Latest / Discomfort Required / Want To Be A Better Coach? | El Senouvor from Brute Strength Training

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Want To Be A Better Coach? | El Senouvor from Brute Strength Training · Discomfort Required

• Trent: welcome to Discomfort Required. I got my buddy Coach L from Brute Training on today. L, how's things going lately after game season and all that? El: what's up Trent? Thanks for having me on. things are going well. Just shifting gears, doing some things that I tend to focus more on in the off season, maybe more side quest, and then got a little bit of travel coming up with off season comps, but besides that doing pretty well. Trent: Awesome. Awesome. So is it tough with having like WFP so close to the end of game season and everything like that? Or are you telling people to like pump their brakes and like don't go for it? El: luckily I haven't had I didn't have anyone this year that is like coming from the games and having to go to WFP. I think Trent: nice. El: my WFP athletes have been committed to like doing WFP most of the year, after semifinals. And so I don't really have to deal with that. But I do think that it's good for those athletes that just wrapped up the games. most of them took a good bit of time off. they're just getting back in the gym, just getting started with like the first week of their first cycle. So I think we're we're actually getting we're actually getting an off season this year. which which Trent: nice. El: is which is really good for the athletes. Trent: Yeah, definitely. I'm sure they're probably looking forward to it too. Compared El: Yeah. Trent: to last year with just like on top of competing, on top of competing. El: yeah you just had to go straight to WFP after the games. Trent: Yeah. It was like what, n not even two weeks or something like that? El: Yeah, it's two weeks. It was crazy. Trent: I feel like they could've s of scheduled that just a tiny bit better, you know. El: I th I think WFP and CrossFit have slightly better communication now, which is good. Trent: That is a good thing for sure. El: Yeah. Trent: so L, we we ask this everybody who comes on, what does discomfort required mean to you? El: I think it's it's simple. Like to get anything or to gain anything that's worth having or of value, it usually needs to it usually involves some form of discomfort, right? Like it's if you stay in your comfort zone it's kind of like it's kinda like taking the easy path. I don't know if there's anything that you can get without being somewhat discomf being somewhat uncomfortable. I take a like going like talk to a girl, like approaching a girl to like try to get their number, you're probably gonna be really uncomfortable, something you don't want to do at first, right? Like that that requires you to be uncomfortable. If you're trying to get abs, you'll probably have to be uncomfortable in some shape or form. yeah, I can I can keep going and naming things, but like there's so many things that are worth having, but like you can't get them unless you're willing to be uncomfortable. Trent: Yeah. yeah, I love that. the whole thing i i I love asking everybody that 'cause it's all boils down to the same stuff. Like if you g if you want something bad enough, you're gonna ha you're have to get uncomfortable to get it. Unless you just have some, El: Yeah. Trent: you know, superpower where things just happen good for you for no reason, which would be, you know, I'm I don't know if I'd want that. I don't think that'd be the the most epic thing in the world. El: Is there anything worth having that you that doesn't require discomfort? Trent: Mm. Cookies? Cookies are pretty dope. El: That's fair. That's fair. Trent: Yeah. think that'd be the only thing, you know. 'Cause I mean, it depends El: Yeah. Trent: on I mean, I guess if you ate a whole bunch of cookies, I might end up uncomfortable, but you know, that's commitment. El: But see, I think if you if you peel back the layers, in order to get cookies, you have to have money, like assuming you're you're buying them. To buy to have money you have to go to work and that may require some discomfort. So technically it all requires discomfort. Yeah. Yeah. Trent: Yeah. Yeah. Technically literally everything. For sure. So Al, what got you into CrossFit? El: I was so two things that kinda happened like simultaneously. I just scrolling on Facebook one day and you know how like random videos just kinda pop up? I don't know if it was an ad or how it happened, but it was a video of Kenny Leverich Ryan Fisher and they were doing Diane. And Trent: Okay. El: they're moving so fast it's like I would say like probably the equivalent of like the first time you see like Ninja Warrior or something of that sort, you're like just amazed at like whatever it is that you're watching. You're like, Whoa, that's so cool. and I had no idea what it was. I just saw it, I like, All right, that that was cool and then I just went about my day. And then probably maybe like a few days or a week later, They had this living social deal, which is just like online coupons and stuff that usually they have like discounts to like different things. and it was a month of CrossFit for $50. And Trent: Okay. El: I lived I lived at home and so I was about 30 minutes away from the the UREC, which is LSU's gym. And I needed something a little bit closer to my house. And so the gym that had the deal, it was easy. I was like, alright, I'm just gonna walk in there, see how it goes. went in there, did the class, loved it, and then that's kind of that was kind of the beginning of me doing CrossFit. Trent: Nice. El: didn't know didn't know how to scale. And I think because I was young and a little bit stronger, the coaches didn't scale anything for me. So I was finishing Trent: Yeah. El: every workout dead last. but it was it was definitely a good time. Trent: Nice. what year was that? El: that was in twenty thirteen. Trent: Okay, cool. So like we started pretty pretty close at the same time 'cause I started in two El: Yeah. Trent: thousand fourteen and yeah, my friend was like, Let's go do a workout in the park and it was like, Okay. And it was Murph and it was awful. First workout. And I was like El: Wait, someone dragged you out to do Murph and you said, Okay. Trent: Yeah. 'Cause like I d I was like, Okay, let's do go do workout in the park and I was like, This is gonna be fun. El: Did did you did he tell you the workout beforehand or you just said, Just do what I do and you just went along? Trent: No. Yeah. Yeah. So like I was running at the time and El: Okay. Trent: and it was my ex-wife's friend. And she's like, I do CrossFit. And I was like, Great, that sounds fun. And she's like, let's go do a workout in the park. And I was like, Great. And we get to the park El: Yeah. Trent: and she's like, Okay, we're gonna run a mile. And I was like, I got it. And she's like, we're gonna do a hundred pull-ups. I'm like, okay. Sounds great. And then she's like, El: Yeah. Trent: 200 push-ups, 300 squats. And was like, does that sound terrible? And she's like, then we're gonna run a mile. And was like, okay. She's like, and just break it up however you want. And like, if you have to do jumping pull-ups, whatever, just do it. And I was, I thought I was in decent shape. train wreck. Squats were awful, push-ups were awful. Couldn't do like I did a couple pull-ups and was like, okay, this is this is terrible. and then I was El: Yeah. Trent: like, Well, I need to do this again. The following week I went to a free Saturday class. I was six minutes into the workout and I was throwing up in the parking lot. And I was like, well, I should probably just do this for the rest of my life. It was great. El: Do you remember what your what your first mirth time was? Trent: I didn't even finish and it was well, well over an hour and a half. I'm like, why are you guys still going? Like El: my god. Trent: this is terrible. Yeah. It yeah, it was awful. El: Okay, what it what do you think what do you think happens in people's brains that like you have that experience, like mine mine is not as crazy as yours, but like you're technically not having a good time, right? Like you're finishing last, workouts are really hard, but like what is the thing that happens in people's brain where they're like, all right, I need to do that more? Trent: I think like I can speak for me. I was I played hockey for a very, very long time. And I used to be very fit. And then I El: Yeah. Yeah. Trent: wasn't fit. And I was like, I miss being fit, but like it was more like, I can't do this. That like just pisses me off. I might like I I wanna be be good at this, right? And then being El: Yeah. Trent: around people that were doing the same thing, I was like, this is super fun. Other people, I guess it could kind of be the same thing, but at the same time, it's El: Yeah. Trent: It's a challenge, I I guess, you know? Like I I th I just love the challenge of it. What do you think? El: Yeah. I think the There's something uncomfortable about like being so bad at something that like you either choose a path of like, all right, I need I never need to exp experience that again. Right. And you you see it in some people. They do their first CrossFit class, they're like, All right, not for me, I'm not never coming back. Or they kind of lock in of like, all right, I can't be this bad or I can't be I can't be this out of shape. I gotta I gotta do something about it. So I think if you're one of those people that keeps coming back, it's probably the discomfort of not being good at something or being so poor at something that you see a problem with it. Trent: Yeah. That's where I was. I was like, this is embarrassing. El: Yeah. Trent: so when was it just like a natural progression for you? Like you started doing crossfit and you're like, I want to compete. how what was it what was that like when you started getting into competing? El: I don't think I ever like really like locked in on like competing like that. Like I I did it, but like it's the same as because you spend a lot of time in the gym you you just end up doing competitions and then if you have friends that are doing competitions you they kind of rope you into doing competitions. Like I've I've never done a individual comp. So Trent: Okay. El: every comp I did was on a team And so from from coaching classes, how I got into like more on the competitive side was Our gym had a regional team that went to regionals and they were all following like a template program. And then once they came back from regionals, I kind of was like, I can I can program for these people, like I can get them better than that template program. And then I just kind of reached out to people individually, got them started, and then I hired a coach myself to coach me. And I kind of that was like my way of of like I I'm gonna learn everything he's doing, I'm gonna learn exactly how he's treating me, that's how I'm gonna treat my clients. And that kind of got me started and on that path. Trent: Okay. So did you know that you wanted a coach instead of competing out of the gate? El: Yeah, I was so I was I was bad, Trent. I was I was really I was really bad at CrossFit, man. I don't think you understand. Trent: Tell tell the people how bad though, Al. Tell me more, please. El: Like like I I'm just I'm built I'm built differently. Like I'm not built to I'm built to last for ten to twenty seconds and be Trent: That's it. El: be really powerful. I can I can extend that ten to twenty seconds to maybe a minute, right? And like hold my own, but like anything past two minutes, I'm cooked. You know? Trent: That's fair. El: and then with when I was like training and doing the two sessions a day and training four hours a day, five hours a day, like all of my training was just sitting on the machine trying to be more aerobic and like no none of that shit worked. Right? It's like, I'm spending I'm spending an hour doing rowing intervals. I'm spending an hour biking. I'm going on rucks. I'm doing all this stuff. But and I I had a I had a great coach, right? It's like I had a great coach, it just didn't work, you know? Trent: That's fair. El: yeah. Like I don't think I chose that. Yeah, it w it was natural selection, you know. Trent: You're like that coaching is my math. That's that's so nice. So how did how did El: Yeah. Trent: you like really settle in and lock in on like, okay, I want to help and get people really, really fit to do this thing? El: Yeah, that kind of that that part happened organically, right? It's like like you're in a gym and someone's doing power cleans and you know exactly what they're doing wrong from whether that's from like your own experience or like a coach helped you in the past and like you go over to them, you're like, Hey, maybe pull a little bit slower off the floor. So that you can be in better position or hey, you should drop instead of trying to like muscle the bar up. And like you start helping people little by little and then eventually they come to you and they like, Hey, can you help me with this? Or hey, can you coach me? And that's kind of how it happened. It was just me just helping people in the gym and then it turned into getting more serious requests from them. Trent: And then that's like how you how it bled into like programming. And then did you have multiple athletes then or just like still kinda like helping people and then before you started, you know, really like trying El: Mm-hmm. Trent: to do this as like a career? El: Yeah, so I was I was coaching classes. I had a coach that was programming for me, I was learning from him, and then at the same time I was doing like CCP. So from from the moment that I decided that I was gonna like help someone, I immediately needed to make sure that I could do a good job at it. And I wasn't charging anybody. I was just trying to learn. And those people allowed me to like make a a lot of mistakes at the time. Trent: Mm-hmm. El: and I'm I'm grateful to them for that. and at the time, I believe I had like five athletes. And I I went to the store, bought like five composition notebooks. I would write their programming in on Sunday, leave the composition notebook at the gym. They would do all their training, write their results in the composition notebook, and then leave it there on Saturday. Then I would go back, read the pages, read the results. And that was a process for like a year. and then that that Trent: wow. That's a lot of writing. El: kind of expanded to more people in the gym, wanting to wanting to join and then thank God like software happened which allowed me to be a little bit more efficient at doing it. and then it turned into more people in the city and then people in the state and then one or two people outside of the state, which all of that probably took a good four years to get to that point. Trent: So how when you got like so four years of of getting to a point where you had a couple of people out of state, how did it just keep getting broader and broader? Was it all just word of mouth or were you reaching out to people or or how did that go? El: No, so it was it was mainly like the bulk of it was word of mouth and and a lot of like referrals from clients that were happy. I got turned down a lot by when I reached out, right? It's like, yeah not really feeling it. But also at the time like I don't think people were aware of like one on one coaching and it wasn't like the big thing that it is now. And so when I was reaching out to people, it was usually at competitions. I would go to competitions and I'd be like, Hey, you did you did okay, but I think I can help you get really better and some people bit, some people said no. yeah, I don't I feel like a lot of I got turned down way more than people said yes when I did cold calls. Most of them were referrals, I would say. Trent: Do you think people are kicking themselves in the ass now over that? El: I don't think so. I don't think so. Cause I even now I still get turned down, right? Like it's not it's a it's a matter of fit, right? Like when people are choosing a coach, you have to you kinda have to get along with the person and be like, this is someone I w I wanna talk to every day, right? It's like you have to get along on a very basic like friendship level. if you're going to work with someone. Otherwise it's it's not gonna work. so yeah, I don't I don't I don't think they are. I don't think they are. Trent: so like like we were talking right before we started recording, El: Yeah. Trent: you know, I did a mentorship through you and it was the best money that I have ever spent, hands down, on my coaching career. And I cannot thank you enough for that. Yeah. It is I El: Thank you. Yeah. Trent: cannot promote or like stress enough to people do this shit. It is so fucking worth it, it's not even funny. The thing that I learned was a how to reach out to people like that. being okay with the fact that like I'm gonna get turned down, but also finding the right fit, So like when I started with you, it was I just needed clients and that was it, El: Yeah. Trent: Not every client's gonna be a fit and it's like they as soon as you had me realize I can't look at it that way, that it's more I'm gonna have a f I need to have a good fit. It's going to be a better relationship. It's gonna last longer. Then like clients started flowing in and more people were talking about it and it it worked out really, really well. So that good fit thing, it is El: Yeah. Trent: so, so, so important. Cause I've started El: Was it was it uncomfortable for you to like that week that we had, hey, I want you to do these cold calls and you need to reach out to people, was that uncomfortable for you or you just kind of like, that's easy, like I don't care if they say no. Trent: Yeah, no. So like I will talk to anybody and I don't care what anybody says, like it when it comes to nose or anything. my ex-business partner, I had so many ideas and everything got shot down. Not everything. Lots of things got shot down. So I got like thick skin when it came to it. But El: Yeah. Trent: I constantly have ideas and I'm like, I like if they get shot down, you know, either somebody has their take on it or they've been through it and they're like, that's not gonna work, right? Which is fine. It's just gonna give me feedback. Asking somebody hey, I will program for you. I can make you better for your open scores this year. I'm gonna give you a month free. And they're like, no, I don't want it. I'm like, well, that just one person off a list that I don't have to talk to again. It's not, it's not that big of a deal. You you know what I mean? It just it makes it it just makes it easier. El: But that that's real I I think it's easy for you, but that's really difficult. Like how does that not affect your confidence? Trent: For other people probably. I think it's because, you know, I know that I'm gonna I'm going to add some value. And if they can't see it, I don't need to convince them to see it. If they don't see it or want to take a chance on it, then you know, no harm, no foul, we're gonna go about our lives exactly the way we're going about it before I talk to them, you know, and that's perfectly fine. people that have taken a chance on me, you they're doing really, really well. And I'm very excited and I'm very grateful for what I get to do. Like I just had one of my athletes compete at the Vitruvian Games in New Jersey this last weekend and she ended up getting second. She took three first places in events and like she absolutely crushed it. And El: Amazing. Yeah. Trent: working with her is like one of I can't I'm like I'm so grateful that I've gotten to work with her because our progress from where we started to where we're at now, it's like I've helped her exponentially and she has made me a better coach, But if I would have never if I would have been too uncomfortable to ask her to like give me a shot, if this never would have happened, So it's like I kinda just put those feelings aside and we're we're just gonna go for it, I think. El: So you're saying it's like in order to get over that thought process of or that that fear of rejection or they're gonna say no, or you kind of like you're doing the thinking for the other person. you have to focus on the positive, like the positive outcomes that may come from it instead of the negative. Is that what you're saying? Trent: One hundred percent. 'Cause if I were to think the negative outcomes or let it affect me, this El: Yeah. Trent: person didn't know me two minutes before they read my message or whatever, right? So if I didn't message them, we're both gonna go about our lives the same exact way. If I message them, And they still don't know me and they say no. It's just like saying no to somebody who's asking you for a dollar on the street in a way, right? You know, it's same kind of concept, right? El: Yeah. Yeah. Trent: I think having the the confidence in like what you can add value to to ask the question, I think that's super important. And if you can live on that high note and be confident in that, that's how you're gonna get more clients and how you're gonna get more out of life, honestly. El: I like that. I like that. Trent: I think I think that's that's super important. so when you started getting into coaching higher level athletes, how many regional level athletes did you have when you started getting athletes from out of state? El: well my first one was my wife and that was in twenty fourteen when Trent: Okay. El: like my first client client was a regional athlete. and I I fucked her up, but it's okay. We're s we're Trent: Yeah. El: yeah. once I started working with Brute, I believe it took maybe six months before I got a regional athlete and that was Zack Sauter. And then that kind of led to a lot of different places from Zack because I did a such a good job with Zack and he was so well known and couldn't kind of like break through year after year at regionals. that led to me getting Zach Wads, getting Ryan Sauter, getting Nicole Holcomb and Emma Chapman and Joey. Like it just kind of opened the doors and one athlete kind of leads to another if you do a good job, right? Trent: Yeah. El: and that's kind of that's kind of been the the thing that's kind of led me here is just building these relationships with these athletes and these people. And then the most important thing is making sure that I focus on the the humans first before the performance and usually the performance sense to follow from that. And every single client I've had, I feel like I've I've always like maintained a pretty good relationship with, even when we don't work together anymore. Trent: That's great. and that's hard to do sometimes, right? I think and I've I was just talking to the owner of the gym that I coach at. I was talking to his wife today. she's doing a a lot of the back end stuff now for the gym. And I was El: Yeah. Trent: like, All you have to do is care. That goes so so so far is if you really, really care about somebody, like you can El: Yeah. Trent: get them to do almost anything. And if they trust you, like you know you they know that you're not gonna like intentionally fuck up. And it's like, all you have to do is just care. And that that is it goes a long way. so for people that don't know, when did you start with brute? El: twenty eighteen. Yeah, Trent: Okay. El: January January twenty eighteen. it's kind of when Brute started like one on one coaching and I was one of the first coaches. Trent: Okay. How did how did you get that role? El: just just applied. So they they decided to start a one-on-one program and the the owner of the previous owner of Brute The founder of Brute, Matt Bruce, lives in Baton Rouge. And so I think a year before then, I went and interned, 'cause he's probably one of the best weightlifting coaches out there. and he trains a lot of like the LSU football players, all the the five star athletes in Louisiana kinda trained with him at his gym. So I was going there to intern. I interned for about six months and then about a year later is when they started the one on one program. So I don't I don't wanna say that that kind of helped set me apart just 'cause I had a a little bit of a relationship with him. But I do think it at least helped get my name my application pulled. and then from there I kind of just had to show my worth with like the application process took like a month. You had to do a bunch of case studies. You had to do all these questionnaires to make sure that they you're a good fit for the team. It it was pretty extensive. Yeah. Trent: Yeah, I can only imagine, honestly. I mean, they want the you know, some of the best of the best, right? And y it's not like just everyday Joe can come in and be a coach like that, you know. So I mean, El: For sure. Trent: when you started getting higher level athletes, what do you think was the most difficult part when you started training higher level athletes? El: The most difficult part. Trent: Mm-hmm. Like from your end. El: I don't know, I don't think anything was difficult then. Things are way harder now. Trent: Okay. Explain that. Why are they so much harder to know? El: I think they're they're harder now just because the sport's more competitive Trent: Mm. El: and the the margins are smaller and things are getting more movements are getting introduced. there are more competitions. Yeah, thing it's just a lot more that you have to like think about and keep track of. Versus then it's like You do the open, you do regionals, and if you make it to the games, you do the games and then that's it. Right? Trent: Mm. El: And then you might do an off season comp here and there. and it wa it was kind of straightforward as far as like people's abilities and I think because athletes are so much better now, you you have to maximize every single aspect of an athlete's like like how well rounded they are, like you have to think about every single thing. Versus back then you could have holes and still get pretty, pretty far in the sport. Trent: So let's take, you know, just the last four years of the CrossFit games, right? With, you know, El: Yeah. Trent: random movement or not necessarily random, 'cause I mean, you know, CrossFit is, you know, constantly varied, right? So El: Yeah. Trent: the last four years with the movements that have been implemented and everything, what was it like trying to prep people for stuff? Like kinda last minute, like how there was the back rolls and forward rolls on the rings this year. what was it like trying to get Jason to do those right before the games? El: Yeah, so that that was that is a clear example of like probably something I learned. It's something I probably already knew. And sometimes you need like a reminder of of some of those things that you maybe already know but you're not applying, right? The biggest thing that I can that I can kind of like point to is you have to build a base of skill, strength, and foundation rather than focusing on a specific movement, right? So what I mean by that is the body awareness that it takes to do a back roll to support in a forward role. Is attained not by doing forward rolls and back roll to support. Right? Trent: Mm. El: It's like knowing how to swing on a bar. knowing how to glide kip, knowing how to do a simple arch hollow. Those foundational things you still have to practice those because those are the things that kind of allow you to to learn like higher level skills, right? Versus we we tend to like just go to like, you do muscle ups and you do legless rope points and you do the specific movement and you get all of those reps in and reps and reps and reps. But maybe we didn't spend enough time working on those foundational like skills. That kind of would allow us to have a faster adaptation once that movement is released, right? Because we you still had enough time once it was released, with all the leaks and everything. You still had maybe three weeks to kind of like figure it out. And I think a lot of people figured it out a lot better than we did. and so that's probably the one of the bigger things I learned is like the off-season is so important. And you can't train year round like you're training for the games. Right? Like the year round you need to develop as you an athlete work on your weaknesses. And then for those two months before the games, then you lock in on I'm bad at this movement, so I'm gonna put a bunch of reps at this movement. Yeah. Trent: Gotcha. So like what you were saying, when it comes to off season offs like off season time and working on fundamentals, how much do you how much time would you say you spend on fundamentals, Jason, in the off season, you know, just on fundamentals and and movement patterns and things like that? El: I mean I I think we did that last year, but maybe not enough. I think last year it was maybe two to three times a week, maybe for ten ten to twenty minutes, ten to twenty five minutes or so. And then the goal this year is to have some foundational piece or some type of skill work that is gonna feed the feed the feed the whole process down the line for twenty minutes or so every single day. So like Trent: Okay. El: even just adding more sessions in the week is enough. Like I don't think we need to spend like hours on it every single day, but it just needs to be like consistent. Trent: Okay. I guess that this is this would be good. So like for take like an intermediate ish athlete, What would you what would be like the best piece of advice that you would give like an intermediate athlete that wants to go from quarterfinals to semifinals, other than nutrition? El: I would say consistency. Right? I th I think quarter final athletes are impatient and part of the impatien impatience that they have is probably coming from a lack of belief of like I whether they think they can accomplish the goal or not, right? Like a lot of times that's that's a limitation in itself. So I would say consistency and understanding that You hitting you hitting consistent training year round is more important than you having these big spurts of training for five, six hours and basically over training yourself. You training consistently for two hours a day all year round is better than you training six hours a day for two months and then getting burnt out and then deciding you still want to try and then coming back and then leaving and then coming back and then leaving. Trent: Mm. so when it comes to being the consistent the the consistent piece of it and everything, do you think that also quarterfinal athletes forget about the fundamentals and things like that unless like they're being coached to do those things? El: I would I would say not any more or any less than other people, right? It's like Trent: Okay. El: I think I think the whole CrossFit space in general is now maybe understanding the importance of fundamentals and like learning patterns versus learning movements. Like, do you remember Trent: Okay. That El: I think it was like four or five years ago It was like Henshaw was doing some camp and he asked like all these games athletes to do single unders and they couldn't do single unders. You know? It's like if Trent: Yeah, I do remember that. It's crazy. El: you can't do a single under because you're so used to doing doubles and you're so good at doubles, it's like, man, what a what a miss. You know, like Trent: Yeah. El: How are you gonna learn how to do Trent: Low hanging fruit. El: triples and like crossover doubles and all those things like you just learned one movement instead of the skill and rhythm of like skipping rope? Trent: Mm-hmm. when I had Riot downtown, El: Yeah. Trent: I did all the programming there. And I I mean I've been do I'd done programming at the most of the gyms that I've been at coach at. But when I had Riot, El: Yeah. Trent: we would program, you know, alternating step jump rope where you just just going back and forth, right? And ski or jumps, side El: Yeah. Trent: to side and singles, heavy rope, you know, like, and it was so many fundamental things. And people are like, I can't do this. I do double unders. And I'm like, Yeah, but you need to learn how to do this. It's it it's simple, low hanging fruit. You know what I mean? El: Yeah. Trent: and I think it's great that the that the games has simplified some things and made a little bit made like there is technical things to it, but like we'll take the the years that like Adrian programmed. It was simple to a degree, right? How did you feel about El: Yeah. Trent: that compared to like when it's just over the top, aggressively hard for just the sake of being hard? El: I mean I don't I don't overanalyze the games to be honest. It's like whatever shows up, we're we're gonna do our best to be prepared. And again it's like when you play the game of I'm preparing for this game, this person's programming the games, so I need to train this way. I think doing that for too long of a period creates a disservice. You know, Trent: Mm. that's fair. El: like it it ha it has to be I'm going to Crash Crucible and I know how JR programs. So for six weeks I'm gonna pr I'm gonna train like I'm doing Crash Crucible. It doesn't mean for six months you're doing you're you're training that way, right? It's it's it's not necessary. Trent: Yeah. That makes sense for sure. El: Yeah. Trent: how tough is it taking on like a pro athlete very late in the season to get them as far as you can at the games? El: I don't think it it's not that hard. Trent: It's not that hard. I love that. That's great. That's super cool. Cause I mean, you took on El: No, it's Trent: Haley pretty late in the season and like going for the games. I I I if it's not that hard, I love that for you. It's cause El: Yeah, I I think Haley's a a little bit different just because I've known her for a long time. Like that Trent: Mm-hmm. El: the first camp when I first got hired by Brute, at that first camp, that's kinda where I met Haley. And so we go we go back like eight, nine years and then seeing her at Trent: nice. El: every competition. So I I think it it was pretty smooth and she's honestly great at communicating. And that that's the biggest thing is getting to a place of like understanding, hey, I'm not trying to overhaul your life. I will make the transition as smooth as it needs to be so that you're comfortable in the process. 'Cause at the end of the day it's the athletes' it's the athletes It's their career, right? It's their Trent: Mm-hmm. El: it's their process, right? I can't I can't put myself above them, you know? Like there's there's like lines of like, hey, if we really want to accomplish what we say we want to accomplish, these are the things that we need to do. And here's why we need to do them. But at the end of the day, it's like if Haley needs to do conditioning once a day so she feels fit. Then she needs to do conditioning once a day so she feels fit. But that also means that I'm gonna ask her to back squat three times a week. And she has to be willing to do that if I'm willing to give her the conditioning. You know what I mean? there there has to be like some give and take and some collaboration as far as what's gonna yield the best result. Yeah. Trent: Nice. Yeah. I I think that I think that's really awesome. And you have a good you have a good approach to it. So El: Yeah, and I'm not saying Haley's doing conditioning three times a week, like so people can Trent: So El: That's not what I'm saying. Trent: what is what's something that you have going on right now that you know you want people to know about? Because I know that you're doing another coaching mentorship. and like I said, I can't I cannot stress enough how amazing it was. do you have it anything other than that that you have going on or like Brute has going on moving forward? El: Yeah, so the the big thing is I do want to push the mentorships. I do want coaches to sign up for that. I think I'm a pretty good mentor, and I do think that Brute has a pretty good recipe when it comes to getting athletes better. Trent: Mm-hmm. El: And every single person that I've been around or coach or mentor that I've had has been pretty generous with the information that they share. I haven't had like any gatekeepers that were keeping keeping the secrets, right? So for me it's like how do we keep making the CrossFit space better? How do we improve training in general? and then If a bunch of coach if we create a bunch of monsters out there, it's okay. Like let's let's compete and go have a beer after. Yeah. Trent: Yeah, I love that. and I can vouch, like you are a an excellent mentor. Like super dope. yeah. I will El: Thank you. Thank you, Trent. Trent: I will put a link to that in the bio for this and all that fun stuff. so what what does the the next year look like for L when it comes to your athletes and everything? El: right now I am going into coach mode for soccer. So I'm coaching five year olds, coaching kindergarteners how to play soccer. So Trent: Hell yeah. El: I'm very excited for that. Besides that, I'm gonna be at Wadapalooza SoCal, gonna be at WFP this weekend, Trent: Nice. El: Rogue, and then most likely WFU finals in Copenhagen. And then once that's over, just gonna kind of probably get off Instagram and go in dark mode again and try to try to get my athletes where they need to be and so they can perform well. Trent: Nice. El: I do I do want to continue growing the mentorship. if this goes well, then potentially we may look at doing some live ones. doing it like a like a weekend course and try to cram all that information into one weekend, but we'll see. Trent: Yeah. You yeah, you you talked to me about that when I was doing the mentorship. And if you just if you do that, I'll be there one hundred percent. And I'll drag my wife for sure. El: Yeah. we Yeah, we'll talk about it after. Yeah. Trent: Sounds good to me. so, I love all this and I love everything that you got going on. do you does brute ha or A, is it easier coaching five year olds than it is pro athletes? Yeah. El: Man, they they whine so much. They're always tired. No, not not the thrills. Trent: What pros or El: if if okay. The hard part about coaching five year olds is Trent: Mm-hmm. El: everything has to be a game. And if I make it too serious, then they don't care. And they're gonna Trent: That's fair. El: they're gonna start looking at butterflies and looking for ants in the grass and stuff Trent: Mm. El: like that. yeah, it's much difficult coaching five year olds. Trent: I mean, that's good to know for everybody out there, you know, for sure. El: Yeah. But my my goal is hopefully my daughter keeps loving soccer and I can keep aging up and then I think when I get to like eight, nine years old, it'll it'll be re it'll be a lot more fun. 'Cause right now we're just like we're just having a good time playing. Yeah, pretty much. Exactly. Exactly. Trent: Yeah, and they're just running amok anyway. And they're like, there's a ball over there. Yeah, right on. L, I cannot thank you enough for coming on and hanging out with me for an hour, man. I really, really appreciate it. is there anything you want to add or anything before we get out of here? El: No, I think you're you're probably one of the one of the few people that when I n asked them to like go out and reach out to people, like you actually like reached out to those people and got leads from it. So I do I do want to commend you and I I think your your hustle is tremendous and I'm excited to see what you do in the next year. What's next for you in the next Trent: Thanks. El: year? Trent: shit. we are well we just got married. my wife has some travel. She's going to Patagonia for like three weeks, which is cool. She's gonna go El: Where w where is that? Trent: in South America. So she's gonna go on a backpacking trip for three weeks through Chile. El: Wait, the clothing company is named after a place? Trent: Yeah. El: I did not know that. Trent: You learn something new every day. El: That's awesome. Trent: Yeah. It is and it's like a gorgeous, gorgeous. So like the the mountains that Patagonia has as their logo is El: Yeah. Trent: a mountain range and it's it's beautiful. So yeah, she's gonna go hike that with her dad and her brother. and it's funny, her brother is a pro snowboarder and he is sponsored by Patagonia. So it's it it's it's like a full circle thing. Yeah, it's it works out well. El: That's awesome. Trent: So they're gonna do that and then we're gonna be moving in April and then we're gonna be going on our honeymoon and I think we're gonna be going to Vietnam next summer. So that'll be pretty cool. El: Your honeymoons in Vietnam? Trent: Yeah, that's where we're gonna go. El: Why? Trent: I think it's gonna be a good time. Because if food is gonna be great and the amount of money that it's gonna cost us to go to Vietnam, we could go on a honeymoon for like three weeks instead of just one. El: Ha ha ha. Trent: Yeah. Like and just be out of here for a long time. That's the goal, you know? Yeah, and just check El: Yeah. That's that's fine. Trent: out, you know, 'cause like instead of going to like the Yucana Yucatan Peninsula for one week, we can go for three weeks El: Yeah. Trent: and like, you know, it'll be great. And I might might end up getting a couple suits. Who knows? You know? We'll be where they make so it'll be great. El: I f I feel like there's probably like a lot of amazing places that pe like look at my reaction when you said Vietnam. That like just 'cause I'm ignorant as to what's in Vietnam, there's probably like amazing things in Vietnam. Trent: a couple of our friends just went for just for fun. They were gone for two and a half weeks and El: Yeah. Trent: they were all over the entire country and that was like they said it was one of the best vacations they've ever done. And El: That's awesome. Trent: they went to the Garment District and my buddy Alex, El: Yeah. Trent: he got 12 dress shirts, custom tailored, three suits, and Some like custom tailored dress shoes like for him for like twelve El: Yeah. Trent: hundred bucks. like rad that's great El: He's going on a shopping trip. Trent: yeah might might as well it'll be fun I mean we we'll be there might as you know might as well do it and then El: Yeah. That's awesome. Trent: I'm gonna be growing the business man when we move I'm hoping that as many in-person personal training clients I have now I want to cover that by doing remote clients like I really really enjoy having so many remote clients now and being able to like help them from afar. El: Yeah. Trent: like Courtney this weekend and her crushing it at that comp in New Jersey, like that was such a good feeling. Like getting texts and like, you know, we're going over workouts and then I get a text. She's like, I got first. And it's like, man, that is cool. Like I I like helped with that, you know? So like, again, yeah, El: Yeah. That is a good feeling. Trent: like the that has a lot to do with you, man. Cause like I was like Okay with having remote clients and now I'm like this is this is where I want my livelihood to be. So like thanks again for that. You're the best, homie. El: For sure. Absolutely. You can help more people that way. Trent: thanks again for being on L. El: Sounds good, bro. Trent: All right, man. It was good seeing you. Thanks again, dude. And I'll talk to you soon. Alright, El: Later.