 Great certification class. You guys had here at the studio. Um, what did you call bad trainers, slap dick trainers? Slap trainers. That everybody rolling for sure. That got a nice pop from the crowd right there. We're ready for that. Yeah. No, a little, little politically incorrect, but you gotta, you know, you got to keep it light too. Oh, no, I love it. It reminds me that the Adam, the other day did a very controversial post on Instagram and got probably the best insult because we get people come after us and not super often, but they will. That's how you know you made it. That's it. And so some girl called him a dick, but it said, you're not, but you're a soft dick. At first I didn't like you, but now I like you because that was like the best insult that I've ever loved. It's funny if somebody insults you, but it's a good insult. You're like, uh, that's pretty good. Yeah. I was like, that's stung a little bit. They're not too many people. You don't get too much of that though. You're pretty, seem to be pretty liked. Uh, is it because you're so established now? Yeah. I used to get a lot more, like way more. And it's, it's, I'm almost, it's nice, but at the same time, sometimes I like question if I'm doing things right. Cause I'm like, wow, don't get as much hate as I used to. Maybe I'm, uh, you know, I don't know, I'm doing something wrong or I'm getting soft, speaking of soft, uh, but yeah, I also, I would like to think like the information I put out is genuinely trying to be helpful towards everyone. You, you might get that one or two topics that people disagree with. Like, I think we spoke last time I was here, like with some of the speed training stuff, some of the, the heavy sled work and heavy strength work we do, you might get some speed gurus and like purists that are that, that disagree with the, the methods and some of our programs. But like for the most part, it's not like the you suck, you're a fraud, you're a piece of shit anymore, but you know, a couple, but, but not as much as I used to get the feedback cause I came, you know, I wasn't attending the course, but my, my partner attended it. We have a couple of employees that attended it. And then of course there were other mind pump listeners in here. And the feedback I kept getting was just phenomenal. And the main thing that I kept hearing about your course, cause I would ask them, what's the difference? Like, you know, okay, you told me it's awesome, but what's the difference between this and the other certifications or courses that you've done? And they said that you guys are so much more like working on how you can apply what you're learning. You know what I mean? Like how, like a lot less proven the theory of everything and more, like like the real meat of a lot of these like various theories out there and like really like, you know, stacking them together in an applicable way. It really made a lot more logical sense. I think a lot of people get lost in just learning, you know, the, the overall science behind it. Well, a lot of certifications spend half their time trying to prove why their method or who they are is better than everybody else, which that was what I felt like. And it's very black and white. It's this is our method. It's different than others, but it's right. And if you don't believe us, you're wrong. You know, it's just, and I think that's what we appreciate the most is so like for this cert, we had close to 50 trainers there. And I believe I don't know the exact number, but we asked how many had previous certifications, and it was at least 40 of them have at least another one or two cert. So it was a pretty good crowd that at least has something to compare our certification to. And like every one of them to a man said that same thing, you know, there's, there's a ton of information in our certification. Like a lot we go from 9 a.m. to 6 30 and we go hard. There's it's a lot of stuff that we cover, but it's all applicable. Like we've worked our ass off to really make it, you know, everything's context based. Everything has like context behind it. It's not just this is our way and you have to do this way. Otherwise it's wrong. If a trainer raises their hand and says, well, I learned it this way at another cert, we'll explain why. Or we might say, oh, that would work for a client that is dealing with ABC. Like the context matters and, you know, individuals vary. And that all needs to be accounted for. But unfortunately it's not with most certifications. No, I loved it because I noticed right away, like what you guys had been able to extract from other concepts out there. And really I do the same thing when I'm sitting in a certification course, I'm like, which parts am I actually going to use? Yeah. And you guys literally like filtered that whole process for everybody. It was great. Well, everybody that I talked to was were telling me that how excited they were to actually get to work today. Yes, that's a big one to it was cool to hear that. Like everyone was like, man, I can't wait to get to work on Monday or Tuesday and actually apply some of this stuff because they picked up that much good information that they could go apply to clients right away. Yeah. And that and that's what they what they would tell us is what they'd attend a cert, they would get new information, but it would almost confuse them because it was it contradicted maybe something else they had learned. And again, it was so just black and white. It's this way or the highway. And then they they're scared to go to work on Monday because now they're like, oh, I'm not really sure what to do. I'm a little bit confused. This guy says this, but they the new cert told me that where we we provide a system for everything. It is a true like a systematic approach and templates for everything. But it's we we give the trainer and the coach some freedom to make it their own. Like like we we provide the system and we help organize their thoughts and make them feel way more confident going to work on Monday. But we also say here's how you tweak the system. Here's the progressions and the regressions. And if you have a client that has been injured or an athlete versus a mom or a dad, like all that is factored in just because Smitty and I have a combined 50 years in this industry, we've worked with pretty much every type of client you could imagine and we really extracted all the best stuff that we know the trainers are going to deal with. And that's what we present over the weekend. That's the biggest difference. That's the big difference right there because there's a difference between knowledge and information and wisdom. And wisdom really is the is the application of knowledge and experience. It's a combination of experience because one of my biggest criticisms of academia in the fitness space has always been that they they they don't have the experience of working with a lot of people because anybody who tells you this and I'll make this statement all day and I'll argue it all day long. Any trainer or coach or you know certification structure that instructor that tells you our way is the best way in the only way you know they completely lack experience working with people because there's always exceptions. And again my biggest criticism has always been great. I learned all this great information. I'm not a better trainer. I don't know how to use it. I don't know how to apply and what I what I got from because I asked Jessica who you know she's been training for a little while and she's got a few certifications. She's like no I feel like I'm a better trainer after taking a course which I don't necessarily feel from other courses. It was great getting to meet Smitty too. And like I was talking to you earlier about them like where have you been keeping this guy like I didn't even like I didn't know much about him and like his background and everything. And he's just he's a brilliant brilliant guy man. Yeah he's been I've known Smitty now for a long time like I was telling you I was a fan of his. He was a fan of mine but we never met you know we're in the industry so long now it was like the internet was there there was no social media. So you know I kind of heard of block forms. It's like you see he might have yeah he might have started a blog and he first he first started posting a lot of like strong man and an odd object lifting and I was working with a lot of football players and wrestlers at the time. So when I would research information on grip strength and hand strength because I was trying to you know I was always super like anal with my program and I didn't want to leave any you know no stone left unturned type of thing. So I wanted to learn more about grip strength and that that type of strength for my wrestlers and football players and his stuff kept popping up. You know he was a guy I was like ripping phone books and decks of cards we call him smithy two decks because he could take two decks of I wish I knew this before I met him. Yeah he's got some odd odd odd object lifting strength and but he's way more than that but that's how I originally what I originally knew of him and then he ended up at I had a seminar at my first gym that I opened right after I moved out of my storage closet my original little 500 square foot facility when I moved into my first warehouse gym he attended the certification and I was like oh shit that's the that's the smithy diesel guy like that at the grip guy and then he was all excited that I knew who he was he was like man I've been a fan of yours you know forever and he was like a fan of my dad's so like my dad was at the seminar we met and then like a week later he hit me up and we did our first project together which was an amped warm-up DVD which I think that was the first warm-up product out there because no you know the warm-up's not really a sexy thing to talk about it's like it's pretty much the the meatheads either skip the warm-up all together or you have like the real physical therapist like corrective exercise types that they feel you know the warm-up should be the entire workout and it's overkill and then you get a whole bunch of people again that are confused and they end up just not doing it you know or it's one extreme or the other so we put this this amped warm-up system together that we didn't you know we just felt like there was a need in the industry we didn't put it together because we thought it was going to make a lot of money or you know sell all over the world we just thought like there there's people it's very polarizing when it comes to warming up let's put some quality information out there show that there is a way that there's kind of that happy medium right in the middle where you could have a six minute quality warm-up or you can go for a half hour and use more you know the warm-up as a recovery type routine and we put a warm-up system together we shared what we're doing and with like no marketing we just he put it on his blog I put it on my blog and the thing sold I think we sold in like 13 different countries and like every state in the like all 50 states 13 different countries we were we were shocked at like how popular it became and then that just led to a product on strength and then power and then speed and it kind of just we we ran the gamut of like proper programming in order and then that pretty much became the curriculum for a certification course but that's how it all started with warm-up DVD what is the besides preventing injury because I think that's obvious for why people would warm up what are the real reasons why somebody should focus on having a structured warm-up and what's the difference between just doing a few sets with lightweight versus doing something that's more targeted yeah I think that's that's a great question I first it's it's got to be more than just getting sweaty and getting warm that it that's one aspect of a proper warm-up would be increasing your core temperature and and breaking a sweat you should always have a sweat cracked before you hit your first set of any movement but it's not just about warming up there's there's so many different aspects to the to the warm-up and and benefits of the warm-up what a lot of people don't realize is it besides prevent dramatically decreasing your injury potential it will increase your performance you know your your muscles can't perform when they're cold or what you so basically what we do is after after warming up and just get in the core temperature up you need to do some kind of soft tissue mobilization like we some people are anti foam rolling we feel like everything does have its place again context matters and basically you're just trying to you're trying to create this window of trainability whether the the effects of foam rolling last for longer than an hour or not who really cares if that could get me to move a little bit better and get into better positions that's going to enable me to have a better workout and the more workouts I could stack up where I was in the proper position when I squatted or deadlifted or etc I'm going to eventually start moving and feeling better so we're not just looking to prevent injury we're looking to increase performance but that entails increasing core temperature mobilizing the soft tissue activating muscles that are down regulated and weaker that's a big part of the warm-up and then you want to rehearse the whatever your first movement is you don't want to just throw 135 on the bar you should rehearse a couple sets of that movement and also excite the CNS like that's another big part of our warm-up is always finish we say finish with a sprint a jump or a throw and it doesn't have to be anything crazy but just something to wake you up fire up the CNS and you're going to get so much more out of that first exercise most people you'll hear him say oh I it's like towards the end of the workout is where I really start feeling my best well why not feel like that during you know the beginning of your workout so yeah besides injury prevention it's also performance in improving performance longevity you know if you're in this for the long haul you you want to preserve your your body the best you can and warming up is one of the easiest ways to do that it's crazy listening to him talk about this right now because we wrote a program called prime yeah and that's the exact same thing that we saw and our full of our philosophies are so aligned to the point that we in our prime program we have what we call amp sessions oh really yeah so listen you talk about it right now like fuck it's a trip yeah it is a trip because it's we saw the same thing there's not a there was not a lot of people putting a lot of emphasis on and exactly what you said either you were the physical therapy type or that your whole routine was all mobility and corrective work and that's all you did or you just skip the shit all together and nobody was taking the time to what we call priming the body correctly to get it ready it's not only that it's the the warm-up is people consider that general and then they consider the workout to be individualized but the warm-up should also be individualized how I would warm up one person would be different from how I warm up another person to pay and also based off of what exercise all that stuff all that stuff and stations first something that you mentioned that really highlights to me sometimes the breakdown between academia and an application you mentioned turning on muscles that are down-regulated and there's been some controversy around that right like let's say you want your glutes to fire more on a squat and you do you know a primer like a hip bridge or whatever and the studies show the glutes aren't getting activated more when we attach electrodes to the butt muscle doesn't get activated more it's like as a trainer I'll tell you this much right now it's not necessarily that they're they're activated more that you can see with the with the electrodes it's that the client no knows what to feel yes and now they can move through the squat and feel the glutes more but you wouldn't know this with a study exactly and that comes up at the cert we were mentioned we're talking about you know anterior pelvic tilt versus posterior and somebody brought that up and just they said well when I my clients for them they didn't they didn't know we throw these terms around as trainers and coaches but they were saying how their client didn't even know their hips did that like they weren't aware that there's this you know anterior tilt posterior tilt so when they do did that and they just had them lay down on the floor and flatten out their low back kind of posteriorly tilt their pelvis and then relax and have that natural arch and curve in your in your lumbar spine just doing a couple reps of that made the client aware and then they got so much more out of a hip thrust because now they know that movement exists so again to your point whether that her glutes were more activated during that hip thrust set I don't give a shit either the fact that she now knows what that movement is she knows how to feel her totally long term that will be more beneficial I don't give a shit of a study ever confirms that or not that's how it and studies typically are terrible small sample sizes who's the one getting studied context that makes a big difference you know I make this argument quite a bit that one of the best investments somebody can make the average person can make to help them in terms of increasing the odds of long term success in fitness is in hiring a personal trainer I think it's the best investment I mean we spend hundreds of dollars on supplements and you know equipment we don't use or whatever a good personal trainer a good personal trainer that's right I was just going to say that a good personal trainers excellent it's one of the best investments if not the best investment you can make but then I always get this question actually Adam brought it up how do I know if a trainers good or not we get that question all the time are the things that you communicate to people that you maybe can share with us yeah some of the things with one of the things we already touched on I think how you know if a trainer is good or not one of the first things you could do ask a lot of questions and if you don't get a couple of it depends answers you probably have a shitty trainer if every answer is yeah you're dealing with a slap dick if every answer is this is how you do ABC or it you know there's no it depends or they don't answer your question with a follow-up question that's a big red flag or if they just answer if they can't answer your question I'm always shocked by how many potential clients when we used to train a lot of high school kids or in younger kids and their parents would come in I would only I would want them to ask us questions because they would just say well how are you different you know there's a gym down the street that says they do what you do but they charge $20 less an hour like why should I come to you and I would say well go go watch one of their sessions because I know they watch all my YouTube videos and they just kind of copy exercises ask them why they're doing what they're doing like call them out oh what why are you doing that exercise with my son why why did you start with that finished with that how come the warm-up was this long question them and if they don't have an answer and if they can't explain it to you in terms that you understand you're in you're in the wrong gym and I know I have a reason and purpose for everything we call it the window in the mirror effect we start I'll even share this with with your audience is we start our certification with this we and our one of our top trainers Mark Innis came up with this I was just telling Justin he's he was out our very first sir and he ended up coming to like the next seven in a row and now he's got super successful gym one of our top trainers but he called it the window in the mirror effect he said he after he took our sir he started doing every session as if Smitty and I were peeking through the window watching him so he was like I wanted to make sure if you guys were looking at me and then you came into my gym and you called me out and said why are you doing that with her why did why did you do that why didn't you do this I would have a reason and a purpose and even if I'm feeling tired at the end of the day and it's a long day and that last session comes and I feel like I want to sit down and drag ass a little bit I pretend like you guys are watching me telling me like treat every session like it's your first session because it's your client's first session so that that window effect and then the mirror effect is to be able to you know convey your message and talk to your client in their language so then when they do eventually have to go train on their own they are remember that they are a mirror image of you when you're training techniques so that that client represents you you know if I if I meet someone that says oh I train with Sal for 10 years back it back in the day like and then he's doing everything wrong in the gym I'd be like oh damn you know you know Sal Sal might be a fraud but like I would expect that client to be pretty damn good and we know maybe it's not going to be perfect like if we were there but if you work with someone for a number of weeks years whatever it may be they should be of the mirror image of you so I know that's a little bit of a tangent but I feel like that's every good trainer should kind of have that mentality going into a session I think every good teacher looks at their students regardless coach teacher parent you look at your your kid or student as a potential reflection yes of you and there's some response you have some responsibility especially if they've been with you for a long time so I completely agree with you you know Joe the fitness space it can it can be quite tribal at times right you know a camp over here's kettlebells are better than dumbbells over here you know free weights are better machines oh no you should get trained slow no you got to train fast and it gets squatting and deadlifts yeah yeah yeah yeah so what do you think about that there seems to be like this and it's weird that I'm hearing this this like you know squats and deadlifts you don't you don't need to do them they're not as great as everybody says they are what are your what are your thoughts on that it's even that one it's it's a depends it's and it depends it depends because here I'm I've gotten like I guess you would call it typecast in the beginning of my career as a strength guy even though I was working with a lot of athletes and we were incorporating speed training and plyometrics and I was always into mobility and you know warming up properly because I was born with some low back issues and I always had to address those things so I wanted to make sure it I didn't have a choice I was born with a tumor in my sacrum and I've had to deal with a lot of shit because of it I if I would always take responsibility and say if you were born healthy I'm not going to be the one to make you deal with low back pain or whatever it may be you know I'm certainly not going to contribute it and contribute to that so I'm going to do everything in my power to not only yes I'm going to improve your performance but I'm going to do it in the safest possible manner we're going to get you better while doing no harm so with that being said I always found it funny because you know squats and trap bar deadlifts were always a huge part of our program but I could name five NFL players off the top of right off the top of my head without even thinking that I've trained that never never did a deadlift in my gym and they've trained with me for over 10 years because they didn't like it they they had back issues you know they just mentally they had something and with athletes while I think squats and deadlifts are great exercises we teach them at our certification as core fundamental movements no single exercise is the be all end all I think yes you should train the hinge pattern yes you should change the school you should train the squat pattern but it doesn't have to be with a barbell on your back or you know off the floor with the barbell it might be a goblet squat it might be a trap bar deadlift it might be an RDL it's it's more about strengthening your body via certain movements and that's a big part of our cert we teach fundamental movements progressions and regressions but then leave it to the trainer and the coach to pick the specific exercises the specific exercises aren't as important as the movement patterns and how and where they are programmed over the course of a week a month a year etc very well said now the most tribal part of the fitness and health space has got to be diet diet's got to be the most you know people get the most heated over you just do a review and game changer yeah I was just going to say so so that was just that was so ridiculous so Joe I was going to say so I've been I haven't been in space as long as you but I've been in it for over 20 years I've never seen I've seen diets be tribal and keto paleo low fat low carb people get pissed off at my diets better than yours but I've never seen a diet get politicized like the like this this plant-based or vegan diet it's actually getting tied to the climate it's getting tied to politics it's becoming a they're using it as a moral compass type of deal what are your thoughts on that whole deal it's same thing like first there's there's I to me I I'm baffled by how much people give a shit how how other people I'm just right like I there's a part of me that cares a lot because I'm in this industry and I've got I got into this industry like we all did because we genuinely enjoy helping people you know and providing information but I don't give a shit like however if you if you want to be vegan and you say you're healthy and you feel great like I'm all for it like I'm I'm happy for you but I have the problem as soon as now you tell me I have to eat that way or she has to eat that way and if she doesn't she's stupid she's you know like it's just it's it baffles me like I really have I'm just tyrannical yeah like I I almost can't comprehend it like you really care that much like what's why and even it's just such a waste of time to argue because we could all find yes we could find a vegan who performs well but you how you could also find a meat eater that performs well and a guy that's eating carnivore and the key like there's exceptions to every rule there's the clearly different diets could work for different people we're all individual I think it's find the diet that you enjoy that that your your health you know as long as you remain healthy you could sustain it that's that's the diet for you yeah sustainability is the big one as you guys know it's like I know I'm so sick of the before and after pictures oh look at my 30-day transformation 60-day transformation I always say come back to me in five years if you're still doing that at five years then I'll kind of you'll peak my interest a little more but your 30-day 60-day transformation I'm kind of unbored by yeah so because my biggest issue is this and I saw this happen a couple times when keto was all the rage and there were everybody was talking about how was the the best thing since sliced bread and I would get messages from people like you know I've been on this keto diet for four months and you know I'm constipated and I have really low energy like and I'm like listen to your body and the reason why they weren't listening to their bodies because they were fed so much propaganda well with this this with this vegan push at the propaganda so much stronger that I my fears me a lot of people are going to go that direction it's not going to be the right diet for them because individual variants is dramatic when you count your you count your physiology your microbiome the emotional connection you have to foods like your personality or you throw everything in there it's a fingerprint but now you have a bunch of people are going to go a particular way because they think it's virtuous and they're going to ignore the signals of the body yep they're going to totally ignore that's the thing that I that I get worried the most about and it's not not to get off track but it's I think it's similar as far as just like you listening to your body is such an important point that so many people neglect which is crazy we had a coach this weekend that when we were going over the squat we taught it a little bit differently than another trainer coach that he learned it from that is a very well respected coach but he said and he just happened to be the guy that we picked out to demonstrate the squat and we we nit picked a couple things and we felt like he was sitting straight down and his knees were coming a little too far forward so we had him kind of hinge a little bit more than he was normally used to doing which felt uncomfortable for him but he was like man I that was the first time I've even just like with a barbell that I feel my knees didn't hurt when I was squatting so I was like but so why you know why were you squatting the other way and it was he was and it's super smart intelligent dude but he was just like well that was how you know I was taught by by another coach who was a pretty smart dude and someone that I even respect and he was like it was just kind of bothered my knees but I just kept doing it I feel like this will be way better for me and I'm just like yeah like that's I don't care I said if I if I recommend something and it hurts or it doesn't feel right to you by all means always listen to your body over me over Smitty over you guys like I think we would I'm not offended at all if I give you some advice and you go at that bothered me a little bit I'm going to do it this way instead that's how that's how our certification was actually born it was that happening enough times over the course of 25 years that you start to you know hear from so many different coaches and trainers that you start accounting for those exceptions to the rule and the individual variances and then that's how our teaching style came about but it just baffles me how many people are like yeah I've been doing it this way for the last year it's it hurt but I was taught that way so I tried to stick through it like and whether that's your diet your your squatting technique you know whatever it may be always listen to your body first yes such an important point especially like we see all you know the coaches out there having these like different turf wars in terms of like which modality has it like figured out the most and then the person that hurts is the person that like applies this and it's not working for them but they're hell bent on making it work yeah not having that flexibility man you know how many so like I'm in this industry so I always hate when I had the two it was it was during my very very early years but when I had the tumor growing in my sacrum but I didn't know it was a tumor it was misdiagnosed for five years so I I have this severe excruciating pain in my back and nerve pain shooting down my legs the amount of people who told me like you know do you got to do you have to do reverse hypers that cures every back problem and I'm like and I have I have a reverse hyper in my gym think it's a great piece of equipment but I tried it and it would make the nerve pain a million times worse I didn't go telling everybody that's a bad exercise but nor did I continue doing it myself because Louis Simmons who I a guy that I respect you know and grew up like reading and listening to just because he said it cured his back problem I was like I don't know man I got something going on that when I do one rep of this exercise I'm in severe pain five years later they go oh yeah you have a tumor growing right in your sacrum and that's why that movement pattern would aggravate the hell out of that so if I would have just blindly listened to everyone you know it's just it would make no sense like there's that's where individuals matter you have to listen to your own body I always feel like the job the ultimate job of a personal trainer at the end of the day is to teach their client how to listen to the signals of their body and how to train exercise and eat for their optimal health because also here's anything that something you need to consider that people need to consider is that what's right for you now is not going to be right for you maybe not next year yes and so if you don't learn how if you you may get the right routine the right nutrition with your trainer or from you went online and your research and you might figure it out right now but if you still haven't learned how to listen to your body when that stops being right you may and I see this all the time you may hard headedly stick to well this worked for me before I'm just gonna keep doing this so actually now it's not working for you your stress is different your life is different this is not worth always felt like that was a job of a trainer was like well this is this is also one of the things that were we're battling even with our own marketing team right we're just discussing this before Joe got here that you know they want things so dumbed down and so simple that we can you know sell to everybody that's obviously they're fucking part of the job for us right and you know sometimes we're like okay well you know one of the things we do really well is is simplify really complicated things but we also don't want to treat our our clients and our people like they're stupid yeah educate them and teach them and so I think that's the fine line of being a really great trainers how do you take in and filter or disseminate some of this information that's really high level for the average person but then at the same time to not treating them like they're stupid and just pointing them to do this do that right yeah that what we're always trying to juggle ourselves and they just become order takers and you know if you want someone to have long-term success they have to be able to learn how to read these things for themselves otherwise it's always going to be listen to the next person in which case often times that information you know maybe wrong Joe one part of your certification talks about performance in the terms of speed and power and that kind of stuff what is the value if any of that kind of information or training for the average person like should the average person worry at all or or apply any of the things that you know that can contribute to them getting faster or more powerful yeah a hundred percent and I actually started my power presentation with that because as we you know we had close to 50 people at this cert but I think when I asked how many of you work with athletes that there was like five or six only it was really it was more of a you know general pop trainers that work with general pop so I wanted to make sure they knew the power stuff that I'm talking about you know where a lot of times I refer to athletes but this is all stuff that to a lesser degree this should be incorporated into you know your average Joe's training as well because we actually are our ability to display power I say you know powers like the ability to display your strength quickly that that quality we lose faster than any other quality that that kind of speed power the the ability to move dynamically and you know as you get older you slip you know we you think of it more in the context of maybe slipping falling or even just something as simple as wanting to play with your kids you know when you when when they're growing up you want to be able to go outside and play with them without blowing out your hamstring or an Achilles or something that you gotta end up rehabbing for you know a year how many how many people do you know that or like man I used to be able to just go out on the basketball court and play and then I did it this time and I blew out my Achilles like yeah you're forty seven instead of seven I feel like that was a fucking how long ago was that we're on here two or three now yeah but so we're fully recovered so what happened to me was it actually basketball yeah oh my god it's a good you we for the team you help prove no no no it's it's actually it's an incredible point and you know shit when it happened I was what I'm 30 it was 35 you know and I've been I would consider myself an athlete most of all of my life and you know I probably went on this strength training stent for quite some time and body building I was doing that for a while and I wasn't playing sports as much I was used to always being the guy who even in up into 30 I was playing in intramurals all the time and what happened was I came off of bodybuilding I came off my testosterone decided that I was going to completely quit and I was actually having a really hard time being motivated to go to the gym and work out so I thought well you know why don't I get back to playing ball because that's a love and passion and like an asshole I went out there and I remember the first day I was like let me just kind of fill it out like smart the first day you know warmed up kind of took my time and then a second day it was just I felt good you know and I was playing was playing well making my shots and just it was maybe 15 minutes in and it was over it seemed like nothing I was just I just made a layup was sprinting back on defense and that I pushed off to go back and there it went oh man that but then I didn't do any proper training to lead up to that and that is was such that I knew right away like what a dumbass like that's what I get for thinking I could just jump on the court in place still and I didn't put any I didn't lay any foundation to be out there doing anything explosive and it might my justification of going there was oh it's a pickup game I'm not going to be going but I know better I'm an athlete I don't have I don't have different speeds it's either nothing all out right I think it's so that's cool that you even share that because like that that helps so many people because you as someone who is a professional in this industry like it's it's not uncommon you did it like that's it's it's very common for someone to do that and you made a really good point earlier about even if you don't want to because I'm I'm probably not going to go play a pick up game of basketball I could give a shit yeah I'm not going to go whatever but you know I've had situations where I remember it wasn't this was let me see my son's 14 now so it was like 12 years ago where he was at the top of the stairs and he started to stumble and I just you know I grabbed the the railing and yanked on it and reached up and jumped up and grabbed him and pulled the entire left side of my body and I got him but that wasn't that was a time where I needed to call upon my yes and I was fit I'd worked out I lifted weights it wasn't like I was at a shape but I'd never trained or I never at that point I hadn't trained any kind of speed or power training it was all traditional strength training and then there was a situation where I had to call upon it which I mean you could be walking along the sidewalk and just step off the curb wrong exactly and I got a call upon it and so you make a very very good point that I know I neglected now what does that look like for the average person so yeah so here's the thing it and it doesn't have to look like one of my NFL guys workouts you know it doesn't have to be the the a major component of of your program but something as simple as you could you could get some of those benefits of dynamic effort or power training right in the warm-up you know if you you do your soft tissue work you whether that's a little foam rolling you know get a lacrosse ball mobilize those tissues do some mobility work then you activate the the weaker muscles and then during that CNS activation phase which we I feel like everyone regardless of your you know thoughts on warming up you should finish your warm-up with something that excites the CNS and that could be any kind of a med ball throw variation a jump variation a short sprint you don't have to go run in a hundred meters you know maybe you know ten yard sprint or a ten yard prowler push and and just build up like same thing first day you incorporate that you don't have to do a hundred box jumps nor should you it should when training for power it should always be quality and speed over quantity because once you start incorporating those type of movements like a box jump or a short sprint or a med ball throw here's the thing the the exercise itself doesn't determine the adaptation so you could like a box jump is considered an explosive movement but if you program it like an asshole like hello CrossFit you know I try to round you but you know and and and tell someone to do a hundred box jumps at the end of their workout in the shortest amount of time possible put the box away do jumping jack yes now it's now you're not improving your power potential you're not developing power you're just the only the the only adaptation you know is fatigue basically a sloppy box jump isn't going to help you like you said when you have to you slip off the curb and you have to call upon those fast twitch fibers those faster movements that's not going to help you but quality five sets of three box jumps or you know ten total box jumps at the at the end of your warm-up with a you know a couple seconds or 30 seconds rest in between each jump quality jumps sprints med ball throws incorporated and added over time increase the volume over time work your way up that's going to help I don't even do that much I'll give you like a you know so my squat warm-up is is pretty similar every single time I get into it I had to have to do my 90-90 variations get my hips all nice and warm I do my wall test stuff which is to get my shoulders in a good retracted position I do my combat stretch to get the soft tissue work going on in my ankle mobility and then I do two rounds of three explosive jumps that's it and I'm like I'm ready to rock and roll that's yeah that's it's it's dependent it's it's again the goal if you're just using the power movement to excite the CNS and prime yourself for a squat workout same thing I would say ten total jumps would be fine anywhere from five to ten so two sets of three three sets of three is perfect if you want more like we have some full dynamic effort days with our athletes where we might finish the warm-up with an explosive movement but then run a bunch of sprints or you know do a bunch of med ball throws and then finish with some accessory strength work but again it just it's dependent on the the goal and the individual but bare minimum I think for your average Joe they would they would see tremendous benefits just by twice a week two three times a week at the end of your warm-up incorporate in some sprints jump some med ball I talked to you a little bit about you know training professional athletes and also like I remember we had Corey Schlesinger on another great coach that was talking about risk versus reward and also like with you know these power moves and also like like a power clean or a snatch or these like really sophisticated movements you know how valuable do you see those in terms of like training these professional athletes or is it something that you know you kind of reduce it down to the actual like nuts and bolts of we should be focusing on yeah I I I've had in my 25 years I've had like two or three athletes incorporate Olympic lifts into our programs I tend to steer away from them not because I think they're bad at all they could be amazing if coached properly but just again practical experience taught me that they just take too long for athletes to be able to you know handle that they you got to remember when I'm dealing with athletes they're playing football or playing baseball that that is their number one priority and that takes up a lot of energy reserve mental capacity the the weight room is just a thing a lot of them don't even like to do it they just know that it's helpful towards their sport it'll help it you know decrease their their injury potential and improve performance so it's they don't look at it like we do that for us it's a hobby we love we live in the gym if we could a lot of pro athletes are just doing it because it's part of their job so you don't have that intense focus you know that that a lot of outsiders think you may have also with me I don't have a lot of time a lot of times in my profession you know I made a name for myself early helping guys prepare for the NFL combine which I would get them for six eight weeks if I was lucky at the end of the college football season and and I would need to prepare them for all these events at the NFL combine and they're coming to me right after the season not a single football player ever came to me healthy like every single one of you're not teaching a snatch in that amount of time no no shot like I got six weeks to get big-time results make a change in this guy's body am I going to teach him a snatch or can I have him hold dumbbells and tell him to jump on a box you know or run some sprints or throw a med ball I could I could start making changes in that in that athlete's body day one get an actual training effect day one as opposed to our we're going to snatch a broomstick this week and then we're going to do the barbell I just don't have time you know that that's really the only reason why I don't incorporate them more what you're saying about speed and power training is really it you know few times on the podcast where I hear something and it really turns on a light bulb for me but it makes perfect sense it's something I should have under I should have known and I can I tend to learn this lesson a relearn this lesson over and over again through my own career of working out and training people but the old adage probably the most probably oldest most widely known you know saying in fitness is you don't use it you lose it yeah and totally true with speed if you don't train it I don't you can do all the strength training in the world you're going to lose some of that ability it's so funny Joe this morning no joke swear to God's true story this morning I go across the street to get some water and I'm coming back to cross and I'm jaywalking right so I'm going no there's no sight there's no crosswalk I'm coming back and a car's coming at me real fast I sprinted I'm not exaggerating from here to the door that's it boom boom I was like oh shit my hamstring you know and I work out my legs pulled a you know three four times a week you know and I tell you guys well I would argue that someone in your in your case is probably almost at more risk than someone who's completely deconditioned because you've trained so much more strength you have more output yes sprint yes but you don't sprint so it's like they're like Olympic sprinters pull hamstrings and muscles way more than your average like fat chubby kid you know running sprints at gym class right because they're there they their outputs are so low and they're so slow you know they could run 1040 our dashes and be fine but have you seen bolt run you know ten hundred meter dashes back to back like he's gonna pull something it's just his muscles are so explosive and the outputs are so high you know those contractions are so fast and violent it doesn't matter how well trained is that that's just stressful on your body that's part of why I think my Achilles one was I had just came off of all this power and strength training and I had done nothing no none of my mobility athletic work at all and I think I just and I didn't think it was much I didn't think I was exploding that hard but that's just it is just you've been training so much that it does not take that much and you can buy away I just I just compared Saudi Usain Bolt I'm not going to go with that almost that's too much but you much for Zika you also came off the testosterone when you did that yeah also it was for sure like the perfect storm and it's such an ass whole move but like Joe says in the reason why I share that is like hey I have all this knowledge I know better and I still I still it still happens to me you know so stressing that to everybody else how important this yeah so Joe you think for the average person or let's say for someone like me incorporating you know two or three sets and of course progressing and being appropriate with it but doing two or three sets of some type of speed or explosive type movement appropriately a few days a week probably will yield would probably yield me tremendous benefits I would imagine a hundred percent I would I would almost guarantee it and here's the here's the other hidden benefit what I feel like nobody ever talks about if you are just like a meathead someone someone who listens to this podcast that's more into training for aesthetics and I think I might one of my early podcast I might have talked about this but like the dynamic the dynamic effort method for hypertrophy most people just think it's exclusive to athletes right like at West Side Barbelly Louis Simmons really popularized you know doing like 10 sets of two reps in the squat with 50% of your max and just working on that speed or eight sets of three with a barbell bench press with with 50 60% of your max if you're if even if hypertrophy is your only goal incorporating that type of training if you did something like that because I've done it if you normally start your say you start an upper body workout or a chest workout with a barbell bench press if you started with six sets of three dynamic effort benches so if you could bench 300 pounds put 150 165 on the bar warm up first obviously go through your warm up but then do three reps as fast as you can and anywhere from five to eight sets you take about 30 seconds rest in between each set then rest a minute or two and then go into whatever your normal hypertrophy bench press sets were guarantee you will either you'll you'll lift heavier and or more reps than you would normally lift with a given weight it's almost almost guaranteed so you can actually put on more you know pack on some more muscle by incorporating I would agree that what do they call is that post activation potential post activation potential yeah and that's a proven thing yes 100% percent proven thing normally with when they talk about the the PAP it's more doing something heavier yeah and then lighter so like a heavy squat and then pair that with a vertical jump an unresisted vertical jump but you get that same type of effect by doing something dynamic because your your CNS you want it you want it to mimic the the movement though that you're going to do so if you were gonna squat I would do I would do some jump training first if you were gonna do a barbell bench press I do some dynamic effort barbell benching which is lighter weights and if you had bands like the most I ever I always wanted to bench 225 for 30 I was never a big endurance guy and that's that's a combine test even though it's a bullshit combine test it's one one of the things they have to do but the I've done it twice in my life and both times is when I warmed up with dynamic effort benching first with bands I love you because when we a while ago when we talked about how to incorporate an explosive movement with a traditional kind of grinding strength movement that's exactly how we communicated it do it do the explosive movement first and then we actually had some push back because people say no no no reverse is a reverse and we said actually you know we've noticed they both they both I know that's another it's another dumb thing people argue do you do the heavy lift first and the unresisted movement or the dynamic lift first or the dynamic movement and then they both work on them both they both have their benefits for sure and do you apply that in the the combine like if you have your athlete going there dude do they do like some kind of PAP beforehand yeah because here's the combines like it's like set up for the athletes not to do good like you guys they they they keep these guys up for interviews they'll they'll interview with teams until two to thirty in the morning and then they wake them up at five no breakfast they have they have to go through a full body MRI even if you don't have any injuries you got to lay in an MRI machine and they take MRIs of your shoulders your low back so to make sure you're not lying about any previous injuries so imagine that you know no sleep then you got to go laying in that you sit in a doctor's office for an hour then you're in an MRI machine for an hour then they take you right to the barbell bench press and this is after you know performing the previous day and you know you got to do the 225 bench test and the last couple years I worked with guys they just had one warm-up bench set up with 135 so I would try to figure out a way to hack that because I always the trick we initially used was work up to 315 for one or two and then go back down for your 225 test you know just low reps working up higher to get that that post activation potential effect but then they they only allow 135 warm-up so instead of having that my guys go up there and just do what you'll see what most of the the athletes they go up they do 135 for 10 and then they go do their 225 bench test I told my guys just jump in every other guy do a set of three as fast as you can then let the other guy go jump in three jump in so do dynamic effort as fat try to if pretend like there's 500 pounds on the bar and just do three reps sets get your nervous system all jacked up and then 225 won't feel so heavy after going from you know 135 and I had the like Brian Cushing we've had guys that had the best bench at the NFL Combine a number of years using that technique you were with Brian yeah I've been working with Brian since he's 14 oh yeah he's one of my one of my best friends he's a strength assistant strength coach with the Texans now I retired last year and now he's in it's cool because now he's in this industry but um yeah he was like I I a lot of the trainers asking me yesterday like you know how do you break in and and you know how do you get your first client and Brian's a great example because I when I first started I trained three kids from Bergen Catholic High School which was my old high school which Brian went to my high school obviously is a lot younger than me but when nobody knows who you are like I was like listen you have to go out there and do shit your people aren't gonna pay you before they know who you are you have no reputation you know no experience so you're gonna have to do stuff for free in the beginning I trained a bunch of kids from Bergen Catholic for free they all transformed you know kind of did great with me started telling all their friends then it you know they happen to be friends with Brian he came in one day loved it and I ended up training him from his sophomore year in high school through a nine-year NFL career so tell me when you see when you see someone like Brian because he's a freakish athlete can do you know right away can you tell yeah him I did him I did but he he you know at 15 you could tell he was a freak but then he also you know grew like three four inches from you know his sophomore year in high school to junior year and then you're like oh wow this dude is like like a lot of it his work ethic is was is was unlike anyone I've ever trained to complete savage in the weight room and training in meticulous with his nutrition like he was very into everything but also there that genetic component where like he he just he was like a little safety his sophomore year in high school and then he grew four inches and he became the number one ranked linebacker in the country as a as a high school junior and senior was it you then who so I don't know if you guys know this or not but I believe he was the first ever to do this I've at least I remember the first I watched almost every NFL draft and I remember they highlighted this when he was drafted jumping out of the pool was he was who someone else did that before him yeah because and we I put a viral video up of him doing a 250 pounds he did a 64 over the hurdle yes that was my gym that was my remember watching that video no shit that's my gym that was the highlight of the drafts I remember that was his big that was like a big viral video is someone else did the pool jump that I can I remember it but I can't remember who it was but Brian was the hurdle oh yeah I remember it was crazy yeah that was what it was six few something ridiculous 64 inches one step one step at 250 pounds which makes it you know more impressive that doesn't make any sense how you know because you have access to or you've worked with I should say some of the highest performing athletes and you know in in various sports maybe you can explain the difference that genetics plays I know training and nutrition plays a big difference but you know we'll get questions where people like well you know if I trained real hard and took all the steroids would I be able to be Mr. Olympia or would I be able to like how like how it's almost like there's different species of humans yeah I've had a lot of tough conversations with parents trust me that you know bring in little Johnny and say like he's going to be the next Michael Jordan or the or the next Brian Cushing at my facility and he it's and I am all for you know don't take no for an answer you know work hard don't give a shit what other people think but when it comes to professional sports there there are and there's there's always a couple exceptions to the rule but it's fun even some of those exceptions that they'll say like oh this guy's really small he's undersized for the NFL there's usually something more to it like if it's if he sure if you see the dude in person he's probably one of the most jacked guys you've ever seen you know like there's always something that and that's a great way to put it they're just a different it's just like yeah a different freaking species of human like the NFL linemen their joints are bigger their hands are bigger you know I would have kids come in and be like oh Dave deal plays for the Giants he I could bench more than him but I'm like yeah all right that's one thing you can do better than he's six foot seven three hundred fifteen pounds like and you might bench more than him but if he literally touches you he will launch you across the room with his leverage and his skill so yeah like genetics are the one thing that none of us could could teach you know none of us can improve upon we haven't figured out a way yet and that that does play a huge part because I've worked with you know I've worked with some man more than I could even mention or remember but like kids that worked their asses off worked way harder than any pro athlete I trained but they still didn't make it you know like and it's and you want to see them make it but they just they're like normal humans like us and they just don't have that that genetic factor which is a real thing I remember what I used to do Brazilian jiu-jitsu and I did it for a while and then I remember this new guy came in and he was 320 pounds six foot four big dude and he was a pro Canadian pro football player so he played for the Canadian leagues or whatever and I remember this big dude knew no jiu-jitsu knew nothing about Brazilian jiu-jitsu all he did was play football this guy was doing cartwheels and fucking flips and then at one point we were laughing about how athletic this guy was we went out to the parking lot and to watch a 300 and something pound man run faster than anybody you've ever seen run before in person no it doesn't make any sense Justin was there when we closed down the the sanatrisian coddle gym and that time game yeah that was back when Isaac Sapa waga was playing for the Niners who else was there Manny Lawson yeah I'm trying to remember all this but they had five guys and I think only two of them were starters that came down I had to cover Isaac yeah bullshit yeah had Manny Lawson right okay who caught an alley over the top of my head and dumped it on me but you watch the part that was crazy about where they were there were five football players and being a basketball player you can just you can see the way someone plays if that's their sport or not and you I could tell that this was a basketball it wasn't pretty but they were so fucking athletic that they just destroyed us yeah and I remember watching alignment you know that was 307 pounds sprint at the court faster than me catch the ball and then go up and dunk it and just being like yeah holy shit this is crazy and then shoot a three from half court yeah make it just they're just playing with us so Joe do you are you because you train so many professional athletes and you're around that are you the type of trainer who because of that you can like you don't really watch too much sports or are you just as fascinating are you like a hardcore football fan are you watching sports like crazy and into who's who's who's what yeah I think the biggest difference what once I got into the industry was more I would watch the players not so much the game like I'm not watching the game hoping you know the Giants win or lose as much as I'm rooting for the players on the team that um that um guys that I've that I've trained and that was the biggest difference for me it's weird I grew up 10 minutes from Giant Stadium and but I grew up a Redskins fan I for whatever reason they were good when I was young and I just got really into them and I was a diehard Redskins fan but then when I had my little storage closet gym I had one guy from the Giants come and then it was to and next thing you know at one point I had like 11 or 12 guys from the New York Giants training in my little storage closet gym and that's you know it was just weird because I went to watch a giant Redskins game and I'm like how do I root for the Redskins like you know and so that's that was that's like 2003 the shift was made of now I just watch and see how my individual guys do when you see like the like I mean I've been watching sports since I was a young kid and it it fascinates me how much the evolution just in like two decades has been like watching these that's I mean I don't know if you saw the highlight of Tyree Kill from last week he was like behind you know maybe 10 15 yards behind somebody who picked the ball up and was running the opposite direction caught up yes it was clocked at like 25 freaky yes that's fucking insane yeah it's insane and that's why I think one of the most annoying things since I got into this industry training more pro athletes and I don't like going to the game I rather just watch from home is like hearing the people in the stands yell like you suck right it's like you have no freaking idea how how much more you suck I don't care the worst performance ever by a quarterback or you know the third string quarterback comes in and everybody's yelling that he sucks and it's like that kid who is probably all-american in high school the best athlete you've ever seen in your life you're up here drinking a beer and eating a hot dog you're the one who sucks when I go to when I would go to UFC fights and I hear him in the crowd yeah that just throw a punch yeah just get up I gotta do just gotta hit them right yeah Joe what's your favorite part of what you do you've worked with athletes you certified you know hundreds of thousands of trainers now you you know what is your favorite part of what you do today I think seeing kind of living vicariously through those trainers like I mentioned the you know trainers that took our original certification course seven eight years ago that were working at other gym like the second or third trainer at a you know a commercial gym and now that they they own their they own three facilities of their own and I mean we we have we have a couple screenshots on our our cpps website of one of our coaches that took a picture of his first gym and he said hey open this gym after it was a picture of his gym and it said after taking cpps level one and he had he had started his own business opened his own gym and then there's this picture of this beautiful house and I was like what the hell is that and he said after taking cpps level to finally bought my own house I was like like that I still get goosebumps even just saying that um those type of success stories it used to just be the Brian Cushing's of the world a high school kid that I trained and then you watch him play in the college and then you watch him get drafted to the NFL make 50 million dollars and it's like wow I had not taking credit at all but like some little little small small you know peace in the background I kind of helped that kid achieve his his dreams and and help change his life a little bit and now we're able to do that with the sir um so whether it's it's a client that I train or a coach or a trainer that we help kind of fulfill their dreams that that's that's the rush that that I get and now that I've been in it longer the really cool thing for me is these guys that are you know making make they might not be multi-millionaires but like super successful and happy with with a 1000 square foot like garage or warehouse gym that they're but they have a hundred clients and they're training them and the amount of people that have come to me and said dude I didn't know it was possible to make a living like in a garage or a warehouse until I discovered your YouTube videos when I was 12 years old I remember watching you training all these pro guys in this dungeon of a gym thinking holy shit that's I didn't know that was a thing like I could do that and now they're like adults with kids that are you making a living doing something they love like to me I you can't you can't beat that well we we firmly believe that the trainers and coaches are the they're the backbone the real backbone of the fitness space are the ones that are we call them the soldiers the ones on the front line actually really doing the real changes really helping people in real long-term way so we really appreciate what you've done for as long as you've done it you know I know you've helped us you know we you before we ever start a mine pump and you're continuing to help people out and do the right thing so we appreciate you Joe thank you appreciate you thank you for letting us hold the cert here man that it was one of our best classes of the year and we owe it to you guys it's available and you let us know if you want to do another one down here we'd love to take you up on it thanks you thanks guys