The following is a conversation with Chris Duffin, the mad scientist of strength.
He's one of the strongest people in the world, but is also an engineer of some of the most
innovative strength equipment I've ever seen. Check out his company, Kabuki Strength.
He is the only person who squatted and deadlifted 1,000 pounds for multiple reps,
and achieved many other amazing feats of strength. He has lived one hell of a life
of hardship and triumph, as he writes about in his book called The Eagle and the Dragon.
Quick mention of our sponsors. Headspace, Magic Spoon, Sun Basket, and Ladder. Check them out
in the description to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that I was always a fan of
strength, both powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting, both as a fan and practitioner.
Mostly, I'm a fan of people who are willing to put in years of hard work towards finding out what
the limits of their body is, and then smashing past those limits. People like Chris Duffin,
or on the Olympic weightlifting side, people like Dmitri Klokov. That guy's great. This is why I love
watching the Olympics, both the heartbreaks and the triumphs. They all reveal the incredible heights
that the human mind and the human body can reach. This is the Lex Friedman podcast,
and here is my conversation with Chris Duffin. You've been a part of several incredible feats
of strength. Which was the hardest, or maybe one you're most proud of?
Definitely the one I'm most proud of is that journey for the grand goals. It was like a five-year
scope that I chased this. When you think about training, it took more than five years, obviously.
By that point, I'd been training for over 25 years. There were three distinct things that
I wanted to accomplish out of this. It was really thought out. This was my exit from
being a competitive lifter. Basically saying, hey, I'm going to be an Instagram lifter,
an exhibition lifter, or whatever. I've done this for 16 years as number one in the world for eight
years straight, all-time world records. I'm not going to do that anymore. What I want to do
is just something deep down to me that is really important. There's three things that
we're driving this. This is a five-year journey that I went through to do this.
I really wanted to showcase that you could do something that is well beyond the scope of what
people think is humanly possible. This inspiration thing, this grand over the top. If you set your
mind to a single-minded goal, you can go so much further. I didn't even say what the goal was up
front because it was so far out there, I would have been laughed at. I think big goals should be
kept pretty damn close to start with for that reason, too. Then the second piece was to walk
the walk to show the principles of what I believed in around human movement, the ability to manage
and control the spinal mechanics and the output that can have on the body. I wanted to take the
two most basic movements that every able-bodied person should be able to do, so fundamental
movement patterns. The squat, which is in the developmental approach is around nine months
as a baby from a developmental kinesiology standpoint, and a really basic pattern that
every able-bodied person should be able to master. The other one being the hip hinge,
being able to pick something up off the ground, a deadlift. I wanted to do those two,
not just one, because I wanted to show the principles that I wasn't built for one. I wasn't
a specialist because of my lever links, torso links, all that, any outliers, because nobody had
ever done a thousand-pound squat, so this is it, and a thousand-pound deadlift. It was outside of
the scope of what anybody, there's like half a dozen people that have done one or the other,
but nobody's ever done both. I wanted to do something unique. I wanted to do them, not only
do it, but do them for reps, to leave literally no question out there. There's no competition for
that. This is what I'm going to go do. To pull it off, I had some past issues with my elbows and
stuff that I couldn't work around, so I had to wear straps, which was another reason I couldn't
do it in the competition setting. The first year, I worked up and I did a thousand and two-pound
deadlift. Plates were weighed afterwards. It was a couple, a little bit over, and I did it for almost
three reps. That still stands as Guinness World Record, just the one rep does, is the most weight
ever sumo deadlifted. One other person has deadlifted a thousand for reps at this point,
and that was Thor Bjornsson from Game of Thrones. He's done a thousand for a double as well.
Then the next four years, and I did a bunch of feats of strength on the way, but it was all about
building that axial loading capacity, the strength that, because now I'm moving the weight from my
hands up to my shoulders. To do it for reps is so much harder than a single. Five to 10 seconds
versus 30 plus seconds to be able to buffer and manage all that with that kind of load is just
crazy. It's literally about the duration that your body is carrying the load.
Yeah, that's a big part of it. You're using the resource of the diaphragm for stabilization,
and so it's also responsible for respiration and all this other stuff. Even when you're not squatting,
you've got to be handling those loads. Just holding that weight is fascinating. It's fascinating
that the human body can do that, can maintain that structure, just everything working together,
that the biology, the skeletal structure, the musculature on top of that can hold the weight.
It's fascinating to watch. Everything is very intentful about positioning and how you're creating
pressure and all this sort of stuff, especially for me. When I mentioned that half a dozen people
have squatted it and half a dozen people have deadlifted it, you understand those people all
weigh 380 to 440 pounds. I weighed 265 to 285 depending on where I was between the two.
There's that as well. Big difference. Over the course of that, I did a lot of other
feats of strength that fit in that capacity. We can skip over those, but that was hugely
invested as far as what I put into being able to accomplish that because it's over the top,
which means the other stuff had to shift and I had to learn. There's so many things that came
into place to pull that off. Last March, two days before the world shut down, I did it. It was
supposed to be at the largest equipment exhibition in the world down in San Diego as an event.
That got shut down a week beforehand, obviously. We moved to, let's do it in my gym and invite
people. That was on a Saturday and Thursday or Friday, they limited it to 25 people for gatherings.
I did it on Saturday and then Monday, everything shut down. It was surreal for timing-wise. If
I hadn't done it, it would have never got done because I had pushed to the limit. I couldn't
come back and do it. It was at the total limitation of my capabilities. I'm pretty proud of it.
The last piece was every one of these feats along the way. I collaborated with a charity that I
believed in and there was a lot of those tied to my life story, which we'll probably get into.
It was threefold. That inspiration piece, inspiration, motivation, walking the walk and
showing just these methodologies that a guy that had to learn to walk again can do something like
this with no back pain. There is a way. The third one is to provide awareness and recognition around
a lot of key charities. Your heart was in this journey, but also your mind. You're a scholar
of strength, a scientist of strength, an engineer of strength. For reps, do 1,000 pounds of squat
and deadlift. Let's first talk through the actual day you did it. What does it take to
lift that much for reps? The day of is really easy. The lift itself,
other than a few seconds, is really easy and not challenging. People always ask me,
what was it like? How beat up were you after that and the deadlift? The simple fact is it was easy.
The work to get there was horrendous. Even the psychology of the day,
there was not a fear. There was not a nervousness. There was not a doubt in your mind.
There were certainly doubts on that day from some training history. There was some major
breaks to my confidence in the couple months leading up where I had issues with passing out
under the bar. Completely losing consciousness. This was on weight less than 1,000 pounds even.
That was all this buildup in me going, what if? I think I have this resolved,
but what if I get up there and I can't even do a rep? How embarrassing will this be that I've
been talking about this and planning for this for so long? Outside of that, I knew I could do it.
In fact, I wanted to do even more, even up to the second rep. Training is about working
into a fatigue state. You're building an amount of fatigue in your system, and then when you let
off of it, that's when you get a compensation. That's how you stair-stop training. This is
periodization, but leading into a big event, you're accumulating this massive amount of fatigue.
I was performing at a level that I could do it, and so I knew I was going to be able to on
meat because then you give yourself that window to be able to recover and supercompensate and be
able to do a little bit more. That first rep when I did it, strength-wise, I went, I could do this
for five reps. It went through my head. I'm like, it was easy, and it was fast, and it felt amazing.
And I'm like, I'm going to crush this. And then set rep two, the realization kicked in is like,
oh, this is for reps with 1,000 pounds on your back, and you're fatiguing just like,
and then the third one was every last thing I could muster to just finish. I mean, I just barely
got it done because the strength is there, but that capacity to be able to manage all those
resources for that amount of time, because not just leg strength when we're talking about this
stuff. What does it take to go from, I don't know, from 500 to 1,000? That feels like a journey
that's exponential. It gets exponentially harder. It does. In the early 2000s, like I said, I started
Lyft in 1988, but my first meet in the early 2000s, my max deadlift was 523, and my first squat was
550. Guys, it's a heck of a journey. That is a journey. For people that like to lift,
what should they understand about the difference between doing 500 and 1,000?
In terms of the actual lift that you were experiencing that day, in terms of the mechanics,
in terms of all the things you have to be, like the neurological adaptation you mentioned,
the breathing, the core strength, like techniques, like little tricks, psychological tricks,
anything that kind of stands out to you. The level of intent and the opportunity for error
are at a different level. Just the minutest changes of position by quarter-inch, half-inch can be
make or break at that level. Everything gets amplified. The ability to start with having the
pelvis just in the right orientation to the diaphragm before we start initiating what we
call the eccentric loading of the abdominal cavity to create this intra-abdominal pressure of working
against this outward expansion, working against the outer sheath of abdominal thoracolumbar musculature,
obliques, causing the co-contraction at the pelvic floor, all this stuff and how you cue that,
because you can't think about all this stuff. You need to break it down and distill and practice
to like it's one simple cue that we now lock down and control this torso stability, because this is
what these fundamental movements are about, is being able to control our spinal mechanics and then
now be able to maintain that while articulating the joints around that through a range of motion
and then using the main power drivers. In this instance, both instances, it's the hip complex
to generate that power and transfer it from how we're rooted and connected to the floor
through to the distal end, which would be the barbell on the shoulder. There's a couple key
concepts. One is that what we just talked through is how to actually maintain that stability. If you
have either the diaphragm, which is connected at the rib cage, out of alignment in any position,
it needs to be in alignment with the pelvis. Those two in opposition. This is simple engineering
here, because what we're going to do is eccentrically load this. We're going to use the diaphragm,
just like you would in a diaphragm pump, where it's going to press down on all the tissue in
there. We're not using breath. Our breath was actually a lot of times a default pattern when
people do that, because they'll bring it into their chest and raise their rib cage. What we want to
do is just initiate the diaphragm. Air can be used as well over the top at the final to create
just a little bit more downward pressure. But if we have out of alignment there, we have a pressure
leak, where it's going to be pushed out the front or the rear if you're either inflection or extension.
And then that causes this co-contraction and all this pressure of the organs,
essentially outward against all those tissue for the co-contraction, as well as surrounding the spine
to be able to stabilize that. And then it puts all the muscles on both sides of the body in what
we call the best length tension relationship. So if you think about a curl and we reach our arm out,
at the extended length, our bicep is not as strong. And then all the way in the curl position,
it's not in strong. There's somewhere in here that's this control of both. And so when you're
sitting there arched or bent over, we have muscles that are past either one of those ranges. So
they've got a lot of tension, which then will create relaxation on the other side. So we want
to have, and all of that needs to be working. And now the next important thing is the foot.
So it's actually this connection to the ground and how we're actually using the foot and ankle
complex to grab and grip this connection to the ground and elicit an effect. And because of this
and then everything between will naturally kind of do what it needs to do. So people like to focus
on knee, knee position or how far out their hips are or all this other stuff, which is outputs of
this. So if we control the torso and the knee, the only thing that can happen from that point
is for the squat to happen. All right. So this allows us to use this massive
you know, the hip complex for all the muscles around that that are built to drive through
hip extension to complete the squat. I did actually miss one thing in there. So this torso,
people often miss the lat is a spinal stabilizer as well. So that's key in controlling function
at the TL junction, which is just above the lumbar spine. So kind of right opposite where your
sternum is, and you'll see people kind of roll over sometimes like in an Olympic squat or something
like that where they lose position. And that's often because they're close grip because you
can engage the lats very well that way, and they're pushing up in the bar. But you want to be able to
drive and pull the bar to your center. And that's going to create and use the lats now to drive
and connect the shoulder into this. And we're kind of compressing and tightening all this stuff
towards that center to create that entire torso stability. That's why I was using torso stability,
not just core stability. In my conversation earlier, torso stability. Okay, so there's
all these like modules, yeah, the body, then connected to the grounding with like your feet
on the ground, everything you're speaking to, how do you work each of those modules? Is this
over time you kind of develop the feel that ultimately boils onto this one simple cue that
you mentioned? Or do you can you like literally study each particular module in yourself and
see how it affects the lift? So the best way and I believe it's because I hate just like people
getting out and just doing just movement stuff and not actually adding load because we only adapt
when there's load. Maybe we can get some, you know, some proprioception or awareness of position
and other stuff doing some, some corrective patterns and other stuff. But this is basic
physiology is that there must be an imposed demand for us to have adaptation. And this is mental,
this is emotional, this is all these areas. But and people miss that. So I prefer to be able to
look at a person and this is our methodology and do the assessment in any basic loaded movement.
So with developing an eye for that, you can actually see and go, okay, we've got a fault pattern
right here in the foot and use a cue or a set of cues doesn't really matter till we find the one
that works and bring that. And now we know we want to simplify this stuff. I just walked through,
that sounds really complicated. And it is if we try to break down and distill it all, but like,
let's just find the basic stuff that gets us in the range, start working, and then find the next
as we add load. Now we find where's our next area that we're starting to fault that, and then go
there again next. So this is what we do what we teach in our educational platform. So we are the
only I believe, everybody wants to do a lot of these like assessments, you know, on a bench,
on a table body, and it's like, no, let's let's go squat, let's go deadlift. If you do strongman
in a CEO carry, let's go carry, because these are basic human fundamentals, it's not powerlifting.
Like this is how we function. This is why we, we work with 29 of the 30 Major League Baseball
teams and 90% of all professional sports out there in North America. Sorry, although we do some
work with Tour de France and other stuff as well. And North America, I do mean hockey too.
But these principles of like, you know, if the Dodgers won't bring us in, they're not learning
how to powerlift, you know, we're gonna, obviously we'll probably be do, we do a little bit more
shoulder focus than hip focus with their athletes, or their coaches, we're usually working with
coaches, not the athletes. And so you help them. And then the same thing on yourself, to understand
the role that these different muscle groups have on the holistic. Yeah. So it's all about
getting the joints in the appropriate position, so that we can, that we can manage loads so that
we're not putting undue stress in the joint, we're getting the proper link tension, we're
getting these basic fundamental things with the body. And so the, the largest global impact that
you will have is through spinal mechanics, I can't look at a shoulder, if I'm not managing this,
because it's your spine. So for those that are just listening, like I'm arching and then, and
then flexing, that's going to affect shoulder extension, flexion, all these sorts of things.
So it could even affect things down on what's looking at dorsiflexion issues on the foot,
like, and then that's why I go to the foot next, because it has the second largest global impacts.
And then from there, now I'm going to look at the big energy drivers, which is the hip complex,
shoulder complex. And then we can start looking at kind of the peripheral things, but usually
that's some sort of output of the other, but the knees, the elbows, the things like that.
So it's all about getting the stack, which affects neurology. So let's talk to engineering terms.
You get in a car, modern car today, and a lot of them will have this traction control button in
there. And there's a big misconception that, you know, I'm out and it's snowy or here in Austin,
only rainy, well, it probably doesn't rain much, but you're going around a corner, start slipping,
it's like, oh, it's going to send the powers from the wheels that are slipping to the ones that are
gripping and keep me from crashing and dying a fiery death. Well, that's not how it works.
It's the exact same. We've got, we've got the, we've got the tires, which are our foot, you know,
the connection to the ground, right? We've got the power driver, which is, you know, the,
the engine, the transmission delivering, you know, the power through it. And we've got the
stability or suspension. And then we have the neurology. And what the neurology is doing,
it's sensing that we don't have good stability or loss of connection somewhere. And so I need
to save you from crashing and hurting yourself. And so it goes to the engine and says, let's retard
the timing, let's reduce the shift patterns, and we're just reducing the power output.
And that's straight how the human body works. So when I do this stuff, it's actually affecting
that. I mean, I can take somebody and do some minute changes with the neck position at the
thoracic outlet. Okay. And immediately see an enhancement in power output. And I can measure
it. We measure this stuff with velocity devices and see like a 10%, boom, jump. And so if you
think about that, what about all your training through the years where you actually had additional
capacity, but you weren't using it because your traction control was on. Now you figure this out
stuff. And now you start stacking it. Now you can see so much greater. So it's not just
injury prevention. This is performance and additive performance over time. This is huge. And people
don't really think about this stuff. But we can turn that stuff off, which is actually going to
also again, make us make us safer. But what we want to do is the performance tune race car.
Do they have a traction control button? No, they got some amazing tires to grip the ground
performance tuned suspension. And that driver is going to put what his foot to the metal,
he's going to put it to the floor. Okay, that's a performance vehicle. That's what we want to be.
I want to continue on that line. But first I have to ask, like, how did it feel to accomplish
your grand goal? Oh my God. Okay, when you just stand back, 1000 pounds for reps, what do you
feel like? Anybody can go watch the video online. It's well filmed, by the way, got me all excited.
Oh, well, the movies. So we actually have the final footage of that, the good footage not posted
yet. So it's literally just an Instagram video or a phone video right now. They're the only one
online. Yeah, it's on your YouTube channel, but it's dramatic. Yes, it is. Yeah, came out just
time to the music perfectly too, which is I listened to some odd music, which there's some reason
behind that. Okay. But I like it though. It was great. It does work. You're saying there's full
length footage. There's a documentary that's, it's got a little slowed because of COVID because
it's also a backstory of The Eagle and the Dragon, my book about why I do kind of the things that
I've done in my life or that's what I'm assuming the director is working on. I don't really have
the control of the movie, right? But okay, the video is okay. How did it feel? How did it feel?
I started crying. It was overwhelming to have worked so intensely and so long and hard at
something that pushed every ounce of me to the limit that and, and I did it. I'm so I'm getting
a little emotional. I did exactly what I said I was going to fucking do. Like, and it was,
it was overpowering. I mean, I was just crying uncontrollably, just with a mixture of, I,
I don't know what the mixture of emotions is hard to explain
because it was the completion of something. It was a new phase of middle eight.
I mean, there's so many things here. So one, you set an impossible goal and you accomplished it.
One, two is like on the broader humanity aspect, like how many humans in this world accomplish
perfection in a particular direction required to do this. So like, you're basically representing
like one little like, like little glimmer of excellence of the human spirit.
There's always more to understand this. This is a basic fundamental. You can always
do better. There is no such thing as perfection. You could always, there is always more. So anytime
you reach something, any amazing workout or accomplishment in life, could you have put
more into it? Could you? Yes. But here's the thing. I left on my terms.
I said, this is it. I'm going to work towards, I've been training for 30 years. I'm going to do this
thing that is like, I couldn't even say that I was going to do it years before. I'm going to do it
and then I'm done. I didn't leave from an injury. I wasn't forced. I wasn't, I left on, I did exactly
what I said. I went to a level that I left on my terms and that's unique because that's usually
not the case. Usually you kind of either taper out or it doesn't matter. I'm talking like anything
in life in general, right? You taper out, you fail, you hurt, you lose. Something,
you know, you're rolling to retirement. You accomplish something truly great and you walked
away in your own terms. Is there a sadness completing something like that? Because it's
in one perspective, the greatest thing you'll ever do. And when you accomplish such a great
height, in some sense, you have to face your mortality at that point.
So good question, but it is certainly not the greatest thing that I'll ever do.
The greatest physical strength I'll ever do. There's always more.
The greatest physical, yes. But that was an expression of some of my values and the way
that I want to live. It was a way of expressing it. So understanding that is hugely fundamental
because we do see so many athletes get to the end of a career and then they fall into
a depressive state and struggle with drugs, alcohol, depression and so on because
they lost how they identified themselves and trying to figure out where to turn what to do,
but a big central component of their identity is lost. So I knew that this was one way to express
that and my grand goals have shifted. They're shifted to other outlets that allow me to express
that. Like my companies, Kabuki Strength, I'm going to change the face of fitness as well as
all the way through with its integration with clinical medicine and telemedicine. And I got
another five years before even people see what I'm working on five years in right now because I had
to invent equipment. I have to develop methodologies that we're talking about. I had to do this stuff
that ground layer wasn't done to create a cohesive ecosystem of training methodology tied
to the tools that we're using today to the environment tied to, the clinical practice
assessment tied to the interaction between all those and how that actually needs to be reframed
because so much of this is broken. But there is sadness. I won't deny that. And the sadness comes
in the singularity of focus that I had at that time, the being in the process. Not necessarily
doing it, but like having, being in this place that the rest of the world kind of fell away
for me in those final phases to have something so intense, to have a team around me so focused on
supporting. And like, it took me a couple months after that squad, I finally one day I woke up and
I was like, oh, welcome back to the world. Like I was in such a mental fog. Like I was,
it took me a while to climb out of that, but that space, that level of intensity and drive and
living and being in that space, I do miss that. But I also, I can't continue that. I couldn't
continue. Like, there's a point of like, you push it so hard, the level to try to go from there is
not acceptable for what you, the impacts that'll have on your life or how you want to live. And
it was taking away those final, like, I had to do extreme things and live in an extreme way to,
to get there. You're just a genius in this whole space of strength and health and almost like
biology, that this strength fee is just one representation of that. But this particular
strength fee required that kind of singular focus, which I think, I don't know, there's
something beautiful about that singular focus that's often only truly perfect in athletics.
I see it with the greatest Olympic athletes as well. The kind of singular focus required
there is incredible. It's somehow some of the most beautiful things that humans can do.
And it's not just that thing. So that's the thing. It's like, oh, that must be,
when we say singular to focus, it's not like, here's it, because it, it covers a vast array of
stuff. Like I was working with people, you know, all, well, yeah, all around North America,
I wouldn't say anybody around the globe, but professionals coming in, working on different
aspects of rehab and, and recovery. And like, I mean, I'm tapping all sorts of stuff in so many
platforms from nutrition to drugs to, again, like, you know, various Chinese medicine, you know,
as far as, you know, humans in your life, love and positivity and just inspiration,
all those kinds of aspects. I mean, you probably would have done much more if you
went outside North America and talked to some Russians, just between you and I, some Russians.
Possibly. They give you some, I don't know, those, there's some incredible strength
athletes in Eastern Europe. Absolutely. I've got the best one coming in September to get fixed.
So what do you mean by fixed? So I'm not sure what his particular issues are. But
he has held the all time world record repeatedly for a long time, and he hasn't competed for some
time. And he just reached out saying, he would like to come and have me take a look and see if
I can get him fixed because it's the return. Okay. So it's more injury centric versus like form and
fundamental centric combination of everything. Everybody always wants to focus on the output.
How do you, how do you give me the fix for that? But it ties right back into all those other things,
right? So, but yeah, the Eastern, the Eastern Bloc continued to be a dominant force in regards to
athletics and strength athletes without a doubt. Some of my big rivals in my competitive days were,
that's who it was. Rivalry brings out the best in us. Can you tell me the story of your childhood?
It's definitely outside the scope of the norm. Well, today, maybe not 150 or 200 years ago,
but my parents, highly intelligent, you know, people coming out of the Bay Area,
my mom was, you know, going to school to be a chemical engineer. She was a top,
top student athlete, graduated every school. My father was a member of Mensa. My stepfather was
just a genius, but not able to really function in society. But my mom was, you know, she had
some demons and some other stuff and just, she just said one day, she's like, I just don't want to be
part of society. She still isn't, lives out in the desert, but has her minds, but she wanted to
figure out a way to make a life outside of that. And so that's where we ended up is up in the
mountains in Northern California. And a lot of that was, you know, them trying to get into successfully
growing marijuana, which back in that, you know, wasn't legal back then, highly illegal.
And in fact, those areas were some of the areas where it lived were quite dangerous. So there's
a documentary murder mountain that came out recently. If you watch that, you'll tie into my book.
Just the understanding of the stuff that I was talking about dealing with serial killers,
human trafficking, police corruption, murderers, like just how real that stuff is if it doesn't
capture you from the book. Okay. The book, by the way, is the Eagle and the Dragon.
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a terrible salesperson. Like I told you.
But a good, it's a good title. I don't know if you came up with it, but I did. Yeah. So yeah,
we'll talk about that anyway. We're living by a stream, you know, off a meadow. There's no roads
into where you have to hike in. And we've got beams lashed into the trees up above us, because
that's where our bedding is, because there's rattlesnake dens all around. And six years old,
I'm being taught how to capture and handle live rattlesnakes, because that's what I need to do
to be safe. And you can imagine six years old sitting there with a live rattlesnake in your hand,
grabbing it, you know, by the side of the head, controlling so it can't, can't bite you. And
it's just wrapping itself around your arm. And you're staring like it's only intent is
right then is to kill you. Like that's it, right? You want to take a bath. It's filling up the
jug in the stream and setting it out on the rocks during the during the sun. So you dump it over
your head. And, you know, not all the living was that way. You know, good part was similar to that
tent living, living in a 16 foot trailer with a family of six, which is not much bigger than
the space that we're sitting here. So we're talking hard winters with feet of snow on the ground,
nowhere to go. I'm living in the back of the pickup truck in a just a standard sleeping bag
that we get from the Salvation Army, not the not the blow zero. So I'm, I'm not sleeping well.
There's living in homes that were maybe condemned. There's no doors even on them. No electricity
or running water or one or the other, both and sometimes a little bit better by the time we
got to high school. We had a mobile home. So my stepfather had won a disability payment because
he had a broken arm that whole time from accidents a long time ago and finally got an award and got
a down payment on this mobile home that didn't have, again, doors on the inside. It did have
running water. It did have electricity. It didn't have a kitchen. You know, the windows would crank
closed and open, but they wouldn't close all the way. So the trim them in with plastic to be able
to try to protect from the elements. That was my environment, like learning how to forge for
mushrooms. I mean, there were summers I would send and my parents would be out. They were in the
drug trade earlier. We got taken by the, by the police and put into foster care for a while,
which ties into some of the stories with human trafficking. And honestly, it's in my book,
but it's really hard for me to talk about that stuff. And obviously not all that's in the book.
But they got us back, moved to Oregon, and they stayed out of the drug trade from that time to
ensure that they didn't lose us again, but quickly we kind of fell back into the same thing. So at
that point, it was learning about geology and starting to do mining and firewood cutting,
but mostly the mining because Pat's broken arm chains all made a little tough.
If you remember just the sequence of moments,
do you, are you haunted by the, the darker moments of your childhood? Do you remember
moments of simple joy and happiness? Outside of the living around dangerous people and the
interactions that came from that, we were a family. Like we were a cohesive unit battling
against the world together. We spent all our time together, work, play. I was there. I was helping
raise my, my siblings or I was working with them. And, you know, it was a constant. Like I said,
we were very physically active. So, you know, I had that in my upbringing. Pat plugged for my
shoe company Barefoot, B-E-A-R. I ran around the wilderness and bare feet all the time,
you know, but it was, I had a lot of great moments and I'm thankful for a lot of that
childhood once we take out the trauma, the other stuff associated with it, right? And so
the connection that I have with my sisters is, is, is huge. That goes a bit further to,
because I am kind of like a little bit of a father figure because I was at home raising them. And
then later I took custody of them while I was going to school because the environment at home
deteriorated further. Their stepfather, like I said, was, he wasn't capable of managing life and
my mom had a mental breakdown and took off to Montana and he descended into madness even worse.
Actually took my, my 13-year-old sister and kicked her out in the middle of winter,
a couple feet of snow on the ground because he thought she stole his favorite cereal bowl.
Um, type. So yeah, that's when I took in and I was going to college,
putting myself through college and I started taking custody of my sisters and raising them. So
anyway, we're still like very, very tight family. It took, there was a few years later in life, like
that the connection with my mother was kind of broken. I didn't speak to her for years because
of her basically abandoning my sisters and me having to come in, but that we've worked through
that as best we can. So you anger on your part? It wasn't, there might have been some anger.
Did you always love her? Yes, and I still do and I'm so, she's taught me basically everything I know
about strength and perseverance and living life on your terms and being able to create that and so
much of what I am is from that, right? We've all had to learn to be okay with the way she is because
she is just blunt, but you know, she's the one that figured out that the human trafficking situation
and got the DA involved and got all the, she's the one that I've learned a lot from her. Did you
inherit some of the demons? Almost certainly and it's something I've continued like in my father's
side has been really tough on that because some of it is just based genetic as well. So my step
father made I think six or seven attempts on his life during his lifetime. One of those in front of
me, his mother blew her head off with a shotgun. Her brother jumped out a window in LA, their father
did something similar and I don't know how far back it goes because there is no family except
for me and my children. You spoke about going through depression yourself. Yeah.
Can you talk about some of the darker moments of that? Have you ever,
like many in your family, have you ever considered suicide? Yes, I have. Yes, I have.
You've achieved a lot of exceptional things in your life. Can you talk about those early days
of depression and how you overcame it? Yeah. So the things that I did that people give me accolades
for are the things that I did selfishly to save myself. The things like taking custody of my sisters,
being the person that everybody around, you know, the important people relied on, the fact that I
had to step to the plate and be present and be that person because if I failed, they failed.
They would be like the people that I grew up with that are dead or in prison
or on drugs and they're either way to one of those, right? That's where everybody ended and I wasn't
going to let that happen. What about saving yourself? And so that's how in those early days,
that's how I did it. Not saying it's the best approach, but it was survivor mentality. It was,
it was, I can't selfishly do that because I have them to take care of, right? And then that continued
where I would keep putting myself in these leadership roles or other things and there's
always being this person that was at the center at the hub that forced me to be there. And so
it's only in the more recent, you know, last decade or so that I have had to really learn
how to come and start confronting some of those demons. And you think, man, why is the guy so
successful? Like, I mean, and we haven't talked about all the stuff that I've done, but like,
I've seen a lot of success in both business leadership, athletics, academics, entrepreneurship,
all these sorts of things, right? But if it wasn't for, you know, having kids and the same
being in the position I wouldn't be here. And that's just, that's the reality of it. And I'm
learning to, to come and manage those as best I can, learning to meditate into those things and
really feel what the driver is so I can get to those, those root understanding and, and having
some guidance doing so, like, if you've got mental health issues, this isn't something that you need
to tackle on your own, like having a professional that can help guide you on that introspective
journey is, is something like, it's not like, Hey, I'm big tough guy, I can handle everything.
You know, that's fascinating that you saved yourself. That's quite powerful to save yourself
by having others depend on you. And so you can't fail, you can't fuck it up. And that's a reason to
keep moving forward. But on the flip side, that's not addressing the darkness. It's not. And it
probably not a sustainable strategy either, right? So I recognize these things. I don't know. And
perhaps it is sustainable, perhaps that I mean, there's something beautiful about
giving yourself basically in service of others, and thereby creating purpose.
And then like, it's almost like, fake it till you make it. And then you make it eventually.
Yeah, that is purpose, though. That is purpose. That is purpose. I mean, you have to, to me,
life is about taking your cup and how you choose to pour it out, how you choose to give. What is
your purpose? What is that connection with everybody around you? This is, that's, that's the
intent. That's the life. That's, that's what life is about. How are you going to help those around
you? How are you going to help the world? You know, your purpose is right here, figuring out what
this is. And then how to do that. But at the same time, you can't let that run dry. So you have to
make sure that you're filling that cup. That's the other side, right? That's the other side.
We'll return to your engineering degree, which you're obviously scientifically
engineering minded, which is fascinating. Your book is titled The Eagle and the Dragon.
What do the eagle and the dragon symbolize?
There are pretty big symbols for me, in fact, that covers my entire body as a tattoo. So the
first one I had done at around 19 years old, man. So this is, or started at 19. It's an eagle that
covers my entire front, you know, my stomach, rib cage, and, and one that was on my back that
covered most of my back. And there's chained at the, well, at the claw, I guess. And the chain
wraps down around and attaches to my ankle. And there's a shackle there. And so this was
something that I had done at that age, because it was, to me, it was a representation of your
potential, your strengths, your abilities that you can fly to whatever height that you want in
this world. The only thing holding you back at the end of the day is yourself. And this was,
obviously, I hadn't necessarily accomplished a whole lot at that time. I mean, I was valedictorian
for high school, small high school. Does that even count? I was a state level wrestler.
This was my belief. And you sense that there was a potential in you. And the only thing they could
stop you from realizing that potential was yourself. That's right. That's a heck of a tattoo
to get, by the way, at 19. But yeah. About 40 hours went into that thing.
It shows you got some guts. And then the next tattoo. So I only have two. I had done in 2015,
2016, when I, so at this point in my life, so I had done that, I had flown to whatever heights,
right? So I had, I had proven to myself and maybe done what I thought I needed to do to show the
world that this poor kid from the sticks, this kid growing up in the mountains with nothing
could achieve the American dream. I was a corporate executive sought after that I'd come in,
I'd fix companies, I'd turn around and prep them for sale. I'd take a company and grow it from a
regional to a national to a global presence. I did this in the automotive manufacturing,
aerospace manufacturing, high tech, heavy industry. And I had a house with a white picket fence.
I was a successful athlete with all time world records. I owned a gym on the side where I coached
people and I had a comfortable marriage that everything was hunky dory with no arguments at home.
And I walked away from all of it. I left everything behind except for my kids.
I wanted to chase what I was meant to do and chase what I was capable of doing.
I wanted to become a better version of myself, but very intentfully.
And that's what I did. I sold, I had multiple homes, sold my homes.
I cashed in all my retirement that I'd earned for nearly 20 years.
And I lost all that. I leveraged myself millions of dollars of personal debt so that if I failed,
there was no way out. Even going back to that old career that I did well,
I'd be living in an apartment the rest of my life paying it off.
People questioned, people questioned me at the time because I had a comfortable, easy marriage.
And I chose to ask for a divorce. And I ended up living in an apartment for a couple years with
no income, selling off every last thing that I had except for my two vehicles that I built.
And with my kids. And I started my businesses to help people live a better quality of life,
to get them out of pain, to help them live better through strength, to realize that stress,
demand, those things that they don't have to be the thing that, if you look back,
made you had the bad back, made you have the bad days, but they do the opposite. They get you
out of pain. And then I started working on my book to hit on those other things, the mental,
the emotional, maybe even spiritual. I don't touch on that one too much in there, but it's all the
same. That things that happen around you to you, like maybe they're bad, I can't take away that,
but why can't you use what you have of it to become a stronger and better person,
to become more resilient, to be able to take the things that you don't know that are coming
in the future. And so this is very intentful. And that's what the second long winded answer
in your question here, the dragon, the dragon, the dragon is an aura Boris. And so it is,
it circles my entire upper body, my shoulders, my back, my chest, everything. It's right here.
There's this big dragon head and its tail is right there in its mouth that's eating itself.
And it may sound a bit graphic or whatever, but it is, it's the eating of the old becoming
the new. It is the purposeful reinvention of oneself. It is the deciding,
not realizing just your potential, but deciding specifically who you want to be in this fucking
world and becoming that person. Can you comment on the value and the power of
putting a flame to your old life, your old self, just destroying all of it
as you walk into the new life? Did you have to do that?
I don't recommend this, by the way, because when you put yourself in no way out, there is no way
out. You got to really, but I can be an overconfident individual at times and I live through
extremes. I think it's a great way of actually finding your real values and how you want to live,
honestly, to chase the having absolutely perfect squat technique, but chase putting every freaking
thing that you've got in it, which most people would say, those are opposite. Those are diametrically
opposed. I wanted a better home life. I wanted to do more in the world through my work.
And the burning the bridges mentality is not necessarily the best. There was some temperament
in that though because I was slow to make the shift for a long time because I'd been thinking
about doing it, but I was thinking about doing it in a healthcare perspective. I'm going to go back
to school to be a surgeon or a physical therapist or a chiro because that's where all my research
and stuff was in this human movement and rehab and recovery. The mentors that I've been developing
were the best in the world in these things, in these disciplines. Those were my friends,
but I wasn't able to compromise my family's certain quality of life. I wanted to keep this.
So it was slow and hard for me to make that transition, but I didn't do it until
I had a platform built enough that those first few years I did have an income. I was able to
make enough from the business until it grew so fast that I needed so much more needed to come in.
The living in the apartment piece and doing all that, there was actually a couple years
into that process, maybe like two years. I'm with you on that. So I'm actually going to that very
process now. I put everything, I quit everything, gave away everything and starting a new one.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, this podcast somehow became quite popular. So it's getting
in the way of my burning everything to the ground. But in that, it's a source of joy.
But the main thing I'm after is the similar project as you is building a business.
This sense of joy. So this, this is the point I want to drive home right now, right now.
Because when I say burnt, I learned that burning the bridges works because
that's how I had to succeed when I was earlier. The bridges weren't burnt. They didn't exist.
There was no couch to go home to. There was no, there was no fallback plan.
And it forced me and gave me the confidence to know that I can pull it off.
But I don't encourage people because there's so much out there of this hustle porn and other stuff
going, just grind, just go after it, get in and start your, like, you'll get there. And it's
all about the output to make money, to be somebody, to do this. And I'll tell you what,
that is some short term motivation right there. I feel like dropping a few swear words, but
You're always welcome.
We've already done a few, so we'll bounce it out. That is short term. That is not going to keep
you going. This neat, if you're going to go that approach, it needs to be because this is your
North Star. There's going to be so much hard work. There's going to be years of just pushing
through where your quest, not only is everybody around you questioning you and your family's
questioning you, your question yourself going, man, I don't know if I can pull this off.
You're going to be stressed. You're going to be pulled to the max.
If somebody comes up to me and says, should I start a business? I'm going to say no.
And oh, you're supposed to motivate me. If you need me to motivate you,
this is the wrong damn approach for you. This is going to be hard. This is going to be harder
than you expect even with me telling you this. And so it better damn well be worth it. This
better be your North fucking star. This better live and be a way for you to be able to articulate or
realize those values that you want to live. This isn't something to make money. This is a way for
you to live the life and be able to share the values that you have with the world. And that's
what it is. And if you don't have that, which is going to give you joy, then we can walk away.
Yeah. This is not some way to make some money and be known.
I mean, this includes both like simple day-to-day joy and also deep meaning,
the whole thing. And then that allows you to overcome all the pain along the way.
But I got to say, I mean, it's a difficult thing because you run a business.
This podcast and a lot of things I do research wise is full of joy, but it's simple.
For example, running a business is hard. So it's something that I'm very hesitant about
in that almost push back a little bit. I think if I do get the guts to start the business,
it will not be because I'm not choosing a more joyful life because I'm already truly happy.
The reason I'll choose is because I just can't help it. I've always had this dream
and I know it's going to lead to suffering and I know it's going to be a life that has less
happiness in it. As sad as this to say. But it won't be. It won't be less happiness
because we talk about this cup and where you choose to pour it and what you choose to do
with it. And when you look back on things, the things that are going to give you the most joy,
the most proud, the things that are going to stand out in your life that you really remember
are going to be those days. And those years you struggle, you're going to look back on
10 years later and go, fuck, those were the glory days. Those were the glory days.
Yeah. And it won't feel like it at the time. So weird. That's what life's made of. And so
this is your, this is your opportunity. You feel that. So right now you got this when you think
about it, you got this little thing twisting up in your gut, right? It's like it's a mixture of
anxiety and fear as well as excitement. And that is, that's your signal that this is your
opportunity for that personal growth to challenge yourself. This is your going for a run or working
out in the heat. It's, it's those things. It is your opportunity to go, heck, maybe it even fails.
Maybe it even fails. But by turning into that, you're going to learn so much and it's going to
make you so much better. And it's the path that you should take when you have this stuff rolling
around in there. And I don't, it could just be a hard conversation with your partner or your boss.
It could be taking on a project that, you know, the, you know, the, your bosses thrown out to the
team and you're like, oh, I'm going to hide in the back. I don't want that one. And it's like,
maybe, maybe you do, maybe it's going back to school. Maybe it's making that career move that
you'll always wanted, but you're just a, you're just afraid of all these things
are your opportunity for you to turn into that. It is your workout. It is your practice. Because
if you don't, you'll get soft and who knows what's coming and you're not going to be ready for it.
And it's going to run right over the top of you because you're going to be weak. You're going
to be soft. There's some aspect in which choosing that hard path is actually the,
the, the way to arrive at the richest kind of happiness, the, the, the greatest fulfillment.
That's the funny thing about just the humor.
Just make sure you're filling the cup as you're going through it.
That's the part to figure out, right?
Sure. Well, life is short anyway. Eventually, eventually the cup will be empty.
So maybe time the refilling of the cup correctly. So you maximize the little time you got.
Let me talk to you about strength a little bit. First, high level. What are the differences in
the different disciplines of strength? So powerlifting we talked about, maybe just to
clarify for people, powerlifting, Olympic lifting, just regular gym fitness, bodybuilding,
doing curls in front of the mirror for hours like I do. What's, what's the difference between all
these? Oh, and also strongman. Every one of those as far as the athletic disciplines are
different qualities. So we want to think about things as terms of quality. So there's strength,
there's power, there's endurance, there's the ability to be coordinated and athletic. There's
all these things and they're different, they're different qualities. So your training as it relates
to that is how you cycle in the development of those qualities. What we want to think about is
there's a lot of different frames of thought, some very classical, maybe not classical Russian
approach because there's a lot of different approach from the Eastern block, but one of the
ones is developing all the qualities at once, you know, focusing on building those. More of a
periodization effect would be focusing on one quality at a time or one quality while maintaining
other qualities and then shifting that around. So it's just going to be a little different based
on what the output is and what the desired. So like powerlifting is actually, power is the wrong
word, there's actually no power in it, it's just brute, it's strength, application of force.
So Olympic lifting would actually be a better name for powerlifting
because that is more explosive development. There's strongman is again, now we're getting
a little bit more athletic, it's equipment based on the implements and stuff that are used,
how fast you can move your feet and run mixed with more endurance, but still very strength
focused. And there's some things with strongman that is straight, like each one of these is very
also focused on different genetic dispositions. So actually, if you look at the history of sports,
you'll find that they're a lot of times based on different populations and it sounds like it's
very un-PC, but like Highland games, they've got deep, deeper hip sockets that are shallow. So
you're going to see a lot of short hip hinge movements like the caber toss and things like that,
Muay Thai wrestling, they've got a completely different hip joint. And so strongman itself
is going to be for very large frame individuals. If you're not well over six foot and a large person,
you're probably not going to perform well. Very few people at sub six foot have ever done well
at strongman just because it's leverage based, right? Olympic lifting. We see consistently in
Europe, the history tells us a high level of hip and back issues because of the depth that
that hip socket has to go in to be able to complete that lift. And so you're going to see issues with
populations that don't have the ability to do that. So we've talked a little bit about training
as well as disposition. Yeah. So and also Crosshead Vincent to that, that's more like strongman,
but for a wider variety of bodies, I suppose. Yep. And definitely more metabolic conditioning
focused than the strength aspect of it. And conditioning is an interesting thing too. So
that quality, in my opinion, can be developed a lot faster, but kind of peaks much faster as well.
So where strength, we can continue to add and add and add over time. So it's, for me, like for
conditioning with any strength athlete, I don't like to spend as much time on that. So I'll cycle
the conditioning work for our strength athletes and then taper that off leading into meat. So the
more metabolic work, that means the more capacity in strength training that you can accomplish,
which is the goal and recover from. But then as we lead to a competition, we want to spend more
time on recovering from that. So we have to pull things out. So we'd pull out less. So like typical
approach would be like taking a six week cycle for conditioning and ramping, ramping up over three
weeks periods time, then dropping back down again and ramping up and being slightly offset by like
a week or two from your strength peaks so that you've actually tapered the week prior in your
conditioning work to your strength work. But that way we're not hitting conditioning hard
all the time, which is a common misstep that people make is going, well, I need conditioning. So
they just hammer that at a base level over the top instead of cycling that.
If we talk about powerlifting, in terms of regimen,
in terms of exercise, in terms of the process, the wood consistent with what,
is there something to be said about general qualities of the consistency of the regimen
required to get strong? Yes. So let's talk about some training principles
as a whole. And this will, I think this will break down what you're wanting. The more work
that we can fit into a given time, the more progress we're going to make. But that doesn't
mean doing the max amount of work possible at any given time. So we know that we're always,
to accomplish more, we're always going to have more. And there's a certain seemingly that you're
going to hit that you're not going to be able to add more. So you want to start and get the most
amount of results that you can with the least amount of work, because you're going to have to do it
again, like this stair step over and over year, decade, so on. So when people, this is a big
miss, people got, they look at a Chico program from Russia or so on, and they go, I'm going to
follow this. And it's like, that was specifically written for somebody with 20 years of experience
that's already built the capacities to be at that level. So it's all about building that work
capacity. So how much work can you give in a given time? So now we want to look at some research,
as it relates to injuries, because injuries are going to be a big driver over time of what
holds you back. So when we talk consistency, training hard for three years, five years,
it's going to be really good. But what we find is a lot of people train really hard for nine months,
have to slow back for a month, get back into it, then miss another week, because and so on,
they're always like this little nagging, that little nagging. And so it's pretty clear in
the research, we want to, we're looking at when we're stair stepping this stuff, we're looking at
acute and chronic loading. So some fancy words for average and like what's happening right now.
So this given week would be our acute, chronic would be what is our average loading, let's say,
over the last six months. Okay. So the more that we can move the chronic loading up, the more work
we're getting done on as a whole over time, we're going to get stronger. The way that we build the
capacity to do that is having spikes in acute loading. Okay. Now, as we do this, the acute
loading, if it spikes more than 10, maybe 15% from what the chronic loading has been,
that accounts for 80% of injuries out there. So it's not actually the movement quality or this
misstep or the other. It usually happens about four or five, six weeks later. It's like, oh,
this nagging, and then it gets worse. And then now you got to, you got to do some rehab, your
training sessions aren't as good and so on. So now we're starting to look at this. Okay. It's like,
I want to do the, I want to do the least amount of work where I can still progress.
I want to be able to have spikes in my weekly demand that don't go above 10 to 15% of what I've
been averaging for the last month. But every time I do a spike, my average goes up, right? Boom,
boom, boom. And then that becomes very particular also when you take, when you do take plan time
off. So a lot of people, uh, training session, maybe they're doing a five week block with a
deload week, or you go on vacation for a week, or any of those things that were a downward,
what does that do to your average and chronic loading? It brings it down. And then what does
the person want to do when they come back? Make up for it. Now they have a huge spike above.
Five weeks later, we're dealing with this elbow, this wrist, whatever's kind of bothering me.
And now you're not performing as much. So these are some really fundamental pieces of training.
And then now we can start overlaying the qualities that we're trying to develop
that we were talking about earlier. So now it's, let's talk about my deadlift, my 1000 pound
deadlift. We'll talk about the training cycles for both the 1000, uh, deadlift and squat. So
backing up a year out from the deadlift, knowing I was training at the time, heavy deadlifts
once a week. And usually it was two of those sessions a month were really heavy. And the
others weren't. And it's like, okay, how can we get this up to where I'm deadlifting twice a week?
Because that's where I want to be, uh, to be able to accomplish this. I need to be loading about
about that much with frequency, with a certain volume to be able to accomplish this goal.
We're not going to go through all the math and stuff like that and how that's arrived,
but there is math. There is math behind this. And so instead of just like, oh,
let's start deadlifting twice a week. No. So we start and we take the one session that we've got
and we split it, part of it, take part of it away and put it in the second half of the week.
So the total volume is still the same. And then, um, we start adding some volume, but I'm doing it
at a off a block so that the actual load is accumulative load is less because I have less
range of motion. Okay. And then we start building that closer to the ground, closer to the ground
and so on. And now we start getting to where I'm almost doing two sessions, full sessions a week.
And then we start adding a little bit of load. And so at my level, this isn't talking about
adding another set or another day a week. We're talking like in my squat, it might be one rep
instead of doing three sets of three. At one week, I do two doubles or two triples,
then two doubles to give me one more rep. That's it. And so we're doing that from one week
to the next. And that's a cycle training cycle. It might be five, six weeks and then so on and
the next one and slowly bringing that average load up. So the last phases of the squat, for example,
we took the average loading every week. So my of my heavy sets. So once we developed all this stuff
over the last year to get to this point, now it is taking and going, okay, my average load this
week is eight reps at 955 pounds. And then the next week, let's get it to 957. 963. And this was
pretty aggressive. Working up to where my average loading the final that the final was 985 pounds
average load for eight to nine reps. And that's why I said, this is the intense part. That was
why it was the day of was much easier. That week over week is pretty brutal.
May not sound, oh, you're just squatting. And now let's back up. Let's look at the quality
development. So a year out from the squat, obviously, they've been working on developing
axial load capacity, my capacity to withstand load from top to bottom. So I like thinking about
things in movement vectors. So this vector is an axial loaded vector is the hardest to recover from.
So what's axial? So like, is deadlift? Are they both?
They're both. Yep. So a horizontal front to back would be like a row or a press.
Why is the axial hardest to recover because it's the entire body, the entire body, just anything
that is that taxes the spinal mechanics, I don't, I could tell you my beliefs. It studied, it is.
Okay. We can just keep the discussion on that the short like that. So we start looking at those
different vectors that we're training in. So this is why this is important to understand. So I'm
not just getting into nuance here. So, hey, squatting is going to make me make me jump further
because it's legs. Well, squatting is an axial load vector. And jumping is a vector this way.
So actually hip thrust would help with your, your, and this is proven in science,
with your forward jumping ability. They're both working similar muscles, the glute extension,
but they're working it in those different platforms. So it's really important to understand
because people don't understand I'm building my work capacity by doing sled pushes.
You're not developing your work capacity for squatting.
Most movements, even ones as holistic as a, as a squat require specialization.
Yeah. You can't get strong at the squat by doing.
You're going to have some carryover, right? Obviously. But because taking an untrained
person that hasn't done it is still not going to do as good as somebody that's
done nonspecific work, but done work. So, but yes, for the most part.
To get truly strong, you need to specialize. So, but not all the time. So now we talk about
qualities. So, and if we specialize in the same thing too long, we stagnate because the body
adapts to a certain point and just can't make progress. So we wanted to save the actual squatting
in the pattern with the bar that I was doing for the very end. So starting a year out,
I started doing work front squatting, like a squat axial loaded pattern and worked on
maximizing that up. Then I started shifting to doing transformer bar squat. It's this bar I
developed that actually changed and manipulates spinal mechanics. So I started loading in these
more forward positions and being able, again, so now I'm getting closer than a front squat,
but not quite squatting. And then I would start adjusting that bar every training cycle to closer
to a squat, toaster to a squat till it finally was, right? So what's the difference between a
front squat and a regular back squat? Like in terms of the stress on the body, the mechanics,
was there something interesting to be said about? Like how fundamentally different are they?
So what's interesting, people think about the weight in position to them like, oh, the bar's
in front of me, the bar's behind me, which is not the case. The bar is above your midfoot.
The load is above your midfoot. So we're actually manipulating the spine behind the bar. So we're
causing spinal upriding behind the bar, getting in a more erect position, which is going to change
the relationship of the hip angle. It's going to change our ability to maintain the spine. It's
going to change the how much the core comes in, how hard it is to maintain that sternum to diaphragm
relationship that we talked about. All this stuff starts changing. So the bar stays in the same
place. Bar's still behind you, but the load moves around. So, but we're actually manipulating the
spine around the load. It's incredible. We can tailor it to an athlete, which is great when
you got a seven foot plus tall baseball player or basketball player. That's why we work with all
these teams. Anyway, so it's like you're taking something and getting closer and closer to it.
At the same time, we're looking at the quality. So like, I needed to be able to really hold this
torso position with the weight moving up here. Now, unlike the deadlift, the ability to manage
this TL position becomes much more challenging. So that was also why I was choosing the transformer
bar because it actually challenges that more in those big forward positions. I was also working
on my back strength tremendously to be able to hold the maintained position. So there was a lot of
like, I chose a bent over rows. So bent over row is a mixed vector. So it's a forward to back. So
it wouldn't have as much carrier, but it's also got some axial loading component in it as well.
So we're working on that. And then as we get closer and closer to competition,
I'm developing those strengths, but now I need to start tapering those out. So all of my recovery
needs can now go into the more specific that I'm actually ramping the load up. So as I'm ramping
the load on the weight, I'm able to ramp it a lot faster because I'm tapering out the other stuff.
So I can still keep my total load high, but now get it very, very specific.
Wow. So everything I've done has always been kind of an annual training cycle. And then again,
this was like a, this was a five year training cycle, but we just kind of walked through the last
year of each and you can see how these concepts play out in reality. So in the cycling, so this
is both for you, but also for more recreational strength athletes, let's say there's variety
injected into the system. You need variety. Yeah. Yeah. Because you will basically stagnate at some
level, right? So you should always be kind of shifting a little bit. So three to four month
blocks in general for an average, you know, just a gen pop fitness is pretty good where you're going
to spend more time maybe in a higher rep range or lower rep range, a little bit more work on
endurance capacity or maybe some more time. Hey, I'm playing around with boxing or jiu-jitsu or
something like that. Bring that a little bit more to the front, forefront for a while and bring the
other out, but like mixing, mixing those variables up, but trying to keep the total load the same
and always kind of like, yeah, do we add a little more? Again, it doesn't have to be major and it
shouldn't be major. You don't want these big jumps. You don't go, oh my God, let's move. Let's jump
into squatting every day. You've got to build the capacity to do that. It's simple. What role would
you say strength has in sports that combines skill and strength? So for me personally, maybe
I'll just ask it selfishly, which is grappling, wrestling, MMA. Yeah. How about I start with
baseball? Please. No, I would. Okay. The sport, okay. Like baseball and golf are two of my favorite
sports. No, I don't, you don't have to be in shape at all to excel at those sports. Well,
here's the thing. There we go. We're going to get this argument. Well, I've got a perfect example
because this is why I sell so many transformer bars into the Major League Baseball. So they get
these people that come in, these athletes that have been baseball their whole life. It is part
of the culture. And so they're great athletes. They've got all the skill. The only thing they
have to do is develop a little bit more resilience so that they don't have the injury. They can push
their training a little bit more that they can add a little bit more force output and be able to
recover from it. So the only thing they've got to do is add some training, but there's no training
culture there. So they don't have any experience, which is why they love the transformer bar because
they don't have to worry about teaching the technique. We can actually set the bar on a setting
that makes their squats perfect by queuing all the stuff with actually not having to coach it.
Because when you're coaching a room full of athletes, it's really hard to teach the nuance
of all this and not sure that all that. But that's all that they have to do with these players with
a huge level of skill. So once you reach a certain level of skill, adding strength is the only real
forward path. So that's the basic simple answer to that. So one of the benefits there being like
injury prevention, actually. Injury prevention, resilience. Because especially fighting sports,
you're going to be challenged and thrown and other things happen to you. And the more resilient you
can make your structures, the better you're going to be. Even a cyclist, mountain biking,
why would they need it? Why would they need to do upper body training? Take a crash, your shoulders
gone. You're done. Your career is over unless you've done a little training. Right? So there's
value in all this stuff, but the resilience is like, that's huge. And then we can overlay strength.
The people where we miss is this focus on strength when we haven't developed quality
motor patterns first. So this is a huge thing with children because people want to know what's
the appropriate training age. I'd had my daughter training before my son because she developed
movement patterns that have better quality earlier. There's no age because it's going to be very
dependent on the individual. There's no point in having adaptation if we don't have the right
thing to adapt to yet. And that applies to general movement, but also to sport. You're
saying the skills should be developed first and then strength applied on top of that.
Maybe you can educate me, but I actually quit lifting and powerlifting for a long time
after I started judo, jiu-jitsu, grappling, all this sort of combat sports because I found
that it was preventing me from relaxing my body enough to load in the skill.
So this isn't a problem with the training. This is a problem with you. So this is actually
really, really important. The first product I ever released was a loadable mace, a swinging mace.
And because every powerlifter in body, well, not every, but most serious powerlifters and body
builders like shoulders mobility is pretty limited. And most of them really, really struggle with this.
The problem is they've been taught to have tension all the time. And that's not good. So when we
talk about the joint positions that we were talking about earlier and having those and the
muscles and the right length and tension relationship, athleticism is the speed to relaxation
because the counter is speed to, to speed to contraction, float like a butterfly, sting like
a bee, right? And so what a mace can do is use that because this ties back into a developmental
kinesiology because a lot of like reset patterns are getting back into these basic movements,
but it's as much about relaxation as it is contraction. Okay. So a mace, we have this weight
on a big long lever. So if I grab a kettlebell and it's the same movement as a kettlebell halo,
it is the same movement as a kettlebell halo. But here in the halo, I'm on the whole time.
With the mace at the proper length, with the right distribution, you cannot do the movement.
You could not move force your way through it. The only way that you can accomplish that
is by relaxing. And then now we, now we can contract all the muscles related around
that shoulder girdle all at once. We're working on off, on off, on off with moving and contracting.
And now, so what happens a lot of times as we, you know, this stiffness and tightness happens,
if we're in poor positions, we start using stabilizer muscles to do the movement. And then
that's where this stiffness come from. So it means that in some of whatever training that you're
doing, there's a deficit in the movement quality. Okay. Or there's a deficit in the training program
and you're not recovering from an 80% of the time, that's the right answer, right? But yeah,
that's where the, where the gap is and learning how to relax. And the way a lot of the exercises
are taught and have been taught for a long time, which is why there's a big gap. And this is why
both clinical rehab and all these other components are mixed in my philosophy and what I'm trying
to do with Kabuki strength, because I'm looking at holistic movement. I'm not looking at power
lifting. Base movements are what I want to load and be able to assess on. But this affects all
sports, all activities, and strength doesn't have to be that. I mean, I, I'm freaking a
thousand pound squatter and deadlifter. If you, if you watch any of my videos where I do like
complete quad fallbacks, I don't stretch at all. I can usually get close to a full split like if I
want to. What? No, I did not see those videos. Okay. That's, it's hard to believe. Wow, okay.
Well, actually, I do. I just did one recently, a quad fallback with my, with my mace loaded way
out to the end, torsioning on both end of the other. And I do a lot of, I do a lot of weird stuff.
That's awesome. Okay. Squatting doesn't make your hips tight. Squatting like shit makes your hips
tight. And so, but there is no perfect world where always our training program isn't quite
perfect. Our movements isn't necessarily perfect. Like, so you're going to have the needs for this
stuff. But if you're always have to do some soft tissue work to loosen up the same one
for that exercise to be able to get a joint in position, there is a problem. And I'm not saying,
don't do it, do it because I don't want you to have a joint. Like if I can't get my shoulders in
a position, I can't do overhead presses because I'm going to compromise my spine position. Then
I'm going to end up with some other problems, right? So go ahead and clean that up so you can
get in position. But go figure out why it is and fix it. And then maybe next, you know,
three, four months from now, they're going to get a little something else going on.
Fix it, but go understand the deeper root reason of why. So I'm, I believe I'm the only company
manufacturing and selling, you know, fascial soft tissue tools. And I'll tell you, I don't want you
to use them because it's not helping you get to the why, why it was caused in the first place.
The goal, the goal, the perfect state is not having to use them.
Reality is you're going to have to use them from time to time because the world's not perfect.
Yeah. So your discovery is 100% on point. Well, there's another side to combat sports.
When you're beginning a particular combat sport, strength can be a negative because
human psychology, because you can get away with a lot when you're stronger.
Uh-huh. Yes, you can.
So if your mind is strong enough to where you can just turn off that advantage and be a beginner
truly in a particular art, that's probably the best way to do it.
But you can get away and then you don't learn.
Yeah. Yeah. It's hard. It's hard not to use the little
advantages you have because the jujitsu is a big hit on the ego for, you know, especially guys,
you know, when like a smaller person just destroys you, dominates you when you can,
I don't know, deadlift whatever number of pounds. And it's hard not to use that strength to then
resist the slow, the ultimate destruction by like 120 pound.
And that's why I recommend developing the skill quality first. But it doesn't mean that you can't.
I can't. That's right.
You can still do it. So that don't take it as a like, oh, I can't go that direction.
That's fine. But understand those things. And then also understand the jujitsu is
additional load on the body. So you have to, you can't just add it on top.
Yeah.
You've got to taper back the other, you're going to have to make a, I'm sorry, you may not want
to hear it, but you're not going to be able to do as much and add that here. Yeah.
It's a compromise because your total volume still has to be there. And there's not,
unfortunately, not really a way to measure what the jujitsu volume is with this. So you've got to
take a look at that. And that's where like measuring like heart rate variability or other
stuff can be useful. So you can see what is happening for me from a sympathetic versus
parasympathetic nervous system standpoint.
Yeah. Making sure your body recovers efficiently and trying to put numbers to it.
You mentioned Kabuki strength. You run the Kabuki strength lab previously called the
Elite Performance Center in Oregon. You called it the perfect gym. What makes for the perfect
strength training gym?
Where I called it the perfect.
In a video somewhere I watched.
Oh man. I mean, that's where my testing grounds for developing all this stuff was through the
years. And so this is, like I said, I started developing relationships with the best developmental
kinesiologist in the U.S., the best arguably the best or most well-known physical therapist
in the world, the best spine biomechanist in the world. I started doing continuing education with
these clinical courses and learning this stuff and going, but how does it work in my world?
Right? And then I started lecturing with them and all this other stuff, but the lab was like,
where do we test this stuff? Right? And so let me get to a point. There's three things.
There's always three things. So to be a success, to achieve success, I believe there's three things
that really, really come into place. And it's the right methodology, the right tools, and the
right environment. And so it was all about building that. And so the methodologies came
from a lot of that different, that gray area interaction of clinical with sports science,
right? And then the tools I had to start creating and designing. And then the environment is having
this focused environment of people that want to do better and push each other and having
community and culture, right? I end up building these connections, this network,
everything that I'm doing with my businesses is trying to create that into a scalable fashion.
And so I'm building the groundwork because to have a system that like, yeah, I had clinicals
on site that knew exactly what we were doing. And when it's me and a few people in a small team
and all this stuff, we're all just like easy to manage. And you can see these, there's other
models around this. So I've been other areas since maybe whenever it was I filmed that video that
said that, that they have that same, same model. And it's taken probably about a decade usually
to develop that, you know, and having the right people in this community, they can create this,
this network and the tool and all this stuff, right? Except they still don't have the best tools
because kawuki strength didn't exist. But but and so out of that was is essentially started
building this business and people like, when did you know how all this stuff was connected? And
I'm like, I don't know, I didn't I just started creating on the outset, the things that worked
until finally, I'm like, Oh, I'm recreating a scalable version of this stuff. Here's the
methodologies and a coaching platform that we can manage clients around the globe and see what's
working and not based on the scientific principles of training, right? How do we create that into a
database that now we can train new coaches and they can use those same metrics and tools to
create programs that are tailored to fit person's individual needs, right? Now, how do we integrate
that with assessment and clinical care assessment and all these other pieces. So there's a lot of
work in that. And so that's where kawuki strength is the genesis. But we have, we call our gym,
the kawuki strength lab. Literally, people find about our gym in the neighborhood, like, how
long have you been here? Why? Why do I not know about this? We don't advertise our gym at all.
So like, that makes no sense. Well, that's because the only reason is to have a testing
environment for the tools and methodology and having enough people to have the culture and
fit and to be able to be part of the experiment. What about the environment of the feel of it,
the actual gym? There's a, I don't know, a grunginess to it. I recently became a member
of Planet Fitness for reasons that have to do more with the heat in Austin that sometimes
they need to put in time in the treadmill. I don't like that. I don't have any judgment,
honestly. The best gyms I've been in are kind of dirty. You walk in and you know that work
is to be done. Yes. There's not another reason to do there. It is, the environment is tight.
There's a big piece of that. I know it's studied sociologically, I believe. I just
pictured that word too. But the intensity, when you start growing a space, the intensity drops.
And so I had that experience when we grew. We went from a 4,000 foot to a 9,000 square foot gym
at one time. And everybody's like, it doesn't feel the same. Like if people are complaining for
years, we've shrunk it back down whenever down to 3,500 square feet. And it creates that intensity.
It creates the closest, the connection with the people around you. And then like I said,
the grunginess, you go in, you know the intention when you walk in. That environment creates that
tension. But when I speak environment, it's not just the physical, it's the people.
But when the gym is a little bit beat up, it also tells a story like there's a history to it.
You could tell that not only is there work to be done, that work has been done here.
Yes. Like battles have been fought. There's something to that where you're just in a long line of
people that fought and won. And we could get into a whole nother space,
so this would be a whole nother topic. But that existing energy of a space.
I mean, we mentioned offline Joe Rogan. He talks about the same with comedy clubs.
There's certain clubs that just have a history. There's an energy there. You can get all,
but it's there. It's a real thing, I think. You walk in and you can feel it.
And you feel it. You feel it. Yeah.
That makes me feel that somehow all of us humans are connected in ways that's hard to describe,
even the ones who are no longer here. Just the greatness that once was is still in the walls,
in the space, present there. And we somehow can plug into that energy.
Yeah. We can go down a path there. There's something really powerful there.
You've also mentioned a bunch of cool equipment that you've developed as part of Kabuki Strength.
Probably a little bit of that has to do with your engineering education,
but also just generally with the spirit of the innovator that you are. What are some cool,
maybe revolutionary pieces of equipment that you're particularly proud of or just you've
been obsessed with recently that you're developing. Yeah. Love to talk about that.
So we've got some wild, crazy stuff that just came out and is coming out too.
So everything that we create and release at Kabuki Strength, the industry hasn't seen before.
There's stuff that's basic foundational, that's been around forever because it works.
But there's always more. It could be better. And why are we not looking at these things,
these foundational things? So when people are coming up with novel things,
they end up being way different outside the perspective. And I'm coming up with
things that are way different, that are plays on what we already know works.
So we talked about the transformer bar, the only bar in the world,
we can manipulate spinal mechanics. Everything for me from a design concept that we develop
is all about creating products that can rapidly accommodate to the variability of an individual's
leverages, mobility, and training needs. And that's going to also create and distill down
the size and scope of space that we need, which is going to continue to be an ongoing thing.
Check out my Instagram after this and you'll see I put an entire gym on the bed of my truck
and went on vacation last week, drove to the desert. And by entire gym, I mean
squat rack, full complement of our specialty bars, a horizontal and vertical pulley system,
handheld weights, shoulder, like a complete, an entire gym in product that took up the space,
the size of this bed, right here. That's incredible.
Because of the design scope of what we have. So the cool things that there's two other bars
that fit our biomechanically sound bar bell lines. We talked about the transformer bar.
The other two are built on this thing I call playground physics. So we have these bars with
handles that are off, off parallel with the axis. So they've been around the market for a
long time. One is a hex bar or a trap bar. Another one is a, it's a pressing bar with the handles
turned as well. And both of them suck. They're horrible. Anytime any lifter knows, if you pick
it up, it's going to break your wrist and crush into your face. And it just, it just doesn't
feel good pressing. But it alleviates the strain on the wrist. So people use it for that reason.
And the trap bar, same thing. It's always diving forward in your hand. So it's kind of limited.
It's also limited in use because you could do a lot more with it. So these bars are really cool
playground physics. So as soon as the center of rotation is on the same axis as the center of mass
and the handle is off center, you have, you have a teeter totter. So an a teeter totter has a balance
point, but it's infinitely perfect. So technically, you can never find it. So always going to be
sitting on one side of the other in a playground. And that's what these bars are designed. So you
got instability right here. You can't find the center of the bars always trying to tip in your hands
on the trap bar. So you can't do carries with it because you're doing four momentum and it wants
the, it wants the dip on you, right? The Swiss bar wants to crush your face. Well, what do we do?
We just make a swing, put center of mass below center of rotation. And what does it do? Oh,
it always finds center. So, so the handles on the, our pressing bar, it's arched so that the handles
are above center of rotation. And then, and then every angle instead of just being a certain fixed
angles, each angle is based on the width, the average width of an individual. So the internal
and external rotational bias is based of the shoulder is based on the width, leaving just a
little bit left because we talked about the lat being a stabilizer. You still need to have a little
bit of Q of external rotation to engage that as a stabilizer. Boom. Now all of a sudden you have a
bar and I kid you not, this is a great story. Major League Baseball, when I presented it,
every head strength coach for a Major League Baseball team, maybe not every, but damn near
most of them have bad shoulders. They can't press, they've gotten shoulder surgeries, so on. And so
we're showing, they love all our stuff. And I'm like, Hey, I've got this cool prototype I want to
show you. It's a pressing bar. And they're like, Oh, you know, Major League Baseball is a little
hesitant on pressing because of the dangers for the shoulder. And I can't, I haven't been able to
take a bar to my chest. I mean, I really love to, it's been five years since I've, I've been able to
XX train. And I'm like, just try it. Like, I can't even get a bar to my chest without pain.
Like just try it. Oh, that feels good. Now the arc makes it actually three inches deeper.
So people are automatically scared. I can't do that because that's an extra range of motion,
right? Like, Oh, put a plate on there. They're doing it by the time the staff's like, they're
all standing around. You see, like, what's going on? Put two plates on. You can see the, just like,
it gets up. How do you feel? Like, I feel fine. No pain at all. I did this with five teams,
with five of the happening repeatedly, five times, that they and everyone of them worked up
the two plates and did reps varied with zero pain to a three inch range or greater range
of motion. Because what did we do? We stacked all the joints and we provided stability at the
end that we balanced internal and external rotation. I mean, just basic playground physics
and it changed the game. Now we get a greater range of motion with a greater training effect
with the negative stresses removed. Our trap bar opened up one side, which there was already
some like that out there created. It pops up so you can pick up, take the weights on and off.
It's got a built in jack and then created the high handle position, which already did. Everybody
uses the high handle on a trap bar. They just don't know why they like it. The handle that's on
center, we offset just a little bit, not enough to make a difference on the range of motion lift
or even notice visibly, but it still has the same effect. So both handles now have that.
We added the option of different handle sizes based on whatever your needs are,
even a one that rolls to develop grip and then different widths that you could choose from
based on whether you're training a teen athlete or a seven foot six NBA player or a NFL lineman,
so that we can accommodate for all these differences. And so, and then now it becomes
the most functional all around bar around because now you can do carries with it. You can do split
squats with it. You could do curls with it because it goes around the body. You can do overhead presses
because you don't have a thing that gets in your way and you can flip it up into position.
You can do bent over rows and not run into your shins. You can do seal rows off of a bench. You
can do ab rollouts. You could, should I go on? Yeah, so you can use it as like the main bar.
The best multi-purpose bar around. You got a home gym, one bar.
Like how do you develop totally new equipment like this?
I scratch it on paper, maybe weld some cut up and weld up a prototype, but usually I just
hand the scratched up paper to my engineering manager and that's what he says his job is to
distill my chicken scratch into something real. And then that team picks it up. But in the old
days starting out, I just walk out and do it. You talk about engineering. I work more of an
artist's fashion. It's in my head and I just go create with no plans. And so they have to pick
that up and actually do the engineering and testing and all that. And then we got two other
products came out this year, freaking wild. Are you familiar with training with a flywheel?
No, it's a flywheel. Maybe. A flywheel is a spinning object that creates an inertial mass.
Yeah. And then it reverses direction. So whatever you put into it, there's ones out there.
But ours is the first patent pending that's everything all in one unit. So it's a floor
based as well as a horizontal. So you can basically do any pulley movement in the world.
And now everything that you put into it on a concentric force, it whips right back as
peak centric load. Got you. So there's an accelerating whipping motion.
It just, yeah, basically. Yeah. I mean, okay, I have trouble imagining exactly.
Many of the things you're describing, I suppose have to be experienced, right?
Yes. Because there's a magic to it.
And there's a lot of research they've been around. They're adopted more heavily in Europe,
quite heavily in Europe, but not as much in the US because they sell them as a be all end all
tool, which they're not. They're crazy for what they do, but it's not the, it's another tool.
And so we have a very high quality unit now that is half the cost of everybody else's because
the innovation of a movable mount point that you, for them, you have to have
two pieces of equipment. We have one. So, and then a few other things,
better platform to be able to do things and that we can do what we call off platform work,
which allows us to do movements like punches and standups, things like that. And then I've
got a handheld weight coming out next month that we can actually play with. So, varying the load
with it, never leaving your hand by changing the leverage point. And so with that,
What exercise are we talking about here?
Anything that would be a dumbbell or a kettlebell movement. So it functions, it does the function
of a kettlebell, a dumbbell and what we call a center mass bell, as well as provides variable
loading within a range. So how can you change, like, how can you change the load?
Because load, well, we don't actually change the load. We change the torque on the, on the joint
that we're working, which is the same. That's actually what is creating the force, right?
So if I'm doing a front raise, it's where this, this downward forces times the distance away,
right? Which also then makes it no force when I've got at the bottom of the front raise,
which is why it's so easy with this. It's like a kettlebell, it's offset, except it has three
different handles. But it's offset just that a kettlebell, you can't do it because the offset
so far it becomes a wrist movement. So ours has three different sizes in the offset just enough
so that you can pick, if I put it in the front raise position or curl position, I could put it
in outward position. And the force is almost what it is at the, at the top, but then I get the top
and it's the same exact or the curl. So I can actually change the force curve in the movement.
And then I can just release the pressure a little bit and let it swing into position and keep doing
a drop set with never letting it down. Yeah. So it's got a really nice texture grip that allows
you to hold it in different positions. And then the load offset is just enough that it doesn't
overpower the wrist. And then you got different hand sizes so that you can maximize this relationship
and hit whatever joint that you're applying. So sounds incredible. It's really freaking.
It's awesome because you can, because the variable load, now I could go straight from front raises
to side raises or rear or curl because without like, because I don't have to put it down. So now
my time under tension goes through the roof. And by the way, the same effect with a flywheel
trainer because the variable, whatever you put into it is what it kicks back. So you have
an constant time under tension because there's no rest points either. So all this stuff is working
on maximizing time under tension, which anyway, it's cool stuff. Anyway, I get excited.
Well, let me ask you about another thing you've already mentioned, but I find this really
interesting, which is barefoot running and your sort of company, Barefoot Athletics. Yeah.
B-E-A-R. And the tagline is optimizing the human to ground interface. We've talked about this a
little bit with the powerlifting. How do you think about the foot ground interface?
It's interesting that we know that we should train all these parts of our body to be able to be
stronger, be more resilient. But we think that the foot is different, that we need to package it
and monetize it and somehow that that's the science of making it healthy. Where I challenge
people, think about that. First thing you do in the morning is roll out a bed and put your
weightlifting belt on and wrap it on tight and wear it till you go to bed at night. Do it with
your shoulders, your knees. Wake up and put some knee wraps on and elbow wraps and see what happens.
One, you'll get weaker. You'll lose movement capacity and you'll start affecting other areas
of the body very negatively because they will start picking up the compensation for those joints
that are not moving properly. This is it. What shoes are for is to protect you from the environment,
from cuts and abrasions and heat and things like that. But the foot, mind-blowing, is like every
other area of the body. You need to use it and you need to strengthen it and you need to learn
to control it. That's it. That's all I have to say about the subject. It's that simple, but somehow
we have been sold entire industries like the orthotics industry. It's completely false.
Meta analysis of the data shows that orthotics do nothing beyond temporary relief from pain over a
six, eight week period of time and provide no long-term benefit. I can't tell you how many
people I've eliminated back or knee or hip pain from working on strengthening and controlling
the foot and ankle complex. We believe we've villainized and said a low arch is a condition
that needs fixed. When it really is just controlling the foot and ankle complex and how
they relate to each other and how we use that, is it like go put on boxing gloves in the morning
and do that for the next 20 years and see what happens. It's not about finding the right shoe
that fits because your foot has been deformed. I'm not like some wacky, like, oh, you got to be
barefoot forever or do this. No, I'm just saying go spend some time using it, strengthen it,
learn to control it, and you will work better in a shoe. But the whole running shoe movement
with the raised heel, that was the person that suggested that to Nike way back when they were
trying to figure out what to do. The reason, and he says it's the worst thing that he ever did,
because we were coming from an era of people wearing heeled shoes, which by the way came from
stirrups way back in the day. That's where the whole heel came from is to go into stirrup,
then it went into fashion and then the running craze started coming around in the 70s.
They're starting to push this to the general mass population and they realized that they were
causing injuries and like, what are we going to do? Well, that's because everybody was in this
position and had a shortened calf muscle and it's like, well, to work around, let's just put a heel
on it so we don't injure them. That's it. And now, because the raised heel, you got to raise the toe
and then now with that, if you go stand on something and pull your inner toe in and in a
squat position, just reach down and do it, you'll see that you have no control over internal
and external rotation of your leg. You don't. Or your foot and you actually have to put a
support in for the arch to be able to passively control those structures. It's just bandaid on
top of bandaid on top of bandaid. Use it, strengthen it. If you want to wear some shoes
because they look good or fancy, I'm like, I have no problem. I mean, I go out on a wife,
my wife will put on some high heels every now and again. But all I'm saying is use your foot.
My thousand pound squat, my thousand pound deadlift were done barefoot. I'm not trying to
sell you shoes. Go do it with no shoe. That's what I've been promoting. I did that for six
years and I promoted it. But people ask me like, well, what do I do because my gym requires shoes?
Okay, where do I go? And then I go, well, you know, you could pick up these other finger
shoes or whatever and they go, man, my wife won't have sex with me if I do that. And I go, I know,
mine either. Trust me, I'm not making this up. Everybody in that market markets to one segment
and they're still missing some gaps because they still have a little bit too narrow of a toe box.
And if you're lifting, you have the opportunity to really get that splay and start working on
this stuff better. So I just wanted to create a shoe. These ones are odd colored because it's
a partnership with Kabuki. Normally we've got a black or a gray, low top, high top sticks to
the ground for lifting so we can do that and very pliable. It's a moccasin. It's a modern day
moccasin, but looks okay that you can wear it around in other areas if you if you so choose.
Like, you know what the number one healthcare cost in America is? What's that? Diabetes,
heart disease, cancer, low back pain.
What do you attribute low back pain to?
Well, it's attributed to a lot of things, but inability to control spinal position,
which starts happening from some breathing issues. It also happens from the foot. So
there's a lot of stuff, but everything that I do actually focuses on improving this.
Yeah. And it all starts with the feet.
This is one thing, like this doesn't affect breathing, but so it does actually affect
breathing to some extent in spinal stabilization. So the raised heel and toe will make you stride
further because of just how it operates, but that over stride is a result of opening this.
So we opened the pelvis and diaphragm. Did we talk about that and the impact that that has
for controlling and spine? Yeah, I think we touched on that. But it's all this stuff plays
together. So the gait affects that and so the shoe affects the gait and then so it's all connected.
All connected. Let me be very purposeful with some conversation here though. We've talked
about periodization. This was a big gap. So people go, yeah, well, when people started running with
those, they started having injuries back when the finger company produced those and didn't
do the education around this very simple concept. You do not walk into the gym if you haven't
squatted and start squatting 225 from Max Rex every day over day. And that's what people did
because they weren't told that you need to build the capacity to do this. You go wear these and
walk around in your office or wherever, all day long, your feet are going to hurt. They're going
to be sore. Do it for 10% of your time. Do that for a month, then add some. That will build the
capacity to do this and then that's going to start having the ability to strengthen, manage the foot.
There's a whole lot of other stuff. I've got videos on things that you can do by whatever you want
or just spend some time out of them. That's all that I want people to do because it is so simple
and it has such a profound impact. Yeah, it does. What I did- I noticed when I walked in,
was like, oh, hey, you're spending some time without shoes on.
Well, what I did, I think it's already now, two years ago when I was doing a lot of running,
I do like a 10 mile run. I would take my shoes off for the last like half mile and I run like
that. And that was for me really helpful to ensure that I have proper form. Form that minimizes pain
on the way I run. I still like shoes. I benefit a lot from shoes, the protection they provide,
but it's for running we're referring to, especially trail running and so on.
And in the city when there's glass and all those kinds of things, but it's really important to
have minimal sort of protection on your feet. For me, at least it was to figure out the ways that
my form, basic movement and like the positioning in the foot, the impact of the foot and everything,
you know, the lower leg, the entirety of the torso really, how it's improperly positioned
in terms for the objective of minimizing pain. And the barefoot running really helped fix that
for me because I figured out that I need to take shorter steps, more frequent, you know,
all those kinds of things. And that really helps you figure that out.
Like let's be realists about stuff, like spend some time using it, strengthen it. And I've got
some great ways to do that and learn how to do that. So yeah.
What is a good diet for strength development? I've just to give you some context, I've been
eating mostly meat, not for strength, mostly for mental performance. I just enjoy it.
Yes, you need to have a base level of protein building blocks for tissue, right? We need to
have enough fats to be able to have hormones work and key processes in the body. We need to have,
well, you don't need to have, from a performance aspect, carbohydrates necessarily,
because the other ones can convert into injury sources. But for a performance athlete,
carbohydrates can be very beneficial as well. So I look at it as you need a base level fats,
you need a base level of proteins, and then you adjust the carbohydrate intake based on the needs.
I'm not anti-carbohydrate by any means, because a lot of people, well, they look at me now when
they see like how lean I am, and they jump to a conclusion, you must be keto, you must be carnivore,
you must be whatever. And it's like, so losing and gaining weight is simply eating less or eating
more. I mean it, and we get so complicated. Oh, that my fat, they're like, what's your fasting
window? If I'm doing fasting, it's just because it works with my environment. Sometimes I do it,
sometimes I don't. All that does is control how much calories that you take, big success with
keto and carnivore diets. It's hard to eat a lot and put on weight with those diets. Protein
actually has a thermogenic effect. And so you have to have a massive amount of fats if you have a
only meat diet, because you can literally starve to death. There's a show where they put people
out in the wilderness, and this guy, the one that won one of the ones I looked at, they threw him
weight like up in the, you know, out the way out there, there was nothing, but he somehow got a
caribou and killed it. And he still lost a pound a day for 30 days with a caribou, because his fat
was stolen by a, and he could eat all the meat he wanted, and then he almost got pulled because
his weight loss, right? But that isn't actually a performance. So those type of keto and carnivore
are not performance diets. So they're not going to be as effective at supplying the energy needs
for high capacity training. So don't get me wrong, you can do training, but like,
you can be a successful athlete with a vegan diet, but it's not as easy to do it with other
diets. So on your missing some base nutrients, so many nutrients and meat, I believe having greens
in your diet is really beneficial, lots of research, but there's people in the other worlds
that argue that you don't need them, but they help clear organs, provide micronutrients, all this
sort of stuff. So I eat simply a whole well rounded diet, and I've gone from, I can go from
285 pounds, squatting a ton of weight to eating less and dropping all the way down to, you know,
seven, eight percent body fat with veins standing out everywhere without a tissue on me, just
with amazing great tasting food. To lose weight or be healthy does not mean that you need to
eat flavorless bland food. So that's the main point I try to get across.
But you can try portions. It's eat less to lose weight, eat more to gain weight.
Yep. Make sure that you've got enough protein, make sure that you've got your micronutrients
covered, which is going to cover by eating real food. Don't go low fat, no fat. If you want a
performance, don't go no carb, but if it works any of those things. So diet approach, when you
look at diets, understand that they're, how aggressive they are. So like keto can make
you lose a lot of weight, carnivore can make you lose a lot of weight. A lot of that upfront is
actually dropping glycogen stores. So you're actually just reducing water in your muscle
and fat tissue. So which is why it doesn't, isn't as great for a performance diet. But
understand that every diet also has a level of discipline and does it fit your lifestyle.
So I suggest people don't find a diet. You need to find a lifestyle because that's what's
sustainable. I hate the word diet to begin with. What behaviors are sustainable and then do that
and then over time, the things you'll get to where you need to get. Diet itself, just by the name of
it, is not sustainable because it is a short-term thing to get somewhere. Yeah. I tend to try to
measure it because I definitely have a love-heat relationship with food. I tend to look back
and say like by following this particular protocol, lifestyle, whatever, what was the level of happiness?
Yes. So not weight loss or weight gain or all those kinds of things. It's the entirety of the
picture. Productivity, just feeling good throughout the day, socially also interacting with people
because so much of human connection, like I mentioned before, is over food. And if you're
going to limit yourself in that regard, you're limiting a certain fundamental aspect of life.
A number of years ago, I did 20 to 22-hour fasts every day and I'm like,
well, this doesn't work. I can't do business lunches and stuff like that. So when I was in
my fasting thing, I went to a 16 so I could have a light lunch just for the social aspect of it and
perform well to perform that. That's funny. And then that's why the typical bodybuilding,
like the eight meal a day diet, has never worked for me because I've always been
a very bit like trying to fit that between meetings and other stuff. What that diet provides is that
just you get less bloat and distention of a larger meal. But at the end of the day,
you get the same exact results. Pick a lifestyle, live that you can have really great tasting food.
And that to me is the same thing. And this is why I'm like really hitting this point because
also with the dieting and like the approach like, oh, I'm going to do this and people pick
these chicken and broccoli recipes and guess what? You're going to break. If you do not enjoy it,
you will break. So it is a very important point. Well, I also slightly push back or maybe to
elaborate. If you don't enjoy moderation, for me particularly, I have trouble moderating certain
things. Most foods, I would say. So my source of happiness comes with foods, even if they're
bland, the ones that can enjoy but enjoy moderation. So there's, I mean, I enjoy every
piece of food. So it's like, if you can enjoy the full lifestyle, it's not just the particular
experience, but like the full journey. Does it fit your lifestyle? Yeah.
Right. So let me ask about a complicated topic that's sometimes a bit controversial,
which is steroids and maybe TRT testosterone replacement therapy. What role does that play
in strength training? All right, we're going to go there. Let's go there. Yeah, but it's an
important discussion to have. I think that it's something that I can be more transparent on
in my past. I wasn't able to due to the career that I had. So just like covering that stuff in
a public forum, when you're highly looked at being an executive for recruiting and other stuff,
like it was an area I had to just kind of pass on, right? Yes. Now, I've used steroids.
I've used them since I was 33. And I basically just used TRT now after my big squat. So for 10
years, I used them. And there's some interesting components to this. So one is just the gray area
of what we call performance enhancing supplements. So performance was at PEDs.
That the line of what defines a PED is ever shifting and it's shifting based on
society norms, cultural norms, government-bottling agencies, all these sorts of stuff. So I'm not
making excuses here. So I just want to elaborate before I actually start digging into the details
here because performance enhancing, I could take sodium bicarbonate and enhance my ability to perform
deadlifts for reps. Guess what? I did that for my Guinness World Record for deadlifts in a minute.
People do it for rowing or other, they use high capacity type stuff. It is performance enhancing.
It is a chemical. It is baking soda. They're not able to make it illegal because everybody eats
bread, not everyone. And so it's a little hard to test for. No matter what you do at any level,
so that's an extreme example. But other examples, you're drinking an energy drink in that cup there
a little while ago. And in America, you can get an energy drink with 240 milligrams of caffeine in
it. In Canada, that's too dangerous. You can only get 140, but you can go buy a Fedra. And a Fedra
is illegal in America. And so these things bounce back and forth all the time. I could take Yohembi
and in Europe or Australia, it is a drug and classified in America. It is not. It's an herbal
root and a lot high actually, one of my supplements except for the overseas version. Anyway, the
point I'm getting is no matter what you do at some point, by someone's standards, you are cheating.
And because it is, you're taking something that, but you could work around these things with
nutritional ways or other ways versus taking a chemical strip. And there's a whole lots of
ways to do this. But it's like, oh, no, it's steroids. It's not, it's injectable. It's not.
Well, somewhere there is a culture or a person that will say you're cheating no matter what. So
it's a self-defined, you need to define it for yourself unless you're competing in an organization
that has testing. Then it's a straight ethical thing. And it's either right or wrong, in my opinion.
That's kind of the overall dilemma of it is if you want to see what you're totally capable of,
you have to decide yourself what's okay or not to that level. There is no body that can say
something yes or no. Yeah. When there's an event like the Olympics, maybe then you have a standard
that you're all trying to adhere to. And then it makes sense to keep a certain like, to be within.
There's an ethical... So yeah, I'm not talking about that. I'm agreeing to compete in this by
these rules. Yeah. But when you're trying to maximize your own performance, whatever that
journey is, whatever that goal is, that's a different story. And it's not easy to figure that out.
You're just like dancing around the subject, whatever. Well, guess what? I've got a prescription
for growth hormone and testosterone. It's legal for me to take. And you know what? A lot of the
people that are in front of the camera and the media, politicians and news people and the people
that are there saying the no-drug stuff, they're going to anti-aging clinics to look better.
And they have a prescription for growth hormone and testosterone themselves. But in their eyes,
it's okay. It is a prescription from their doctor because they have the money to do it.
So it's legal and it's fine. If I... It's interesting in Oregon, anybody and I don't know what other
states over the age of 16 can, without parents permission, by the way, walk into a gender clinic
and as a female and get a prescription for testosterone. But as an athlete, if I've got
low testosterone, I am so low. I've got depression. I can't have sex with my wife. It's affecting my
quality of life. I will have to fight tooth and nail to get testosterone, just as a prescription.
And then I will get kicked out of my organization for competing. So you understand how gray this
stuff is. Do you think the stigma on testosterone is the reason we're not having a healthy conversation
about when it's proper... What are the proper uses of testosterone in an athlete's life and just
the regular human life? Yeah, absolutely. And it's just... It's like anything. It's like I said,
it is lines that we pick and draw. Anytime you put that out there, people are going to have
different opinions of where those lines are. So now when it comes to strength, here's an
interesting thing. In powerlifting, there's tested federations and non-tested federations.
So we can literally look at the statistical data and actually find out what do steroids do.
And so it's pretty clear that steroids provide about a 10% increase in strength on average
over not. Now, that does take out the fact that steroids will allow you to put on more mass,
so you'll go up a weight class a lot of times. So as a whole, you could definitely lift more
probably than the 10% over time. And then we think about steroids as the ability to just put on
muscle. And here's where things get a little interesting, even with people that use steroids,
is not understanding the neurological impacts that steroids have. Because you could take some
steroids right now and be stronger in 10 minutes. That's clearly not done anything from a physiology
standpoint to make you stronger, but we have tapped in neurologically to elicit those gains.
And there's a whole lot that happens neurologically.
Like how much science is there in terms of all the different ways you could take steroids,
which kinds of steroids, the timing, the dose, all of those things to develop the neurological,
the physical, the skeletal. You've talked with such depth about the science of strength building
in terms of form, in terms of the equipment that you use. It seems like a component,
the use of steroids should be an equal level of scientific rigor when applying them.
It is. Now, the research is harder to get because of what it is. But there is a lot of research
that was done when they were legal. So they were legal up and through, I think, the mid-80s.
And so a lot of the classical high benefit to low risk steroids were studied. And then,
since then, there's a lot of designer steroids or new steroids that have come up that don't have a
lot of research around safety and risk and things of that nature. And we can't do that because of
the legality around these things. But some of the stuff on the neurological function is really
just understanding how that chemical structure works and what it's doing to the neurotransmitters,
what it's doing. And so some of it is really talking to people that have experience with it.
And the other is understanding those structures and what they do. The neurological component,
I think, is more interesting than most because the most steroids act through increasing muscle
protein synthesis. That's how you add more muscle is they have an anti-catabolic effect
and they have a muscle protein synthesis enhancing effect. So it reduces the amount of muscle that
you waste and increases the amount of muscle that you put on. But the neurological component
is tremendously valuable for what it can do for your training workout. If I handle more load over
time, I'm going to make more progress. If I can actually just stimulate more neurological effects
for a specific event, it's going to have an impact. But there's other ways that you can tap into this
too, things that you can tap into mentally with great practice with meditation and other stuff
that will have the same effect. People probably think I'm over speaking, especially steroid users
that are listening to this. Well, Galey, I'm talking out my ass, but I'm not because I have
experience with this stuff on both ends. And some of those areas, a lot of people don't have
the experience with that. What I've heard from people is the confidence that comes with steroids.
It feels like, not to call it placebo, but it seems like the psychological benefits of steroids
is huge in that you feel like there's a confidence that seems to be coupled with the actual biological
and chemical effects. I have actually a neurological condition. So I actually don't feel a lot of that
stuff that people, because there's certain steroids that people will like, you're very extreme ones
that would make somebody bite someone's ear off in a fight, for example.
Yeah, almost like aggression.
And they'll literally do nothing. I'm always just chilling in the middle. They don't like
have an effect. But neurologically, they're still having those effects, but I don't get
those feels that other people have from those. But yes, there's that immediate boost in aggression
and the confidence and stuff that come with a lot of those ones that deal on the neurological.
Overall, a good sense of well-being just like from being on testosterone, it's going to affect
your mood. And it's interesting. So testosterone replacement therapy, if we walk down that path
now and kind of switch gears, we find that men today have declining testosterone over
what has historically been in the past. So right now, I think a 35-year-old testosterone
is shown to be about half what it was just 50 years ago. So I don't know if we could argue
the point. We don't really have the science to validate any of it, but it could be society
as far as the impact that it's having on the mental health. For men, it could be the
the estrogens floating around the water from all the chemicals and birth control and all
this sort of stuff could be a lot of things. But it is the fact that average testosterone
is significantly lower. And that is going to end up affecting life, quality of life,
as well as your longevity, because it will affect those things. But on the other end,
steroids and TRT, particularly steroids, come with a lot of negative health benefits,
not benefits, a lot of negative health ramifications. And so if I knew what I know now,
I don't know that I would have gone that path. I didn't tell I was 33, which is kind of an
outlier for a strength athlete. I was a four times body weight deadlifter, 800 plus pounds at
198. And it's pretty dang strong before I went down that path. And that's because I wanted
to see what I was capable of, but I was reaching a point that it was either I need to do that or
not. My testosterone, my natural testosterone levels were actually, I think below 300 is
actually the threshold. So I was being told to go on TRT for the last couple of years,
probably just because I was pushing so hard and the stress level was driving my test down.
So it was self-imposed, more than likely. But I put it off because I wanted to set all the drug
free records. And I set the ones that I wanted. And then it was 33, I'm, you know, entering the
age category. And I'm like, I'm going to go on TRT. I did not feel like I should be with TRT.
Personally, my ethical standard was I shouldn't be competing in tested events anymore.
There are federations that will allow you with your, you show up with your script and you do
your test and you're below a certain level, but you're still on. But for me, I'm like, that's
not okay. So I'm like, I may as well at this point use steroids. But since then, you know,
understanding all those ramifications, you know, I might not have gone down that route quite so
fast and easily. But I continued because I also have a lot of resources that other people don't
in being able to assess and understand and put things in place to mitigate that. So you need to
be. And the other thing is once you go on, it's literally a decision for life. Not in this,
but realistically is because your, your quality of life, your feeling is going to be enhanced
quite a bit. And you're not going to want to go back. And if you go back, it's going to be less
than it was before. That's how the endocrine system works. There are ways to try to recover and
bring that up, but it might be a while. And if you've been on for a while, it definitely is not
an option. So those are big things that people need to understand that you're going to have some
things in there. And even TRT has some potential, especially at higher levels, that it's going to,
you know, increase the risk for prostate cancer. It's going to potentially cause some
hypertrophy of the left ventricle of the heart and some potential plaque buildup of some of
those key arteries around there that's going to have an impact on your cardiovascular health.
There's things that you can do again, but everything is like the shoe story, right? Where
I'm anti, anti shoe, but I'm going, well, we could put Band-Aids on this. Yeah. So it's,
but there's a quality of life that comes with it, the increase in quality of life.
And if you do it correctly, I think for me, for me, I definitely would not live without TRT,
even with knowing what I know now at this age and the quality of life and being able to be there,
have the energy, the recovery. That's a big thing. We're all this though. I talked about
muscle protein synthesis and anti-catabolism as being big drivers, but recovery is the other
big aspect that they, that they offer probably as a result of those, but that's going to,
those are going to be the big enhancement. So just doing steroids. Steroids is going to increase
all the other stuff that you do. So if you have good training, you have good diet, good quality
of sleep, like all this other stuff, then you can take advantage of that, but you could choose
steroids and nobody would know. And honestly, you go down to 24-hour fitness and you'll see a
bunch of late 19 to 21 year old kids that are all kind of red and 150 pounds that look like that
don't look like anything. And there, a bunch of them will be using steroids because they're not,
like, so it's, it's not the, it's not going to make a champion.
Like you said, 10% at most. It's not going to, guess what? I was already at an elite level.
I was one of the best in the world before I started using. It doesn't, it doesn't do that. It does
a 10% increase at best. And that's proven in the statistics, which is interesting because
most people don't know this. Like it's, the data is right there. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I'm often
saddened by maybe the negative view of somebody like Lance Armstrong, who was one of the greatest
athletes in history. And everybody else that he was competing against, I'm sorry. I hate to blow
anybody's bubble. But regardless, if I told you my ethical pieces with saying that you're going to
be at something at an elite level, you look at a mostly a lot of those big figures out there.
When their income in your life relies on it. Yeah, you're going to push those limits. So
maybe I, maybe my ethical would change if, if, if I was in that position too, because
here's the thing where I believe like someone is, I think people should avoid steroids.
TRT, probably something worth taking a look at what your levels are when you're in the 35 to
45 range and see what decision you decide to make from there. And that's a decision that you make
for the rest of your life. The only times that you should be taking a look at steroids is if
it's, it's funding your life, it's creating that it is your job and it's doing like, and honestly,
it was for me. So was it the only thing? No. No. If you want to get into neurology,
neurotransmitters and alcohol, there's a really interesting discussion on performance enhancement.
So when I lift heavy, and so I always promote it like, not more than a drink or two, like once or
twice a month is what all I'm talking about when I, when I'm saying this. So like getting,
What's the timing of the drink that we're talking about? It's about three to five minutes before.
Yes. And now we're talking about beer. It doesn't matter the, the source. So I,
shots are the easiest. You want something that is not going to have some sort of regurgitory
effect or bloating effect or anything like that. But you want to have the quick hit of energy. So
it's a preferential energy source moves above ketones, carbs, everything at seven calories
per gram. But then there's some really interesting things that happen. Spikes, blood pressure,
which is going to make weights feel lighter. So when you're in your early 20s and you're trying
to hit up, you know, some attractive person at the bar and you're with your buddies and you're
like, ah, you know, and you got second guess for, oh, should I, should I, and they go,
have a shot of liquid courage and you have one. And all of a sudden the, the second thoughts,
the second guessing, all that drops away. Like you're focused in the moment and you walk over and
you actually perform a little better, like conversation wise than you normally would.
Now, if you have five or six and then go over, you're going to make a fool of yourself. So it's
all about timing and amount. But there is a reason that that happens. So anyway, I'm known for
promoting this whiskey and deadlift concept. I love this. But it, but it works like the Eastern
Block. So that's where I stole it from because I was watching all these Russian lifters would
have a shot of vodka or something before they go lift. And I'm like, there's something here.
So I started experimenting with it. And I'm like, that works. And then I started researching,
nobody talks about this stuff. So it takes a while to start piecing together all the stuff that
actually happens to make that happen. But it moves away the things that you're going to,
the concerns about the ramifications in the future and the other stuff. So the,
but brings you into the moment. And then the, the, the dopamine hit and the other, and then it
enhances whatever mood that you're in. But all of a sudden you get in the state much easier.
And so it's really, really interesting, but it's very, it's a very small amount needed
and very time sensitive, but it can be so much more powerful than like drugs people use for
this stuff. It ties really together with meditative state and other pieces to, to get you into that
flow state. Those thoughts about failure, what if, what if, like all that you, you get into
that zone, that moment, that time. So anyway, so interesting and alcoholic is promoting out,
you know, out. No, but there's an important point here, which not often talked about. I think it
is fascinating that because you can get into so much trouble with alcohol when you use an excess,
people don't often talk about the, the positive aspects of alcohol, even in your college years.
It had a, it had a lasting effect on who I am as a person.
I don't think people give enough credit to the positive aspect. See, you could have accomplished
a lot of those same things with a little more moderation, which I think people should talk
about more, which is like the way to open up a personality, like the flowering of the full
character and the weirdness and the, the, like the beauty of who you are as a human being could
be opened up with alcohol. And that's really interesting to think about. You should try some
podcast with a, with a shot in, in these. Yeah. And actually, I do this sometimes
with myself and guests, and it will change the conversation and lubricates the conversation.
Definitely not the excess, which is what I learned because I went all the way in because
I do everything at extremes. So it was a really hard lesson that took me a lot of time to unwind,
but it is interesting and people don't discuss those things because it's either this or this.
You're one of the greatest strength athletes of all time. So it's worthwhile to consider
how you optimize the, the feats of strength that you reach for with things like steroids.
It's, it makes perfect sense. And I think that was a, from my perspective, I think it was probably
the right decision. You've achieved something incredible that inspires a huge number of people.
That's it. And you've shown to yourself and to the world, but what the human body can accomplish.
Yep. That's incredible. And no matter if I pushed to a less weight and if I disclosed everything
that I did and I didn't, you know, I wasn't using steroids in my opinion, if we went through
everything, there were people that would say, you're using performance enhancing no matter,
like it is straight up. So you just need to be okay with it yourself. And so I had to make the
call. I want to see what the true potential is of, let's throw everything out the window
that I feel, unless I feel it's a risk from a, from a health standpoint that I'm not willing to take
on. And because that's how do I, like it's just picking and choosing. Yeah. And it's just picking
and choosing. I, here's what I want to know. This is what I want to be able to try to achieve.
And so yeah, yeah, that's what I did. And, and what you did is incredible. Like it's,
it's just all inspired. And Lance Armstrong did was incredible. Yeah. And that, and that
aids me up. And what's funny is the people that Basham are like on the media or politicians or
maybe some actors, and guess what, a ton of them are doing the same thing. It's hypocrisy at its
finest, trust me. But how many, how many of those figures you're watching in movies that love to
talk, you know, be, you know, be political and do this and the news and all this, I'm telling you
they're, they're anti-aging clinics, like all over California and everywhere else. Who do you
think is keeps them in business? Well, it's not a competitive lifter. I'll tell you that.
Well, that's you're using peptides and also in Psalms and all sorts of like,
but you're speaking to the hypocrisy. I also want to speak to the, the fact, you know,
somebody's a friend of mine, David Goggins. I don't know if you know what that is.
Ultramarathon runner, Navy Seal. He gets pretty incredible person. Yeah.
Incredible human being. And he gets criticism like, you know, what you're doing is,
is bad for the body. You know, you're, you're pushing yourself too far.
I find that the people that criticize are often people that haven't truly pushed themselves to
the limit. They haven't actually worked hard in their life. When you work hard, you realize how
incredible it is that a human being can dedicate themselves so fully to an effort. The way you
did, the way David Goggins does, the way, the way the greatest athletes do. And there's nothing
that should be said beyond just sitting back in awe that humans can achieve that. And that inspires
me to do the best, whatever the hell I do, to be the best version of that. There's something about
like athletic feats, especially like strength that just inspire us to do the best, to be the best
version of ourselves. I don't know. That's the only thing you should be saying as opposed to
criticizing some little detail of this and that. It's just awe-inspiring that you push yourself
to the limit. Well, that's when you talk to anybody that is at that level. And this is funny,
like in competitive sports, like you go online and people, it's just bash, bash, bash, bash,
bash, bash. You go talk to anybody, anybody, anybody that's a high level athlete within that field
and nobody has a single bad thing to say about each other. But all this chitter chatter down
there. I mean, I know exactly what you're saying. So if you, I would say, because I have love for
all those folks, especially when you're younger, you have a little bit of that desire to criticize
others. Like I think that should be channeled in improving your own life. Any time that you
feel that way, that is when you need to turn inward. And it's hard to do. But there is a reason
that you have those emotions around someone else and what they're doing, that you have an
opportunity to look at yourself and know why you feel that way. And that, guess what? That's going
to be the hard thing to do. That's going to be the thing, again, that's stirring you a little bit
because it's so much easier to sit there and or talk to your confidant or whatever, instead of go,
why does that bother me? Why does what that person doing or what that person's achieving
bother me? It's a good difficult question that I often ask others,
whether it's better to work hard or work smart. I like to ask that question because it helps me
get a sense of the human being. And I think I, let me just say, like I often,
I often like people that answer that would work hard.
Even though the quote unquote right answer is work smart, meaning like finding the optimal,
efficient way to achieve a certain goal, I find that people that answer work smart
are, don't actually find the optimal, efficient way to achieve a goal. It seems like the people
that at least certainly early in life strive to work their ass off, even that means doing
the inefficient, the dumb thing, just to learn the mistake, the spirit behind the human spirit
behind the person that says work hard is the one that I connect with. But I'm torn, especially in
the war culture in the tech sector where people answer work smart. What would you say about that
tension? This definitely encompasses like, I'm the intellectual and I'm the meathead. I'm the
work around the clock and go fix the processes and make it so much better.
Type person, right? That's me in a whole, that's everything, that's my life story, right?
Busting your ass to find the easiest way possible. To both. So I will build
a custom hydraulic cart that will lift my plates up to the height of my squat
so that I can minimize, I roll it over next to it and then minimize the effort of it going on and
off to be able to lift the most amount of weight as possible so that I can save the energy from
here from lifting those up and the fatigue of my back being in bad position so I can
nearly kill myself over here, right? My wife, anybody will say, I'm a workaholic.
And the first thing that I would do when it would be doing a company turnaround,
they'd hire me come in and I would be taking over for someone that wasn't successful,
but it was usually hardly ever for lack of want or trying. So a lot of times,
they knew they were unsuccessful and they were running around working six, seven days a week,
12 hour days, doing so much. And it'd be like, well, you need to do this. And they'd train me on,
like, all the reports and this and all the things and like, good luck. Good luck. I couldn't do it.
But and the first thing I would do is nothing. I would do nothing
because then I would find what actually keeps coming back,
the things that I need to do and how much of it was filling the space because so much of human
nature when you're failing is to make yourself feel like you're accomplishing thing. This is when
things go on your list, on your checklist and you start like rolling up. So you're running around,
just getting shit done. Yeah. Yeah. Being busy. Right. And so, yeah. So, but at the same time,
find somewhere in my career, something I've done where I haven't outworked everybody.
Just so much on distilling things down to what's important. Yeah. And you've got to make time
to sit back and assess and think and be introspective. You have to make time for this.
Because if not, you're going to waste so much time sitting there, walking sideways when all you
got to do is move just one step in front of the other each day, just one. That's all I say
because it's going to add up, but you could spend six months knocking shit out,
doing your routine, busting your ass and not take that one step. So you've got to distill
stuff down. You've got to really understand like what's important to you in life and where you're
going. And when you're looking at anything in your life, the first thing that you need to do is
figure out, do I need to do it and just quit doing it? Just quit doing things in your life.
And you'll see that a lot of stuff that you think has to be done, doesn't have to be done.
You'd be surprised. And then from there is the tech, okay. And then of that, what can I,
what can I automate? What can I not have to do in a repeated fashion? And then the last one,
yeah, wherever possible, if it's not something that I'm adding tremendous value to,
like my uniqueness, people like, oh, you must like do the auto work on your vehicles because
you love working like, fuck that. I don't know. Like what, that doesn't make any sense. And I'm
like, no, I love creating things, but I don't want to do that stuff. So you could use delegating if
you're a manager position, but it's outsourcing whatever it is. But there are also so many things
this and this, this ties back to your point around just doing it. There's a point to like
experiencing all levels to really understand things you need to spend time at the same time
doing all those things. Because there could be good, huge, massive gaps in there
that you're not aware of that are key for you or key to be having done different or so on. So
like in my company days, I was one of the few executives that came in that could do anything on
the floor from code to machine, run a lay the mill, weld, do all step into engineering, like,
and that added tremendous value to me to having had spent time being a doer and not enough people
want to be, you've got to just go do shit. You need to spend time in your life chopping wood.
Yeah, get a lot of shit done doesn't matter. You got to have experience trying and doing
all these things that you would never, like my skill set is massive because I want to know,
like, you need to have those touch points. My job, my title is chief visionary.
But I've spent time doing everything. It's not about just like creating this amazing strategy
or vision and I'm just going to be there and this person that directs and like,
you can't be effective. You cannot connect the dots unless you've been in the moment with everything.
Yeah, low level stuff. Sometimes it's doing stupid shit that you're not uniquely qualified
to do than anywhere you could do, but you did it anyway.
Just the training environment. People hit me up at a school or wherever like,
hey, how do I get into, I want to grow my brand online. I want to do this like,
where do I start? I'm like, go get a job at Planet Fitness or 24 hour Fitness. They're like,
but I want to, you know, how do I get, you know, recognized and write articles and be an online
coach. I'm like, you need to go spend a few years one-on-one training people
to learn like the interaction, how people were, there's base levels you have to do.
You've got to go work your way up from the ground. I truly believe it.
Well, I think that's the hard work piece that I'm speaking to,
that I like it when people have been humbled by the hardness of life.
Like how difficult it is to do stuff. I went and got my MBA. I went to MIT.
I don't need to do that stuff. I'm above that.
Once you've been humbled by doing those things, I feel like you can truly explore
the optimization that you're talking to, finding the ways where you're uniquely
capable to add value to the world and then again work your ass off to be the best in
the world at that thing. But then don't waste your time on shit that's not a line.
I guess there's a lot of context I put around that.
Yeah, that was like a long answer to a long, beautiful answer to an unanswerable question.
Do you have advice outside of all this discussion to young people today about career,
about life? Since you've done so many things, you've overcome a lot of things.
Think high school, college student. Think about what to do in their life.
Do you have advice for those guys and girls?
Yeah, yeah. First is you don't have it figured out. So don't worry. Just jump in.
We talked a lot about understanding your values and aligning all that stuff, but
you got to have a base level of start exploring and learning and just spending the time doing like,
pick something. Let me elaborate a little bit.
No, you know what? A lot of people struggle with that aspect now because there's so much choice,
it's difficult to pick something, but I think it does blow down to you should pick something
and don't worry about it. But within that, you can start discovering the things
that are there for you. Like I talked about, I made this huge shift. I threw away whole life,
but I don't regret anything about that. I wouldn't be where I was if I didn't walk through and learn
those things. And in fact, in the course of that, I learned just how much that inspiring people and
helping them realize the potential far beyond what they thought was capable. And guess what?
That was leadership 101 in managing people base level, floor level. And I got a lot out that
was perfectly aligned with what, and that's what I realized. It didn't matter what industry I was in
or any of those other things. But I was able, you can see so many things, there's so many paths
that you can go down to help you realize what those things are. And you're going to be able to find
a lot of those nuggets and develop those. Do you think that I could have just gone to school
and got out and started a globally recognized brand within a few years without having
been schooled in business while getting paid for it by others for years? And in fact,
that entire time, I knew that that's what I wanted to do, but I didn't go out on it.
I mentored some of my friends along the same path to go, no, they're like, I'm ready. I'm ready to
go do this. And I'm like, no, now you need to go get a job. Yeah, you know, engineering,
management, design, all that stuff, go get a job as a manager now. Like, oh, that's a step down.
I can't do that. I'm like, go try it. A couple of years later, oh my God, that was such a good move.
I didn't know what I didn't know. And now they're an executive for freaking a Fortune 500 company.
And the same thing, like I sat there knowing that I was getting a free education. Don't stress
yourself out as my, that's my advice. Don't stress yourself out that you've got to have this perfect
thing because this process of understanding your values and the interest, but that takes time.
You can get a job where you're getting paid to learn. Exactly. That's a good deal before you
launch on your own. You mentioned going back to darkness. I'm Russian, so like going back to
darkness. You suffer from depression. You consider suicide. Do you ponder your own death these days?
Do you think about your mortality? Are you afraid of death?
I definitely think about mortality. And am I afraid of my own death? It depends on the moment.
If I'm in the middle of a project, I definitely want to finish that project, man.
But I don't fear it so much. I fear leaving my kids or my wife and not being able to be there
for them. That bothers me. Outside of that, I know that I put everything into what I,
the life that I've lived. Like you said, there's always more, but like I've lived hard. I've loved
hard. Every moment in my life, I've made connections and impacted people around me
for the better. And this tracks back, which is crazy when we're doing the documentary and
they're interviewing people through my whole life and the consistency of the themes of anyone,
like anything for Duffin, like just, sure, I'll fly in from Boston. All these people,
like it was crazy. Everybody had a story about me giving, just over and over. And I didn't even
really, it's just the way you were. But I've been all in. I don't have, like, I have a lot more I
want to do, but I don't have things that regret have not done in, like, I don't fear it. I don't
fear it. Yeah. It's like, I don't know if you know the Bacowski poem, go all the way. Otherwise,
don't even try. It seems like you embody that poem and you've accomplished some incredible
things and serve as an inspiration to a huge number of people. Chris, you're an amazing human
being. I'm really honored that you would spend your valuable time with me. Thank you so much
for talking with me today. It was incredible. I can't wait to check out all the cool stuff
you've engineered with Kabuki strength. So I'm obviously, I love the, I love strength. I love
strength training. I love the idea of strength. I love the, the equipment and the engineering
approach that you take to strength. You're an incredible human, both on the things you've
accomplished in terms of your own strength feats and the kind of science and engineering
you bring to the field that many others could use. So thank you so much for talking today.
Thanks for having me on. That was quite the final thing. Thank you.
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Chris Duffin and thank you to Headspace,
Magic Spoon, Sunbasket and Ladder. Check them out in the description to support this podcast.
And now let me leave you with some words from Arnold Schwarzenegger. Strength does not come
from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through the hardship
and decide not to surrender, that is strength. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.