Tony Gentilcore, a connoisseur of picking up heavy things and putting them back down, joins the show today to talk about business, surpassing the 600 lb deadlift milestone, training his clients like athletes, and his upcoming Deadlift & Squat Workshop, Sunday January 26th at Titan Barbell in Boston, MA.
Tony grew up admiring guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger which led him to begin lifting at a young age of 13. When his baseball career ended, Tony went on to a degree in Health Education and later became a corporate fitness trainer, where he supplemented his college education with an obsession on forums like T-Nation. From here, Tony co-founded Cressey Sports Performance with Eric Cressey, and spent 8 years there before recently moving on to his own shop in Brookline, MA called CORE.
We kick things off discussing the biggest hurdles Tony faced when transitioning to his own business, and what he wished he would’ve known before making the switch. Tony addresses the stigma of owning your own gym in the industry, and the “slow-burn process” that led him to his own space.
We then discuss Tony’s 600 lb deadlift at the ripe age of 40 and the milestone that a 600 lb deadlift represents for meat monkeys across the globe. From there, we dive into training talk and spend a fair amount of time discussing sub-maximal training and the benefit of hammering a large number of quality reps at lower weights before your judgment day.
Next, we discuss managing your performance expectations at different times in your life and maintaining what is important when life gets in the way. Tony speaks about the value of EDM (Estimated Daily Max) and how it can auto-regulate how someone is performing on one particular day and continue to drive adaptation.
We then jam on the difference in programming for athletes and general population clients, which turns out to be small tweaks in exercise selection and volume of each exercise. This leads us to the relevance of RPE in gen pop clients and experienced lifters.
Lastly, we get into paradigm shifts for Tony over the last 2 years and how exercise selection and cueing can be the intervention, rather than spending half your session on the floor breathing.
Enjoy and hit that subscribe button if you learned a thing or two.
Episode Highlights:
4:45 – Tony’s Background
10:00 – Tony’s transition to his own training studio
17:00 – The inevitable ceiling as a corporate fitness trainer
19:00 – Tony’s 600 lb deadlift and the small factors that lead to a big 1RM
36:30 – The value of using EDM (Estimated Daily Max)
39:30 – Tony’s programming for General Pop vs. High-Level Athletes
48:00 – RPE and its relevance for clients
53:00 – Paradigm shifts in the last 2 years for Tony’s coaching
1:00:00 – Tony’s Recommended Resources
1:07:00 – Tony’s Upcoming Workshop on the Squat & Deadlift
Links and stuff:
• Tony Gentilcore: www.tonygentilcore.com
• Tony Gentilcore: @tonygentilcore
• James Cerbie: @jamescerbie
• TRAIN: https://train.jamescerbie.com
• Silverback: https://www.silverbacktrainingproject.com
• Tony’s Upcoming Workshop: https://bit.ly/36UU0jd
• Profit First: https://amzn.to/2thAL4O
• Pity The Reader: https://amzn.to/2NnlW7Y
• The Body: https://amzn.to/2FLVjFp
• PTDC: https://www.theptdc.com/
PLUS: Whenever you’re ready… here are 4 ways we can help you find your peak performance (and live up to your true potential):
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