physiology tells you this, you know, principle of specificity, et cetera, but people still for some reason try to cheat that and like find a workaround around it. But anyway, sorry, again, long answer. No, dude, this is why you're here.
00:40:12
Speaker
Please keep after it. When it comes to fueling your body for this, actually before we go into fueling your body, most, when we go into rest, when we go into workout duration,
00:40:27
Speaker
Do you, are you, are you a fan of, I mean, Westside, for example, I have, like you rest one minute between each set. Like, and I like that style. I've adopted that style. Tom and I spoke to it as well. Like, yeah, put a majority of your exercises before the big lift, not the other way around. And it's not your traditional approach. And I'm completely with that. I've done that for years myself.
00:40:52
Speaker
What is your approach to a regular session and also rest in that session as well as a weekly structure? You're a fan of, for example, CrossFit has three days on, one off, two days on, one off. What are your thoughts, philosophy on this?
00:41:15
Speaker
Well, first of all, I'd love to know what CrossFit athletes you're talking to, because I don't know anybody that follows that. Really? I mean, it's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday off, Friday, Saturday, Sunday off, or like Thursday sometimes. Like, yeah, go ahead. Every CrossFit athlete I know is Monday through Saturday. And if you can beg them to stop on Sunday, maybe occasionally they will so that they can go through another activity like football or something. Yeah.
00:41:42
Speaker
CrossFit is the definition of overtraining. When I was at EFT, the gym that I used to run, we did a crossover event during NFL Combine every year. And the crossover event was really cool. Progenics, which was one of our sponsors, they would fly in the top CrossFit athletes, and they would train side by side for like four days with our NFL Combine athletes.
Nutrition Myths and Realities
00:42:08
Speaker
It was super cool.
00:42:09
Speaker
And so, you know, I got to train, um, literally at that time, you know, uh, the best crossfitters in the world. And I got to see actually in person, what are they really doing? Because I've always been curious, right? Like, what are these, what are they really doing? Both men and women, they simple. And, um, you know, what's, oh man, I gotta remember the guy's name. Uh, is it Ben Smith? Yeah.
00:42:37
Speaker
The one who won the games at one point. Yeah. Yeah. He won it once. Right. So yeah, him, his brother, Dane, his brother, Alec, they all came. Okay. Noah Olson came a couple other guys. And anyway, so like the thing that I found fascinating about Ben was he was a strategy based exercise person. So when I would train my NFL guys and we're training for, you know, a 40 yard dash.
00:43:06
Speaker
It's an intensity based thing. We're not going to be doing reps forever. We actually are going to take even longer breaks than that because we're trying to maximize power and speed for sprinting. Um, so you have to give all out and then you have to take like a break and then give all out again. Right. And then when we set up our circuits, we would kind of encourage a similar style, even if the rest were timed for a minute or two, um, we would still encourage like all out effort because again, and it's a football play.
00:43:32
Speaker
When is it appropriate to give half effort? Like it doesn't exist. You give your all for five, six, seven plays if you're lucky, and then it's someone else's turn. So that's just how it works, right? It's like hockey. You go out and skate your shift. You don't halfway skate it. You full skate it. You get off and someone else goes on. Well, Ben would never give what I would say a hundred percent all out effort because he knew in his mind, I've still got another hour of workout left and
00:43:57
Speaker
I'm going to work out again in the middle of the day and I'm going to work out again at night. And like Ben was fascinating because the strategy that he utilized to get through his days so that he was consistently working at a high effort was unmatched. I don't think I've ever seen that from someone else. And I think that's why he won the games. I think he won the games because he wasn't necessarily
00:44:19
Speaker
the best at everything. He was consistently the best, right? Yeah. And like, that was, I think his calling card as an athlete. Nobody ever said that this guy was the strongest or the fastest or the whatever. He was just really consistent. Every single event in that year that won it for him. Um, you know, he wasn't, I wouldn't say he was dominant, like a rich friend. He was dominant. Right. So, um,
00:44:42
Speaker
So the point being is like, um, when it comes to rest intervals, it's always based on, you know, what the outcome is for the athlete. So if you're crossfit and your competition is going to be five or six events over three days or three or two days, then you do have to kind of over train. You do have to, your training frequency has to go up. Now, if you're a smart coach.
00:45:06
Speaker
you're programming in such a way that you're, you're waving, what I would call your waving intensity throughout your week. So you have a high Meccan day. You might even have a low strength day where you're not getting your heart rate up hardly at all. It's just pure strength work. You might have a skill work day where you're doing some of your skill work. And then obviously you have to blend those things to mimic the workouts are going to be done, but you're waving your intensity throughout the week. You know, some days are high intensity, some days are low and you're, you're creating a plan that allows for somewhat of recovery. Um,
00:45:35
Speaker
within your week while you're working out, right? Another example of that would be, you know, how we train our power lifting athletes to smart string. We do three week waves, which is similar to what West Side does, where, you know, we do a certain percentage of volume week one, week two,
00:45:50
Speaker
The weight goes up, the volume goes down a little, week three, the weight goes way up, the volume goes down, but then we reset the wave on week four. So week four starts back over. We drop the weight down again and we increase the volume. So we're waving. So when you do that, you're deloading every three weeks, essentially. And you don't need to take like a quote unquote, like, quote unquote, like, you know, I guess classic deload where you just sit around for like a week.
00:46:17
Speaker
I think with CrossFit, it has to be a similar thing when you're training in that style where you're waving your intensity because you can't afford to just really sit. And again, the issue with CrossFit is the same issue that we talked about from the very beginning. It's such a good question that you ask is that a lot of CrossFit coaches don't have enough experience training lots of different kinds of people and the outcomes associated with that.
00:46:44
Speaker
So they're, they're trying to implement the sports without necessarily understanding the outcome of what they're implementing yet. And by the time that athlete has gotten to that point, usually they're, they're burnout. Um, I mean, cross-fit, you know, they used to, I haven't looked at the numbers like this year, but they usually have the highest rate of instance of any kind of strength training exercise, terms of injury rate. Um, it's because.
00:47:12
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's because the frequency of the training and the style of lifting, I mean, you're asking people, you know, you are a calisthenics expert, you are a gymnastics expert, you know, I say you're an Olympic expert, right? You understand more than most people that you could pick one of those things, just one, study it your whole life. And, and maybe, maybe be good enough to call yourself an expert, right? Sure.
00:47:40
Speaker
Like gymnastics, I mean, gymnastics, like you can't just say, I'm going to halfway do gymnastics, you know, Olympic lifting, the best Olympic lifters in the world. They do it their whole life. Then maybe they can say to the best, right? Gymnastics. I mean, we all see the Olympics. Like how many times do you see somebody like, Oh my gosh, that's amazing. And then their score is like a seven out of 10. You're like, how's that seven? They're like, well, you haven't seen this person. Like it's just so hard to be the best at that. And we all seen the stories too, especially in the U S like Simone Biles, like how much she trains kids, like how much still trains them.
Diet Feasibility for Athletes: Veganism and More
00:48:09
Speaker
to maintain that and the effect that it has on you. Cross state, you're saying, I'm going to take those three things and combine them into one workout. And I'm going to ask you to go at a high intensity for those things. It's just a recipe for something to go wrong. And so that's why I'm not the biggest fan of it for a sport. Now, in terms of training, I would be hypocritical if I didn't say,
00:48:38
Speaker
I like the variation of them because I do. I do. I just think I just, the idea across it, I love, I love a lot. I just think again, what we talked about at the beginning, when you have some people who are really dogmatic to what I would call like the old school style across the, um, versus people now who are, I think a lot smarter with their training, they're using other implements, you know, you're not necessarily, you know, doing a snatch or clean every day. You might be doing a kettlebell snatch, right? Or a dumbbell snatch. That didn't happen two years ago.
00:49:06
Speaker
It really didn't, you know, sleds, like that stuff didn't exist in CrossFit really that much 10 years ago. You know, you're seeing like air bikes and skiers and like all this stuff is like utilized at such a higher rate than it used to be because you need ways of varying your training and keeping intensity. So, you know, rest intervals, like, you know, within your workout or even within your week,
00:49:30
Speaker
It all depends on the outcome. If you're training power, it's, it's pretty simple. You want to have as many powerful reps as possible to practice that skill. So, you know, more rest, um, like at West side, you talk about the minute rest that they take. I've seen those guys lift. It's insane. Um, when they're doing their dynamic squats, they might have 300 pounds of band on the bar, you know, anywhere between three and 500 pounds of straight weight.
00:49:59
Speaker
And there's four guys, one guy's running the mono. Two guys respond to one guy's lifting. As soon as that guy racks the bar, the guy who's on the right side of the mono gets ready to lift. The guy who was running it moves over loads of weight. The guy who just got done lifting, moves over loads of weight on the other side. And the guy who was found on the left runs the mono on the right. They literally like, it's like a machine. It's insane. They all know the person's weight and what their job is for that. And they literally lift.
00:50:28
Speaker
If you're in the lifter almost every minute on the minute, and these guys are doing speed squats with, you know, at the top, it feels like eight or 900 pounds speed squats up and down. So like, you know, Louis Simmons has said many times, like you have to be in good enough shape to do this training. Because again, if you're really picking apart what I said, you could say that, wait a second, Jay, if you just said, if you're training for power, you need to have as much rest as possible.
00:50:54
Speaker
be powerful but yet you're saying the west side does one minute breaks which is probably not enough rest if you're in shape for it it's enough rest if you're not in shape for it it's not enough rest but how much rest did you get well you should get what's appropriate for you right so like if you came to me for the first time to train i would probably give you longer rest breaks because i don't know where you're at and i would err on the side of caution
00:51:17
Speaker
As you get in better shape and you know more and more about what I'm expecting from you, we can train you to a place where a minute ref seems like a really long time for you. Again, it just depends on your outcomes and the athlete and what you're trying to work for. Yeah. So going into habits that aid high performance and part of that is fuel. So let's start with fuel. So food, what is your take on food for athletes?
00:51:43
Speaker
And we'll go into stories on that. Cause I know there's a lot of good ones. You probably have a bad person to ask because I've been, I've been blessed to be in situations where I've seen the best athletes in the world and rarely, very rarely is there nutrition on par with their athleticism. Very rare that those things are equated. Um, I would say this, I would say that fueling yourself properly,
00:52:13
Speaker
Um, you know, eating leaner, leaner proteins, um, eating, you know, good, good sources of carbohydrates, mix of complex and simple, you know, getting vegetables that don't mess with your stomach. I think that's important. Some people would see vegetables like, like, um, because they see it on Instagram and, and, you know, some influencers doing it.
Genetics and Personalized Training
00:52:35
Speaker
And, you know, they're like, literally like farting up a storm, you know, crop dust and people right and left. And they're still like, Oh, it can be more of it because it's good for me. It's like, no, your body doesn't really react well with that. Find a different vegetable. You know, like a lot of people don't respond well with broccoli, you know, um, well eat spinach. I mean, come on. Like what's the, what's the trade off there, right? Like spinach is easy on your stomach. Broccoli is not for most people. So, um, you know, there's, there's never a downside to doing that.
00:53:05
Speaker
I would say that the more athletic you are, the better your training is, the less important that is to your outcome. Because I've seen guys who literally drink orange juice and eat Starburst for breakfast. I've seen them come in the gym, do hour and a half, two hour workouts, you know,
00:53:33
Speaker
squatting the world, sprinting, jumping. They're four or 5% body fat. They pled long, healthy NFL careers. They didn't have a high risk of injury. None of that. So I've seen that several times, but they're so gifted athletically.
00:53:49
Speaker
that I don't think it would matter. Even me as a coach, I don't think I'd like transform them athletically. I think I just guided them athletically. If that makes sense, right? Like they're going to be great athletes, regardless of what I do. My goal is not to get in their way. It's just to kind of guide them the right way. Then there's been athletes that I've trained who I would say, yeah, like I probably made them a good athlete because they were not athletic. Those people, they have to focus harder on their food. Um, they have to focus harder on how they're fueling.
00:54:18
Speaker
Now in a perfect world, you know, even your high, high naturally gifted athletic people are also eating well, but it's very rare that that happens. Yes. Because if you're not good at something, you're going to do everything you can to be good at it. Right. If you're already good at something, then your thought is why doesn't, why do I need to change? If I've been eating Starbucks and orange juice for breakfast, then why does it matter? Yeah. Doing just fine. It's hard to argue with that logic. Now, um,
00:54:47
Speaker
you know, Derek Rose is a really good example, right? Derek Rose was the youngest MVP in NBA history. He played with Lou also, I know some of this stuff, like, you know, for a fact, Derek's like pregame meal used to be like McDonald's CD Skittles, he didn't really lift, because from Derek's standpoint, he wasn't like anti lifting or anti working, it wasn't anything like that. But from Derek's standpoint, because Lou used to tell him like, hey, you got to like, you know, clean this up, why?
00:55:15
Speaker
I was the best basketball player since I've been literally like a little kid. I was best in high school, best in college, literally the best in MBA at 21 years old. Literally, MVP, nobody's having me. What do I need to change for? Right? He's not wrong. Guy was MVP. Well, until he had an injury. And I think, I think that's where you start to see those little things add up. I think that's where you start to see the nutrition matter. I think that's where you start to see your training matter more because it took him a very long time.
00:55:45
Speaker
to get somewhat back to where he used to be from that injury much longer than most athletes. Yeah. But I think it's because he didn't train a lot and his diet was a great, he had to learn those things. Now you fast forward to when we, he never, he never really came back to the same again though. That's interesting. No, no. Um, but like you fast forward to when we were in Minnesota, Derek was also on that team of Lou and simple. He's kind of cool. Yeah.
00:56:09
Speaker
Eric literally travels with a medicine ball under his arm. Literally. He has a special medicine ball. It's like his thing. And when he goes on the private plane, he's carrying, he has his bag in one hand, his best ball. He literally doesn't go anywhere without it. The guy trains all the time now. He turns like a nut. He tells me he does everything.
00:56:28
Speaker
And if you followed his career, you know, a little bit, you'll see like he's on the Knicks. Now the guy's playing 26, 28 minutes a night and he's considered a really good player, even still he's closing out games for them. The Knicks are a good team. You know, like it goes to show you how much the training and nutrition can help someone, even an athlete that good. It just for him, I think it took him an injury for him to really understand it.
00:56:55
Speaker
And that's unfortunate, like in a perfect world, you just figure those things out. You know, Michael Jordan, everybody watched the last dance. I mean, the guy smoking a cigar the whole time. He didn't pick that up after training. I mean, after basketball, right? The guy smoked by all accounts, you know, um, with, with, with party, like most professional athletes do like it's Michael Jordan was.
00:57:15
Speaker
undeniably the greatest player of his generation. You know, in my opinion, all the time, we don't have to have that debate, but, um, the guy was smoking cigars and drinking, you know, like for some, for some athletes, I'm just talking like weekend warriors who are like, like Uber into whatever sport they're into, whether it's powerlifting or CrossFit or triathlons or whatever it is, they'd be like, Oh, you can't do that.
Injury Recovery and Training Adaptations
00:57:37
Speaker
It's like Michael Jordan did it. How can you, how can you deny his athleticism? Like it all is on this continuum of what is your natural gift?
00:57:46
Speaker
And then how much are you willing to, to quote unquote, like sacrifice to, to push that a little bit further. If you're a really good athlete, you know, in your, in your, in your nutrition is perfect. You might push yourself, you know, one or 2% further. And if you're a really good athlete, that's a lot. Right. But if you're not as good as an athlete, your nutrition might push you 10, 15, 20% further. And people always say like, you know, Adam made me kitchen. Oh my gosh, that's such BS.
00:58:15
Speaker
I can't tell you how many people I've seen with abs who literally show up with bags of McDonald's wings. Like they have, you know, 12 packs, like it's abs in your body fat is a lot to do with what your genetic hand is built. And the worst that genetic hand is in terms of like body composition, the more that it matters. That's actually the right way to say it. Yeah. Um, again, this one guy, I know people in NFL is a wide receiver. Um, you know,
00:58:43
Speaker
Uh, does somebody ask me this on Instagram? Like what's the most athletic thing or the craziest string thing you've seen from an athlete, not a power lifter. And it was this wide receiver. He weighed like 200, 215 pounds. He walked into the gym one day. Oh, no, no, not anymore. Goodness gracious. These guys nowadays, like DJ Metcalf, you know, he's like two 35, two 40, you know, six, four, six, five, like that's becoming the norm now. You know, like the little guys are fazing out. Um,
00:59:11
Speaker
But, you know, Landon, his name's Landon Cox. He came in the gym one day and the linemen were floor-pressing. They were doing a fat bar, axle bar floor-press. And they had 415, 425 on the bar. They were like almost at the end of their sets. He comes in cold, cold, hops on the floor, takes the bar down to the elbows, rests on the floor, pauses it, presses it, racks it. Right. The guy's 215 pounds. He decided after his NFL career,
00:59:40
Speaker
He wanted to do a physique show. Okay. My wife, Alicia, Alicia, obviously Ross, but used to be Harris. She, um, won six at, at the Olympia twice and bigger. She's one of the best, you know, best bill women in the world. She said, yeah, you know, like I'll help you coach, I'll coach you for whatever. And cause we were, you know, you're all friends and what, no problem. We said, well, when is it? He said, Oh, it's in three weeks. Oh, okay.
01:00:06
Speaker
Um, and this show was an NPC show, which is like the largest feeder organization size BB. And this show in the Midwest is one of the largest amateur shows in the country. And he wanted to do it in three weeks. So, okay. We'll, we'll try our best. Now the guy walks around like 4% body fat, seriously, like legitimately like 4% body fat. So we trained him for three weeks. He dieted. Okay. It wasn't even a great three weeks. It was okay. He got sick. One of the biggest shows in the country. Wow.
01:00:34
Speaker
I think you can't coach that like that's that's those are the stories that people don't see those are the stories that people don't they don't want to see because in some way it like dashes your hopes of like being that right because like oh I can never do that as a person is a normal person now say that's not true I would say quote unquote the more normal you are meaning just like the more kind of like
01:00:56
Speaker
less athletic genetics you have or less body combat, whatever it is. I just say the harder you have to work with those different things, the smarter you have to be about those things. And then your apps are made in the kitchen to a degree. Yeah. That then that is applicable, but then it is true. Yeah. Right. For sure. Then it is true. Um, and you know, it's similar thing. People say, you know, when it's one of our training, how many days a week should I work out? Well, first of all, what is your goal? Second of all, how quickly do you want to get there? Hmm.
01:01:26
Speaker
You want to get there in a year, we could probably work out three days a week. You want to get there in six weeks. We're probably gonna work out six days a week. You know, NFL, NFL combine training, for example, with six days a week for six, six to eight weeks, because those guys were such in such terrible shape coming out of football. Football is not like a great shape sport, right? Like they're beat up. You're hurt. You know, you're only, you know, you're, if you're a good player, you're playing what maybe 40 snaps a game, right? Like that's not a ton of volume. Like you can see your cardio isn't great. Like.
01:01:56
Speaker
We're trying to change them from that into literally like world-class track athletes in like six or eight weeks. Like the combine is insane. So we train six days a week, but that's all they do. Literally that's all they do. They eat, sleep, train, skip. So yeah, we need that condensed timeline to make that happen. So it's a similar thing with food. If you want to be, you know, certain body composition, certain goal, that's great. How serious you need to be about it depends on
01:02:23
Speaker
How far out that goal is and how quickly do you want to get there? Because a lot of people don't want to admit this, but if they would just be consistent with their food, they'd be a lot closer to their goals, right? But people want to go extreme. They want to go to this bad diet. They want to go to this crazy plan because you get hyped on extreme. Oh, I'm doing this cool thing. I'm working with this cool coach or, you know, blah, blah, blah. And it fuels that need to change it. But the truth is if consistently you're making good choices over your whole life, you're never super far out of the goals you want to be.
01:02:53
Speaker
doesn't mean you don't swing, you know, life happens, things change, you know, you swing up or down, whatever way you want to go, but you should be somewhat close with your goals if you've been consistent and consistency is key. So to lock in your nutrition, your fuel as just as good as you can, are there any specific
01:03:15
Speaker
approach that you'd take. I mean, there are many, I've tried several myself. I mean, keto is more and more popular, even carnivore should agree. In marine fasting, there is low carb. I mean, you have vegan, vegetarian, growing up in a ranch. I don't think that's going to be a topic to discuss. Maybe you have an opinion on it. Well, actually, please share. Is it just feel your body, eat clean? Is it simple? What is it? Organic?
01:03:45
Speaker
Well, the research shows that a lot of these strategies, low-carb, intermittent fasting, they're not necessarily more effective than another in terms of long-term outcomes, which is I think one of the most important things to look at. Anybody can lose weight in three or four months, but long-term outcomes are important. So let me give you one thing and then I'll give you my opinion. There's a study when I was in college that we read about where they followed people over 10 years who wanted to lose weight.
01:04:15
Speaker
10 years is a long time, but a lot of things that 10 years back going your life, like where you are, like whoever's listening to this, like that's a long time. Yeah. All right. So 95% of people over the 10 years who lost weight and kept it off. That's a key point, right? They didn't just lose it over that time. They kept it off. 95% of them worked out at least four days a week. Right.
01:04:36
Speaker
So if you want to think about that stat, that means 5% of people lost weight and kept it off by working out three days or less, which also means that 5% of people did it through diet alone. Has to, right? They did it 95% of people did it in conjunction with an active healthy lifestyle. And remember, for the first of the study, exercise means like plan activity, not like I went walk my dog, like actual plan measured activity, that's exercise and, you know, research, right? So
01:05:05
Speaker
your success rate isn't tied to what you do in the kitchen. It's tied to your physical activity. And when it comes to your, your nutrition, I would say like, whatever plan works well for you. Some people like intermittent fasting because they don't have to think about intermittent fasting, right? They just say, Hey, I'm going to get up. I'm a busy person. I had some coffee. Maybe, um, you know, I don't doctor it up with a ton of sugar and cream. I just kind of have it black or whatever. And I start my day. And then before I know it, it's 11 or 12 and I can eat. It's great. I love that.
01:05:33
Speaker
Okay, good. If that, if that works well for your, you and your lifestyle, then go for it. Um, some people like low carb, Hey, it's just easier for me. It's like chips aren't an option. It's easier for me to desert. So just, they're just not an option. Awesome. Go for it. There's no data that shows that one of those things are inherently better than the other aside from what works well with your lifestyle, which I would argue is the most important thing. Um, when it comes to like organics, you know,
01:06:00
Speaker
Um, the labels of that stuff is a whole nother, you know, you literally need to agree to explain those labels, right? Like you need to be rich, dietician to understand what is organic actually mean in a given country. Cause there's different rules and free range and page freely. All those things have very specific rules on what they actually mean. Don't, um, you know, I would say if you're eating fresh food.
01:06:26
Speaker
then that is better than processed food. Whether it was organic or cage free or whatever the case may be, doesn't matter. Fresh food is always going to be your best option. You know, some people, you know, are on this like, they think that somehow like going to the grocery store and buying a piece of chicken, you know, is worse for you because it's been quote unquote process than if you go to like your local butcher. And I would say, well,
01:06:54
Speaker
Your local butcher is probably fresher for sure. But if you, every food is processed. It's been processed since the beginning of time. Like, do you think, you've got to think that people who farmed hundreds of years ago, if they had a really strong crop one year, they wouldn't keep those seeds and then replant those seeds the next year and not something else. Like they're, they're growing towards, you know, that's, that's your, your processing and growing food towards a certain play. You have to, you know, people used to kill, uh, you know, their animals around this time of year. Right.
01:07:23
Speaker
They put them up in a barn, they throw a bunch of salt on them and leave them outside hankin' up from us. That's processed with a ton of sodium, you know what I mean? And people are like, oh, you can't have this, you can't have that. Yes, you can. Relax, okay? The thing is- Let's put it more like this. I'd say in a can or in a bag.
01:07:44
Speaker
I mean, more so in a camp, especially in like, if they're wrapped up in some plastic, like, okay, yeah. That's like, if it's, if it's, if it's a meat product or some type of vegetable or fruit or so forth, but if it's bagged up and it has a long shelf life, yeah, that's when it's like, all right. Correct. Yeah, correct. Yeah. And the other stuff like, you know, kind of just go with it makes sense to you. If you don't, if you have unlimited budget and you want to buy
01:08:10
Speaker
The organic, you know, these animals were able to run in a 10,000 acre forest, like go for it, right? If you're not able to do that, like, please don't stress about it. The nutritional differences, according to the research, pretty much non-existent. Now, in terms of like being vegan, it's real simple to me. If being vegan is an ethical thing for you, go for it. Go for it. Go crazy.
01:08:38
Speaker
If it's anything other than that, the research doesn't support it, especially if you're an athlete, right? So to get the amount of protein you would need as an athlete from being vegan, the amount of volume of food that you have to consume is literally inhuman. You cannot eat enough beans, lentils, variety of things.
01:09:04
Speaker
You cannot fill your stomach up it's not big enough to get the amount of protein you need you have supplement and a lot of people choose like vegan whey protein stuff which is great no problem with that. But to sit here and say that that somehow optimizes your performance it's just incorrect. And the literature supports it, you know there's been some documentaries over the last few years of people who come out and said, you know the being vegan like it was great for them.
01:09:27
Speaker
And what's funny is that all those people, none of them are saying it in the prime of their career. They're all saying it after the fact I've retired and now I'm vegan and I feel great. Well, okay. Let's just think about what feeling great means. Like, you know, Arnold was obviously a big sponsor behind that documentary and it's like, okay, Arnold says he feels
Arnold Schwarzenegger's Diet and Training History
01:09:44
Speaker
great. Well, Arnold is also on the record of saying like he would eat a whole chicken and drink a beer after every workout. Um, you know, and Arnold was training two a day, six days a week. Like.
01:09:56
Speaker
If I'm training, and it's funny as Lou Hall's house used to be across, I used to see Arnold's house from the wall's house. Arnold gets up in the morning. He rides his bike downhill, not uphill. His security team follows him. He goes to Gold's Gym when he's in California. And he goes and does a circuit, you know, around Gold's Gym, just a little circuit, you know, talks to people and goes back home. There's nothing wrong with that. But don't you think that's easier on your body than what he used to do, which is bodybuilding two hour workouts twice a day, four hours a day, like,
01:10:25
Speaker
Of course, you're gonna feel better. Like, you know, you see some of these other athletes like UFC fighters and stuff like I feel better. Well, of course you feel better. You're not getting your head beat in every day. You know, like, like, I'm all for people finding what's what's right for them all for it. But if we're gonna have a logical scientific discussion about what's optimal for athletes, then we have to have it. And the science says athletes need protein to recover, they have to have it. There is no complete vegan protein doesn't exist.
01:10:53
Speaker
Animal protein, any animal proteins complete has a plate amino acid profile. There is no vegetable that has a complete amino acid profile. You have to be really smart about how you mix different things. And
Structured Vegan Diets for Athletes
01:11:03
Speaker
another example is I won't, I won't name the guy's name, but the wall is a teammate with a guy who went vegan during the season and the guy lost like 17 pounds and most basketball players don't have 17 pounds to lose. Nope.
01:11:17
Speaker
Um, he literally sometimes at halftime would be kneeling on the floor at his locker, but he couldn't stand up. Jesus. And Lual came over to him and said, what, like, what is, what's going on with you? He said, Oh, I just, you know, before the game, I had like some celery and like, Lual was like, dude, you got to get a chef. Like you have to get someone who's like a nutritionist and a chef, like,
01:11:38
Speaker
to play professional basketball and to live this lifestyle, like that's cool if you want to do it, but you have to have an incredible plan and team together to making sure that you're fueling yourself properly. Because, you know, animal proteins are just complete in a lot of different ways in terms of nutrition, things that you can't get from something else, right? And I'm not on
Critique of Extreme Diets
01:11:59
Speaker
the carnivore side either. I'm not on this, like, you know, somehow, I don't know if you've seen this down Instagram, you've seen this liver team guy yet.
01:12:06
Speaker
Oh, it sounds so familiar. Please. If you haven't, it's this guy who is clearly like, clearly on PDs, like clearly on PDs. I've been, again, my wife was in the world of bodybuilding for a long time. I was around a lot of these guys. I know what it looks like when someone's on versus when they're not, right?
01:12:25
Speaker
Clearly the guys on TV and he's eating like raw, um, like full testicles. He's eating raw, like liver, like just literally like raw meat and just like, but so good. This is all you need to do. We need to go back to how it used to be. And it's like, Oh, you mean when the average age of life was like 38, like we didn't go back to that because of disease and foodborne illness. Like really, that's what we need to go back to. So like, I don't get me wrong. I'm not like so pro me that I'm like, you know, those people are goober heads too.
01:12:56
Speaker
The point is our stomachs and our metabolism was built to handle a variety of foods. Another thing in that documentary is they have this one doctor on there who's like, look at gorillas. They don't eat meat. Look how strong they are. Oh my gosh. Do you think our physiology is the same as a gorilla? I had cows. Cows have multiple stomachs. That's how come they can eat the way that they eat? The point is we were designed to eat a multitude of foods
01:13:25
Speaker
And we were designed to get nutrients from different sources, fruits, vegetables, grains, you know, meats, et cetera. So like, once you have your ethics sorted out in your head in terms of like where you fall on that stand. And I'll never, you know, knock somebody for their ethical approach to that. If they really believe in their heart, you know, you shouldn't kill an animal for food, like, okay, like that's fine. You know, but if you're talking about performance, you can't deny that we're built
01:13:52
Speaker
We need, we need this amount of nutrients. There's literally entire fields of research on it. We need this amount of nutrients for optimal performance. Okay. The most efficient, effective way to get so is to eat a balance of everything, not to eat completely like shun one sort of food group.
Diet Personalization and Avoiding Dogma
01:14:06
Speaker
So if you can live in that pocket, I think that you're going to make the decisions. Um, if you're, you know, we had some guys on the South Sudanese team who were vegan, um, when we were doing Afro basket, probably three or four guys. I told them.
01:14:22
Speaker
fine, but you guys got to eat a ton of food, a ton of food, because they were because I don't want to smell your farts too. Like, like, dude, you guys, you have to eat so much because they were already on the lighter side of what is considered accessible for professional athlete. Right. And I'm like, I'm cool. If you guys want to do it, like they had the medical thing. Like, it's fine. But like, you, you don't understand. I think it's not like you can just say I'm going to eat the same amount of food that I used to eat when I like, you know, meat, because meat, aside from the protein content,
01:14:51
Speaker
There's usually just a natural amount of fats that occur with that as well. Right. Which also, you know, just kind of boost your calories.
01:14:57
Speaker
LeBron did at a 1.2. I mean, and there are photos, you can, you can Google that LeBron vegan or vegetarian, and you can see how he's losing weight and how he's becoming pale. How has his skin is worse. His hair is worse. My wife has tried it. There's so many anecdotal stories that I've come across and people that I know, always the same thing. Always they drop in energy, drop in focus is great initially because it cleans out their system.
01:15:22
Speaker
And then shit hits the fan. But what I was going to say with this, one thing that I just want to point out, if you're thinking about how you want to optimize, I agree with everything that you're saying, but also Google inflammatory foods. Just do me that favor if you listen to this Google inflammatory foods and be cautious on those or be cautious on if it's processed or if it's
01:15:51
Speaker
Uh, one of those high inflammatory foods, there's a reason why you might get irritated and you don't even know that you irritated or that you are tired. You get sick all the time or do you have trouble with your stomach? So just check that out as an additional point. Yeah. And I'll just give you some, some real experience on that particularly. Um, you know, we live in a world now where, you know, you can live.
01:16:18
Speaker
You can be from one area of the world and live in another, right? That didn't exist really 50 years ago. People weren't really doing that on a large scale. Pretty much wherever you were born is where you live. And as a result, you can't forget that your genetics are tuned to a certain region. So Luol, for example, being from South Sudan, he lived in America for what still does. Let's see here, he came over when he was 14. So 21, 23 years at this point.
01:16:47
Speaker
His genetics of stomach is built for food in East Africa. That's what his heritage is. That's what his family lineage is. That's what it's from. So there are certain foods his body does not do well with in America is to get bloated. Um, to your point about like the inflammation side of it, like, yeah, he maybe doesn't recover as well. He doesn't feel as well. And it was a process for us to go through and figure out what those things were now.
01:17:14
Speaker
he had the advantage of having a chef, we could say, do this, don't do that, right? But the point that you're making is an important one. You have to think about what works well with your body and what doesn't. It's that simple. It's finding things that work well with your body and eliminate the things that don't. Don't again, like it's like the training, don't be so dogmatic about a given approach or thing that you exclude optimal choices. Find what works for you.
01:17:40
Speaker
and then harp in on those things. And if
Closing and Audience Engagement
01:17:43
Speaker
it's not working for you, continue to search until you find what does. And hopefully you land in a good spot with it. I was gonna say Rick Ross, Jacob Ross. I was just talking about Rick Ross with another guy the other day. Anyway, it's been amazing having you on round two. It's always easy. It feels like we leave plenty in the tank. So the thank you for this round. It's been freaking phenomenal.
01:18:10
Speaker
Yeah, no, absolutely. I am always happy to hop on and clearly I have no shortage of wanting to talk about this stuff. So hey, we do it again sometime too if there's more need for it. If the people want it, you know, we'll make it happen. I love it. Thanks again.
01:18:29
Speaker
Jacob is really one of those incredibly humble people but knows so much about training and his trait, how to connect with people and how to elevate people. It's a rare capability to function at such a high level and execute on a day-to-day basis and still caring about your family and being there for everyone that matters so much around you.
01:18:54
Speaker
So, great deed of respect to Jacob. And for you who have listened, if you enjoyed this, please scroll down on Apple, hit the five stars. It takes you literally five seconds. I truly appreciate you doing this. This helps us spread the message. So, thank you for this favor. And if you haven't done so on the other platform, hit subscribe, hit like, even leave a review. This takes you what?
01:19:20
Speaker
five seconds. A review takes you maybe 30 seconds a minute and I truly appreciate it. It makes you feel good too because you know you're helping someone and you're helping spread a message that hopefully has helped you as well. So thank you again for tuning in and sending you much love and see you next time.