Tim FerrissThe Secrets of Gymnastic Strength Training | Christopher Sommer | The Tim Ferriss Show (Podcast)
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,113 words- 0:00 – 2:54
Intro
- TFTim Ferriss
Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question? Now we're receiving a perfect connection. What if I give you all of it? I'm a cybernetic organism. Living tissue over metal endoskeleton.
- SPSpeaker
The Tim Ferriss Show.
- TFTim Ferriss
This episode is brought to you by Headspace. More than 80% of the people I have interviewed, world-class performers across the military, entertainment, sports, and beyond, all have some type of meditative practice. I tried for years and years and failed miserably. The key is making it simple, and you can dramatically improve your life in just 10 minutes a day, and technology can help you. This change comes through guided meditation, and Headspace is by far the most popular app for this purpose. More than four million users, it's meditation made simple. So what I recommend is that you take this practice, meditation, which is rooted in thousands of years of tradition, supported by thousands of scientific studies, and try it for 10 minutes a day for 10 days. That's all you need to do. You could also check out the founder, Andy Puddicombe's, uh, TED Talk, which has more than 5.5 million views. His last name is P-U-D-D-I-C-O-M-B-E, if you wanna look that up. But otherwise, download the free Headspace app, I have it on my phone, and begin their Take 10 program for 10 days of guided meditation, completely free, 10 minutes a day. That's all it takes. You should give it a shot. Headspace.com/tim. Just go to headspace.com/tim. This episode is brought to you by Exo Protein. It's one of the startups that I work with. I love what they do. These guys are making protein bars using cricket protein powder. And before you screw your face up and look disgusted, I bet they taste better than any protein bar you've ever had before. I devour these bars after lifting sessions. I take them with me on the road. The recipes were developed by a three Michelin star chef, former head of R&D at The Fat Duck, which was ranked the number one restaurant in the world during his tenure. The bars are paleo-friendly, no gluten, no grains, no soy, no dairy, et cetera. They are high in protein and flavor and extremely unique, and they do not pop your glycemic response up, oddly enough. And you can look that up online to see some stories on that. Ferenstein, that's the journalist who looked at it. On top of all that, they are less processed than nearly all protein bars you'll be able to find. This is your chance to see what the hype is about. The founders were just on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, and they are offering a deep discount to Tim Ferriss Show listeners. If you go to exoprotein.com/tim, that's E-X-O protein.com/tim today, you can try a sampler pack with all of their most popular flavors for less than 10 bucks. That's exoprotein.com/tim, and I would recommend doing
- 2:54 – 8:21
Tim introduces Christopher Sommer and what Gymnastic Strength Training (GST) covers
- TFTim Ferriss
it relatively fast, and that's not a BS scarcity thing. They're a startup with limited inventory, and they sell out all the time. That is what happened last time I mentioned them. [laughs] So check it out, exoprotein.com/tim. Hello, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where each episode, it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers to tease out the lessons, routines, habits, breakfasts, [laughs] favorite books, et cetera, that you can use and borrow from world-class performers, whether they are military strategists, chess prodigies, athletes, actors, politicians, or anything and everything in between. In this episode, we have a very exciting guest, uh, with whom I've been spending a ton of time, Christopher Sommer. Christopher Sommer, you can find him on Instagram and Facebook. I highly recommend checking it out. GymnasticBodies is the account name. Is the former US national team gymnastics coach. He's also the founder of gymnasticbodies.com, a training system that I am currently testing the hell out of, and I have no affiliation with it in so much as I get no kind of affiliate anything, payout, whatever. I'm just fascinated by bodyweight training and reached out to Coach Sommer to try to finally practice gymnastics as a 38-year-old. And [laughs] I've learned a lot. We've been toying around with things for about six weeks now as of this recording, and we're doing a 90-day custom test, so I hope to have some very interesting before and afters for you guys, so we will be doing a round two follow-up. As a world-renowned Olympic coach, Sommer is known for building his students into some of the strongest, most powerful athletes in the world, and you gotta check out [laughs] his Facebook page. He features a lot of these athletes. It is bonkers. During his extensive 40-year coaching career, Coach Sommer took meticulous notes on his training techniques, his wins, failures, and so on, so that he could translate the best elements into a superior exercise system for both high-level and beginner athletes. His four decades of careful observation led to the birth of Gymnastics Strength Chaining. [laughs] Let's try that again. Gymnastics Strength Training, not vocal strength training, because I'm failing in that department, otherwise known as GST. In this episode, we cover a ton of stuff, and I think it's going to light up the internets because everybody has a strong opinion these days, but Coach Sommer is very well qualified [laughs] to have the opinions that he holds. We talk about the biggest mistakes of self-taught handstands, why recreational athletes who try gymnastics get injured most commonly. We talk about the three to five exercises everyone should be doing. Chances are you've never heard of some of them. We talk about mental prep for athletes who are going into big competition, the questions you should ask a coach before sending your kid to gymnastics. Uh, we get into what is wrong with yoga handstands, uh, the [laughs] questions or opinions that he might pose or have related to ... kipping pull-ups i- in CrossFit and elsewhere. And, uh, [laughs] I ask that question because a mutual friend said, "If you want him to lose his shit, ask about kipping." We have the determination of GST, this Gymnastic Strength Training goals. If you could only pick one, what would it be and why? Who are the best coaches he's met? What characterizes them? It just goes on and on and on. I mean, if you want to build, say, mass in the biceps, how you can utilize straight arm work, and why you must turn your hands out past parallel while, when training the rings. Why is that important? How does it affect muscular development and strength development? Why do you need to fix the lats to fix the shoulders? It goes on and on and on. This is a very in-depth conversation. We get into the weeds, and I would just say be patient. There are a lot of gems here, and similar to the Dominic D'Agostino episode on ketosis and the end of cancer and so on and so forth, we really get into some nitty-gritty detail, and that is why many people listen to this podcast. So just bear with me. If you're like, "What the hell are these guys talking about?" Give it 30 seconds. Chances are that we'll zoom back up to 30,000 feet or change topics. So stick with it, and please enjoy this very wide-ranging, [laughs] intense conversation with Coach Christopher Sommer. [upbeat music] Coach, welcome to the show.
- SPSpeaker
Thanks, Tim.
- TFTim Ferriss
I am excited to finally have you on the show. We've had so many conversations [laughs] in the last month or two, and I've been so impressed with the, the subtlety and nuance of the training that you do. Uh, so I've been very eager to have you on the show to explore, uh, all things gymnastics and gymnastics, uh, strength training related. So thanks for making the time, first of all.
- SPSpeaker
Oh, my pleasure. Looking forward to it.
- TFTim Ferriss
And I thought, I thought we could, we could start with just some definitions. So, uh-
- SPSpeaker
Okay
- TFTim Ferriss
... what would you or how would you define Gymnastic Strength Training, GST?
- SPSpeaker
Ah, that's a good question. Uh, in a nutshell, Gymnastic Strength Training, I define as, um, high-level, uh, body weight strength training. So, uh, none, none of the technical training that we do for world-class performance or the acrobatics or technical gymnastics, just purely the strength, joint prep, and mobility components.
- 8:21 – 11:08
Handstand form as a mirror of mobility and strength (why people compensate)
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm. And one, one example of what not to do perhaps or, or how Gymnastic Strength Training might differ from the aesthetics that some people, I'm not gonna say compromise with, but choose. We were talking about doing-
- SPSpeaker
Ah
- TFTim Ferriss
... a pike, I guess a pike handstand press or, um-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... holding that position. And the example, and, uh, feel free to correct my recollection, but was of how-
- SPSpeaker
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... a lot of folks kick their hips way out to counterbalance.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Um, instead of doing what? What would the Gymnastic Strength Training version of that look like?
- SPSpeaker
A good example. So what we see, and this is kind of getting into some handstands, some skill training, but, um, handstand done correctly is a reflection of physical preparation that athlete either has or does not have. So if they lack strength, if they lack mobility, then, of course, their technical handstand is gonna lack refinement. So in terms of that pike handstand, if they lack middle trap, if they lack lower trap strength, then they're gonna try to counterbalance by really arching the chest out, sticking the butt way back behind them. Oh, goodness. I'm not even sure how to describe it, like a pike and an arch at the same time.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
Or, or-
- TFTim Ferriss
And for people who... I'm sorry to interrupt, Coach.
- SPSpeaker
Go ahead.
- TFTim Ferriss
Just for people who, I realize I should have probably defined some terms myself. So pike, for people who are not familiar with this, um, the, the easiest way to visualize-
- SPSpeaker
Ah
- TFTim Ferriss
... it if you don't have any background with that is imagine you're sitting on the floor, it's kind of like PE class, legs straight and together, um, bending at the waist towards your toes.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm. Bending forward.
- TFTim Ferriss
Is that ... Bending forward towards your toes.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, and so if you were to imagine you're sitting down with your legs out in front of you at, uh, just, like, 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.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
That's effectively what we're talking about.
- SPSpeaker
Exactly what we're talking about. And to, to hold that, because center of mass is way out in front of the body, then in order to hold that, the traps are what's responsible to keeping the back and the shoulders straight. So if you're not strong enough... And is it, some people say, "Well, it's just skill training." Well, everything builds upon everything else. So got Olympics coming up. People are gonna be pumped. They're gonna see our Olympic team. They're gonna see the other monsters around the world competing on rings, and they're, uh, "I want to do that." And they're gonna jump right up. You know, I've got friends who are former SEAL Team Six, and the first thing they did is jump up, and, of course, they failed utterly, and then they come see us, 'cause it's, it's like anything. You know, you don't jump right into calculus. You 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, same deal.
- 11:08 – 16:21
Why strong athletes still get hurt on rings: connective tissue and missing basics
- TFTim Ferriss
And we, I remember we were talking not too long ago about the importance of pacing when you're dealing with connective tissue, tendons and ligaments-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TFTim Ferriss
... which is something, uh, I'm not pers- I'm not particularly well known for in terms of patience and pacing.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
But, um-
- SPSpeaker
I've, I've noticed that. I've noticed
- TFTim Ferriss
... but, uh, the, uh, the-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Many of the guys who, say, do outdoor bar workouts, some of which are, um, very, very impressive physical specimens-
- SPSpeaker
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... will, uh, jump up on the rings, and they'll be doing, I'm not sure what they would even call them. They're kind of like what would be, uh, looked at as like a typewriter on the pull-up bar when you move back-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... and forth from one arm to the other.
- SPSpeaker
Side to side pull-up.
- TFTim Ferriss
That side to side pull-up. And, uh, you're... They're like, "I, I was feeling fine, Coach, and then suddenly my, you know, I tore my bicep, or I tore my pec, and it was fine-"
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... until it wasn't. Uh, what are some, if you look at, uh, 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? And we already mentioned one, which is, say, mid and lower traps. And of course, uh, I mean, I, I would like to think I came to the table with kind of hat in hand because I recognize how hard a lot of this is, but the more I practice it, the more I'm astounded at how unprepared my body [laughs] is-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... for these movements. I mean, it-
- SPSpeaker
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... it, it, it's, uh, as someone who has done a lot of pulling from the floor, for instance, who has, you know, a decent deadlift, I would like to think, uh, I was just astonished at how weak my mid back was. It was just, it blew my mind. It was, it was m- it was completely flabbergasting. What other, what other muscles or movements do you find, uh, normals just cannot perform even if they view themselves as a- athletic?
- SPSpeaker
Uh, for the, for the lifters, the one that always jumps out at us is their lack of shoulder extension. So, uh, if I pick my, if I'm standing upright and I lift my hands forward, that's flexion, and I can go all the way up till my arms are overhead. If I'm picking my hands up behind me, that would be shoulder extension.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right. So just to paint another picture for folks, like if you stand up and then interlaced your fingers behind your tailbone with your arms straight and then tried to lift them up towards the ceiling-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... keeping your back straight, uh, so the shoulder extension.
- SPSpeaker
And what we find is, you know, and, and a lot of what we'll get sometimes from people is, "Well, I don't want to be in the circus. I don't want to be an acrobat. I, I'm not interested in skill training. I want, I want strength." And what they don't understand is if you want to achieve world-class levels of performance technically, that comes first from having a solid foundation of physical preparation, which means correct range of motion, right? Good mobility, good connective tissue. So shoulder extension becomes so, for example, a lot of people fail, they can't do muscle ups 'cause 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 behind them, and there's their shoulder extension. If they can't do shoulder extension, now they're stuck.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
And they, they have spent all this time working technique and doing rep and doing rep, and what they're doing is they're treating the symptom and not actually the problem.
- TFTim Ferriss
Well, I was, uh, so just as, as some background for folks, the way that we connected was I, at 38, finally decided enough is enough. I've been fantasizing about trying to learn gymnastics in a structured way for 20-plus years, much like my postponing of getting a dog for 20 years. It's just like, why, why did it take me so long to do this? And I was in-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- 16:21 – 18:55
Self-taught handstand mistakes: mobility deficits, scapula control, and posture problems
- TFTim Ferriss
Just from the little bit that we've done. And, uh, the, so the f- the follow-up question to that is, uh, for instance, um, when people are training for handstands at home, so self-taught-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... what are the biggest mistakes that they make?
- SPSpeaker
Well, they won't like the answer, and, uh, this is a little bit of national team coach attitude coming out. Pe- people tend to want what they want when they want it. And, and that's fine if, if I'm looking for mediocre to average results. If, if I'm looking to, to really do best effort, then I've got, I've gotta back shit up and I've gotta take care of my business. And for most of the adults, it's gonna be 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. Their calves are like piano wire from sitting all the time. Uh, we won't even talk about hip flexor. Their scaps don't move. Their scapula have no motion. They can't protract. They can't retract. Their spine is locked in, in just a flat or, uh, kyphosis, so they're hunched over. Their lower back is continually arched. And they're just kind of frozen in this position, and then they want to try to move their body. Now, 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 range of motion. The problem is they quit using it, and so it just atrophied. So we're not, we're not doing anything special. We're just... Uh, we have to recreate that natural range of motion first. Uh- This, we've, we've been doing, gosh, I don't know now, maybe since 2006 working with the adults, and, uh, the thing that just we keep having my nose rubbed in it over and over and over again, every time I think I have it down, I find I need to take it further, it's just the complete other lack of joint prep and mobility they come to the table with. And if we do even, even your, your own case is an excellent example, we haven't done anything advanced yet.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
We're doing all basic, we're doing fundamental stuff, and you're already feeling better than in years.
- TFTim Ferriss
Well, I think it's, a, a lot of it has to do with two things, if I'm trying to self-diagnose. The first is-
- SPSpeaker
Absolutely
- TFTim Ferriss
... identifying musculature and motor patterns that I simply had not developed properly previously. Um-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- 18:55 – 21:39
Core mechanics: hollow position, posterior pelvic tilt, and protecting the low back
- TFTim Ferriss
... even, even if I had a passing familiarity, like the, um... Well, let me frame this in the form of a question. So how do most people... Can you define what the hollow position is, why it's important, and how, how do most normals do when they do a, say, a hollow body rock? Maybe you can explain that, too.
- SPSpeaker
Ah. So what, what people, they're gonna, most people when they think of abs, they think lower ab, they think upper abs. They're not gonna think about obliques at all, and they're not gonna think transverse abdominis at all. So lower abs are easy. Upper ab, easy. Obliques, okay. They, they understand the sideways. They don't understand how obliques wrap around into the lats, into the lower back. Okay, that's fine. But transverse abdominis, they're like, "Excuse me? Is, was that English?" They, they don't have a clue, and that's what supports the body when it's in a straight body position. So, you know, for, for example, ab rollers were... Um, we don't use them in our program, but just as an example, ab rollers were getting a, a bad knock that if you do an ab roller you're gonna hurt your lower back. Well, yes and no. You'll, you'll hurt your back if you're doing it wrong, if you are arched in your lower back. So for definitions, if my lower back is arched, I'm in anterior pelvic tilt. If I'm the opposite movement and I'm kind of my tailbone tucked under and my lower back is flat, that's posterior pelvic tilt. Well, when my body's horizontal, then my, uh, back is supported when I'm posterior pelvic tilt. If I'm arched, it's unsupported by the musculature and I'm hanging by the disc.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So-
- TFTim Ferriss
Which, which is true for a ton of exercises that, that we do in term-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... if I feel it in my lower back, almost universally when I send you videos, the feedback is more PPT, [laughs] posterior pelvic tilt.
- SPSpeaker
PPT.
- TFTim Ferriss
And-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, it sh- it should just be a mantra.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. And for, for people who need a way to visualize this, 'cause I realize a lot of this vocab is new, so, uh, b- and, Coach, feel free to interrupt at any point, but the, an easy way to think about and remember anterior pelvic tilt is imagine that your, your ha- your waist is the top of a wine glass. If you have anterior pelvic tilt to the front, you're gonna 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, you're going to be pouring wine basically down your sacrum, you know, down, down, down the back of your body. It's just an easy way for me to, to remember, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
That, that is, that is clever. I gotta say, 40 years of national team and I've never heard it described that way. It, it may-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... it may be our go-to definition from now on. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Well, that's, uh, I, you know, I can't do the gymnastics, so I'm gonna, I'll have to stick on, stick with, uh, refining my definitions. Although I am, I'm making progress with the fundamentals. And the-
- SPSpeaker
Yes, you are
- 21:39 – 23:11
Quick self-assessment tools: hanging leg lifts, bridge, and shoulder extension tests
- TFTim Ferriss
... I'd like to talk about the assessment that we did. So I flew out to-
- SPSpeaker
Yep
- TFTim Ferriss
... a great gym, Awaken Gymnastics in Colorado, and we met up and-
- SPSpeaker
Star, uh, that's our GB master affiliate. We only have one in the world, and, uh, Awaken in Denver is our number one GB affiliate. They're, they're the best at what they do.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, it's a, it's a fantastic gym. And we did quite a few hours of various assessments. If somebody wanted to try to self-assess or h- videotape themselves to have, say, someone qualified in gymnastics assess them, w- if you were to do an 80/20 analysis, like, which movements or exercises give you the most data?
- SPSpeaker
Most bang, most bang for the buck?
- TFTim Ferriss
Most bang for the buck.
- SPSpeaker
Okay. Um, let's see. No, so what we went over with you, we checked hanging leg lift.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So hanging leg lift automatically is gonna tell me, um, dynamic range of motion.
- TFTim Ferriss
And that's with some back support. Is that right? That's, uh, like on a stall bar. You don't want to be free swinging.
- SPSpeaker
Well, could be. You know, mo- most of them, you know, what- whatever they can do. It'll, to my eye, as soon as I see it or our staff's eye, they're, they're gonna know right away whether or not that person has adequate. It's gonna tell us your core strength, and it's gonna tell me hamstring flexibility.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
That, that'll do that in one. Bridge. Bridge is a huge one for adults. Uh, that's been one of our, we have a thoracic bridge core stretch series, and that's, that's been one of our best-selling products.
- TFTim Ferriss
That's what I'm doing this evening. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, yeah. Notice, notice, guys, that Tim's real happy right now. That, that'll change in just a few.
- 23:11 – 33:11
Building a safe bridge: thoracic extension over lumbar arching
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. What, what characterizes, this is a really important question, what characterizes a good bridge? And for people who are thinking of bridge, I mean, it's, imagine you're laying on your back, you put your h- your palms down by your sort of ears, let's say, feet flat on the ground, and then you go up into an arch. Now, uh-
- SPSpeaker
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... w- I was extremely surprised and found it quite hilarious how bad my bridge was. I mean, terrible. Uh-
- SPSpeaker
Well-
- TFTim Ferriss
... in the assessment, but-
- SPSpeaker
By your standards, yes. By what I see on a normal basis, yours was, yours was medium.
- TFTim Ferriss
Medium. It was like a D+.
- SPSpeaker
Right.
- TFTim Ferriss
It was, like, on the verge of passing.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, but I realized despite all of my many years of wrestling where we did tons of bridges-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TFTim Ferriss
... almost all of my bridging comes from bending at the low back, right? So my lumbar bends.
- SPSpeaker
Which is, which is a huge issue.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yep. So what is a good bridge look like?
- SPSpeaker
Just, little background?
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Okay. So the lumbar and the lower back is not- designed to have a ton of movement in it, a big arch. Your thoracic spine, your upper and your 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, they're so compromised. Now, okay, even back up a little bit more. They're, they're so compromised in range of motion in their upper body because they've been hitting the weights hard. They've been doing just a lot of high-intensity training. Now, to preface that, there's nothing wrong with that. 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 that they ran into. So if all you do is strength, strength, strength, strength, strength, then you can always tell someone who is, they're, they're the b- curl king and they're the bench press king. They come in and they're hunched over, and their elbows don't straighten. Their arms don't go behind them and on. They're like, "You know, my shoulders are killing me." Most of the time what we've found is, yeah, their, 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. So kind of all these 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, no lower back almost at all. But people are doing the exact opposite. They hurt their lower back, and they say, "Man, these, these bridges are dangerous." No, the brid- bridges aren't dangerous. Doing them half-assed and wrong without vetting your sources of information is dangerous.
- TFTim Ferriss
And I f- I've found it, uh, incredibly therapeutic as someone who's had a, basically a frozen thoracic for-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... God knows how long.
- SPSpeaker
And we-
- TFTim Ferriss
10, 10 years.
- SPSpeaker
Sure. We, and we were worried about that. I remember. We were like, "Hmm, I wonder-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
... how we'll, we'll work through this."
- TFTim Ferriss
Tim has the upper body mobility of a Lego figure. What are we gonna do? So the-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
But just the progression of doing, um... And, and of course, people should look for visual references, and, and we, I'll, I'll point them to a bunch of-
- SPSpeaker
Sure, and they're, and exactly
- 33:11 – 39:25
Pain vs fatigue, connective tissue timelines, and why beginners shouldn’t train to failure
- TFTim Ferriss
Well, one of the questions that you've asked me multiple times when we've been going over different workouts, and I would mention, for instance, uh, I felt it in my bicep. Like, I felt an extreme-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TFTim Ferriss
... stretch in my bicep. So for instance, there's a movement that we've been calling a German hang. A lot of people would call it-
- SPSpeaker
German hang
- TFTim Ferriss
... skin the cat, uh, perhaps.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, very similar, where you would hold on to, say, a bar or rings in this case, and, uh, I'm just, I'm gonna simplify this of course, but-
- SPSpeaker
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... tucking up, going back th- in between the rings, and then hanging down, um, with my, with as little of a, a pike at the hips as possible.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right?
- SPSpeaker
Nice flat back.
- TFTim Ferriss
N-
- SPSpeaker
Nice straight hips.
- TFTim Ferriss
Exactly. And, uh, sort of palms facing towards the ground. And I was saying, "I really felt an incredible stretch in my biceps more than in the shoulders." And your question would be, and this is applied to different body parts, where did you feel it in the bicep? This is getting back-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TFTim Ferriss
... to the not training through pain comment. And, uh, d- could you describe why the-
- SPSpeaker
What I'm looking for?
- TFTim Ferriss
The, well, the middle of, you're like, "If it's in the middle, I don't really care." Um, and same for-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TFTim Ferriss
... like the abs. Like, we can smash those all day long. If it's at the attachment points, though, then I wanna know about it, or we're gonna dial back.
- SPSpeaker
Then we wanna know.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, so-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, now
- TFTim Ferriss
... why is that?
- SPSpeaker
Real quick. So most people, I'm, I'm gonna sneak around to it. So most people, when they, when they do their training, they, uh, meaning well, meaning well, and I'm not, I'm not slamming anyone by any means, and the only reason that we know this and are able to share is because all these years I've been doing this, I made the same F'ing mistakes that they make. We just survived my stupidity and learned how to do better.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
That's the sto-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- 39:25 – 46:30
Adults vs youth: sequencing the rebuild (mobility → core → strength → dynamics)
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, it com- completely would backfire, huge backfire, 'cause we, like our, our s- a lot of our power come ... Where we like to get, where students make their, their greatest gains in strength is to be able to do dynamic plyometric work and straight arm ring strength. Those, those are your two biggest bangs for the buck. And what we have learned the hard way that's different, 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 do, as a young a- uh, young athlete, I, I can do all physical components at once. I can do plyometric. I can do straight arm. I can do their mobility, bent arm. It doesn't matter a bit. I can do it all at one time. But an adult, who's now fragile from years of making a living, right, sitting at a desk, uh, day in, day out, as they get a little older, kids get bigger, levels of activities drop, drop, drop, drop, drop, and they're compromised. So we g- we have to build these things in a different order. We have to first go rebuild mobility, then we have to rebuild core. By core, I'm talking not just abs, but obliques and lower back. Uh, most adults, a lot of their lower back pain isn't lower back related. It's oblique related. And, um, we, 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 moneymaker, which is their dynamic strength. But with an adult, especially a strong adult who's been athletically inactive, so they've been doing strength training, but not out moving, doing sports, being active, you know, outside of their conditioning, or let's say, for example, all they're doing is squats, and they're very linear in the path of their knee, and there's no meniscus work, there's no MCL work, there's no ACL work, then they go outside, they play a little softball. Hear it all the time. "Yeah, when I was playing softball, I blew my knee going around first base." Really? How, how many kids blow a knee running around first base?
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm. Well, that's, uh, I mean, the supplemental knee exercises that look wacky as hell when you first look at them, that you've had me do, and maybe we can, we can show some of this to, to people in the show notes. Um-
- SPSpeaker
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... even in the span of three or four weeks, I've seen a huge difference in knee stability improvement-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
.. because I haven't ever done, I haven't ever performed these types of targeted movements before.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
And, um, coming back to the diagnostics, we talked about the bridge. We talked about the hanging leg lifts.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, what, uh, a- are there any other movements-
- SPSpeaker
Shoulder, shoulder extension will be huge.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So sh-
- TFTim Ferriss
So shoulder extension would be sitting on the floor-
- SPSpeaker
Sitting on the floor
- TFTim Ferriss
... hands by-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hands by the s-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, sitting in that pike that you described earlier, uh, hands touching behind them, and then without letting the hands move, trying to scoot the butt as far forward away from the hands as they could. And so that's immediately, just that one movement right there is gonna let us see, it's gonna show me their scapular health. Can they protract? Can they retract? It's gonna sh- tell me how tight their pec minor is. It's gonna tell me how tight their bicep is, and it's gonna tell me how tight their brachialis down by the elbow is
- TFTim Ferriss
Oh, the brachialis.
- SPSpeaker
Yes, your favorite [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
My good, my good, my good friend, the brachialis. The, and also just the, and this relates to kind of daily living, a lot of people who have back pain, uh, myself included quite a few years ago, if, if you're wondering if you have a tight pec minor, you can just Google pec minor and figure out where it is, but basically think right under the clavicle. Get a lacrosse ball, and, uh, you know, go on the wall and try to roll out your pec minor with a lacrosse ball, and if it's, if you have back pain, you don't always fix that back pain by just focusing on the location of that pain. Um-
- SPSpeaker
That's a good point
- TFTim Ferriss
... and you start addressing the pec minor, and a lot of that stuff just allevia- is, is, is alleviated. Um, and I wanted to throw one thing out there just for people who might be interested that, and, and that is I think part of the reason I seemed or was better prepared for the assessment 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. Um-
- SPSpeaker
Okay
- TFTim Ferriss
... and did that for just maybe, uh, two times per week, uh, prior to doing the assessment as I was traveling. And for people who are wondering what this is like, if you really want to feel humbled, uh, as I did.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
So I was in, I was traveling, I was in Colombia. A very close friend of mine, uh, almost got to pr- professional rugby in New Zealand. He's a beast. I mean, athletically ex-
- SPSpeaker
Right. They are beasts
- TFTim Ferriss
... extremely strong, extremely fast. Uh, I mean, he, he's, he's always going to be one of the top performers in the gym when he walks into a weight room. And, uh, 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 bullshit are you doing here?" You know?
- 46:30 – 52:00
Kipping pull-ups: why they blew people up, and when (if ever) they make sense
- TFTim Ferriss
What are your feelings about, uh, kipping movements, like kipping pull-ups?
- SPSpeaker
Ah, you had to open that can of worms.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Well, I was asking a mutual friend, I won't name him, and I said, "What should I talk to Coach Sommer about?" And he said, "Kipping pull-ups. He'll lose his shit." [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
All right.
- TFTim Ferriss
So I said, "Okay, I got to ask him." [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. So we, we started, I, I was the original gymnastics guy for CrossFit way back in the early 2000s and ended up leaving. We, I was, I was there before there was the first CrossFit affiliate, when all there was was Glassman working out of that little gym in Santa Cruz. Uh, left just because, you know, to, to do GST right, like anything, you know, the, a dichotomy that, 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 th- a quarter inch this way down. I mean, they, they're just methodical, and they don't bring, and I shouldn't say just, just CrossFitters, but then they, other people, they don't bring that same degree of attention to detail to their body weight work. So one, one is supposed to be meticulous, and one is somehow just supposed to be thrown together, and yet they expect the same quality results. So if we, if we look back, oh, back in the day, CrossFit, you know, their lifting was, 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, they don't match a national team. They, they don't match a state-level athlete who, let alone a national level, let alone an international level. They're, they're not even in the same ballpark, and part of the issue is because the kipping pull-ups were, were a huge, big deal, was a money-maker. You know, and I'll, I'll be straight out. I'll piss some people off, but it was a money-maker. As, as advertising for a program, they could bring someone in, and, uh, who's never been able to do a pull-up, have them hold their chin by the bar, and, uh, let them fall Hit the bottom of that movement, bounce back to the top, and the person's eyes light up, and they're like, "You know, this is the best effing thing ever. I've never done a pull-up in my entire life. Oh my God, oh my God," and they're pumped, and they're pumped. What they didn't realize is that this person has compromised basic strength and compromised shoulder flexion. They don't, they don't have mobility in their shoulder, so they're hitting the bottom of that movement with multiples of body weight. So they weren't strong enough to do a regular pull-up, so now we're gonna drop them on connective tissue with multiples of body weight. That's gotta go somewhere, so it's gonna force that shoulder to open further than it can handle, and I'm gonna bounce off that connective tissue like a trampoline back to the top of the bar. And then to make, to pour salt on the wound, now I'm gonna do a shitload of reps at the same time. I'm just, I'm just gonna crank on it. And they were getting people who were coming in and, you know, across the board, "There's, there's, there's no proof. There's da, da, da." You know, bullshit. Bullshit. You guy- you guys can live in a dream world all you want. It wa- it was blowing people up. And now the good thing, though, and to their credit, you know, it took time. There was the denial, "No, it has nothing to do with it." But, uh, now we're seeing a recommendation of, "You know what, guys? We gotta start getting some basic strength built first, some basic mobility," and then at that time, kipping pull-ups. Yeah, ab- absolutely there's nothing wrong with it. They're healthy f- they're good to do on a healthy shoulder joint with a good foundation of basic strength. But a beginner doing kipping pull-ups? Really? That's, that's insanity. That's, that's just pouring gasoline on a fire.
- TFTim Ferriss
So kipping, then, is the finishing addition. It is not the starting element.
- SPSpeaker
We, we would never... You know, we were, we started working with adults, so our first... We'd, we'd do seminars all around the world. You know, we spend, we spend a lot of time doing hands-on, and our very first one we did, I don't know, 2007 or so, and we've got all these people, we've got all these beasts here, and they're strong. And I tried to do my entry-level plyometric work on some floor work with them, and the stronger the athlete, the faster they went down. Knees, lower back, ankles. On baby stuff. Baby stuff. I mean, we're, we're not talking anything hard. We're talking about standing in place, and with knees straight, being able to bounce down the floor using just your calves. No way. They, their, their tissues couldn't take it. They hadn't, they hadn't done anything like it. Or we had 15 minutes on the schedule, for example, how bad mobility was. We had 15 minutes on the schedule to stretch. Nothing hard, nothing intricate, nothing intense. Just an easy, basic stretch. Get them loosened up for the day. That stretch took an hour and a half to complete.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
And I was... Oh, my. It, it was an hour and a half, Tim. It was an hour and a half. There were bodies lying everywhere. It was like I was in Vietnam or [laughs] we were filming a war movie. And I'd, I turned, I turned to my staff, I'm like, "What the fuck am I supposed to do now?" They failed warm-up.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
They failed warm-up.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Now, now, in fairness, this stuff is really... You, you would, you would look at it, and just like my friend who's like, "What is this Jane Fonda bullshit?" And I'm like-
- SPSpeaker
Uh-huh
- TFTim Ferriss
... "Hey, man, why don't you try this for 10 minutes?" And then [laughs] it is really taxing.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- 52:00 – 1:42:37
Why lower-leg work affects hamstrings, and how coaching drives innovation (Jefferson curl enters)
- TFTim Ferriss
I mean, uh, I remember doing, uh, one of the stretching routines, which I, I'll note, I think is, is, might be of interest to people, is I'm hitting each once per week. So there's one that is front-
- SPSpeaker
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... split focus, so very hamstring focused. There's one that is bridge focused, and another that is, uh, middle split-
- SPSpeaker
Adductor
- TFTim Ferriss
... oh, adductor-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... and middle-split focused.
- SPSpeaker
Inside of the thigh.
- TFTim Ferriss
And, and the point that you make is doing this twice a week will not double your progress. It will cut it in half. So you're only really hitting each of these once per week. I mean, there are different-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... daily limber protocols, but-
- SPSpeaker
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... um, I remember doing, at the very beginning of one of these workouts, uh, I believe it was... Oh, no, it was absolutely the, uh, the front split workout, a shit ton, for me, a shit ton of, of, uh, calf raises-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
... with a different-
- SPSpeaker
I remember you moaning about that
- TFTim Ferriss
... like, different foot placements. It's like, okay, 180 calf raises later of different variations, I was like-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TFTim Ferriss
... "Okay, and I'm only three minutes into this [laughs] hour-long stretch sequence." Uh, but, and I know we're bouncing all over the place, because I want to give people kind of a buffet sampling of, of how this training-
- SPSpeaker
Okay
- TFTim Ferriss
... differs. But one of the reasons I respect the programming that you put together and the nuance that you bring to this is that the observation, then, is, and correct me if I'm, or you can elaborate on this if I'm missing something, but that a lot of the hamstring flexibility issues or limitations that people perceive are at least-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... in part due to lower leg-
- SPSpeaker
Absolutely
- TFTim Ferriss
... issues, uh, including the Achil-
- SPSpeaker
Huge, huge amount of them. Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... yeah, including the Achilles. So you, you, i- in this, in this particular progression in the beginning, you're hitting, you're stretching the, you're engorging and then stretching the-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... the insertion point basically around the heel, and then again at the knee, and working your way up to the hamstrings. And, um, there's a, an athlete who's been on the podcast, uh, Amelia Boone, one of the most successful, uh, obstacle course racers in the world, and, and she's basically pointed out the same thing. And she said, "Yeah, you can take someone who's really inflexible in their hamstrings, have them roll out their feet with, say, a lacrosse ball or something like that, and all of a sudden they gain two inches in their-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- 1:42:37 – 1:49:03
Training timelines and mindset: deloads, consistency, and progressing like a long project
- SPSpeaker
Oh. What makes him, him is the ability... So it starts with depth of knowledge. To have enough depth of knowledge that you can look at an athlete and plan what you need to be doing four years from now, eight years from now, and then reverse engineer all of it to today. All the training cycles, the strength, the deloads, uh, it was from Dmitry that I f- So back in '83, Dmitry was the only gymnast, I think today probably one of the only ones, who every fourth week was a deload week. Why? To give the body a chance to recover. Now, there's a lot of people who talk deload, but way back then, right, the training, if you visit with Dmitry, right, it's always, "Chris, it's, it's, it's mathematics. It's all mathematics we do." To them, you take these correct pieces, which would be like doing the correct numbers, that- Creates 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. So Alexander is great, great at knowing we're gonna just be consistent over this training block. So, you know, an Olympic cycle is four years long, so we're getting ready to finish this Olympics, right? And then the next cycle starts. So it could take, for example, to get someone to 75, 80% of their genetic capacity with a good, with a good coach, a good world-class coach, it's gonna take three to four years. It's gonna take three to four years just to let the body grow, adapt. To get-
- TFTim Ferriss
Do you think that's also true for 30, like training an adult?
- SPSpeaker
I do.
- TFTim Ferriss
Okay, great. All right.
- SPSpeaker
I, I do. Uh, now, that's a healthy adult.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
That's a healthy adult. So if they're severely compromised, and, uh, so, you know, to get through our whole, our whole curriculum should take three to four years. If they're severely compromised and we have to do damage repair, we've got to heal some injuries, we got some chronic things. 'Cause what, what's a chronic injury? A chronic injury is simply an injury that you kept abusing until it became semi-permanent. That's all chronic injury is. It means you slammed your hand in the door and it hurt, okay? And your, your response to slamming your hand in the door and it hurting was to keep slamming your hand in the fucking door, right? [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
You kept, you kept slamming it in the door, and you say, "God, my hand really hurts. What should I do? What should I do?" I say, "Well, quit slamming your hand in the damn door and it will get better."
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
But people, they, they don't, they don't reali- they don't think that way. They're just like, "Well, I, but I really, really like doing this." And we get people coming to us really beat up 'cause we're taught no pain, no gain. Well, we flip that around. We say, "No brain, no gain." Now, we're, we're not talking about the pain of fatigue. The, the easy way to know the difference between fatigue and injury is simply the sharpness of the pain. So for example... And it's from experience also. So if you, if you're feeling f- you're feeling pain, right? And maybe it's from a core workout, and you stop. You're doing hollow body rocks, whatever it be. It doesn't matter what you're doing. Sit-ups. You stop. If it's fatigue, it's immediately gonna start to lessen. Soon, as soon as you stop, the pain starts going away. If it's an injury and you stop, it's immediately gonna continue, begin increasing. That's your oh shit moment. That's, "Oh, I have screwed myself up." Right? And so you kind, you kind of have to ride that. We want, we want to work to where the body is working, but we don't want to work so hard. It's like for a long time, it was a big thing for people doing kipping pull-ups to take pictures of their hands being raw and bloody from their rips. And they, they were looking at it as a badge of honor, you know, that I worked so hard. And in the short term, for that, for that moment, yes. Yeah, they worked really hard. Now, I looked at it differently. I looked at it as like, "You stupid shit, what are you gonna do tomorrow now?"
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Right.
- SPSpeaker
'Cause there's, there's, there's no amount of work you can do today that could offset the amount of progress you could have made throughout a properly structured week. Can't, it can't be done. Or two-
- TFTim Ferriss
You see that, you see that with kettlebells a lot too. I, I remember-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. I, I-
- TFTim Ferriss
I remember when I was really deep in, in kettlebell training, it was, uh... Yeah, you take yourself out for God knows how long. You rip all your calluses off. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Rip them. But they mean well. They mean well. We, we, we tend to use two terms with our athletes. We, we have immature athletes and mature athletes. And definition, and it's, it's not an age deal. It's, it's an attitude deal. So an immature athlete is someone who wants what they want right now. Okay? A mature athlete is someone who's willing to do what needs to be done now to get rewarded for it later, the delayed gratification. And it's the mature athlete that, in the long run, always comes out on top. They're always the ones with the greater longevity and the greater success. The other ones, the immature ones, if they're really talented, they may stay ahead for a while, but eventually you're gonna get so dinged and broken and beat up that they have to step aside. And the mature guy and the mature athlete or woman, right, they're, they're just doing their thing day in, day out. It's like, uh, writing a book that has 365 pages in it. If I, if I ask you tomorrow, "Tim, go home tonight and write me a book with 365 pages," you're like, "Chris, you've lost your fucking mind."
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
But if I say, "Tim, I want you to write me a page, a single page every day," in a year we've got a book with 365 pages. And if you picture that, that thickness of a novel, it, it's a lot of pages there. But if I look at that thickness of a single page, it's, it's so thin that it seems negligible, that it doesn't even matter. It's like, "Why, why did I bother?" Well, it's, it's the consistency that adds up over time. That's where you see, you see these great athletes. You gotta understand, they see, you see a world-class athlete, that did not start training yesterday. This is a multi-year process.
- TFTim Ferriss
Well, also, I think that there's a, uh, behavioral modification and, uh, component of this which, you know, if you wanted to dig in the resource, into the research is, is supported at this point, which is doing each day less than you feel maximally capable
- 1:49:03 – 1:55:29
Choosing good goals: why back lever is a trap, and why press handstand is the best all-in-one target
- TFTim Ferriss
of is, it's, it's a fantastic sort of po- positive reinforcer. And this applies in-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... this applies in sales. This is what IBM did way back in the day when their sales force 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. So we could substitute intimidated to pick up the phone-
- SPSpeaker
I like that
- TFTim Ferriss
... with intimidated to go to the gym or start a session.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, you could also apply it to writing. I rem-
- SPSpeaker
Leave, leave a little in the bank, right?
- TFTim Ferriss
Leave a little in the bank. I remember, uh, there were two examples offhand as it r- applies to writing. A friend of mine Uh, who's very, very consistent, prolific writer, and he said, "My key is every day I write less than I feel capable of." And, you know, a guideline-
- SPSpeaker
Hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... that I was given was two crappy pages per day. That's all you have to do, two crappy pages. And sometimes you overshoot that, and you have a great workout, and you're feeling, as you put it, froggy.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right? You're feeling fantastic.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs] Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
You're feeling, you're feeling fantastic, and you just blow through it and set, set a bunch of PRs. But you didn't go into the workout with the pressure of having to achieve PRs in every exercise. And, uh, you know, Hemingway, not, maybe not the great- the, the best life model, but was prolific writer and-
- SPSpeaker
Still, still a stud, yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... a- and he would, he would end mid-sentence. He would end still feeling like he had more to say in a specific paragraph or sentence, so that he had a place to pick up the next day. The, uh-
- SPSpeaker
See, I love that
- TFTim Ferriss
... and to, so on the point of consistency, and actually I want you to finish your last thought because I totally hijacked the, uh, conversation. But you said it takes three to-
- SPSpeaker
No, what's, what's up with that, dude? You hijacked my thought. What's up with that?
- TFTim Ferriss
So three, three to four [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Three to four years to, to get them to what percentage of their genetic?
- SPSpeaker
And th- and this is ballpark, 75 to 80. And this, this is just an example to people, 'cause the body, the body will not let you run at 100%. Won't do it. Won't do it. There's not enough optimal surplus that we mentioned earlier. Three to four years to get to 75, 80%. It will take me another three to four years, another three to four years, to get to about 90%. Another three to four years. And then after that, it will take me another three to four years to get to about 95%. And that's me riding herd on them. That's my standards, right? 'Cause remember, it's easier for me to maintain that immaculate standard because I'm not the one feeling the fatigue right now. Okay? It's much easier. It gets very difficult for a world-class athlete to train themself, right? And it doesn't do a good, a world-class coach any good to have all that knowledge in his head. It takes a partnership, right? It takes both of them working together to create this great athletic animal. So but the interesting thing is that another three to four years, you get to 95%, and as soon as they ease up, the body drops back down to that 75, 80. That's where it likes. Now, to build back up won't take nearly as long as to build it in the first place, okay? Because the structures are already in place, nervous system's already developed, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. But that's where the body's comfortable. So as far as adults are concerned, okay, are they, does a 35-year-old need to be able to produce at 90%? No, they don't. Do they need at 95%? No. They're, they're not full-time professional athletes. They don't, they don't have time for that. Can they produce at 75, 80%? Yes, they can. And the interesting thing is, is will that put you on the Olympic team? No, absolutely, absolutely not. Are you gonna be close to it? No. But is it r- will it put you being better than 99 out of 100 people around you? Absolutely.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Absolutely it will put you there. And if we put a percentage on that, that means that just by being consistent, putting some years, consistent years of training in, that puts you in the top 1% of the human population in terms of physical ability. That is not a bad consolation prize.
- TFTim Ferriss
No, it's, it's not. And I wanna underscore the consistency point, because I've always been an intensity guy, right? I mean, for the most part.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Because that's my easy, that's my default mode. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Okay.
- 1:55:29 – 2:01:56
Gymnastics vs yoga handstands: why form isn’t just aesthetics (and why ‘cheats’ limit progress)
- TFTim Ferriss
hollow body hold is effectively, like, imagine if you're in a s- in a crunch position on the floor, right? And then-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... you put your arms up
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, just kind of, kind of pick your feet up like you were gonna do a sit-up, except don't sit up
- TFTim Ferriss
Yep
- SPSpeaker
Shoulders up a little off the ground, feet off a little the ground, and then just try to rock back and forth
- TFTim Ferriss
That's it. So he failed at 12- couldn't do three sets of that-
- SPSpeaker
Couldn't
- TFTim Ferriss
... times 12 seconds
- SPSpeaker
Couldn't do it, not a chance
- TFTim Ferriss
F- fast-forward two years, and he's a beast. Now, there were, there were two points-
- SPSpeaker
Oh, he is a beast
- TFTim Ferriss
There are two points here that really, uh, left a mark on me. So the first was he's very consistent. Okay, we've talked about that. But here-
- SPSpeaker
Yes
- TFTim Ferriss
... here's the part that I really liked. So he never rushes through exercise, and 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-
- SPSpeaker
At the beginning
- TFTim Ferriss
... working his way up. So I want to try to illustrate this because this is a really... 'Cause most people, myself included, will just bang their heads against a wall with w-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... the pl- with the plateau movement, right? Um-
- SPSpeaker
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... so let's, let's take the tuck, uh, not, sorry, not the tuck, but the, uh, the press handstand, which we've been talking about as a great kind of bang for the buck objective 'cause it incorporates so many different elements and attributes that you need to develop.
- SPSpeaker
Okay.
- TFTim Ferriss
What would a series of progressions, like four or five progressions for that look like? And does it literally mean that if, if, if he couldn't get through movement five that he would drop all the way back to number one, or would he go back to number two and number three?
- SPSpeaker
Nope, he'd, he'd go, he'd go right back to number one.
- TFTim Ferriss
Okay.
- SPSpeaker
Now, he might, he might go to... He might not start with, uh, the very week one programming of, you know, three by one rep. He might, he might drop back to, uh, week 11, you know, where it's, where we provide the programming where it's five by five, and you s- demonstrate mastery, then next workout bump. But ba- basically, what, what he's doing is if he failed on that exercise, that means there was a chink in the armor somewhere. There was a hole in the preparation. There was at some deficit or super adapt- adapt- a deficit that had been overlooked or some part of the body that had not yet super compensated. So by stepping off, so w- basically, we want, we want people to go through, when they're in training, to just be super simplistic. We want their training to go through a period of overload, where whatever they're doing is, is kicking their ass. Okay? It's hard. It's intense. And then without changing reps or sets, right, 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. So it's f- it's feeling easier because the body's gotten stronger. And then where people always cut it short, where they, where they undermine themselves here, is they don't go into underload. So to be super simplistic, underload is where, damn, I'm just not feel 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, you're just cutting it short. What, what people tend to do is they want to ride that razor's edge. I did this much today. I'm gonna do this mu- I'm gonna do more next week, uh, that typical five pounds on the bar.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
Okay, well, that's, that's great. You know, if that was the case, I remember my first weighted pull-up workout, I was excited. I was excited way back when I was a teenager. I came home. I did my five pounds. I pulled out my calendar, did five pounds. I'm gonna do a pound every week. I said, "Holy shit. I'm gonna be pulling 1,500 pounds in a year, man. I'm world champ- I'm world champion in the making." [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Well, lin- linear doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. So what happens is that you hit, you hit that point of where you're maxed out currently, and then you gotta step off, and we gotta give the body a chance to accommodate. So for example, you mentioned, you mentioned Rob Wolf. Rob is a good buddy. Rob's super sharp. For those of you who don't know, he's a nutritional guru. Check out his stuff.
- 2:01:56 – 2:10:27
What to avoid early: muscle-ups, rope climbs without prep, and risky fatigue + plyometric combinations
- TFTim Ferriss
So let's, let's, let's, uh, throw out a couple of... I'll use another automotive metaphor. Let's switch gears, and I will ask just a couple questions that I think people would love to hear answers to. Uh, the first is someone's ex- listens to this, they're extremely excited to do-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TFTim Ferriss
... gymnastics strength training, and maybe they go out and they're, like, s- sampling different things from all sorts of different places. Um-
- SPSpeaker
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... and, uh, you know, of course, it, I, I, I have no bus- I should say with full disclosure, I have no business association. I'm not getting af- aff- any kind of affiliate, anything from you. I just am a, am a real fan of how you train, so I think people should check out-
- SPSpeaker
I appreciate that, mate
- TFTim Ferriss
... your, I, your, your tr- your training programs. But what exercises should people not attempt or just remove from consideration for the first, say, six months of gymnastics strength training?
- SPSpeaker
Probably... Oof, such a good question. I, I would say muscle-ups.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
I would say muscle-ups. Um, the issue becomes there's nothing wrong with the pull, there's nothing wrong with the dip. The, the shoulders will adapt relatively quickly. You know, they'll get up on rings at first and they're shaking, and that's simply because the stabilizers aren't used to the load. But that, that'll adapt within, you know, two weeks, four weeks. They, they'll be fine. The issue they run into is because their shoulder extension is weak, they can't get the elbow behind the torso. So instead of doing a dip with body weight, now they're trying to do a tricep extension with body weight. Completely different animal. Completely different animal. That's, you know, they're kinda have, 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 themself up. Of course, they're just trash and their elbows... Now, some people, okay, we do see it, some people have incredible joints that you can just pound and pound and pound and pound and pound. Nothing happens to them. Run them over with a car, right? All you're gonna do is hurt your car.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
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. So accept the fact that you're human and those are not your joints. And so you, you can't take that approach and have longevity. [laughs] It's not gonna happen.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] So-
- SPSpeaker
So-
- TFTim Ferriss
Okay, so muscle-ups go out. The-
- SPSpeaker
Muscle-ups go out. Now, how, how do they get around the muscle-up?
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
How do they get... 'Cause their elbows hurt, and they can't do a slow. We need, and to build strength, we gotta do it slow, right? How, how do they get around? They do the kipping muscle-up. Okay, well, that gets me on top of the rings, but where I get the benefit of muscle-ups is through that transition as I'm going between the pull-up, through my chest up above. And that's where cross is, that's where planche is, that's where Maltese is, that's where all advanced ring strength is. It's, it's that strength. When you s- when you see a gymnast, right, when you see them this summer at the Olympics, right? And we're, we, just as an aside, guys, we've got, we've got some podcasts coming out for Gymnastic Bodies. Sorry, Tim, competing with you here.
- TFTim Ferriss
No, that's all right.
- SPSpeaker
And, and we're g- we're gonna talk some training, right, with, with some, uh, of the Olympic guys. And when, when you see them, right, you are, um, you're gonna see this massive musculature, and it didn't come from push-ups and it didn't come from dips. It, it came from that advanced ring strength they do. So if you're doing a kipping muscle-up and you're going from below the rings to on top of the rings and it's gone, you just skipped the most beneficial part of the muscle-up.
- TFTim Ferriss
Let me-
- SPSpeaker
It's gone. You wasted it
- TFTim Ferriss
... let me ask a, a related question, because of course every four years, uh, I watch gymnastics. I love watching gymnastics, as do a lot of people, and they go, "Holy shit, 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." How much of... [laughs] I know we talked about the rings.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TFTim Ferriss
How much of the musculature in the upper arms, uh, biceps specifically, comes from straight arm work versus some form of bent arm work?
- SPSpeaker
Excellent. Excellent question. So the majority of the massive biceps they see is gonna come from the straight arm work. Uh, we use, so for example, when the guys would, uh... At that level of s- training, at that level of strength, um, rope climbs, for example. So my, my guys had to do a triple on a seven-meter rope. So that's with no... All rope climbs are done with no legs. Okay? In, in GST, we, we do ropes without legs. We get some people say, "Oh, no, the rope is used for transportation." As soon as they take out the escalators in a mall and they put ropes in in place of it, or they take the elevators out and they put ropes, I'll buy that argument that we use a rope for transportation. Until that happens, a rope is used for getting freaking strong. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
That's, right? That, that's the point of having a rope. So they would, they would, in five minutes, they would do a triple on a seven-meter rope, get in the back of the line, do a double on a seven meter, get back in the line, and do another, and that'd be about five minutes worth of work. Okay? Now, for them, what we did notice, and a lot of people miss this... And we're gonna do two things here at once. So for the maximal strength component of it, it's the straight arm work, Maltese work in particular, right? Just blows the body up. Uh-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] And people listening, don't just go into your garage and try a Maltese on your rings. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Well, you can. You c- you can totally, 'cause I don't think Maltese will hurt you. The Maltese won't hurt you, but you're landing on this concrete on your face underneath the rings is probably going to hurt.
- 2:10:27 – 2:18:41
Coaching influences and key details: ring turn-out, brachialis, and the knee series origin
- SPSpeaker
May- maybe we should touch base on the, uh, difference real quick between the various grips.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, please.
- SPSpeaker
Okay. So guys, in, in terms of GST specific strength, if you are doing just pull-up work, your parallel grip is by far, by far going to have the greatest return on investment, uh, simply because that parallel grip hits the brachialis so hard down in the elbow. Uh, the reason we need that is when you climb a rope, you're gonna have more of a parallel grip. You do that parallel grip pull-up, uh, obviously you're developing that. When we're on the rings, when we're on top of the rings, right, 'cause we always, every- everything is aimed for eventually getting onto the rings to build strength. So when we're on the rings, we need the grip turned out past parallel. Now, back in the day, Greg Glassman and I, Greg is the, you know, he's a super bright guy, founder of CrossFit, but he just didn't understand why we would turn the rings past parallel. He, he thought it was just aesthetics. "Coach, it's just aesthetics." Well, the problem is, if I'm on the rings and I do a dip, I do a muscle-up, I do whatever, and I straighten my arms and I don't turn the rings past parallel, I'm not-
- TFTim Ferriss
Now, Coach, I apologize for interrupting. Just for people to-
- SPSpeaker
That's all right
- TFTim Ferriss
... visualize this, so let's just say you're on dips, you're in between the straps, you're do- I'm sorry, you're, you're-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... up on rings, and you're doing dips, and you're in between the straps. What, a- and correct me if I'm wrong here, Coach, but when you get to the top-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TFTim Ferriss
... that means-
- SPSpeaker
Top of the rep, arms are straight
- TFTim Ferriss
... the t- top of the rep and your arms are straight, that your, the rings themselves-
- SPSpeaker
Gotta turn the thumbs out slightly
- TFTim Ferriss
... that, that's right. So instead of having the rings parallel, pointing straight ahead-
- SPSpeaker
Or, or turned in, which is what most people do
- TFTim Ferriss
... or turned in, they would be at, say, 10:00 PM and 2:00 PM or something like that.
- SPSpeaker
Exactly. And it will vary. As, as long as they're out. Now, the re- the reason is, is all strength, what's the weak link in straight arm strength is the elbow. The weak link is the elbow. And what a lot of people will do is we, we've had people who were taught, "Well, elbow pain is just part of doing ring strength." No, it's not. Elbow pain is an indicator that your ring strength is F'd up and you need to do better programming.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
All right?
- TFTim Ferriss
And, uh-
- SPSpeaker
It, it hurts for a reason
- TFTim Ferriss
... and I s- I, I took you off track there just 'cause I wanted people to, to visualize the proper thing. So you were saying to Greg-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... that when you get to the top, you know, the issue is it's not just aesthetics. When you get to the top-
- SPSpeaker
It's not aesthetics. You've gotta turn past parallel so that the brachialis is activated. All right? There's a reason that after all these years of CrossFit being on rings and doing thousands upon thousands of kipping pull-ups, and dips, and all this stuff, that there are no iron crosses, unless they're a previous gymnast. All right? There's no homegrown CrossFitter who has an iron cross. There's no home fi- homegrown CrossFitter who has a planche or a malt, because right from the beginning on those very basic movements, they didn't turn past parallel. They didn't turn the rings out. The brachialis wasn't trained. The brachialis is what supports the elbow when it's straight.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
So if it never got trained, they can never move forward into the money-making exercises. So that's why in those parallel, those pull-ups, if we use a parallel grip, and it's easy enough to do some, just, just do a set, right? Do a nice parallel, a nice parallel grip workout, and then compare the soreness that you feel on the inside of the elbow from fatigue Right? Compared to regular chin-ups and regular pull-ups. It, it's night and day. Then, then we would do chins and then pull-ups.
- TFTim Ferriss
Got it.
- SPSpeaker
But.
- TFTim Ferriss
So the, the, um, other exercises to remove, if any. So we have muscle-ups, back lever. Is there any-
- 2:18:41 – 2:29:39
Mental prep for competition: replicate pressure in training and change nothing on game day
- TFTim Ferriss
All right. Here we, here we go then. The next question is, uh, from one of my listeners, and it's, it's quite simply, how do you mentally prep your athletes for big competition, uh, when, when you're down to that, you know, you go to the nationals? Or any, any competition, but specifically big competitions, how do you... And by, by prep, I mean mentally prep, like the, the day of. Is there anything in particular that you do?
- SPSpeaker
It's, it's, it's very, it's very different. Um, it kinda, so it starts with repetition. So we, we talked a little bit about training. So in, in, in a nutshell, and what, we'll come back around and we'll fill this out. So in the preparation prior, right, successful repetitions, right? It, it, it takes a certain number of repetitions to lead to competence, and it's competence that leads to confidence, and that's what leads to a successful competition. So a- as Americans, right, we, we tend to be in a rush, be in a hurry. We, we don't want to take a lot of reps. We wanna get something. We do it correct a few times, and then we wanna bump on. Completely different from the Chinese approach, completely different from the Russian approach, where they'll literally do hundreds of repetitions before they move on to the next drill. And then they're, they're not upset about it, 'cause they understand it's a process. As Americans, we tend to... We're always look- Now it's a, it's both a good thing and it's a curse. One, it's a good thing because it forces us to be so creative, we're so hard-charging, we get so many things done. Physically, sometimes it, it kinda works against us because it, we don't give the body and the nervous system a chance to stabilize. So if you want to be confident at a competition, you have to pay your dues in prep. Example, and that's mentally and, and physically. For example, '72 Olympics, okay? And these are... I was talking about this with Dmitry Bilozerchev, my friend, World and Olympic champ. So in '72 Olympics, Olga Korbut was by all accounts going to crush everyone at the games. She was gonna crush everyone. In training, as they went back, and the Russians went back and they reviewed all her training, she had over a 98% hit rate on her routines. That meant she was almost perfect. Almost perfect. When she went to the games, she had a major meltdown. Now, the question of course raises, how is it possible for someone who was this perfect for this long in training to go to the competition and just fall apart? A- as they dug into it, they found out the error was not in physical preparation, the error was in mental preparation. So as Olga 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. She was very comfortable. Okay? She didn't start till she was ready. She, equipment's she's ready for, lighting she's ready for, matting's familiar. Everything is good. When you get to the Worlds and you get to the Olympics, judges don't give a fuck if you're ready or not. When they raise that flag-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. They... It's, it's brutal. It's brutal. In fact, to give everyone a little taste, okay? The warmup gym is not there. The warmup gym might be 10 minutes away, or it, it might be a 10-minute walk, a five-minute walk down this concrete hallway. So you go and you warm up, you walk down this hallway, right? And then your ass waits there, and then the flag goes up, and you gotta go to 100% within 30 seconds. You got 30 seconds to be on the equipment.
- TFTim Ferriss
Wow.
- SPSpeaker
Massive head game. Yeah, massive head game. So they went back and they found out that Olga's problem was that everything had gone her way. So-
- TFTim Ferriss
She controlled too many variables.
- SPSpeaker
Too many variables, and it, there was, they were too easy. They were too accommodating. And so what they did is the Russians changed their training just to screw with people. So if I'm coaching someone, right? And it's gon- there's gonna be a mental component, I'm gonna fuck with them. Right? I'm gonna tell them, l- and, and not, not in a mean way, but, "All right, you're up," and then walk away.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Leave them waiting. You know? Let 'em, let 'em get antsy. Make 'em go when they're not ready. Make 'em do a cold set. Okay? Don't, don't let... Any, any and everything you can. Have a crowd of people around them trying to mess with them. Any and everything. And I, and I will also say it's, it's much harder for women than it is for guys, simply because 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. Okay? The girl goes out there and she's worried about kicking ass also, but she's also worried about not wanting to let anybody down. "Are they gonna be disappointed with me? Are they gonna like me?" She has this whole range of other emotional burdens that a guy doesn't give a shit about. They, they just don't care. I, I've seen girls who are just amazing in training and get out there, and it's just 'cause they have this other load that they place on themselves that guys don't have to deal with. And the way you handle that in training is we just have to get more reps in.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
Right? You gotta have more reps, and do everything you can to put them in a situation to where... For example, 2004 I was doing, uh, some of the prep. I was doing some of the floor and the tramp-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... and helping with vault, and doing the physical preparation for a girl we had trying out for the Olympics. She did not make it. She did not make it. You had to be top six. She was ninth. Okay? And, uh, Carly, fantastic girl. Great girl. They, uh, their approach though for mental training I thought was flawed. They brought someone in, and, you know, I wo- I won't, I won't say names. I'll just, I'll just say that I disagreed, and it was, it was a very... They were trying to be really, really positive. So, you know, 30,000 square foot gym, big giant "yes" signs everywhere. "Yes, you can. Yes, it'll be great. Yes, it'll be wonderful." And the reality is it's not gonna be wonderful. It's gonna be stressful. It's gonna suck. When you are in a competition at that level, the pressure is, is crushing. It, it's a physical pressure that you feel on you, and you still have to produce performance at a world-class level. And the only way to handle that is we have to try to replicate that in training, right? So that the pressure's not going away. The error that was done, like Carly was trying to downplay the pressure. I would say do the exact opposite. Do the opposite. You should go to the training, to the competition, and hopefully competition is less pressure than what you go through in training. Now, that's not gonna be true at Olympics and such, but at most things it should be the case. Should be the case. So mentally, uh, if you're scared... Well, let's, let's say if you're feeling unconfident, if you're feeling threatened, uneasy, your, your preparation was flawed.
- TFTim Ferriss
Well, that's... It, it brings up an anecdote that I heard from, uh, Paul Levesque, better known as Triple H, the professional wrestler, who's also an incredible, uh, business executive for WWE. But he visited, uh, let me get this right. Why am I blanking on his name? I've, I've caught whatever you, you, you were, you were dealing with earlier.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, not Roy Jones. Very famous boxer. Uh, Floyd Mayweather. That's it.
- SPSpeaker
Okay.
- TFTim Ferriss
And he visited Floyd, uh, maybe an hour before a huge title fight ... for a championship belt or to retain his belt. And at one point, uh, Paul said, "You know, I'm, I'm gonna leave. I don't wanna interrupt your prep." And he goes, "Why would you interrupt my tr- in- interrupt my prep?" He goes, "If I'm not ready now, nothing I do between-"
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... in the next 60 minutes is gonna make me ready." [laughs] He said, "You can-"
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, I, I love that attitude
- TFTim Ferriss
... yeah, feel free to hang out. He was just watch- watching basketball or something. Uh, and, uh, and it also, you brought up the, uh, the S- Seal Team six members and so on earlier. I mean, that's a, I think, a great example of a parallel track, right, in the sense that they very much want to sweat more, in some cases bleed more in training so that they can avoid dying in real battle.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
So the simulations are extremely brutal-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... uh, and intended to be, uh, sort of along the lines of, and I'm, I'm, I'm not, not really up on my ancient name pronunciation, but I think it's Aeschylus, uh, who said, "We do not rise to the level of our hopes, we fall to the level of our training." Um, so-
- SPSpeaker
Ah, perfect
- TFTim Ferriss
... so making the conditions equivalent of-
- SPSpeaker
Perfect
- 2:29:39 – 2:42:29
How to evaluate a gymnastics coach (kids and adults): track record, injury rates, and warmup quality
- TFTim Ferriss
If, if you were sending a ... I, I'm very curious to hear the answer to this. This was from a, I think it was a, it might have been a mother. I think it was a father who said, uh, what questions would Coach Sommer ask a gymnastic coach at, you know, a ph- a nearby-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... facility before sending his own 5 to 10-year-old off to train with them?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. And I, I went through that. So I didn't, I didn't coach my daughter. I didn't coach my daughter. I wanted to be Dad. And, uh, you know, I, I didn't get involved. Were, were there things I would have done very differently? Yes. But, uh, her happiness in the process was more important to me than her success. And she was state champion, but that was more important to me than stepping in and making sure everything was world-class level. I, I didn't wanna go there. Um, first thing I would do if I'm reviewing someone, 'cause everyone, have you noticed that if we look, the bell curve is reality, right? The bell curve shows that there, there is a huge majority of people who are average. There's a few who are at the top, and there are a few who are at the bottom. But if you talk to someone, you've never met anyone who says, "Yeah, I'm in the middle of the bell curve." Every fucker you talk to is exceptional.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Every single person, right? Every person is another millionaire in the making. They're another, they're gonna win The Voice. They got Academy Award. It's coming. Nobody says, "Yeah, I'm average." And it's the same thing with gyms. So first thing I would do is look at competitive record. How have they done, and at what level have they been successful? So are they successful at a local level, at a state level? How have they done in terms of regionals? How have they done in terms of nationals? Uh, are they on national team? How consistently have they been on national teams? Is it year in, year out? Was it a one-time deal? After I look at that, the very th- next thing I'm gonna look at is I'm gonna look at injury rates. You know, how, how healthy and successful are these athletes? You know?
- TFTim Ferriss
How would you find that data? Or would you just ask them point blank?
- SPSpeaker
Well, well, they're ... If, if they're, if they're a world-class coach, they're always gonna be straight with you. The only people in my experience who talk shit are the wannabes.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, that's-
- SPSpeaker
World-class coach-
- TFTim Ferriss
... consistent in everything that I've experienced
- SPSpeaker
... in everything. I, I had, so 2003, uh, yeah, it's 2003. I'm at a training camp, and Paul Hamm has just won the world championships. He's just won Worlds. And Alan is a little guy. We're, we're at a training camp, and Paul's coach, Stacy Maloney, is there, and we're, we're at a technical meeting. And it's on round offs. It's on round offs of all things. And so Stacy comes and he sits down next to me. He says, "Chris, what, what do you think about this?" Now in my head I'm thinking Who gives a fuck what I think about this? You just won world championships. I want to know what you think about this." But he asks my opinion. I don't say, "I'm not gonna be rude to Stacey," but in my head I'm thinking that. So we talk about it for a little bit, and then Stacey gets up and he goes around the room visiting with other coaches that he respect, and he wants their opinion, and then he, he makes his own opinion. That appa- now, he had just won worlds. It would've been so easy for him to be kind of aloof and snooty and arrogant, you know, "I'm this and that." But the, the point is that that's the reason that Casey, that Stacey won worlds, that he was a coach of that caliber, 'cause he was always open to learning more. He never said, "I know everything." Right? And like you said, I've never met an exception. It's, it's the ones who aren't at a high level who think, you know, "I know everything. There's nothing left to be learned." And it, it's just not the case. So I, I would, I would check that. Check around, you know, talk to people. Watch the athletes in training. You know, go, go and watch some workouts. How does the coach handle it? Is there a lot of tears? Now if it's, if it's, if it's a guy and there's tears in the workout, he's got a broken leg, right? [laughs] But the first, the f- and girl, girls, you know, girls are girls. I, I live in a, I've got two daughters, a wife, even my dog is female. There's, there's tears here constantly. [laughs] But it's, uh, it's just part of being female. So if it's an occasional tear, no big deal, but if there's a lot of crying all the time, there, there's a problem. I, I'd, I'd move down the road. But if, if they're happy, now doesn't ... [sighs] Healthy doesn't mean a free-for-all. Healthy and happy doesn't mean indulging. You know, there should be structure, there should be accountability, but it should be pleasant. You know, kids, kids or any athlete, adults as well, will either live up to the standard you set or they will live down to the standard you set. So I just kinda go in and try to, try to get a feel. You know, is, is this a place where you want, is the com- competition record is good? Is this an environment that I'm content with my child being in? You know, if you get a good feeling, okay.
Episode duration: 3:12:54
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Transcript of episode EzyAPEWOlxw
