Latest / The Layback Podcast / Don Day, Hog Performance (Ep. 84)

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Don Day, Hog Performance (Ep. 84) · The Layback Podcast

0:00
What's up everybody? Welcome back to the Layback
0:02
Podcast. Joining us today is Donde V
0:06
Warthog, owner, operator, founder, chief executive, all
0:11
the fancy titles for hog performance located not too far
0:16
away from me over in Valdosta, GA.
0:18
He is doing a lot of stuff remotely, but the actual pig pen
0:22
is just down the road, just off of I-75.
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So if you're driving north-south across America's Hwy. stop in
0:31
and see, Don. It's a little over Yonder past
0:34
the caution light, I think is what they say over there.
0:37
But Don, thanks so much for your time on this Sunday afternoon.
0:40
Looking forward to getting into it today.
0:43
Same man, I'm excited to get this thing cracking.
0:46
Yes. All right.
0:47
So as you know, I don't want to butcher too much, so I'll just
0:51
punt it right to you for kind of the elevator pitch bio.
0:54
So please tell us a little bit about you.
0:57
I know we have that Ohio connection, although we never
1:00
officially crossed paths when we were up there.
1:02
You were a Finley Oiler in your football career.
1:05
You're from Akron, but I'll let you take away the rest.
1:08
I mean, that's almost everything, right?
1:12
I'm from I'm from Akron, OH, owner, player, coach of the Pig
1:18
pen hog performance. I've been I've been done a
1:22
little bit of everything. I've been a director of strength
1:25
and conditioning at Georgia Southern.
1:27
I've been a lead at Driveline unsuccessfully.
1:31
I've, I've been part of a few private facilities and then I
1:37
kind of wanted to start my own thing and do it my own way and
1:40
give my athletes the way I saw fit.
1:42
And that's kind of what brought me out to create Hog Performance
1:46
officially. So I'm a father of my son.
1:49
His name is Malcolm Jude. And then a husband to Brianna
1:53
Day. And that's, I mean, honestly an
1:55
international traveler. That's that's my biggest
1:59
accomplishment. I'm an international
2:00
businessman. So yeah, that's me.
2:04
That's right, you got to put that in your Instagram bio
2:06
though, with the the plain emoji from place to place.
2:10
That way we actually know just like you're one of those girls.
2:13
I would view you in higher regard if you did that
2:15
personally. OK, you know what?
2:16
As soon as this is over, that's exactly what I'm going to do.
2:19
This is going to be the less the least serious of all the
2:22
podcasts that you've had. Just so you know, I don't know.
2:25
We'll see how this plays out. I'm glad that we're off off to
2:29
the races with some chuckles from the jump.
2:32
Maybe the most pertinent question from the beginning is
2:36
how did a football player get so entrenched in the world of
2:39
baseball? Dude, I mean, honestly, luck and
2:42
timing, right. So like I was actually working
2:45
football at Georgia Southern and I was, I, I like softball, but I
2:49
did not like baseball. Like I, I've always enjoyed the
2:52
game of softball because I had softball when I was at Robert
2:56
Morris. I enjoyed how those ladies got
2:58
after it. And to me, baseball at the time
3:03
was boring and there wasn't a lot of things you could do with
3:06
them. Yeah, it's still boring.
3:08
But like, there was still a lot of things you could do with
3:10
them, right? Like you can't bench press,
3:13
pitchers can't lift in season. You can't do this or do that.
3:17
And so I was like, I never want to train baseball because they
3:20
don't train. So why would I ever want to take
3:22
that sport? I'd rather have like a golfer
3:24
even anything, right? And so I'm the direct.
3:27
I'm the assistant director of football strength and
3:30
conditioning at George Southern and I am up for the director
3:33
job. The director had left, so I'm up
3:36
for the director job on the Olympic side.
3:39
And that position always had baseball.
3:42
So while the the position was open, I was working baseball,
3:45
working football. Then eventually they gave me the
3:47
position or I earned it, whatever.
3:49
Maybe they just gave it to me and I had baseball and I was
3:53
like, OK, baseball's like a power sport.
3:56
I'm a huge conjugate West Side guy.
3:58
Power's important. So we're going to train the way
4:01
that I know, the way that I see fit.
4:04
We're going to lift heavy, we're going to lift fast.
4:06
We're going to run, Sprint, jump, whatever it might be.
4:09
We're going to have high days, we're going to have low days and
4:11
we're just going to get after it.
4:13
And that seemed like, and I'm going to bench press pitchers.
4:17
That seems like voodoo or like heresy back in the day.
4:21
And now everyone does it. I can't tell you how many nights
4:24
I had conversations with athletic trainers about like,
4:27
this is going to, they're going to be OK.
4:29
Like, weak things break. We just need to strengthen them.
4:33
And for me, I was introduced to a really, really good brand of
4:38
Georgia Southern baseball. Like, we were really, really
4:42
good back then. We were sweeping Georgia.
4:44
Anyone that came to our house, we'd be like, we had so many pro
4:48
guys on there. Chase Dolander was there during
4:51
my time there. Like I thought Georgia Southern
4:54
baseball was like the SEC of like the non Power 5 baseball
4:58
world. And I guess I was just spoiled,
5:01
you know what I mean? Like I was spoiled that my first
5:03
time working with baseball was like the pinnacle of baseball at
5:07
that school at that time. So and then I just fell in love
5:10
with it and it became really natural for me.
5:13
So from there is that when you made the jump to driveline?
5:17
So I went Georgia Southern Arizona football, got chance and
5:21
opportunity to go back to or no Arizona football.
5:25
Met Connor Rooney, who was that driveline And I didn't even know
5:29
what driveline was at the time, but I was working with football
5:32
at Arizona and I was like, all right, I really want to kind of
5:35
dive into the weeds on certain things.
5:37
And I like these plyo balls. I can't really know like who
5:40
made them or why. And I was talking to like the
5:44
baseball coaches at Arizona. They mentioned driveline.
5:47
I was like, I don't know what that is, but I'll go out there
5:49
and go visit. Met Connor Rooney, awesome dude.
5:52
He came out to the Arizona football game.
5:55
And so from there, Arizona, I went to Murray State.
5:58
Murray State because I've missed baseball.
6:00
So I'm like, I'm getting back into baseball.
6:01
Like I'm doing all this baseball stuff with the quarterbacks that
6:05
I have with the Arizona football team.
6:07
So I want to get back to baseball and like run this thing
6:10
out again. What's Murray State was awesome
6:13
time, great, great people. Skirk is awesome.
6:16
And then I get a call like, hey, we're hiring Greg Beals love to
6:21
have you. I need a guy that knows
6:22
baseball. Went to Akron for two years and
6:26
then the position at Driveline opened up and Rooney stood on a
6:30
table for me and I got out to Driveline.
6:34
OK. And the timeline of this all
6:37
kicking off, so please remind me because I I'm decent with names
6:42
but bad with years. So when you said you had
6:45
Dolander at Georgia Southern at that time, So what year was this
6:50
roughly when you began the day? Around 2020 or 2021 depending on
6:56
yeah, I think it was like 2020. Fall 2020.
6:59
OK, so like fresh off of COVID, you get all these kids back,
7:03
something like that. This was his freshman year, then
7:08
he transferred to Tennessee after that.
7:11
Yeah, OK. Yeah.
7:13
I mean, you had some awesome teams.
7:15
I I know a guy we know mutually during that time.
7:17
You had Hayden Harris as well. Who?
7:19
Hated. Debut with the Braves this year.
7:22
Yeah, just a dog man. Hayden.
7:25
Hayden's always been a dog like he was.
7:27
He was tough sometimes, but Hayden?
7:29
Hayden was a dog man. Yeah, he showed dog mentality in
7:33
summer ball and to be a dog during summer ball you kind of
7:36
have to be different. So you knew that was there when
7:39
he comes in. We I think we picked him up for
7:42
summer ball with two weeks left to go in our season and with two
7:46
weeks left, I think he probably, he might have appeared in four
7:51
or five games. He threw in our championship
7:54
game and he threw like 3 innings scoreless.
7:56
It was awesome. I I think we already had like A5
8:00
run lead, but it was like, all right, just like foot on the gas
8:04
pedal. Hayden go out there and he just
8:07
mowed through guys. I don't think it was 3 perfect,
8:10
but he might have had like 2 baserunners across 3 innings,
8:13
scoreless ball. She's like, Oh my God.
8:15
Like we're three hours away from winning a championship now.
8:18
This is insane, but I think he made like four or five
8:21
appearances over the course of two weeks.
8:24
Yeah, he just showed up and just like here, I'll take the ball.
8:28
Yeah, just give it to me. I want to throw if you guys
8:30
brought me out here to be on the game, I want to throw so here
8:33
give give me the raw that. Sounds like Hayden.
8:37
Hayden was always like, do whatever you say, like work hard
8:41
and like really, really pushed himself.
8:44
I thoroughly enjoyed working with Hayden.
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He was very competitive. Like he always wanted to be the
8:48
strongest dude in the room so I appreciated that about him.
8:52
Which is impressive when you see 5:11-ish. 511.
8:59
Blonde hair. Yeah, yeah, down to his back.
9:02
Yeah, yeah, like you don't, you don't think that is #1
9:06
competition. I'm going to outlift you, guy on
9:10
first impression. Getting back to your story, I
9:14
find this amazing that someone who now works in baseball didn't
9:20
even know what a plyo ball was before 2021-2022.
9:26
And you're even at Georgia Southern who has good pitchers.
9:29
It's not like it. It might not have been like
9:31
number one thing in the program, but I'm sure there were plyo
9:34
balls laying around. I'll.
9:36
Tell you the truth, I remember sitting down, it was like, what
9:40
was this? This would have been 20 late
9:43
2018-2019, somewhere around there, and the coach was talking
9:47
to me, Coach Hannon, great guy, great coach, was talking about,
9:51
yeah, like exit Velos are up and like Velo is up and all this
9:54
stuff. And I'm sending it like, oh, OK,
9:56
cool. Don't really know what that
9:59
means, but like cool. Like that's like, you know what
10:01
I mean? Like like I didn't know.
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Like all I knew was like 100 mph was good.
10:07
Anything under that I had no context of, you know what I
10:09
mean? So like if you're not pitching
10:12
100, I really didn't know like what that really meant.
10:15
You could have said all the guys are throwing 95 want to know.
10:19
Like if it wasn't 100, then I didn't really, I had no context
10:22
to it. So like this is.
10:24
So crazy to me, I feel like I'm talking, I'm talking to the kid
10:28
who like I knew you in high school, you go off to college
10:32
and you join a fraternity and now your, your two favorite
10:35
things in the world are PBR and the Bob Marley poster on your
10:40
wall. And like you're just a
10:41
completely new person. Like I, I cannot believe that it
10:45
was only 3-4 years ago that you didn't know these things.
10:50
And I don't mean that no bad thing.
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It's just so, it's so weird in this world that everybody who is
10:55
in the this world seems like they have been in it since
10:59
birth. And you, you just burst into the
11:02
scene. You must have felt like a kid in
11:04
the candy store when you were like, Oh my gosh, there's so
11:06
much information available and there's so many tools.
11:09
These baseball players aren't soft.
11:10
They are willing to push themselves so.
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I really did like. I really like when I when I
11:17
realized and I didn't know if it was like everywhere, if it was
11:20
just Georgia Southern. But then I talked to some of the
11:22
SEC guys, the South Carolina coach like whoever it might have
11:27
been and realizing the really good teams, they do conjugate
11:31
kind of stuff like, so there's more of me out there.
11:34
They're all old football guys. They're now bursting into the
11:37
scene of baseball and making baseball more like what I
11:42
thought it would never be. So it was, it was pretty cool to
11:44
really piggyback off of those guys and pick their brains and
11:47
talk to guys. Like Kurt Hester was a big
11:50
person that I talk to all the time about like what things I
11:53
should do, what things I should try, what styles I should
11:57
implement. And it was just, it's honestly
11:59
awesome to, like you said, be a kid in the candy store.
12:02
And just kind of because I wasn't like, I think what helped
12:05
me was there was no preconceived like weird baseball stuff,
12:10
right? Like I'd never thought like
12:12
pitches from bench press. So like that you should only do
12:14
this exercise for these people or that any exercises really
12:17
matter. Didn't matter.
12:18
It was just me seeing what the needs of my athletes were and
12:22
attacking those needs head on, the way I saw fit about any
12:25
preconceived notions. There is a massive benefit to
12:27
being an outsider. And I actually had this
12:29
conversation the other day with a physical therapist that you
12:35
aren't, I guess, faced with the problem of mixing up the forest
12:39
in the trees. Like you can see the bigger
12:42
picture versus all of us who have been in the baseball world
12:45
forever. Just see the tree that's really
12:48
in front of us where you are able to like step back, look at
12:52
this whole thing and be like, wait, that doesn't make sense.
12:58
Or, or you can turn your head the other way and like, oh,
13:00
well, that's not that bad. We can focus on that or maybe we
13:04
can expand that out. And it isn't too dissimilar to
13:08
how Daryl and I created Flexpro Grip, because it's not like
13:12
we're PhDs or the MD's that have been researching this stuff and
13:18
practicing it for years and years.
13:20
We just read everything that had been published over 30 years,
13:23
read it over the course of two to three years, and turned it
13:27
into what Flex Pro is now. It took somebody from the
13:30
outside to realize what is good and what is shit, siphon through
13:34
all of it and piece something together for the betterment of
13:37
the industry. And what it sounds like is
13:40
really that's what you were able to do because you you learned
13:43
all the principles, you understand human movement, you
13:46
understand human performance and all the things that go into
13:50
that. And to you probably enables you
13:53
to continue to focus on training the athlete as opposed to just
13:58
training someone who picks up a ball or someone who swings the
14:02
bat. 1000% like no matter whether it was baseball, swim
14:06
and dive, track, whatever, my main thing was, I want the
14:11
strongest, most powerful, best athletes in the weight room like
14:15
and compared to like whoever is in my immediate facility first.
14:19
But like, hey, this is, these are my, my challenges, right?
14:24
Like my challenge is to take the athletes and have my athletes be
14:28
known as the best athletes on this campus, right?
14:30
And then it go, then it would spread to their competition and
14:34
you know, nationally, whatever. But my immediate challenge that
14:38
I always thought of first was we're going to be the baddest
14:41
Mfers on this campus. So it doesn't matter what sport
14:45
you play. Like you're just going to be the
14:47
best version of yourself and you're going to literally show
14:49
up every athlete that you see and they'll know you're a donde
14:53
athlete. That's always something that I
14:55
wanted like to give to my athletes, that confidence and
14:59
that pride when they walk around like we are the baddest ones on
15:02
this campus. I do want you to explain one
15:06
thing a little bit more in depth, so hopefully you can play
15:10
teacher for us for a little bit. You mentioned the word conjugate
15:14
training a couple times. Given the nature of the podcast
15:17
audience, I'd love if you could just break that down a little
15:20
bit given that most of the audience here are very baseball
15:25
minded people who might not have as much weight room experience.
15:29
Yes, we have a few of those, but it's a lot of PTS, it's a lot of
15:32
front office people, scouts, parents, players.
15:36
So please define conjugate training for us.
15:39
All right, well, I'm going to start off where I'll start off
15:42
with the story of how it was founded in the way that most
15:45
people recognize it today. So a long time ago, maybe in the
15:49
60s or 70s, whenever the Soviets were like really big in the
15:54
Soviet training and like it was like America versus the Soviets.
15:57
There was a guy from our area, Louise Simmons, he was from
16:00
Columbus, OH, and he realized that the Western periodization
16:05
style wasn't working. Everything was linear.
16:08
And by the time you got to the end of your 12 week block,
16:11
normally you didn't have all the attributes that you started with
16:15
because everything was blocked. So like, let's say you're not
16:17
hypertrophy block, then you're in your strength block, then
16:21
you're in your like power peak block.
16:22
But by the time you get to the end where you're power peaking,
16:26
you don't have any of the benefits of the hypertrophy or
16:29
the strength, whatever it might be.
16:30
They can't tail off. Residual training effects only
16:32
last so long, right? So Louise, like there has to be
16:36
a better way, has to be a better way.
16:38
And I can't remember who the Russian scientist that was in
16:41
America, who was his like kind of his coordinator between
16:45
Russia and America, but one day that guy hooked him up with the
16:49
phone call or contact e-mail. I don't know what they did back
16:52
then, but he was able to contact people out in Russia and Louis
16:57
went over to Russia and he learned from these people.
17:00
I think it was the Dynamo club, and he started learning what
17:03
they did and what they did was like a conjugate style.
17:07
What it is is you're training all attributes all the time.
17:10
So like you're not picking everything all at once, but
17:14
you're making sure that you're training phases instead of
17:17
blocks all connect so that you're never losing the benefits
17:22
of hypertrophy, you're never losing the benefits of strength,
17:25
and you're never losing the benefits of like absolute.
17:28
We call it like people call it peak, whatever.
17:31
So he brought that back over to America and West Side was kind
17:35
of born. And West Side is only done at
17:37
West Side. And now that Louie's dead, there
17:39
is no more West Side. But the style and the method is
17:42
called the conjugate method. I appreciate that breakdown.
17:44
I mean, that was awesome. I didn't know that whole
17:46
history. I knew that it.
17:48
Goes it goes so deep when it goes into like what Louie was
17:52
doing hanging out with the Russians and you got to remember
17:55
at the time the Russians were like the enemies, right?
17:58
So like for him to have a connection in America that could
18:01
bring him over to Russia and him learn from Russia and then come
18:05
back over here like it was, it was trailblazing.
18:09
And he was probably on some lists for doing that too.
18:12
He's probably getting monitored and having his phones tapped and
18:15
all that. That's the thing that people
18:18
like, I think that people when it comes to training and stuff,
18:21
like everyone knows the science of like whatever training it is,
18:24
whatever. But like you have to dig deep
18:26
and find old heads to talk to that will tell you those stories
18:30
because it gives you more of appreciation for like what it
18:33
truly is. Like I had a guy that was Tony
18:35
Rouse. He's a strength coach at a high
18:38
school in Indiana. But like, he's a 50 year old guy
18:42
that knew some of those people. So like, he was able to tell me
18:45
that story. You know what I mean?
18:46
I didn't know that story before Tony told me.
18:48
So I really grew a new appreciation for like what Louis
18:51
did and like how he did or like people think about like Russian
18:56
training, like like they were all doing the same thing.
18:59
No, it was the best methods were competing with each other and
19:04
the best methods won out because the best methods were used to
19:07
get the Olympians that they needed.
19:09
So it wasn't just like that. Everyone was doing one step like
19:11
over here, like everyone Olympic lifts that would be like, hey,
19:15
everyone's doing the best method of Olympic lifting that Dande's
19:19
putting out or Joe Schmo's putting out, whatever it.
19:22
So it was all competing all the time to try and be the best
19:25
methods that they put out. So that was an interesting
19:28
story, like it was. It's cool to learn those kind of
19:31
things. I want you to take those
19:33
principles and educate me in the audience here.
19:37
How do you juggle, I guess, sampling from the different
19:41
stimuli that we care about, peak force output or Max force
19:46
output, speed, dynamic strength, endurance, hypertrophy, all
19:50
these things that we care about that go into creating the best
19:54
athlete, the best performer possible, but also maintaining.
20:00
A focus on either the lowest hanging fruit or not just trying
20:05
to throw a new exercise or a new stimulus at someone.
20:08
Every single like how, how do you juggle that?
20:11
Because I, I will be the first to tell you that when I was
20:15
coming up, I thought I was on the cutting edge with my own
20:18
training because I knew what the term muscle confusion was or I'd
20:23
heard that before. So I was rotating, I had like 8
20:29
different workouts just for upper body.
20:31
I had like 8 different upper body days in eight different
20:34
lower body days. And I would just do that like
20:38
workout one, workout 2, workout three, workout 45678 and
20:42
switching constantly between upper and lower body thinking
20:45
that that's what was best for me because it was quote UN quote
20:48
muscle confusion. But then at that point I would
20:52
deadlift once every four weeks or something like that.
20:56
So I I was doing exercises so infrequently, but I thought it
21:01
was best because of quote UN quote muscle confusion or I was
21:04
exposing myself to all these different stimuli as opposed to
21:08
no, I needed to work on peak strength or peak speed.
21:13
I went overboard on the other side trying to get every single
21:17
thing from every single part of every single program.
21:20
To start off from like a side note like this is like off to
21:23
the side, like the brain gets confused.
21:26
Muscles don't have brains, so the muscle area is confused.
21:28
Like that's like a thing to throw out the muscle confusion.
21:31
But for me, it is the art of coaching, right?
21:36
Like knowing the science, but really the art because you can
21:39
switch exercises just every three weeks like the
21:43
recommendation would be. Or like how Louis did it, but
21:45
like if you don't know the history behind what he did, then
21:50
you're just kind of guessing, right?
21:51
So like everything has a Max and every exercise has a Max.
21:57
And Louis would switch things based off of where he thought
22:00
his guys weakest points were in terms of a lift because their
22:05
sport was to bench, squat and deadlift.
22:08
Really good, right? Not really good, but the best be
22:11
the best at those three exercises.
22:13
So like, you know, maybe your triceps are the weak point,
22:15
maybe your low back is a weak point, whatever.
22:18
So he knew all of these things and he had all these things
22:22
recorded. So it was a very in detailed
22:25
exercise bang right, with Max's and everything tracked to try
22:30
and mimic that. Not that you can't, but try to
22:33
mimic that would be very hard. So I don't try to be Louis
22:38
Simmons by any means, nor will I ever think that I could be Louis
22:42
Simmons. But like for me going into Part
22:46
1 right is I don't just switch exercises to switch exercises.
22:51
I see if my athletes are maxing out on the the exercises I give
22:56
them, right? So like if you are benching, I
23:00
don't know, 185, well, we're probably going to keep benching
23:04
for a while. We're not going to just switch
23:06
it to switch it because 185 isn't strong.
23:08
So like now if you get up to 360-5405, then maybe you need a
23:13
different stimulus because you're probably at the point
23:15
where I could say you're probably strong, right?
23:17
But like we don't need to change it just to change it within
23:20
that. Let's see what kind of phase we
23:22
are in of like our, our sport, right?
23:26
Baseball's an easy one. Let's say we are in the we're
23:30
getting on the mound and I'm really trying to work on your
23:34
heat power while I want you to generate force from a dead stop.
23:37
That'll help like you turning on the switch like that.
23:40
So we might have been bench pressing for a while.
23:43
Well, let's go into a pin press where you have to generate force
23:46
from the upper body from a dead stop.
23:49
That's kind of touch and feel on that.
23:50
Yes, that is that scientific 100% is that touch and feel?
23:54
Definitely, because if you're a 135 venture, then a £95 venture,
24:03
something like that, you know, I mean, it's just got to have some
24:05
feel about yourself. And when it comes to how am I
24:09
getting all stimuluses all the time and not burning them out or
24:13
how do I know how to do that? Well, for me, it's layering in
24:16
my exercises based off of the intensity of the day.
24:21
So like I go a high, low system, but my undulation in that are
24:26
like how I lay out that week is a moderate on a like let's say
24:31
day one lifting. That's like a modern intensity
24:33
day for me. Day 2 is a high intensity day.
24:37
Day three is a low intensity day based off of the total tonnage
24:42
of my main lift. So what I mean by that is how I
24:46
lay out my week right now is day one will probably do for our
24:50
main lift will be a squat, day 2 would be a deadlift and day
24:55
three would be a bench. If you did three sets of three
24:58
at 75% based off 100% Max, if you had, if you squatted 300
25:06
lbs, then that tonnage will be whatever lower than your
25:10
deadlift, which might be a £400 deadlift.
25:13
So the tonnage would be different versus 135 LB bench.
25:18
So I've, I can still fit it into a moderate high and low even
25:23
though these are, I count them all as a high intensive day.
25:28
So then the next thing I do within my, I kind of like layer
25:31
my, like I said, layer my system.
25:33
I found out the other day I was incorrect by calling, calling a
25:35
tier system. It's not a tier system, but I
25:37
layer it. So, so let's say the A block is,
25:41
we'll just save Monday. A block is Max effort work and
25:45
that is going to be a squat. The B block is going to be my
25:50
dynamic effort work. That's why I get a little bit
25:52
more volume and I get my, I'd say explosive volume or power,
25:58
whatever you want to call that phase.
26:00
That'll be A, a bench press, like a bench press variation or
26:05
some kind of pressing variation. And then my C block is my Rep
26:10
effort work or accessories, not really Rep effort work.
26:13
It's more accessory work, little higher volume accessory work and
26:19
keeping it within those I'd say tears.
26:22
And within that undulation, I feel like I am achieving the
26:26
ability to slowly progress my athletes without losing any of
26:31
those physical qualities that I'm looking at.
26:34
And as I get closer towards like my, my peek, right, I, I don't
26:38
really ever peek. Like we're always trying to be
26:40
the best. So like I'll go into that later
26:42
because I'll get lost in the sauce myself as I start to get
26:47
higher intensity in my Max effort work.
26:49
Like I am always chasing Max, Max effort work, like I'm
26:52
chasing high intensity all the time.
26:54
But as I start to get closer to 100% of my Max effort work, my
26:58
dynamic effort work kind of step loads.
27:01
So I might go three weeks at 50%, then go three weeks at 55%,
27:06
then go three weeks at 60%. So I don't go up too much in my
27:11
dynamic effort work where my Max effort work might go 75 percent,
27:16
85 percent, 95% within that same block, right.
27:20
And then my or phase because I really don't do blocks because
27:22
I'm doing everything all at once.
27:24
So it's more of a phase. And then my accessory work all,
27:28
if I'm doing heavy Max effort work, I try to keep my accessory
27:32
work heavier. If I'm doing more volume and
27:35
volume to me is like 5 to 6 reps on my Max effort work because my
27:40
dynamic effort work is very like my dynamic effort work.
27:43
We might be doing 30 reps of whatever we're talking about a
27:46
ten sets of three or ten sets of two, whatever it might be my Rep
27:49
effort work. I try to mimic my intensity of
27:54
my Max effort work because my accessory work or Rep effort
27:57
work is like the bulletproofing for a terrible term.
28:02
Love my my body. Right.
28:04
That's mostly posterior work anyway.
28:06
Postel. Yeah, right.
28:09
So that is kind of a layout. It looks a lot better when I
28:15
write it on a board that's a layout kind of what I do and how
28:19
I do it. I'm always chasing like high
28:22
outputs and Max effort work. I need a little bit, I need some
28:26
volume and some work capacity. I find that in my dynamic effort
28:29
work, I don't burn the the candle on both ends.
28:33
I make sure I kind of like phase it and my accessory work.
28:37
It complements my Max effort work.
28:40
I would like to apologize for leading you deep down the path
28:44
before allowing you to address the initial assessment that
28:47
probably gets us to this point. It was not.
28:51
It'll be easier now for people I just not talking.
28:54
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I not my original intention, but
28:58
I suppose it like whatever, that's her conversation.
29:01
Let us. So now let's backpedal.
29:03
All right, let's let's backpedal like 1000 steps, OK?
29:06
Backpedal 1000 steps. Now that we know what program
29:09
layout looks like, how do we? Get that's just one that's just
29:13
one individual. Like that's a very that's a very
29:18
specific, I'd say layout for a very specific need within the
29:23
different pro. Like I break it off off of that.
29:26
Like it's very needs based. Now I don't want to say
29:29
individualized. It's more personalized based off
29:32
of what I think you need. But go ahead and undo your
29:34
question because I think I know where you're going.
29:35
Yes. And I, I think we might need to
29:39
bookmark what you just said, individualized versus
29:42
personalized. I like that phrasing.
29:44
But yes, the backpedal now to give you the reins to talk about
29:49
the assessment process. I know when we spoke offline in
29:53
setting this up, I told you one of the things I was super
29:56
interested in is what you do with force profiling.
30:00
You're, you're very experienced with force plates.
30:02
You've flown across the world to talk about these things and your
30:06
assessment process. So that was that joke from
30:09
earlier. Everyone.
30:10
It actually is founded in Don's work, weirdly enough.
30:15
I'm I'm going to admit this, I almost called you Brianna there
30:18
just because I looked over. And I saw.
30:20
Brianna on the bottom of the screen.
30:22
But yes, so this this is a lot of what Don does and what drew
30:27
me to him in learning more about his systems actually began a lot
30:33
on the assessment side with force plates, force profiling
30:37
and everything that goes into it.
30:38
I know there's a lot more than just force profiling, but I, I
30:41
want you, like I said, to take the reins to kind of talk about
30:44
the assessment and how we even get to deciding what's going to
30:49
go into a program. So for me, like day one, like
30:52
assessment, right? And I can knock it all out
30:54
within like 20 to 25 minutes, like to try to time myself to
30:58
see how fast I can be and efficient.
31:01
But the first thing we're going to do is we're going to look at
31:04
your hips. We're going to look at your ER
31:05
IR just how much space you have to move your pelvis.
31:08
I use the Gordiometer to kind of like measure that.
31:11
Then I'll look at your T spine, just your left and right, see
31:14
how much room you have of rotation.
31:16
But you can look at hip shoulder separation using those two
31:19
different things. And I tell athletes all the
31:21
time, like if there's not a issue, then there's no issue.
31:25
But at least I have the baseline for you, right?
31:28
So like the guy the other day, like I was like, hey man, do you
31:32
have any issues? Because like from what I've
31:34
seen, you look like you move pretty well in the Malley's.
31:36
Like no, I don't have any issues.
31:38
Okay, cool. Well then I don't need to
31:39
prescribe you extra needs work. But if there are issues, then I
31:42
start to break things down into like extra needs categories.
31:45
And I don't want to go over all that for pictures.
31:48
I also look at their shoulder strength internally and
31:51
externally. Everyone chases velocity, right?
31:54
High outputs are awesome. I love chasing high outputs,
31:57
whether that be 100 yard dash, whether that be throwing a
32:00
hammer, whatever it might be. But you got to prepare for those
32:03
high outputs and sustain through those high outputs.
32:05
I think that's a a major thing. So I see if you can sustain for
32:09
those high outputs. I tell kids all the time,
32:11
listen, just because you don't produce and accept the
32:15
prerequisite force or the force, the research tells us that you
32:18
should before you go into the top velocity or chase velocity
32:22
doesn't mean you're going to blow your shoulder without
32:24
throwing. I just wouldn't recommend that
32:25
you go through a velocity profile right now.
32:27
You should probably on ramp a little longer or get stronger
32:30
your your internal or external. But then the next thing I look
32:34
at on the force plate, we go counter movement, jump, squat,
32:37
jump. We do the 10 hop test to look at
32:39
RSI and then we do the plow push up.
32:42
And after that we go into the ISO testing.
32:46
I call it an ISO squat. It's really not an ISO squat.
32:48
I mean it, I guess it is, but like it's just an ISO test.
32:52
I like that over the mid thigh pool, not to say 1's better than
32:56
the other. The main reason that I do the
32:58
ISO squat instead of the mid thigh pool is because the setup
33:02
cost way too much money for me to buy.
33:04
So you know I'm saying it's overly expensive, but at the
33:08
time when I bought the force plate I was going to spend
33:10
another whatever it was to buy the setup for it.
33:13
So I was like there has to be a better way to do this in a
33:16
cheaper way. Again, I am from Akron, but I'm
33:19
looking at your overall Max sports production capability.
33:22
Think of it like a Max out test, right?
33:26
Like a very non invasive Max out test.
33:28
And there's not as many constraints on the ISO squat.
33:32
So I see the guys, their net peak force is a lot higher than
33:36
what would be on their mid thigh pole because there's I, I test
33:39
that too. They're not being so many
33:41
constraints within the test. It's not involved.
33:45
Yes, learning curve is probably a little bit lower.
33:48
You don't have to learn like positioning how far you are from
33:50
the it's. Literally.
33:52
And I have to standardize it a little bit better, but like I'm
33:55
not making any journal articles for this thing.
33:58
So I tell them, hey, not ever, but like I tell them to get into
34:03
a position where they feel like they're producing power to the
34:05
best, which is usually like a core squat.
34:07
And then I measure it, mark it and make sure that I mark it
34:10
down So I know every time it's that length.
34:12
So from there, what I like to do first with like a new client, I
34:17
like to take the assessment from the table test and the shoulder
34:21
strength if it's a pitcher and put that into their extra needs
34:25
categories like the movement things that they need to work on
34:28
from the movement capacity standpoint.
34:30
And I put that in the first phase because that's usually
34:34
more of a volume S phase. So like we're trying to change
34:39
some structural things, right? So you're going to need a lot of
34:42
time under tension or you're going to need more reps to make
34:45
those structural fixes. And then as we go on through the
34:48
program as those structural adjustments kind of clear up, we
34:53
don't have to do them as much. But at the beginning, we're
34:56
going to be doing it 3 or 4 times a week.
34:59
And then the phase that actually one of the colleges that I work
35:02
with is about to go into, I start to look at, are you an MSD
35:05
athlete or an ESD athlete? So basically, how do you prefer
35:09
to produce force and what is your weakness within your force
35:13
production? And before I can even look at
35:17
squat, jump peak power, counter movement, jump peak power, RSI,
35:20
any of that, how do you produce force?
35:23
And what is your weak point within producing force?
35:26
Because none of that, it doesn't matter.
35:28
Like if you have a bad RSI score, bad RSI score, and I'm
35:32
ignoring what your path to getting that score would be,
35:35
right? If you're not, if you're trying
35:38
to cover up a bullet wound for Band-Aid, I guess you would say
35:42
from Akron. But anyway, so I break athletes
35:47
into categories. You're either explosive strength
35:49
deficit or your muscular strength deficit athlete.
35:52
Muscular strength deficit needs more exposure to maximum effort
35:56
work. Explosive strength deficit
35:58
athlete needs more exposure to dynamic effort work or more
36:01
dynamic, truly dynamic movements.
36:03
So my MSD athlete, they're going to get 2 days of maximum,
36:09
maximum effort work, one day of dynamic of work because their
36:13
superpower is that they're explosive, right?
36:16
And quickie, but so I won't take away their superpower, but I
36:20
need to give them twice as much exposure to what they're not
36:22
good at versus what they are good at.
36:25
And then my explosive strength deficit athletes are the
36:27
opposite. I give them two days of dynamic
36:30
work, one day of Max effort work because like I'm like an ESD
36:35
guy, Like I'm a big strong guy, but I'm very slow when I throw
36:38
60. So I need more dynamic exposures
36:43
than I do maximum effort work. And that's kind of like how my
36:47
profiles go during the phase. When we get to the point where
36:50
I'm really looking at like how you prefer to produce force,
36:53
then I'll start looking at some low hanging fruits within your
36:57
force production testing. So like your counter movement
37:01
jump peak power, your squat jump peak power, is that a low
37:04
hanging fruit for you in terms of bat speed or ball velocity?
37:08
And that's where that's where kind of programming helps out
37:11
with that. You know, I mean, that kind of
37:12
takes over right there. But at the beginning, I'm
37:15
putting in a lot of extra needs stuff from a movement
37:18
standpoint. And then as we shift through and
37:21
I see some of those things clear up, then I'm really starting to
37:25
hammer on the force production, which is the fun part for me
37:28
because I'm a meathead. Another question about the
37:31
assessment process, and this is probably a bit more general.
37:34
How did you decide on those exercises?
37:39
You obviously have the constraint of time and you want
37:42
to spend as little time as possible, but learn as much as
37:46
possible. So how much did you have to
37:49
iterate or learn or try different things to ultimately
37:54
boil it down to really what wasn't that much?
37:58
You might have said eight or nine different.
38:01
It's not that, you know, it's not that much.
38:02
It's so like for me, obviously, like I learned a lot of this
38:07
stuff at Driveline, like all, like they did not create counter
38:11
movement jump or squat jump, whatever it might be, But like
38:14
how they use it was something I learned for however many months
38:17
at driveline. And shout out to them.
38:20
I have seen over 14 years in college, so many gimmicky
38:25
movement screens, like hundreds of them.
38:28
Like just, I mean, I, I can't remember some of this movement
38:31
screens names and they never really, there was no like
38:35
prescription. It was just like, hey, you can't
38:37
move like this. So we're just going to keep
38:39
testing you until you do move like this.
38:41
Like I, I was like, well, what's the prescription to that?
38:43
Like, wow. Why do we fix these things that
38:45
you're saying are an issue outside of just retesting and
38:49
retesting and retesting? Also, why does it matter?
38:52
Why does it matter? Like if you're a good athlete
38:55
then and you're scoring touchdowns or setting records,
38:57
whatever it might be, then the movement screen doesn't really
38:59
matter, right? Like I, I really like the
39:04
simplicity of what they did. So I just all right, I'm good,
39:08
not going to mess up a good thing.
39:10
I added how I do the shoulder ERIR, even though I learned the,
39:13
the metrics or the numbers I'm looking for from driveline, I
39:17
still thought it was like a very good thing to use.
39:21
And then when it comes to the dynamic strength and, or like
39:24
the ESDMSD dynamic strength index and looking at that, I
39:28
can't remember what year it might have been 2000.
39:31
And well, there was an old T Nation article and they talked
39:36
about the dynamic strength index on this old like log on T
39:39
Nation. And I don't even know if that
39:42
was the the phrase they used at the time.
39:45
This is about 13 years ago. That always kind of stuck with
39:48
me and I started to mess around with like dynamic Strength Index
39:52
at the University of Akron with my my intern Tyson Blosser and
39:57
Eric Cressy's, I think he's director of sports science.
40:02
And Joska Hook, he was an athlete for me at the University
40:06
of Akron. And we all got together and I
40:08
think Jos was shadowing me or something and Tyson was
40:11
obviously my intern. He started to talk a little bit
40:13
about ISA and like. How people produce force or
40:16
whatever. And I was like, dude, you talk
40:18
about like dynamic strength index.
40:19
It's like, well, I've read an article like 1012 years ago
40:21
about this and like we start I, I didn't do the like I didn't do
40:25
the ISA thing. I don't whatever it is what it
40:28
is. I didn't I didn't really want to
40:32
use it, but I did want to look at ESD versus MSD.
40:37
So we started to do that with my swim team as my test subject
40:40
because they're so they were so good.
40:41
Like they're nothing was going to mess them up.
40:44
I mean, we had really, we had four Olympians on that team.
40:47
Like so yeah, yeah, yeah. University Akron.
40:52
So go zips, go zips. But we had some really good
40:57
results and we started to do a baseball and we saw some good
40:59
results. And that's kind of thinking on
41:02
like like dynamic strength index and how I use that.
41:05
That just brought it up with the force plate like, hey, I really
41:08
want to use this with the force plate and like, how can I use
41:11
this with force plates? Then I saw that you could use it
41:14
and like it would like auto populate for you.
41:16
And I haven't found out that part.
41:18
I just kind of take my I take one metric, divide by the other
41:22
metric. Boom.
41:23
That gives me that gives me my where do they fall in the
41:26
dynamic strength index? So I'll have to figure out how
41:28
to make that out of populate. But right now I'm just doing it
41:31
by calculator. So yeah, that's that's just all
41:35
the things I use. And I don't think that I think
41:38
that the thing I see in baseball, like the private
41:41
sector baseball is like you got so many people just trying to
41:45
steal money for like football, like certain things that
41:48
baseball private sector does. It would never happen in
41:51
football. It doesn't happen in football.
41:53
Like travel ball does not happen in football, at least to my
41:56
knowledge right now. They might have travel football
41:58
now, who knows. But like, I just don't want to
42:02
be taking people's money. And so like, that's why I don't
42:05
do these individualized programs or whatever.
42:08
It's personalized to you. And there's nothing I can
42:11
personalize better than telling you, you produce force like
42:13
this. And this would help you become a
42:15
better athlete and produce force more efficiently.
42:18
So that's why I, that's really the main reason why I do this
42:21
testament, is to see where your inefficiencies are in being able
42:27
to do your job. The only time football players
42:30
are stolen from is when they go to the coach that throws out the
42:33
agility ladder. I had I had to put that out
42:38
there. I had to put that out there,
42:40
which I love. I love that there is a massive
42:45
football culture in Savannah and there are kids from young ages
42:50
that are working incredibly hard and it's it's so hard One, they
42:54
don't I can't really use the phrase they don't know me from
42:58
Adam because I am Adam. So that kind of.
43:01
Yeah, that is, yeah, yeah. That colloquial phrase doesn't
43:04
work. But they have no idea who I am.
43:06
They don't know what I've studied.
43:07
They don't know what I've done. Also, football is kind of a big
43:11
time old head sport in the sense that you just do what your
43:13
coaches tell you to do. The advancement isn't so much
43:16
there until you get to the upper levels of college and pro ball,
43:20
but I see these kids grinding away cutting into a cone.
43:27
Or. Doing agility ladders and if you
43:31
are doing those cone cuts to actually like work on, I don't
43:35
know, like actually trying to make a tight turn on a route.
43:38
Like that's one thing for skill work.
43:40
But if you are doing quote UN quote a ladder workout and your
43:45
coach is out there filming you for an hour as you're just
43:48
ripping icky shuffle and two forward, one back, like, come
43:54
on. Yeah, So I I know football
43:59
stealing happens less and maybe it's just because of the the
44:03
socio economic background of people who do play football.
44:06
So you can't get away with it, but they're not completely
44:10
innocent. No, no, I mean, yeah, there,
44:13
there there are. So I don't want make I will make
44:16
baseball sound too bad. But that is something that did
44:19
surprise me is the just the money's hot.
44:22
That is baseball private or baseball in general.
44:25
And like, I mean, honestly, man, I'm probably the worst
44:28
businessman in the world because like most of the money I get
44:31
paid from my clients, I just spend back on my clients.
44:34
Like we had steak dinner the other night.
44:36
I've made steak for my client and his brother.
44:38
Or I'll like buy whatever and I'll be like, hey, you guys
44:41
interested in this? I'll just pay for it.
44:43
Or like I'm working with the college.
44:45
And I was like, you know what'd be nice?
44:47
These guys are like, these guys aren't the biggest guys in the
44:51
world. It's a small school.
44:53
I know they don't have like a big budget.
44:55
I'll just buy them all protein shakes.
44:57
So I called up and like, hey, how much for three weeks of
44:59
protein shakes? But get it over there for them,
45:01
please. They like my dude Eric Jordan
45:03
Optimum Nutrition hooked me up, but like I just spend back on my
45:07
my athletes because like people probably have been stealing
45:11
these kids money from the time they're like, whatever, 456
45:14
years old and it's like, dude, what?
45:16
Why? Why do that?
45:17
I don't know. I don't get it.
45:19
Well, Speaking of spending money, this is great.
45:22
You provided the exact segue that I wanted to, I wanted to
45:27
take anyways for the next question, which is how do you
45:30
actually decide what you're going to spend your money on?
45:34
Fortunately enough, that's how we got connected.
45:37
You got super into the process with Flexpro Grip in wanting to
45:42
provide this for your athletes. I put you in Casey Mulholland on
45:47
the line and lo and behold, a week later you've got Casey
45:51
System with all your hog performance guys.
45:54
I wasn't trying to make the sale for Casey, but I mean, he's got
45:57
good stuff, so I understand. I don't know if it's, I don't
46:00
know if it's that you're the sucker and we we sold you snake
46:03
oil. No, I'm kidding.
46:04
We I, I will bang for flex pro grip for life.
46:08
Like I, I fully believe in what we do and I'm I'm so happy to
46:12
have you on board with it. But what do you think about or
46:17
what, what moves the needle for you to actually want to make a
46:21
purchase in implement it in your system?
46:24
Going back to that efficiency discussion that we had, there is
46:27
only so much training economy, of course, there's only so much
46:31
financial economy. Too, but moving.
46:35
Beyond that, like even even, let's say like money, money is
46:38
no object here. Athletes only have so much time
46:42
and energy that they can give on a daily basis.
46:45
Thus, it doesn't matter if you have every toy in the world, you
46:49
can't use every single toy. Please take me through that
46:54
process of elimination I suppose.
46:57
I mean, even if I had like, I mean, I've been at some places
47:01
that have given me a big budget before.
47:03
I've been at places where I didn't have that much of a
47:05
budget, right? I've developed the system of
47:07
what I do over the course of 1415 years now.
47:12
So biggest thing for me is efficiency and effectiveness and
47:14
like doesn't tie into the system.
47:16
So like I'm not trying to just get flashy.
47:20
Maybe you can't tell or maybe you can tell.
47:22
Now I'm not a flashy guy. I really don't care about
47:25
flashiness. So like I'm not trying to, I'm
47:29
not trying to sell anyone on anything ever.
47:31
Like I'm, if you're training with me, it's because I recruit
47:33
you and you fit what I was looking for.
47:35
I'm not trying to sell anyone, so I don't need to buy a bunch
47:40
of stuff that I don't need just to impress people that I don't
47:44
know. But like I have to trust in the
47:46
person 1st and then I have to trust that this is going to be
47:50
something that will take the system that I've built to the
47:53
next level. And it's efficient for my
47:55
athletes. Because if I think it's a great
47:57
thing for my athletes, then I will make the purchase for my
48:00
athletes. And it has to make sense in the
48:03
either something for the workload, man, because I pushed
48:06
them hard. Like I like Louis Simmons was a
48:10
Chiara get out guy. Like one of my guys that came
48:13
down was like, dude, I'm ready to come down there and bleed
48:14
through the nose again. Like that's how I train people.
48:16
So I need something that's either going to help me in that
48:21
process of what I think has made me me over the course of time
48:25
from a pushing high outputs because I chase high outputs, or
48:30
something that's going to help me with the recovery from
48:33
chasing those high outputs, right?
48:36
I don't like to make educated wishes on stuff.
48:39
I don't like to just guess My system is already I mean, I know
48:43
it like the back of my head. I can tell you anything about
48:45
it. The first place just give me
48:47
objective data and it helps me to literally just paints a road
48:53
map for me. I just fill it in like I could
48:54
do it blind with the Flex Pro Grip.
48:57
Like I've been dabbling with it. I keep dabbling with it.
48:59
I know it's very important. The person that I saw use it,
49:02
Dylan over at Driveline, really smart dude.
49:05
He thinks it's important. I'm going to keep learning.
49:08
I'm not a expert by any means, but I'm going to keep learning
49:11
and keep learning, keep learning.
49:12
The implementation of obviously with Casey, coach Casey, like
49:17
mind blowing when he showed me his whole system.
49:20
Like I spoke for like I was speaking about you guys over in
49:24
Japan, like you guys were like the next coming of of whoever,
49:28
right? Like I was like, dude, these
49:30
systems that they have are going to save you guys, blah, blah.
49:33
Like I thought his stuff was mind blowing and I I'm not going
49:36
to be using the dashboard, but like, hey, I thought someone
49:40
else had the best arm care I'd ever seen.
49:41
And then I saw this. So like, I think if it's
49:45
important for my athletes, I will find a way to get it done.
49:49
And that goes on, that goes beyond like just the facility
49:53
part that I have, right? Like I've always been that way.
49:56
Kurt Hester told me a long time ago, don't let budget of your
49:59
school dictate what you give your athletes if you believe
50:02
that's the best thing for your athletes.
50:04
So like over the course of my my career, I mean, I've bought, I
50:08
don't know if they're still there, but I bought Tendo units
50:11
for a whole weight room at Akron because we didn't have the money
50:13
to do out of the budget. So I just bought Tendo units for
50:15
the five racks that we use in the volleyball weight room,
50:18
basketball weight room, but it was volleyball since I was in
50:20
there, bought a whole weight room full of safety squat bars
50:25
because it's something that I thought we needed.
50:27
So like if I think it's important, I'm going to make the
50:29
purchase and I'll just the money will come.
50:31
You know what I mean? The money, the money I get back
50:33
will come or whatever it might be.
50:35
Like I've never had to live on the street or whatever.
50:37
So like I'm not ever worried about spending the money.
50:40
And plus, you know, you could die at any moment.
50:43
You can't take the money with you.
50:44
So I might as well just give it to my athletes.
50:46
And that's kind of the same mindset I have now with the, the
50:49
facility. Like, you know, hey, guy pays
50:52
me. I don't charge that much.
50:54
A guy pays me X amount of money and then half of it I'm spending
50:57
on steaks. Like I, I don't care.
50:59
Like it's cool, you know what I mean?
51:00
We're like, one dude came up and like, I was like, oh, I gotta
51:05
get protein because I won't make this guy protein shakes, but I'm
51:08
not going to up charge him because this is my idea.
51:10
So I'm not going to up charge him.
51:12
So I'm making them like protein shakes with like the the what is
51:15
it? The the veggies and all that
51:17
kind of I got the veggies, I got the protein.
51:19
I turned my turn my bathtub into an ice bath.
51:22
I had to run out, get the ice and put it in the bathtub so it
51:25
could be an ice bath like, and I took him out to dinner like
51:28
every day we, we went out like I paid for his dinners.
51:31
Like I probably paid X amount of dollars of what he had paid me
51:35
was just going back to buying his heaters.
51:38
So like just the guy, a man, like with anything.
51:41
No, I, I think that really does show your true colors and I, I
51:46
think that is why people are drawn to you.
51:49
I was. Stepping, I hope.
51:51
So stepping, stepping away from I think kind of the hard data
51:55
and information, the objective stuff we talked about on this,
51:57
it's cool to see the the human side come through with that
52:00
answer. So I appreciate you sharing
52:01
that. And it's one of the things I've
52:04
really enjoyed from watching you grow your own individual
52:07
business as opposed to maybe what you were subjected to in
52:12
previous facilities or what have you.
52:15
And it's not that you can't be yourself when you are working
52:18
for someone else, but when you are running your own thing, you
52:22
can literally make every single you.
52:24
Literally. Just notice.
52:26
Yeah, literally do whatever. And I, I really enjoyed the the
52:30
freedom to do what I want to do. And not because like, I don't
52:34
think I know everything. I don't think that like there
52:37
aren't other ways to get things done.
52:39
But to me, I do believe that I know what I'll do from a
52:44
sellout, from my athletes standpoint.
52:47
And I, I can't tell just meeting someone or talking to someone,
52:51
they'll do the same things I'm willing to do.
52:53
So they don't need to do the same things I'm willing to do.
52:57
But if I'm going to train my athletes that I'm going to train
52:59
my athletes, you know what I mean?
53:01
So that's just just kind of how I see things, man.
53:04
Like I really enjoyed this working for myself.
53:07
And plus I got to go to Japan, so you know what I mean?
53:09
Like. Again, you with the segues, I
53:11
appreciate it because the last topic that we have to discuss is
53:15
your recent trip to Japan. I don't even know how to ask a
53:19
question here other than you got to go work with a premier
53:24
facility in the Tokyo area, which I learned before the call
53:28
is a 34 million person metro area.
53:33
So calling it the Tokyo area, like I almost can't even
53:36
conceive the area that that covers.
53:40
But you went to Tokyo, you spent some time over there working
53:43
with some of the best athletes that they have at a top
53:46
facility. Just teaching, right?
53:49
Just teaching. Just teaching.
53:51
Just literally teaching and making jokes and eating horse
53:55
and stuff, you know what I mean? So yes, the the cultural stuff,
53:58
you got to do some really cool things.
54:00
I I saw you do some swordsman work.
54:02
I saw you. Try.
54:03
It was. It was.
54:05
Known to man, but love if you could spend some time on the
54:10
teaching side, what do you feel you were able to most provide?
54:15
Dude, I think the thing that I was able to most provide was
54:19
like a systematic approach to building a facility, right?
54:24
I think problem solving, right? Like teaching them to be problem
54:26
solvers, like using me being over there as an example for
54:30
them to see, like how problem solving works and that the
54:34
prerequisite is being a good coach, right?
54:36
And the relationships they have with their athletes, the
54:40
relationships they have in the community, The, the, the,
54:43
whatever it might be they already have, they should have
54:47
that. Like that's a prerequisite for
54:48
me or for being a good coach, but you have to be a good
54:53
problem solver. So like they have all this
54:56
technology and stuff. Well, how are you going to use
54:58
it to solve problems? And that's kind of what I was
55:01
giving to them and teaching them.
55:03
We went over how to match intensities of your skill, work
55:07
with your lifting, how to tie that together, how it should be
55:10
set up. That's the whole reason I talked
55:12
about you and Coach Casey, like, hey, these are some problems
55:15
you're going to have because these are baseball problems.
55:18
Here are some solutions like hey, do you have anything to
55:22
test like do like an arm score or see what workload management
55:26
is or like set up your pitching so that when you guys are
55:30
working with clients, you don't have to worry about pitching to
55:33
or whatever it might be. And like what's the layout of
55:36
your facility going to be? Like?
55:37
What if someone has a UCL? What if someone's recovering
55:40
from a UCL? But what if you just want to
55:43
overall strengthen grip strength at the parts that matter?
55:48
Like that's where like it was just like solving problems for
55:51
them without being like, hey man, this sucks.
55:54
Like because it doesn't suck. It's a it's amazing.
55:56
Like, dude, they have four major cages with the ability to turn 1
55:59
cage into two, So 6 cages, a weight room, an office room, a
56:04
waiting area. Like it's, it's as big as any
56:07
facility I've ever been in. So like, it was amazing.
56:10
It's amazing. But they have really good
56:12
coaches and there's, you know, Japanese, not pro guys at the
56:16
time, but soon to be pro guys. But pro guys will be coming
56:20
through as the pro season ends. And it's like, OK, how are you
56:23
going to run this? How are you going to manage
56:25
this? How are you going to make this
56:27
feel personable? Just all the problems that come
56:30
with a facility. So I was able to teach them more
56:32
than just the strength and conditioning.
56:34
I was able to like show them what the layout should probably
56:37
be like based off of the culture of Japan that I was taking in,
56:43
what they were telling me. I was listening to how they want
56:46
things to flow. So they'd be like, hey, this is
56:48
what we do. This is kind of how our stuff
56:49
goes. OK, cool.
56:51
Well this is an issue right here.
56:53
This is what you can solve. Use to solve it within the
56:56
layout of what you're trying to do.
56:58
So it wasn't just me going in saying all this sucks.
57:01
This is the way I would do it. It was, hey, let me hear what
57:04
you're talking about. Who heard?
57:07
This is why I would do if I were you guys.
57:09
And that was that was honestly, dude, I mean the mutual respect
57:12
between me and the facility like that was that was really cool.
57:16
It was really cool to be up there and people like look at me
57:20
like, Hey, you're an expert and that's why you're here is like,
57:22
damn, like that's that's awesome.
57:25
If you can get some sort of role as a traveling consultant to go
57:30
from facility to facility and tell them what's good and what
57:34
needs improvement, you might have hit the jackpot.
57:37
I think with working at the I'm like a contractor for the Air
57:41
Force Base down here in town. I do my pro guys actually have a
57:46
I didn't want any local clients, but I have a local client that's
57:50
coming in today in like a few hours.
57:52
I do consultant work with this college, probably gonna add one
57:55
more college. And I do believe that with
57:58
Japan, I'll probably be out there every.
58:01
I think they were saying four months, three to four months.
58:04
So like, I don't think I got any more for America.
58:08
I'm doing the most American stuff.
58:10
I can work with the military. I think that's about all I got
58:13
for them. You've got some exciting stuff
58:15
coming down the line. And what's awesome from the
58:19
personal side that all of this really started when you just
58:24
came home one day from work. And really, Yeah, I'm doing my
58:27
own thing. I'm tired of working for the
58:29
man. Yeah, that is how it went.
58:32
I think we spoke on that day. We were trying to set up a phone
58:34
call and I was like, how you doing?
58:36
I was like, well I just quit my job like shit.
58:40
Good for you. It was a thing where I moved
58:44
down here and I wasn't happy with the role or the role was
58:48
misunderstood, whatever. It was like, well, we're going
58:52
to move to Georgia anyway. So like, I guess it doesn't
58:54
really matter and I'm going to bet on myself like always.
58:58
And I did. And I think like, obviously I
59:00
talked to people, whatever, but like, I think the biggest thing
59:03
is a lot of people don't bet on themselves.
59:07
And as you know, as your business person, like, if you
59:10
believe in what you're doing, like bet on yourself.
59:13
And like, for me, I have a vision of how I want hog
59:17
performance to be like, I don't, my vision isn't really like
59:20
having a major facility, but that's not what I'm trying to
59:23
do. Eventually I want my, my, my
59:25
athletes to not have to pay. I, it's still invite only, but I
59:30
want my, my athletes not have to pay to come train with me.
59:34
So right now I'm doing that is working at the military now they
59:39
still pay right now, but like working the military job,
59:42
hopefully keep moving up in that and then gathering about, well,
59:47
I probably don't want more than 12 to 15 people because I don't
59:51
want the program to become like mass production and like
59:55
scalable and like you're just OK, you jumped on the plate.
59:59
So this is what you get. Like I don't want it to be like
1:00:01
that. I want it to be personalized.
1:00:02
I don't want it to be like McDonald's and.
1:00:05
That's the vision I have for the facility.
1:00:08
Like just keep it small, keep it good enough that like my guys
1:00:14
feel like they're getting everything they can out of it.
1:00:16
Keep it very like invite only and very hard to get to.
1:00:20
And then just keep hammering away the other stuff that I'm
1:00:22
doing. Going out to Japan every four
1:00:24
months and enjoying like the lifestyle out there and like
1:00:27
helping those guys grow their stuff.
1:00:28
Like, I, I feel like I'm in a very good spot to give to a mass
1:00:34
amount of people. Not many people can say that.
1:00:37
They're literally working with Japanese, the Japanese building,
1:00:41
helping them build a facility. Not many people get invited to
1:00:44
go over there. When I was over there, someone
1:00:45
had texted one of the owners or whatever and they're like, oh,
1:00:48
you're in America. And they're like, no, no, we
1:00:51
brought this guy over from America to Japan and like, wait,
1:00:55
really? And they're like, yeah, yeah,
1:00:57
that doesn't happen out there. So they was really like, I joke
1:01:01
around on Instagram or whatever to say one of one, but like I
1:01:04
truly am only person doing this. So it's really awesome, man.
1:01:09
It's really awesome. This has been a tremendous
1:01:11
conversation, Donna. I really appreciate it.
1:01:14
So the last thing I am going to ask of you is to share how
1:01:18
people can get in touch with you.
1:01:20
Oh man, poke me on Facebook I get now.
1:01:23
Do people still do that? Is that still?
1:01:25
I don't know, I deleted Facebook after college so I have no clue.
1:01:31
I remember poking. Dude, that's that was like how
1:01:33
me and my ex used to flirt with each other back in the day, but
1:01:36
in the 2000s, but I'd say like you can e-mail me.
1:01:39
My e-mail is thewarthog5293@gmail.com.
1:01:44
You can follow me on on Instagram.
1:01:46
You can either follow my my personal account day D93, or my
1:01:51
My Business account, which is performance, I believe.
1:01:56
Yeah, this is probably the least like the least scientific in
1:02:00
depth episode that you've had. I've hoped I've made it fun
1:02:03
though at least. No, this has been great and I'm
1:02:06
excited for the feedback from everyone out there because
1:02:09
strength coaches bring a different vibe.
1:02:11
And I think that was seen from the beginning when you said, let
1:02:15
me go grab an energy drink and that rain made some appearances.
1:02:19
So no, no free ads, but rain. I I guess if you want to sponsor
1:02:23
the Laid back podcast, let me know.
1:02:25
Rain guy. Big rain guy.
1:02:27
Well, thanks a ton, Don. This has been incredible.
1:02:31
I got to find my way over to Valdosta soon because that's not
1:02:34
too far of a trek for me, but I'll.
1:02:37
Be by you, not to. We're going to a football game
1:02:41
some point in time before the season ends, but we'll
1:02:44
definitely be at some baseball games.
1:02:46
Wonderful. So you and I can work that out.
1:02:49
I'm going to finish the official outro here now, unless, unless
1:02:52
everyone else wants to meet up too when Don comes to this
1:02:54
football game, Savannah, I guess we're going to have some sort of
1:02:57
lay back podcast gathering. Maybe I'll do a live show.
1:03:00
That's what all these fancy podcast hosts do.
1:03:02
But to everyone out there, thanks for laying back with us.