Pavel Tsatsouline and Chris Sommer — The Tim Ferriss Show

Squeeze harder, tighten up, and amplify your strength! 💪🔥

Try the simplest exercise possible... Try the dumbbell curl or barbell curl. When they suddenly start to get tougher, I want you to just crush the dumbbell, the barbell, or the kettlebell, whatever it is that you're curling... What you will see is you're definitely going to be able to get several more repetitions out.

On the next set, in addition to crushing the bar on the way up, also contract your glutes as tight as possible... Like somebody's going to kick you in the butt, very very tight so you just like crunch a walnut, and at the same time tighten your abs as if somebody's gonna kick you. If you do these three things, if you contract your glutes, contract your abs, contract your grip... Everything that you do, absolutely everything, is going to be greatly amplified.

I did introduce, together with my business partner, the kettlebell to the West... The kettlebell has become mainstream, but what I'm really all about is the principles—the underlying principles of strength training. It doesn't really matter what modality you use... I am not about the kettlebell; I am about the principles that make you strong. What I have done is I have reverse-engineered the way the strongest people move naturally and I have brought it to the people... How to shave off years, if not decades, of training to progress to a much higher level.

Train your grip and your core... The phenomenon of irradiation—if you contract a muscle, the tension from that muscle is going to spill over to the neighboring muscles. Make a fist; you're probably going to feel tension in your forearm... Now make a tight fist; you're going to feel tension in your biceps and triceps. Now make a white-knuckle fist; you're going to find that tension is going to spread into your shoulder, your lat, your back... Gripping muscles are amongst the most significant—they have such a great representation in your nervous system, in your brain.

Visualize your muscles as speakers and visualize your brain as the gadget that plays the music... The amount of pressure in your abdomen is the amplifier, the volume control. For strength, we do the opposite; we have special techniques where you increase that pressure and maximize your power... My company today is called StrongFirst, and the SFG certification—that's the same curriculum that you have learned back then.

See, the person is creating high internal pressure and that just increases the tension of the muscle... You need to complete the release, let go, and bring it down. For strength, we do the opposite; we have special techniques where you increase that pressure and maximize your power... I am no longer with that organization, so my company today is called StrongFirst, and the SFG certification—that's the same curriculum that you have learned back then.

Get some grippers... The company is called IronMind, ironmind.com, and they carry hand grippers. These are heavy-duty grippers; they go up to 365 pounds... This is what you do throughout the day, every day, whenever you feel fully recovered. You have to have at least 15 minutes of rest between sets... You're only going to do about half the repetitions that you're capable of.

My father-in-law, a former Marine, at the age of 64 started following this routine... He was able to do about 10 pull-ups at that point; in several months, he was up to 20. Keep the repetitions to five and under—no more than five reps... Make a focus on tension, make a focus on contraction as opposed to on reps and fatigue. We don't use the word "core" because people who use the word "core" do things we don't like... So we just say midsection. If we do a plank, we call it the hard style plank... We would do a plank for no longer than 10 seconds.

Focus on practice, not punishment, for true strength and joy! 🧘‍♂️💥

We don't use the word "core" because people who use the word "core" do things we don't like... So we just say "midsection." Traditionally, they would put you in a plank and you're supposed to stay in that position for a couple of minutes... What's happening is you see this poor person who cannot assume the proper posture to start with, and then as fatigue sets in, other muscles—the wrong muscles—start kicking in. The back starts arching, the butt starts shooting up... What you're doing is what Gray Cook calls "putting fitness on top of dysfunction."

We would do a plank for no longer than 10 seconds... When you do the plank, you try to contract everything—absolutely everything. When I say everything, I mean the shins, your forearms, your neck, everything below your neck... It's not for folks with high blood pressure or heart conditions, and that's true for pretty much any type of training.

You get down in a plank, you make fists... You contract your abs, you contract your glutes, you contract your entire body. Pretend that somebody's going to walk by and kick you in the ribs... Find whatever abdominal exercises you like—it can be the plank, some kind of sit-up, something from your book "The 4-Hour Body," or something from my book "The Hardstyle Abs." As long as it's a good exercise that has been recognized to work... Three times a week, do three to five sets of three to five reps.

Focus on contraction, don't focus on fatigue... I promise, if you do these two things for several months—work your grip in this manner, work your abs in this manner—everything that you do today is going to be stronger. I don't care what it is—a bigger deadlift, a tennis serve—it makes no difference, you're going to be stronger... Let's just say Monday for the plank, do three sets of 10 seconds. Got it? Three sets of 10 seconds, three times a week, and try to contract everything below your neck... You want to be strong, you need to keep your reps at five and under.

Whenever you start experiencing the burn, that's from something called hydrogen ions... This leads to a whole lot of problems for you. One of the problems is it interferes with the command your brain sends to the muscle to contract... Another problem it creates is that these hydrogen ions are destructive, so if you leave them around the muscle for too long, they start destroying your muscle.

Approach your training as a practice... This is another very important point. I hate the word "workouts"... The word "workout" does not exist in the Russian language. We talk about a training session or a lesson, we never talk about a workout... Just think about it—what does the word "workout" envision? Sweating and grunting, seeing how much you can punish yourself and drain yourself... The goal is not to get stronger, the goal is just to get worn out. There are simpler ways of doing that, like running up a mountain... No, the idea here is practice. Strength is a skill and it must be practiced... If you approach it in this manner, not only will you get stronger much faster, but you will truly enjoy your training process.

Training should be something that is enjoyed... When people think of fitness, particularly non-athletes, there tends to be a very scattershot approach. There's a paradox of choice challenge that they face... They're fed a lot of recommendations from many different people. They have strength, not necessarily muscle gain, but just getting stronger... They have hypertrophy, increasing their muscular size; endurance; flexibility. How would you rank these in order of priority and why?... As long as the person has the required mobility and symmetry, the priority is always health. The priority is always strength... Strength has to be first.

So the first step you do is assess your mobility... Find a specialist who can do that. FMS would be a recommendation of mine... Gray Cook's Functional Movement Screen (FMS) is going to find out how mobile you are and also how symmetrical you are. As long as that is dialed in, you have to get strong... Strength is the mother quality of all physical qualities. That's not a statement by me, that's a statement by Pap... The father of preparation, one of the greatest sports scientists ever. Greater strength increases your performance in absolutely everything... You can see, of course, that being stronger will help you in, let's say, punching somebody hard or lifting something.

But how is that going to help me if I'm a triathlete? How's that going to help me if I'm a marathoner? It is going to help in several different ways... One is the perceived level of exertion is going to go down. Several years ago, Norwegians did a very interesting study... They put elite endurance athletes—some were bicyclists, some were runners—on a pure strength regimen. That's four sets of four reps of heavy squats... It's about as pure strength as it gets. In the end of this study, not surprisingly, all these guys were stronger... They could jump higher, and so on.

But they were not impressed with that... That didn't matter to them. What did impress them is they ran faster... Their race times went down because strength just enables everything else. If you're trying to lose weight, being stronger is going to help you do that... You're going to have a bigger furnace, and you'll train yourself much harder on the exercises that are fat loss exercises. So it really doesn't matter what you're trying to achieve... Strength is the number one attribute you need to address. That's why my company is called StrongFirst...

One of the things that I love about you, Pavel... You say what you mean and mean what you say. There's a degree of clarity that I envy... When we did our sound check, I asked you to give me an answer so we could test the audio. What was your answer? Coffee. That was it... That was the sound check.

I love this simplicity... Now, speaking of simplicity and also undoing the confusion that a lot of people suffer from... What are the most counterproductive myths or misconceptions about strength training that come to mind? The number one is the idea that you have to go to failure every time you train. I can tell you one thing... The Soviet weightlifters, I have done a very thorough analysis of their methodology through the '60s to the '80s, the glory days. I found that they typically did one to three maximal repetitions per set... So what does it mean? If you're using a weight that's your 10 rep max—10 is all you could do if you push yourself very hard... They would do three to six consistently.

Train smarter, not harder. Progress and joy guaranteed! 💪😃

The number one misconception, Tim, I guess, is the idea that you have to go to failure every time you train... Soviet weightlifters, I have done a very thorough analysis of the Soviet weightlifting methodology. They typically did one to three maximal repetitions per set... Let's say that you're using a weight that's your 10 rep max. They would do three to six consistently... If you make it a habit to do one to two-thirds of the repetitions possible and do more sets instead, you're going to make much greater progress. You're going to train much safer, and folks, you're going to enjoy your training...

Hypertrophy is volume. There's a direct correlation between volume and hypertrophy... Do more sets in like 60 to 70% of your max range and a whole bunch of sets of five or six, just many of them. Do this a couple of times a week, many sets of five or six, don't even worry about how many, just keep going... Don't kill yourself, enjoy yourself, eat more, you're going to get bigger. It's unavoidable, it's just as simple as that...

If you were to choose one movement, Tim, yes, I would choose the deadlift or I would choose the kettlebell swing. The deadlift is a very technical lift... Even if you're just a recreational lifter, you owe it to yourself to learn to deadlift correctly. That's as simple as that...

A very big mistake people make is thinking, "Okay, I have picked up things from the floor, this looks so simple. It's not an Olympic lift, therefore it's very simple." So they just start piling on plates and start training... The deadlift is a very technical lift, even if you're just a recreational lifter, you owe it to yourself to learn to deadlift correctly. That's as simple as that...

Balance with priorities. Balance with priorities... Calm is contagious. Calm is contagious... When a person is calm, they have the time to meditate, reflect, set their priorities, and set the balance. I define high-level body weight strength training as none of the training that we do for world-class performance or the acrobatics or tech gymnastics... Just purely the strength, joint prep, and mobility components.

Unlocking gymnastic strength is all about mastering the basics first! 🧘‍♂️✨

I've been very eager to have you on the show to explore all things gymnastics and gymnastics strength training related... So thanks for making the time. I thought we could start with just some definitions... Gymnastic strength training, I define as high-level body weight strength training. So none of the training that we do for world-class performance or the acrobatics or tech gymnastics, just purely the strength, joint prep, and mobility components...

We were talking about doing a pike handstand press or holding that position. So, Pike for people who are not familiar with this... Imagine you're sitting on the floor, legs straight and together, bending at the waist towards your toes. If you were to imagine you're sitting down with your legs out in front of you hypothetically at a 90-degree angle and you put your arms up over your head, let's just flip you upside down so you're in a handstand position... That's effectively what we're talking about. If they lack strength, if they lack mobility, then of course their technical handstand is going to lack refinement... They're going to try to counterbalance by really arching the chest out, sticking the butt way back behind them. It's like anything, you know, you don't jump right into calculus... Learn to count, then we learn addition, we learn subtraction, yada yada yada. With enough time and enough layers, enough progression, then we get to advanced math... So advanced ring strength is the same deal. Many of the guys who do outdoor bar work, some of which are very impressive physical specimens, will jump up on the rings...

Side to side pull-up. They're like, 'I was feeling fine coach and then suddenly my, you know, I tore my bicep, I tore my pec,' and it was fine until it wasn't... We already mentioned one, which is say mid and lower traps. If you look at the muscles or types of strength that most non-gymnasts will not have even if they consider themselves reasonably athletic, what would be on that list... The one that always jumps out at us is their lack of shoulder extension. If I'm standing upright and I lift my hands forward, that's flexion... If I'm picking my hands up behind me, that would be shoulder extension. If you stand up and then interlace your fingers behind your tailbone with your arms straight and then try to lift them up towards the ceiling while keeping your back straight... That's shoulder extension. A lot of people fail; they can't do muscle-ups because they can't do shoulder extension... They think in their head that a muscle-up is a chin-up, a little bit of transition that they don't understand, and then a dip. What really happens is we do a pull-up, we get our hands to our chin, and then the elbows pull back behind the torso... That's shoulder extension. If they can't do shoulder extension, now they're stuck... They spend all this time working technique and doing reps, but what they're doing is they're treating the symptom and not actually the problem. Just as some background for folks, the way that we connected was I, at 38, finally decided enough is enough... I met a gent who was doing a body weight workout. He suggested that I follow Gymnastic Bodies on Instagram... I feel better than I've felt with the exception of a little bit of elbow nonsense that is not from this specifically; it's a recurring thing. I feel better than I have in years... For most of the adults, it's going to be that they have severe compromises in their mobility. Their shoulders don't work well, their hips don't work, their knees don't...

Master your mobility to unlock total body strength! 💪✨

People tend to want what they want when they want it, and that's fine if I'm looking for mediocre to average results... I've got to back up and take care of my business. They have severe compromises in their mobility... Their shoulders don't work well, their hips don't work, their knees don't work, their elbows are shot, their forearms are tight from all the desk patrol, and their calves are like piano wire from sitting all the time. The common one that we get from people is, 'Well, these are extreme ranges of motion, these are artificial ranges of motion,' and actually, these are your natural ranges of motion... The problem is they quit using it and so it just atrophied. We've been doing this since maybe 2006, working with the adults... The thing that keeps having my nose rubbed in it over and over again is the complete lack of joint prep and mobility they come to the table with.

Transverse abdominus... They're like, 'Excuse me, was that English?' They don't have a clue, and that's what supports the body when it's in a straight body position. If my lower back is arched, I'm in anterior pelvic tilt... If I'm in the opposite movement with my tailbone tucked under and my lower back flat, that's posterior pelvic tilt. Imagine that your waist is the top of a wine glass... If you have anterior pelvic tilt to the front, you're going to be pouring wine out the front of that glass, basically out of your belly button. And if you have posterior pelvic tilt... You're tucking that tailbone, pouring wine down your sacrum, down the back of your body.

Coach, feel free to interrupt at any point... But an easy way to remember anterior pelvic tilt is to imagine that your waist is the top of a wine glass. If you have anterior pelvic tilt, you're pouring wine out the front of that glass, basically out of your belly button... And if you have posterior pelvic tilt, you're tucking that tailbone and pouring wine down your sacrum, down the back of your body. It's just an easy way for me to remember that... That is clever, I have to say. Forty years on the national team and I've never heard it described that way... It may become our go-to definition.

I can't do the gymnastics... I'll have to stick with refining my definitions, although I am making progress with the fundamentals. Yes, you are... I'd like to talk about the assessment that we did. So I flew out to a great gym, Awaken Gymnastics in Colorado, and we met up... That's our GB Master affiliate; we only have one in the world. Awaken in Denver is our number one GB affiliate; they're the best at what they do... It's a fantastic gym, and we did quite a few hours of various assessments.

If somebody wanted to try to self-assess or videotape themselves to have someone qualified in gymnastics assess them, if you were to do an 80/20 analysis... Which movements or exercises give you the most data? Well, let's see... What we went over with you, we checked the hanging leg lift. Hanging leg lift automatically tells me dynamic range... Is that right? That's like on a stall bar, you don't want to be free swinging... It could be. Most of them, whatever they can do, to my eye, as soon as I see it or our staff sees it, they're going to know right away whether or not that person has adequate core strength...

Then it's going to tell me hamstring flexibility... That'll do that in one. Bridge, bridge is a huge one for adults... We have a Thoracic Bridge Core Stretch series that's been one of our best-selling products. That's what I'm doing this evening... Yeah, notice guys that Tim's real happy right now. That'll change in just a few... What characterizes a good bridge? For people thinking of a bridge, imagine you're laying on your back, you put your palms down by your ears, feet flat on the ground, and then you go up into an arch...

I was extremely surprised and found it quite hilarious how bad my bridge was... I mean, terrible in the assessment. But by your standards, yes... By what I see on a normal basis, yours was medium. Medium, it was like a D+... It was on the verge of passing. But I realized, despite all my many years of wrestling where we did tons of bridges... Almost all of my bridging comes from bending at the low back. So my lumbar... Huge issue. What is a good bridge?

Little background... The lumbar, the lower back, is not designed to have a ton of movement in it, a big arch. Your thoracic spine, your upper and middle back, they're designed to have a lot of movement... They're designed to rotate; your lower back is not. But when most people do their bridge work, they're so compromised... Now, even back up a little bit more, they're so compromised in range of motion in their upper body because they've been hitting the weights hard, doing a lot of high-intensity training.

To preface that, there's nothing wrong with weight training... There's nothing wrong with that at all. If you weren't one of God's gifts when you were born, you've got to do something to make up the deficit... The problem is when they do all that weight training, they're not doing it in balance and maintaining their mobility. If they had, they wouldn't have the issues they're running into... So if all you do is strength, strength, strength, you can always tell someone who is the curl king and the bench press king. They come in hunched over, their elbows don't straighten, their arms don't go behind them at all... They're like, 'You know, my shoulders are killing me.'

Most of the time, what we found is, yeah, their shoulders are completely effed up... I agree, but their biceps are crazy tight also. And that bicep runs up through the front of the shoulder and manifests as a shoulder issue... So all these factors come together, long story short, to cause them a huge problem. Being able to get into a proper bridge, which should be all upper body and no lower back at all... But people are doing the exact opposite. They hurt their lower back and say, 'Man, these bridges are dangerous.' Well, the bridges aren't dangerous; doing them half-assed and wrong without vetting your sources of information is dangerous.

Unlock true strength by perfecting your mobility! 💪✨

They come in and they're hunched over and their elbows don't straighten... Their shoulders are completely effed up, I agree, but their biceps are crazy tight also, and that bicep runs up through the front of the shoulder and it's manifesting itself as a shoulder issue. This causes them a huge problem being able to get into a proper bridge... which should be all upper body, no lower back almost at all, but people are doing the exact opposite. They hurt their lower back and say, 'Man, these bridges are dangerous.' Well, the bridges aren't dangerous; doing them half-assed and wrong without vetting your sources of information is dangerous.

I found it incredibly therapeutic as someone who's had a basically frozen thoracic for God knows how long, 10 years... The concept of helping to take the lower back out of the equation by elevating the feet didn't even occur to me. Elevating the feet, yep... and elevating them as high as necessary. We need to change gears here... we need to go slow now in order to go fast later.

Unless I'm a powerlifter or an Olympic lifter, maximum strength is not my sole criteria for being successful... The strongest athletes in the weight room are not the best athletes on the field of play. He couldn't even hang on a bar anymore with his arms straight without hitting his head... I think you're screwed. Tim was much more mobile, much more athletic, much more well-prepared than I had anticipated... so I had spent a lot of time putting a custom program together for Tim that, because he did so well in his assessment, I had to throw the whole damn thing away.

Coach, what can you do for me? For once, I was at a loss for words, which is rare for me. I think you're screwed... He couldn't even... we couldn't even get in a bridge; it was impossible. Tim was much more mobile, much more athletic, much more well-prepared than I had anticipated... I had to throw the whole damn thing away because he was too advanced for what we had assumed he was coming to the table with. We're going to have to sneak up on it... first do PEC Minor. Get in there and we got to work on the bicep tendon... get forearms loose, break the scals so there's some motion there. It's not high-intensity work but it's got to be done... and as you heard Tim say, the body thrives on it. Makes the high-intensity sexy work possible later... not only possible but safer.

They weren't my athletes... Physical preparation was always our number one priority. We built the physical structure first... They're trying to build technique with a flawed range of motion, which of course gives them effed up technique, and it doesn't work, and then they get hurt. You need an optimal surplus range of mobility, range of motion, strength, stability... what you need to perform and a little extra for when things go south. Oh, it is going to go wrong... it's absolutely going to go wrong, and so you prepare the body for that ahead of time.

Hold on to, say, a bar or rings... tucking up, going back in between the rings, and then hanging down with as little of a pike at the hips as possible. Nice flat back, nice straight hips... If it's at the attachment points though, then I want to know about it. Or we're going to dial it down... to sneak around it.

Avoid injuries by being patient and letting your body adapt! ⏳💪

Most beginners, they want to base all their training off muscular fatigue, which is a problem... Muscle tissue regenerates about every 90 days while connective tissue takes 200 to 210 days. If I get in and I'm just... I'm not a big fan of beginners training to failure simply because their structure isn't mature enough yet to handle it safely. As soon as we get joints involved, everything changes... The vast majority of those injuries are all joint-related, almost always. It's extremely rare for someone to have a muscle belly injury.

Their training, especially in the beginning, is all skewed just towards muscular development and not connective tissue development... 210 days, we're talking six, seven months of dialing it back, guys, dialing it back. We get some people who are addicted to the rush... They're addicted to the adrenaline rush, they're addicted to laying there in a pile of sweat. I have to be back in the gym the next day and train again... I can't afford to destroy myself. Connective tissue is going to take 200 to 210 days. There's no supplement, you can't paint yourself blue, you can't dance under the moon... There's nothing you can do to speed that up. If there's joint ping, we shut it down... It takes much longer to repair it than it does to avoid it in the first place.

You can't dance under the moon... there's nothing you can do to speed that up... It's going to take what it takes. We work as hard as we can within those parameters... If there's joint ping, we shut it down. Your elbow's a good example... years ago, pushing too hard... If we tweak that up a little too much, it flares up on you. We'll repair it and it's going to take time... It takes much longer to repair it than it does to avoid it in the first place.

The use of anabolics or any type of growth agents... would just increase the likelihood of having connective tissue problems in gymnasts because the muscular strength and growth would outpace the development and adaptation of the tissues. Backfire, huge backfire... Where students make their greatest gains in strength is to be able to do dynamic plyometric work and straight arm ring strength. The main difference between working with young developmental athletes and full-grown adults... is the order in which we need to present the material.

We have to first go rebuild mobility... Then we have to rebuild core. Core, I'm talking not just abs but obliques and lower back... Most adults, a lot of their lower back pain isn't lower back-related; it's oblique-related. We have to go in and we have to correct that... Then we can worry about regular strength. Once those things are done, then we can get to the money maker which is their dynamic strength... They've been doing strength training but not out moving, doing sports, being active.

Then they go outside, they play a little softball... "All the time, when I was playing softball, I blew my knee going around first base." How many kids blow a knee running around first base? Shoulder extension would be sitting on the floor, sitting in that pike that you described earlier, hands touching behind them. Without letting the hands move, trying to scoot the butt as far forward away from the hands as they could... going to show me their scapular health. Can they protract, can they retract... It's going to tell me how tight their pec minor is. It's going to tell me how tight their bicep is... It's going to tell me how tight their brachialis down by the elbow is. If you have back pain, you don’t always fix that back pain by just focusing on the location of that pain... You start addressing the pec minor and a lot of that stuff is alleviated.

Don't just target the pain; treat the source and feel the relief! 🎯✨

Alis and also just... this relates to kind of daily living. A lot of people who have back pain, myself included, quite a few years ago, if you're wondering if you have a tight PEC Minor... you can just Google PEC Minor to figure out where it is, but basically think right under the clavicle. Get a lacrosse ball... go on the wall and try to roll out your PEC Minor with a lacrosse ball. If you have back pain... you don't always fix that back pain by just focusing on the location of that pain. It's good point... and you start addressing the PEC Minor and a lot of that stuff is alleviated.

I want to throw one thing out there... just for people who might be interested. I think part of the reason I seemed or was better prepared for the M than I would have been otherwise is that I started doing really just one thing, one type of new exercise, which was compression strength training in that Pike position. Did that for just maybe two times per week... prior to doing the assessment as I was traveling.

For people who are wondering what this is like... if you really want to feel humbled as I did, I was traveling, I was in Columbia. A very close friend of mine... almost got to professional rugby in New Zealand; he's a beast. I mean, athletically they are beasts... extremely strong, extremely fast, he's always going to be one of the top performers in the gym. He saw me doing Pike pulses... and so I'll explain what this is to folks because he was kind of laughing at me and he's like "what kind of Jane Fonda [ __ ] are you doing here you know?" And I said all right... I'd like all right big guy, you're such a tough guy, let's see you do these.

So you're sitting in this seated Pike position... we're talking about right, so you're sitting on your ass on the floor, the upper body perpendicular with the floor, and your legs out straight in front of you. Point your toes... kind of tense your quads to push the back of your knees into the floor. Then reach forward and stretch forward... as far as you can get your fingers out on either side of your legs, as far out as you can. And then just try to lift your heels off the ground... keeping your legs completely straight and just pulse it up and down like 3 to 4 inches, maybe if you can manage that, and just do tried to do 30 of those. My buddy could not lift his heels off the ground... and just fell over laughing, he's like "yeah okay those are hard."

If you think about the range of motion... that most people train for core, they're doing situps or maybe they're doing hanging leg lifts up to like an L-sit. Their legs are getting up to kind of parallel height... well that last 90° and especially the last like 45° where you're bringing your thighs towards your chest is so hard. I mean I had zero strength there... prior to doing just a few weeks of this stuff that just amazed me.

For those people also we were talking about the transverse abdominis... Coach, feel free to veto this, but I think it's also nicknamed the corset muscle if you're trying to think of what they might look like as it wraps around the abdomen. If you cough a lot or laugh a lot... and get really really sore, it's very frequently often engaging that transverse. But let me ask you... so you mentioned CrossFit, you mentioned a lot of things, you know drenched in sweat doing the sweat Angels.

What are your feelings about Kipping movements... like Kipping pull-ups? I had to open that can of worms. Well, I was asking a mutual friend... I won't name him, and I said what should I talk to Coach Summer about, and he said "Kipping pull-ups, he'll lose his [ __ ]." So I said okay... I got we started. I was the original gymnastics guy for CrossFit way back in the early 2000s and ended up leaving. I was there before there was the first CR ailia... when all there was was Glassman working out of that little gym in Santa Cruz. I left just because... to do GST right.

Like anything that a dichotomy that I always find curious... with people, especially the crossfitters, is they will be so on point with dissecting everything they do in terms of their Olympic lifting. You know my pull is here, my pull is there... my knee was a quarter inch this way, I mean they they're just methodical. And they don't bring... and I shouldn't say just crossfitters, but then they other people, they don't bring that same degree of attention to detail to their bodyweight work. So one is supposed to be meticulous... and one is somehow just supposed to be thrown together yet they expect the same quality results.

If we look back in the day... CrossFit, you know their lifting was nothing by national standards. Now they get people who are qualifying to go to Nationals... fast forward all those years in terms of their gymnastic strength training, and they're not even remotely close. They don't match a national team... Part of the issue is because the Kipping pull-ups were a huge big deal, it was a money maker. What they didn't realize... is that this person has compromised basic strength and compromised shoulder flexion. A beginner doing Kipping pull-ups really... that's insanity, that's just pouring gasoline on a fire. Kipping then is the finishing addition... it is not the starting element.

The stronger the athlete... the faster they went down, knees, lower back, ankles on baby stuff. We had 15 minutes on the schedule to stretch... that stretch took an hour and a half to complete. There were bodies lying everywhere...

Consistency + Patience = Transformation 🌟💪

Doing this very gradually... with supervised attention from somebody who knows what they're doing, reversing that and again going from this vertebra by vertebra rounding up until you end up in that top position. Is that a fair description? Fair description, yeah. Think of it as... a String of Pearls and we're just curling one Pearl at a time.

We have done Jefferson C... I don't know, 12-15 years now. Expected standard is body weight for us. Note to people listening... do not try this with body weight right out of the gate. For example... one of our senior students in Australia tried it with just the empty bar, you know, the 20-kilo bar at first. He dropped all the way down... to I think a kilo or two, which is completely fine. He built up... over the course of, I don't know, around 12 to 18 months. He built up to either 3/4 body weight or maybe up to full body weight now, and his back feels better than it ever has. The key here... is that this was a gradual process.

Quinn's a PhD... in physical therapy. Quinn H. does some really good work. Quinn likes to... stir the pot, if you will. He's experimented with Jefferson curl himself for, I think, about 3 or 4 years now and feels wonderful. One of the things... that always comes up is, you know, the mill experiments where they would take connective tissue from a pig cadaver and put it under such and such amount of strain. If we put it... in this position with this much load, it snaps. The big elephant in the room... was the pig was [__] dead. The tissue is dead; it can't adapt. It's dead, it's no longer living, and it wasn't exposed to very gradual load so that there could be progressive adaptation. So if I take... this completely unprepared tissue and I do this to it, it'll break.

Our weighted mobility work... needs to be approached with a different mentality, a different level of intensity than conditioning work because connective tissue has one-tenth the metabolic rate of muscular tissue. It heals slower... it adapts slower. I've learned... in order to get what I want and to go where I want to go, I've had to learn to be patiently impatient. If I give in... to the urge, then I get hurt, athletes get hurt, we fall apart. Nationals or Olympic trials... are every four years, Nationals are once a year, and you don't get another Nationals, you don't get another Olympic trials. If you blow it... you've got to be on point that day.

Our environment was... actually a blessing because it's very much practical, it's very much results-oriented. There's no room... for opinion. I think... I feel, I prefer—it works, it doesn't work. It produces results... it doesn't produce results. You are the best... in the country, or you aren't the best in the country. That was actually... something when we segued into kind of the fitness world, if you will. In the fitness world, though... everyone's proclaiming they're the stud, everyone's proclaiming they're the national champion. There's nothing... to support it, there's no results, there's no great athletes, there's no great abilities that have been generated. There's just the marketing...

You can't go... to the Olympics and the guy who talks the loudest gets the medal. I have the loudest voice... I'm Champion. I think... that's National politics right now—wait no, never mind, different podcast. We'll save that... for another time. Tim went... to the White House last week, guys. I interrupted but... yeah, you get to the fitness world. In the fitness world... it's exercise and diet, whereas in your world it's always been eat and train, eat and train. What the people... are trying to do is they're trying to stay ahead of a bad diet through exercise. They're trying... to outrun a bad diet and it can't be done. If they somehow find... this crazy combination of massive amounts of cardio and they can kind of keep their weight in check a little bit, and then they stop that cardio, they immediately start gaining weight.

Gain weight, lose weight... all of that should be separate from your conditioning. You've got to get... your nutrition dialed in. If your nutrition's... dialed in, your body's going to find its natural healthy weight that it's going to operate at. You're not going to... change your phenotype, you're not going to change your body's genetic expression. You can maximize... what your potential is. You're not responsible... for the hand of cards you were dealt, you're responsible for maxing out what you were given. Maybe you'll be... more endurance, maybe you're going to carry easy muscle mass, maybe you're a max strength guy, maybe you're very skill-oriented, it doesn't matter. Maybe you're very explosive... but whatever it is, you know, make the most of it. Never... in vino veritas.

Bad goal would be... for them to jump right into kind of full body weight straight arm strength, for example, a back lever, which doesn't require a ton of strength but they love to do it because it looks so cool.

Skipping mobility? Get ready for snap city! 🚫💥

Without question, a bad goal would be for them to jump right into kind of full body weight straight arm strength—for example, a back lever. Which doesn’t require a ton of strength, but they love to do it because it looks so cool. The problem is... that it puts them in extreme load while in shoulder extension. What they don’t realize... is that when the shoulders are in shoulder extension like that, the biceps are under maximum stretch. So it’s not... a problem to do with being strong enough; the bicep is too loaded, and they’re going to tear a bicep.

They want to jump... right into their strength training and they do well, but they don’t do the mobility work. Five of their top guys... around the world snapped biceps. They all snapped... them on back lever stuff because the mobility was not in line. Luckily right... I certainly wouldn’t have survived being 21 if it wasn’t that the case. But as an adult... the structure is mature now. People think... I’m getting older, ligaments are breaking down, tendons are breaking down, joints are getting brittle, and actually that’s not the case.

We have this... huge matrix of activity that the body is used to. Then we hit high school... and for most people, that’s our first exposure to structured athletic training. Levels of physical activity... outside of conditioning are dropping down, and they’re dropping down a lot. Then kids come... all right, well there’s another huge chunk of time gone. Basketball with the guys... and then I'm going to hit the gym. That goes good... for a couple of years. Then you meet... the Cutie, you get married, suddenly I can't go play basketball every night now.

A little at a time... our levels of physical activity are dropping down. Then kids come... before you know it, you’re 30, you’re 35. There’s certainly no time... for just playful activity or doing sports. They spend most... of the time hunched over that desk. The body wants to be healthy... we feed it the right movements in the right dosages, and it blooms. Those street worker guys... they hurt themselves because it was the wrong dosage. They wanted... to go too hard too soon without the mobility.

We got to fix... joints, get that range of motion back. We'd put... Jefferson curl at the top of the list. Multiple sections of the spine... cervical, thoracic, and lumbar. Into glutes... hamstrings, calves, Achilles—a lot of bang for your buck. We’ve got to get... shoulder extension. A lot of the conditioning... front delt heavy, pulling our own shoulders forward, create our own impingement. Texting neck... distended forward. After spending years... of hunched forward, it compresses the front edges, becomes a trapezoid. Once that happens... it's done, it's over, it's done.

Your body isn’t a painting; keep it moving or lose it! 🎨🚶‍♂️➡️💪

Wesley's the one who taught me that there's a point, coach, where if you abuse the body, it's not going to come back. It's not that they have bad posture and they could fix it; it's that they can't fix it. If you spend years... hunched forward like that, it compresses the front edges of that rectangle until it becomes a trapezoid, and that doesn't come back. The same thing happens... with the muscle bellies, so people who get frozen shoulder or impingements—if you're not using the muscle belly, the body doesn't want to support it because muscle tissue is expensive.

Your body isn't a painting... you can't get to a certain degree of muscle mass, mobility, athletic ability, endurance—whatever you want to say—and then just stop and have it continue to exist like a painting you did. It has to be maintained... the body's going to start doing deposits of collagen on it, and it's going to start shrinking that muscle belly. This is all the result... of inactivity and poor progressions in their exercises, and it didn't have to be. If it happened to that guy or that woman... it can sure as hell happen to me also.

Returning to the shoulder extension... because I noticed in our assessment that I had terrible shoulder extension. Paul is... what would you say, 6 feet, 230 pounds? I mean, and just, uh, he's about 40, I want to say, and just probably walks around at 6% body fat and can do a flat chest-to-ground pancake, no problem. He can do dislocates... with a weighted dowel or barbell, no problem. If brachialis... just inside the elbow is weak, if the insertion of the bicep tendon is weak, then when the arm is extended as they stretch, there might be some discomfort. So if that's the case... we have to give that time to adapt. We never push through pain... I mean, you can, but have you noticed that the guys who push through pain, they've got a shelf life of somewhere between 2 and 4 years?

Sometimes we can't even work shoulder extension at first... if the elbows are deconditioned. If brachialis... just inside the elbow is weak, if the insertion of the bicep tendon is weak, then when the arm is extended as they stretch, there might be some discomfort. We never push through pain... the guys who push through pain, they've got a shelf life of somewhere between 2 and 4 years, and then the body is so beat up and so painful and so chronically injured that it's just easier to be a fat slob sitting on the couch.

In both of them... before there's any weight added at all, they build complete mobility throughout the body. They can straddle their legs... chest on the floor, sit with legs together in a pike, they've got a bridge, they have all these basic mobility inclinations—ankle flexibility and mobility. They need to watch... his warm-up in the training hall and look at how amazingly flexible and mobile he is.

Resources are limited... energy you have for training is limited, the amount of time you have for training is limited, the amount of time you have for recovery is limited. If the best in the world... are stretching their ass off in order to get strong, why aren't you? People just kind of get blinders on... they want to watch technical, they want to watch progressions, and then they'll blow off the mobility work that they do early, not realizing that the mobility work was the gold nugget.

Understanding that the mobility... and working with J curl, elevated bridge, shoulder extension, etc., is going to be ingredients in the recipe in their progression to gymnast of some type—not even gymnast, I would say functional human being. We don't train gymnasts... we do gymnastic strength training. Regardless of how good you are... at rope climbs and planche and this and that, I wouldn't hold my breath that Kevin's getting ready to give you a call and say, "Please come and be on our team this year."

Functional athletes... functional human being covers it all.

No matter how good you are, it's all about that perfect press handstand! 🤸‍♂️✨

Regardless of how good you are at rope climbs and planche and this and that, it's not going to happen, guys. If I wanted to give someone a stretch goal, this is the objective. The back lever we've talked about is not necessarily a good goal; they don't have the mobility. Snap goes the bicep. So what would be a good gymnastic strength training goal? Press, strict press handstand—that would be the one. It's going to have all the strength, all the mobility, balance, agility.

Bend over, hands on the ground by your toes, palms on the floor, shoulders directly over the hands. Using that middle back, those traps, pull the hips up on top of the shoulders, maintain that flat back position. You need to have the flexibility in the hamstrings, you have to have the mobility, compression strength. Pike pulses, you bring your legs basically to your chest—really challenging. We do it a particular way because this is what builds the most strength that's transferable.

We do it a particular way because this is what builds the most strength that's transferable to other activities. Their approach to handstand is flawed; they want to go bone on bone. I want muscle and connective tissue to be doing the work; I don't want bone grinding on bone—that's not a recipe for longevity. There's a gymnastics handstand and there's a messed-up gymnastics handstand—those are the only two there are.

I have nice range of motion in the shoulders, I have strength through the middle back, through the traps, right? I've got good core strength, I've got good compression strength—now I can move on to good press handstand work. Why do we do things a certain way? It lets us generate more power. Why do we want more power? It lets us get more air, lets us do more flips, lets us do more twists, lets us do harder things on rings, which means more points, which means more gold medals.

A strong point in the toes, right? A strong point on the legs. At the very least, their quads and their adductors aren't really fully engaged—they're loose and so they're leaking energy in all sorts of directions. You're wasting energy, so you're not going to be able to train as efficiently. Number two is, you're not going to develop the proper balance and alignment because you're going to be flopping all over the place and having to correct more than you should. You would see people doing a press handstand, but they would planch really hard.

Find your balance and alignment for the perfect press handstand! 🤸‍♀️💪✨

You're not going to develop the proper balance and alignment because you're going to be flopping all over the place and having to correct more so than you should. A really strong point, I would watch videos online and, of course, not all videos are created equal. You would see people doing a press handstand, but they would planche really hard. They put their hands flat on the ground in front of their toes and then they shoot their head really far forward so their shoulders travel. Their feet are pointing straight up, that's going to place a lot more structural strain on the spine.

Your ears are roughly in between your shoulder blades, in between your arms. Pressing down through the ground and keeping the shoulders directly on top of the hands. You put your hands on the ground, you start with your arms overhead in the position that you want to assume on the ground, and shrug your shoulders up as high as possible trying to get your deltoids to the sides of your ears. Maintain that position and then go up, and the stability is just a world of difference.

I like everything else about yoga, except your handstand. I have a multitude of friends who are world and Olympic champions, world and Olympic team members, world and Olympic coaches. My oldest daughter was maybe around 12 at the time, she was like, "Oh my God, you know who you were talking to, Dad? That was the Olympic champion and that was the world champion." Dimitri won worlds in '83 at 16 years old. He had a car accident and broke his left lower leg between the knee and the ankle in 42 places. They put him in, he's unconscious, he's on the table, and they're getting ready to remove his lower leg.

That was the Olympic champion and that was the world champion. Dimitri won worlds in '83 at 16 years old; he won again in '87. Dimitri had a car accident and broke his left lower leg between the knee and the ankle in 42 places. The surgeon pulls the towel down, and he sees it's Dimitri. The doctor, at me like holy [ __ ], I am not cutting this leg off because the surgeon who takes Dimitri's leg off is probably going to lose his hands shortly thereafter. Right, national hero. Dimitri comes back from it and wins worlds in '87, goes to the '88 Olympics, does great, medals, gold medals.

Russians are Russians right? It takes a long time for them to warm up to you. If Dimitri is in the room, they treat Dimitri awesome. Alexander was responsible for training both of them, so Alexander is the only one in history who produced a male world champion and a female world champion. What makes him him is the ability, so it starts with depth of knowledge. Dimitri was the only gymnast, I think today probably one of the only ones, who every fourth week was a D-Lo week. Why? To give the body a chance to recover.

If you visit with Dimitri, right, it's all Chris, it's mathematics, it's all mathematics. You take these correct pieces, which would be like doing the correct numbers that create your equation. If you put the equation together correctly and then you solve it, there's your answer, and your answer is the physical preparation at the end in a successful competition. It's going to take three to four years just to let the body grow and adapt.

Consistency > Intensity: Small daily efforts lead to big results! 📆💪✨

An Olympic cycle is four years long. To get someone to 75-80% of their genetic capacity with a good coach is going to take three to four years, just to let the body grow and adapt. Do you think that's also true for training an adult? I do. That's a healthy adult. If they're severely compromised, to get through our whole curriculum should take three to four years. We have to do damage repair, heal some injuries. Chronic injury is simply an injury that you kept abusing until it became semi-permanent. Imagine you slammed your hand in the door repeatedly, the response is to keep slamming your hand in the [__] door. Quit slamming your hand in the damn door and it will get better.

We say no pain, no gain, but I prefer to say no brain, no gain. The difference between fatigue and injury is simply the sharpness of the pain. If it's fatigue, it's immediately going to start to lessen. If it's an injury, it's immediately going to begin increasing. A big thing for people doing Kipping pull-ups is to take pictures of their hands being raw and bloody as a badge of honor. I look at it as like, you stupid [__], what are you going to do tomorrow now?

Mature athletes and immature athletes, it's not an age deal; it's an attitude deal. An immature athlete is someone who wants what they want right now. A mature athlete is someone who's willing to do what needs to be done now to get rewarded for it later. The mature athlete always comes out on top, with greater longevity and greater success. The immature ones are going to get so dinged and broken and beat up. The mature athlete is just doing their thing day in, day out.

It's like writing a book that has 365 pages. Write me a single page every day, and in a year, we've got a book with 365 pages. It's the consistency that adds up over time. A world-class athlete did not start training yesterday; it's a multi-year process. Doing each day less than you feel maximally capable of is a behavioral modification which is supported at this point. IBM did this way back in the day when their salesforce was slaughtering the competition. They had the lowest quotas in the industry because they wanted their salespeople to be unintimidated to pick up the phone. Substitute "intimidated to pick up the phone" with "intimidated to go to the gym or start a session."

Apply it to writing. Leave a little in the bank. A friend of mine, who's a very consistent and prolific writer, says every day, "I write less than I feel capable of." Two crappy pages per day, sometimes you overshoot that, have a great workout, feeling fantastic. You didn't go into the workout with the pressure of having to achieve. Hemingway, maybe not the best life model, but a prolific writer, would end mid-sentence so he had a place to pick up the next day.

It takes three to four years to get them to what percentage of their genetic capacity? 75 to 80%. The body will not let you run at 100%. It will take me another three to four years to get to about 90%, and another three to four years to get to about 95%. It's easier for me to maintain that immaculate standard because I'm not the one feeling the fatigue. It's very difficult for a world-class athlete to train themselves; it takes a partnership, both working together to create this great athletic animal. As soon as they ease up, the body drops back down to that 75-80%. To build back up won't take nearly as long as to build it in the first place because the nervous system is already developed. That's where the body's comfortable.

As far as adults are concerned, a 35-year-old doesn't need to be able to produce at 90% or 95%. They're not full-time professional athletes; they don't have time for that. Can they produce at 75-80%? Yes, they can. Will that put you on the Olympic team? No, absolutely not. Are you going to be close to it? No. Will it put you better than 99 out of 100 people around you? Absolutely. That means that just by being consistent, you can be in the top 1% of the human population in terms of physical ability. That is not a bad consolation prize. And I want to underscore the consistency point. I've always been an intensity guy; that's my default mode, and it served me well.

Keep going! Even starting late can lead to amazing progress! 🕒💪🚀

80%—yes, they can. And the interesting thing is, will that put you on the Olympic team? No, absolutely not. Are you going to be close to it? No. But will it put you better than 99 out of 100 people around you? Absolutely, yeah, absolutely it will. Just by being consistent, putting in some consistent years of training, that puts you in the top 1% of the human population in terms of physical ability. I've always been an intensity guy, right? I mean, for the most part, because that's my default mode, and you know, it served me well. Everybody's right, yeah, it served me well, but there's a point where the sword cuts both ways.

I want to talk about older students who have picked up gymnastics. There are a lot of people who are rightly, I think, or naturally skeptical of the ability of, say, a 35, 38, 40-plus-year-old to acquire these skills that are associated with people who start when they're 5, 6, 7 years old. A tuck handstand is instead of having your body ramrod straight from your hands all the way to your pointed toes at the very top, you're basically bringing your knees to your chest or rib cage while you're in the handstand position with your feet still pointed but your heels kind of touching your ass.

He started roughly two years ago out of shape, weak, and rather pudgy. On his first workout, I believe he failed three times at a 12-second bent hollow body hold. A bent hollow hold is effectively like, imagine if you're in a crunch position on the floor, right? Then you put your arms just kind of pick your feet up like you were going to do a sit-up, except don't sit up. Shoulders up a little off the ground, feet off a little ground, and then just try to rock back and forth. Every time he gets stuck on a progression and is not able to break through that particular plateau, he simply drops all the way back to the first progression and begins working his way up again.

If he failed on that exercise, that means there was a [__] in the armor somewhere; there was a hole in the preparation. We want their training to go through a period of overload where whatever they're doing is kicking their ass. We want the body then to go into a period of load where that same amount of work, that same load, same exercise, same reps, same sets feels moderately difficult. They don't go into underload. Underload is where, damn, I'm just not feeling like I'm working very hard. You're moving the same weight, you're doing the same reps, you're doing the same sets, right? But you're just cutting it short.

You hit that point where you're maxed out currently, and then you got to step off. We got to give the body a chance to accommodate. I didn't change anything on Allen's conditioning the entire year, not a damn thing. I didn't change an exercise, I didn't change a rep, I didn't change a set, not for that entire year. If you keep getting to that stop every single day, no matter the times, it's not if—it's guaranteed.

🔑 Your body can rebuild itself if you take care of it! 🛠️💪✨

Imagine having a new set of tires every time you come up to a stop sign. You don't gradually brake; you slam those brakes hard, skid to a stop at every single stop sign. How long is that pair of tires going to last? It's going to wear out pretty quick. Now, the body's not like tires; it can rebuild itself as long as you don't put it too deep into a hole or physically break the structure, damage the structure beyond repair. As long as you show some degree of care, you rebuild yourself. If you keep getting to that stop every single day, no matter the times, it's not if—it's guaranteed.

Let's switch gears, and I will ask just a couple of questions that I think people would love to hear answers to. Probably, I would say muscle-ups. There's nothing wrong with the pull; there's nothing wrong with the dip. The shoulders will adapt relatively quickly. The issue they run into is because their shoulder extension is weak, they can’t get the elbow behind the torso. Instead of doing a dip with body weight, now they’re trying to do a tricep extension with body weight—completely different animal. Their elbows can’t go; their elbows are trapped at their side, and now their hands are in front of them, and they’re just trying to press themselves up. Of course, they’re just trashing their elbows.

Some people have incredible joints that you can just pound and pound and pound, and nothing happens to them. Everyone assumes they’re that guy, they’re that woman. The reality is, you're not, guys, you are not that person. If you were that person, I would see you at training camps right now, or you would be a celebrated professional-level athlete. Muscle-ups go out; they do the Kipping muscle-up. Where I get the benefit of muscle-ups is through that transition. That's where cross is, that's where planche is, that's where maltese is, that's where all advanced ring strength is. If you're doing a Kipping muscle-up, you just skip the most beneficial part of the muscle-up, and you waste it.

The majority of the massive biceps they see is going to come from the straight arm work. For example, when the guy would, at that level of training, at that level of strength, do rope climbs—for example, my guys had to do a triple on a 7-meter rope—all rope climbs are done with no legs. A lot of people go, "Holy [__], if I can get arms that look like that by hanging from a bar for an hour a day, I need to start hanging from a bar." The majority of the massive biceps they see is going to come from the straight arm work. Rope climbs, for example, my guys had to do a triple on a 7-meter rope—all rope climbs are done with no legs. The bicep is an endurance muscle; its primary function is to go out and kill something, pick it up, and carry it a long ass way back home.

If you go and you jump right into ropes right now and you haven't built a foundation of rows, pull-ups, multiplane pulling, then get to rope climbing, you're going to give yourself a raging case of elbow tendonitis. You can build extremely muscular biceps with purely straight arm heavy pulling in the deadlift combined with higher-up kettlebell swings. Let's just say you had one day of heavy pulling, and by heavy, I mean two to three reps, and then on Fridays or Thursdays, whatever it might be, you do higher-up kettlebell swings.

If you don't do a lot of parallel grip work or fat bar work and then you go to a thick rope, you're in for a surprise. In terms of GST-specific strength, if you're doing just pull-up work, your parallel grip is by far going to have the greatest return on investment simply because that parallel grip hits the brachialis so hard down in the elbow.

💡 Train smart, not just hard! 🧠🏋️‍♂️🔥

When I talk about rowing, there's a key difference to note. When I use a parallel grip, I can handle bent rows with a barbell weighing 225 pounds. However, if you haven't done much parallel grip work or fat bar work and then try to climb a thick rope, you're in for a surprise. The reason we emphasize the parallel grip is because when you climb a rope, you're naturally adopting more of a parallel grip. This grip is incredibly effective since it targets the brachialis muscle hard, right down in the elbow.

Now, when we're on the rings, we need to turn the grip out past parallel. Greg Glassman didn't understand why we would turn the rings past parallel and thought it was just for aesthetics. Well, the problem is, if I'm on the rings doing a dip, a muscle-up, or any movement, and I straighten my arms without turning the rings past parallel, the brachialis isn't activated. The weak link here is the elbow, and elbow pain indicates that your ring strength programming needs improvement. There's a reason, after all these years of CrossFit, that you don't see iron crosses unless the person is a former gymnast.

From the beginning, in those basic movements, they didn't turn past parallel, so the brachialis wasn't trained. If it never got trained, they could never advance to more profitable exercises. If you use a parallel grip and do a workout, compare the soreness inside your elbow from fatigue to that of regular chin-ups and pull-ups—it's night and day. It takes time to rebuild connective tissue, and it's through the ligaments and joints that power is generated during plyometric work. They prefatigued the Achilles with the deadlift and then went into the plyometric movements.

There was a rash of Achilles ruptures when a couplet of deadlifts with 225 pounds and box jumps was done. The issue arose in competitive environments, where most adults were in their late 20s and 30s. Because it was a race, the box jumps turned into jumping down and rebounding off the floor. This combination of prefatiguing the Achilles with deadlifts and then doing plyometric box jumps led to several ruptures. There were about nine ruptures that year. Ionov, one of the leading guys we looked to from Russia, had his Achilles pop while walking across a parking lot. It was the last straw; the Achilles had been damaged prior.

The reason there's high-rep calf work is to promote Achilles health. Connective tissue and tendons don't have their own blood supply; they get fed and heal through muscle movements and gravity. If we only do high-intensity, low-rep work, there's not enough blood flow for them to stay healthy. A friend of mine, the Bulgarian Olympic coach from the '70s and '80s, was a programming genius. Sadly, he had a heavy accent, so many American coaches didn't take the time to talk to him. I was a linguist in the military, so accents don't bother me. I would keep this older gentleman up late, asking just one more question.

Our knee series came from him. Allen, who was incredibly powerful at 8 years old, started getting too powerful for his frame during a preliminary growth spurt. His knees weren't hurting, but they were becoming slightly uncomfortable. Ruman showed us a technique, and boom, Allen's knee issues were gone. Never had problems with knees again. It starts with repetition and preparation. Successful repetitions lead to competence, and competence builds confidence, which is crucial for successful competition. As Americans, we tend to rush and avoid taking many reps. We want to get something right a few times and move on. This is completely different from the Chinese and Russian approaches, where they do hundreds of repetitions before advancing to the next drill.

💡 Reps build confidence, not just skill! 💪🧠✨

It starts with repetition. It takes a certain number of repetitions to lead to competence, and it's competence that leads to confidence. That's what leads to a successful competition. As Americans, we tend to be in a rush. This is completely different from the Chinese approach, completely different from the Russian approach where they will literally do hundreds of repetitions before they move on to the next drill. The error was not in physical preparation; the error was in mental preparation.

As Olo was cranking at home, she was the one who decided when to go. Coaches waited on her, judges waited on her, everything was structured around her. When you get to the worlds and you get to the Olympics, judges don't give a damn if you're ready or not when they raise that flag. It's a massive head game. They found out that Olga's problem was that everything had gone her way. The Russians changed their training just to screw with people. Women are more caring and nurturing than guys. A guy goes out to compete and he's worried about one thing: he's worried about kicking ass. The girl goes out there and she's worried about kicking ass also, but she's also worried about not letting anybody down. We just have to get more reps in, you got to have more reps and do everything you can to put them in a situation where they can handle the pressure they place on themselves that guys don't have to deal with.

She has this whole range of other emotional burdens that a guy doesn't give a damn about. I've seen girls who are just amazing in training, but when they get out there, they have this other load that they place on themselves that guys don't have to deal with. The only way to handle that is to try to replicate that in training so that the pressure is not going away. The error with Carly was trying to downplay the pressure. I would say do the exact opposite. You should go to the training and the competition, and hopefully, the competition is less pressure than what you go through in training. If you're feeling unconfident, if you're feeling threatened or uneasy, your preparation was flawed.

If I'm not ready now, nothing I do in the next 60 minutes is going to make me ready. They’re so well trained that there's no stress. How in the world can you be in 145 gunfights and not feel stress when you're heading out to another one? Change nothing, change nothing, change nothing. A lot of people psych themselves out of doing as well as they could have by prematurely comparing themselves to the people around them. You just ignore that, you go out and you just stay in your own head and do your thing. Some people like to be left alone. Let me go do my thing, you know. They'll come together for the team, but when they're prepping for their set, they have to go off alone.

💡 Focus on your own game, not the competition! 🧠🏆✨

When it comes to comparing themselves to others, athletes often make the mistake of focusing on their competitors rather than just taking care of their own business. If you're going up against the best who's ever been born, you're probably not going to beat them. So, you just ignore that, you know? You go out, stay in your own head, and do your thing.

Some people like to be left alone, while others feed off interaction. None of these approaches are right or wrong; it just is what it is. It's important to deal with who you are. Some people thrive on multiple training sessions per day, while others only need to train a few times a week. It just depends on what your body does best with.

Her happiness in the process was more important to me than her success.

First thing I would do is look at competitive records. How have they done in regionals? How have they performed in Nationals? Are they on the national team, and how consistently have they been on national teams? The very next thing I'm going to look at is injury rates. How healthy and successful are these athletes?

If they're a world-class coach, they're always going to be straight with you. The only people in my experience who talk [ __ ] are the wannabes.

Stacy comes and sits down next to me, says, "Chris, what do you think about this?" He asked my opinion. Stacy then gets up and goes around the room, visiting with other coaches that he respects and seeking their opinions.

That's the reason Stacy won worlds. He was a coach of that caliber because he was always open to learning more. He never said, "I know everything." I've never met an exception. It's the ones who aren't at a high level who think they know everything and believe there's nothing left to be learned.

I would check around, talk to people, watch the athletes in training. Go and observe some workouts. How does the coach handle it? If there's a lot of crying all the time, there's a problem. Healthy and happy doesn't mean a free-for-all; it means there should be structure and accountability but also a pleasant environment. Kids or any athlete, adult as well, will either live up to the standard you set or live down to it.

Is this an environment that I'm content with my child being in? If you get a good feeling, okay. If you were assessing a gymnastics coach for yourself and could observe a workout, do they take the time to warm up the joints, or do they jump right into work? Do they actually take time to mobilize? Are they doing stall bar work, Jefferson curls, loosening up their wrists, knees, and ankles? Are they loosening their back before they get going? Are they doing some type of pre-strength elements to get the muscles warm and firing before jumping into the hard work? You can tell a lot from how a program warms up.

QL walks, which you introduced me to, are used by high-level powerlifters. The QL refers to the quadratus lumborum, which is like the Grand Central of all sorts of muscles and fascia in the back. It's incredible how much that loosens up my entire lower back and hips. Doing these very simple QL walks, I'll pick up, gosh, sometimes 3 or 4 inches, just from loosening up from those first.

How long should a proper gymnastics warm-up take? I would say probably 10 to 15 minutes is reasonable. Now, if I have significant mobility deficits, perhaps the majority of the workout needs to be mobility work. It could shift, possibly as high as half an hour.

💡 Consistency and basics are key to success! 📈💪

When it comes to the back and hips, doing this very simple QL walk can be incredibly effective. Sometimes, I gain 3 to 4 inches in flexibility just from loosening up with those first. If you're in the gym for an hour, probably 10 to 15 minutes of warm-up is reasonable. However, if I have significant mobility deficits, the majority of the workout needs to be mobility work, which could shift to possibly as high as half an hour. You can't really get everything into a single warm-up, so you're probably going to have two or three variations.

For instance, you might have ring strength exercises, theraband series for the shoulders, different shapes, apes, poles, and circles. These are great for warming up the interior of the shoulder. Is it necessary to do all of them at the same time most of the time? No.

One senior student, Matt, started training with me in his late 40s. Now he's 52 and an absolute beast. He's doing press handstands and front levers at 52, which is ridiculous. Just for his shoulders to feel better, he did every shoulder prep we had, extra mobility, and it just fixed his shoulder right up. I introduced him to an exercise by a master's CrossFit competitor that really helped with shoulder warm-up more than mobility, but for pressing exercises, any type of hand balancing or handstand work, it required a decent amount of grip strength.

We started with say 15 to 16 pounds, and increased that. Now, I use 35s. Swing it up to a clean, press it overhead, and then do rotations. Take a dumbbell, push it up overhead, turn the thumbs externally, rotate it just a bit, and then do outward circles. Do them for time, 1 to 2 minutes. Some people who are experiencing shoulder issues, it might not necessarily be the shoulder or bicep, but sometimes because the lats are so strong and tight. Stretching the heck out of that lat can automatically provide relief on the shoulders.

Someone I have admired for years is Tony Robbins. I tend to be very eclectic in my inspirations. When people get to that level of success, they all have the same attitudes. They bring the same tools and attitudes to the table. You got to be consistent, master the basics, be patient, constantly reinvent yourself, look for flaws or holes in your preparation, fix them, and move forward. Being willing to hear the answer is crucial.

I firmly believe that if someone isn't as successful in any arena, it's our own fault. We have so many opportunities and such a wealth of knowledge available. There were 2 years, a year and a half to 2 years in the beginning, where I was doing 18-hour days and didn't make a nickel, nothing.

Once you have the vision, you've got to be able to put practical steps to it. Can you stick with it? It's kind of that difference between letting someone else be in control of your life and you choosing to be in control of your own life.

I think if someone's willing to put the time in, there's so much opportunity. If they're willing to do that for years, it's kind of a big giant blank check. A lot can change, and you really have a lot of control.

💡 Take control of your life—be patient, work hard, and embrace the journey! 🚀✨

When it comes to taking control of our lives, I believe we should be the ones to monitor ourselves. This needs to be done, and I'm going to get it done. It's the difference between letting someone else control your life and choosing to be in control of your own life.

I know some people might get upset, saying, "Coach, you know I'm a single mom, it's this, it's that, I can't do everything I want to do." I get that, I've been there, I've gone through that. I'm certainly not saying there are quick fixes, because these fixes can take years. But I think if someone's willing to put the time in, there's so much opportunity. And if they're willing to do that for years, it's kind of like a big giant blank check—a lot can change. You really have a lot of control.

That was a message that, you know, I didn't say nearly as well as Tony Robbins does. Here's this guy saying, "Just think clearly, plan ahead, and be willing to work." That resonated with me. It's so challenging and difficult to be patient, especially if you're 35 and starting to get back in shape again. The hardest thing is to set aside that attitude of having been a stud before because the body you have now is not the same as the one you had previously. It took time to build it the first time, and it's going to take time to rebuild it this time.

Imagine having a Ferrari engine in a Toyota Corolla chassis. You can't just slam on the accelerator and expect good things to happen. I'm a big fan of Robert Heinlein, especially "Stranger in a Strange Land," which emphasizes the theme of self-reliance. I came from a really humble, modest family background, and I think that instilled a hunger and a work ethic in me. It's a little bit embarrassing, but it's kind of like a Charles Dickens theme.

It's a frustration thing, things weren't where I wanted them to be. How big a price are you willing to pay, how hard are you willing to work to change it? Right now, I'm enjoying "The Obstacle is the Way" by Ryan Holiday. Someone who caught my eye and led me to it was Schwarzenegger. He came to the States with no money in his pocket, became a world champion in athletics, a millionaire in business, a movie star, and a governor—success in four different arenas in life. He said he liked that book, and I thought, "Well, good enough for me."

Ken and positive psychology, and really kind of sowing the seeds of their own destruction by doing so. I was thinking about stoic philosophy. So it doesn't surprise me that "The Obstacle is the Way" has become extremely popular among professional sports teams and coaches. The Patriots, Seahawks—they've all read it. And then there's Schwarzenegger, who came to the States with no money, became a world champion, millionaire, movie star, and governor. He liked that book, and that was good enough for me.

Arnold is an impressive unit. Two things astonished me when I interviewed him for the podcast. First, I didn't realize he became a millionaire before his first starring role through real estate. That gave him the ability to only audition for roles he wanted, not out of financial necessity. His highest-grossing film for him personally was "Twins," because no one wanted to make it. He took a cut on the upfront payment in exchange for backend points, which were unusually large for the industry at that time. Fascinating guy.

As I've gotten older, my most productive times are early in the morning. I'll get up between 4 and 5 AM. It gives me two to three hours of clear thought—maybe working on a project, a manuscript, or just indulging in some reading. The house is quiet. After that, the girls head to school, and I get my workout in. If I'm consistent with that, my day usually goes well. Win the morning, win the day.

For years, I wasn't a coffee drinker. It tastes like cough medicine to me. My wife loves it, but for me, no way. As I've gotten older, I found I do best if I skip breakfast. I used to be heavy on protein, but after 50, I realized cutting breakfast works better for me. Would it work for younger athletes? Probably not, but for older folks, it might. Reasonable lunch, smaller protein portions, mostly veggies, good healthy starch, and some fat. I'm amazed at how much I was overeating out of habit, eating by the clock.

I've noticed the same thing for myself. A lot of people I've interviewed who are the best in their fields don't eat breakfast. Maybe a third of the men, specifically those over 45, don't eat breakfast. Their diets have probably changed over time. If you look into the literature, there is data to suggest that as we get older, it's possible we absorb protein more efficiently.

💡 Skip breakfast, boost protein, and prioritize probiotics for a healthier you! 🥗💪🌟

I'd say a good third of the men, specifically, not sure if the female body responds as well to it. Although I'm sure there are intermittent fasting people out there who would say that women respond in the same way. A very high percentage, maybe a third of the men I've had on the podcast, do not eat breakfast. There are data to suggest that as we get older, it is possible that we absorb protein more effectively when we have larger doses of protein less frequently. For instance, it was like 70-80 grams of protein in a single feeding was absorbed better than that same amount split over several meals in the day.

I would say probiotic, probiotic, probiotic. I went through a phase where it didn't matter what I ate—if I ate fat, if I ate low fat, if I ate high protein—terrible digestion, just terrible digestion. Through a good buddy, I had a laboratory-grade probiotic. These particular ones were from CLA Labs; you kind of need a prescription for them, but they're laboratory-grade probiotics. In 12 hours, this took care of it. He went on to say, "You know, Coach, you should probably take two to four weeks and just really hit these probiotics hard and repopulate the gut." Night and day difference. I bet simply because of that, I dropped eight pounds.

I would just get sick really bad, kind of bronchitis-like sickness, once or twice a year for, gosh, decades. Rob's the one who tagged it. He said, "Coach, you know, it's always in the middle of the winter. Try some vitamin D." If we don't count food poisoning in Hong Kong, I've not been sick since. That's quite a swing, you know, once or twice pretty seriously per year to nothing for seven years. And the only thing that changed in that time was the vitamin D.

I want to say it was Biotest, perhaps, I can't swear about other ones. I just know I've always used that particular one. We've done daily a few drops all the way up to once or twice a week with 8 to 10 drops, you know, and just mix it up. It just seems like, you know, as long as you're consistent, it almost doesn't matter.

You've got to go get blood work; anything else is guessing. Yeah, you need to get blood work, period. I mean, if you get your car checked out more often than you get your blood work done, then you need to rearrange your priorities.

I would like them to consider two things. I would like them to consider, where's the fire? Where's the fire? Where's the rush? Where's the rush? Why are they trying to accomplish everything, their current goals, yesterday? Why not slow down a little bit? I'm not saying not to work hard, but why don't we just slow down a little bit—little more reasonable pace, some more consistency.

Mobility first, then core, then you know, your more conventional strength—your arms, your shoulders, yada yada yada.

Watch: youtube.com/watch?v=yRFEb8KJC2I