Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have your online training friendships turned to real life, in-person friendships? Joining me on the show this week are a couple of the Rebel crew, Ryan Patrick and Keiran Halton. The three of us debrief the training team camp we put on this past weekend as we unpack our favorite moments and takeaways from the events. From just pure entertainment, learning, throwing down, putting in work, community, and so much more, it’s humbling that we were able to gather a group of amazing humans we’ve been training with online for years to crush weights together for a weekend.
So many questions and conversations popped up over the weekend, so it’s only fitting to share with you all the many lessons learned. We talked all things lifting, sprinting, biomechanics, change of direction, and energy system development. We dive into the discussion on whether you can get strong on one leg, in particular, using really heavy single leg lunge patterns as a replacement to your main squat. We then steer the conversation to the number one mistake we saw during change of direction work and how to bring back speed and change of direction work into your training. We close out the episode discussing how hard people are actually working in their workouts. Do you think you are working as hard as possible? The answer is, you’re probably not.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- [03:40] Training camp details
- [05:30] The big training camp takeaways
- [06:40] Cost to high intensity change of direction work
- [12:02] Looking at drills from a different lens
- [14:30] The curved run series
- [20:16] Sensory motor work
- [22:15] Replacing main squats with single leg variations
- [27:25] High trap bar deadlifting versus squatting
- [31:05] Doing less when getting back into sprinting
- [36:30] Wide versus narrow ISA
- [38:00] Taking HRV tracking with a grain of salt
- [41:02] Choosing exercises with load or velocity
James Cerbie: I hope that you enjoy the episode. All right. There you go, guys. What is going on?
Ryan Patrick: What’s going on?
Keiran Halton: Same old.
James Cerbie: Same old stuff over here. Just talk about how we saw biceps from four days ago. Don’t worry about it. The key to just you just have to. It’s similar to, like the joke when you’re in college. That’s like the best way to deal with the hangover. You just never stop drinking. Best way to deal with sore arms. You just never stop doing curls.
The Big Training Camp Takeaways
I can’t believe that just happened so rapidly but yeah. So we just had a training camp but that handful of athletes from our training team and a few guests out in Salt Lake City, Utah. So we wanted to have a podcast here to go over debrief, talk about some of our biggest takeaways.
It was an absolute blast. There are so many cool side conversations, training moments, learning opportunities that came up. So we’re going to try to recapture as much of that for you guys as we can. If you’re listening, you’re like, what is this whole training camp stuff that you’re talking about? The training camp is something we do for members of our training team right now. We’re doing it three times a year, but I can definitely see us moving to a quarterly in-person training camp event.
I had a blast. It was so much fun. So the training team is a totally online remote training experience where you can choose seven different program pass. You get an individualized coach, awesome team, community competition, but it is all online. So the training camps come free of charge to you just as a part of being on the team. And it’s a way for you to actually come hang out with us in person and get hands on coaching, learn a thing or two, and also just like hanging out with the other people that are on the team and throw down and compete and have some fun, put names and faces together, make Internet friends in person, friends.
And it was fantastic. So what we’ll do here, we’ll go one by one. I want to hit first. What were some of our biggest takeaways from the weekend and the event as a whole? Takeaway number one, Jack Morman. Coffee is still phenomenal. Cold brew on point. Obviously, if anybody listening to this has ever come to Salt Lake City and you like coffee, in particular cold coffee, go to Jack Morman. If this happens to be listened to by the guy that owns Jack Morman, I am totally on board for Jack Morman podcast sponsorship.
Keiran Halton: I think he pulled me aside for a few minutes. We talked about it.
James Cerbie: We can make this happen. We can make this happen. Rebel performance radio powered by Jack Morman. I like it. I like it.
Ryan Patrick: I brought beans and they’re just as good.
James Cerbie: Yeah, they’re. They’re so good. They’re on point. Totally on point. But we can circle back. We can circle back here. So I had four big ones sticking out here, so I don’t forget them. Four big takeaways from the camp. The more I’ve been thinking about this and reflecting over the last few days since we just wrapped up on Sunday, big takeaway number one for me, it was just like a big affirmation that I’m doing what I want to be doing, that I believe in what we’re doing at revel in the mission and what we’re trying to bring to the world, like this idea of bringing a evolved strength conditioning model to the table where it’s like, hey, you can be strong, Jack.
Powerful, well-conditioned, move well and actually feel good while you do so like this is possible. It’s doable. And we can do it all remotely. We can give you an awesome experience. We get your training, get you competing, get you throwing down like we can bring back those glory days of what it felt like in high school and college or even in professional sports. So that was a big one for me. It’s like a giant affirmation that, hey, you’re working on the right things, you’re moving in the right direction because like, I wish I could do that every weekend, to be totally honest, because the other thing that came out of it that was so cool is like just the people who are involved are just good people, like just fun people and people that I want to spend more time with.
Cost to High Intensity Change of Direction Work
So that was a big number one for me was the affirmation takeaway number two more training related is that there is a legitimate cost to high intensity change of direction work, because I’ve been doing change of direction work, but coming to realize I’ve not actually been doing it that hard because when we started lining up face to face and run in five, ten fives and stuff like deep hips have been sore for four days now. And today is like day one where I felt like, oh, we’re kind of getting back to some semblance of normality, but it’s one of those things and you take it out and bring it back in.
You have to realize that like legit high intensity change of direction work where we’re absorbing the first force and turning it back around definitely comes at a cost. So we’ve got to be smart in how they get reintroduced for people or even just on a day to day, week to week basis, like how we’re managing that training volume for people that have been seeing it. Big takeaway number three is just as important to play like it was just a fun weekend, getting to throw down, have an awesome team left environment play, spike ball, go on hikes those just playing for forty eight hours, which I absolutely loved because that’s something that not enough people still have in their lives here.
And you and I talked about this at one point over the weekend where people just get in this normal rhythm and flow. And when you become an adult, it’s the only time that people want to hang out as if they want to be hanging out, drinking alcohol. People don’t like to play anymore. I’m like, I don’t really like alcohol. So I’d rather go play spike ball or play little anything, flag football, kickball, sand volleyball. And so there’s a lot of fun to be around.
Eight other people who share that same interest and just playing and having fun and alcohol does not have to be part of that conversation. And then by number four takeaway, I really liked that lateral stance row that we did, Keiran, that you brought up on that change of direction day on the back end that made so much sense to me, integrating kind of like if you’re going to have a change of direction, focus on a training day. That rowing variation just integrated so well with what you feel when you’re doing change of direction work.
And I think it’s a great way to throw accessory work and on the back end on one of those training days to help tie everything together, like feel yourself getting into that side, get into that hip, get a nice throw. You still get a really nice scat movement and feel posterior delta and all that fun jazz. So those are my big four affirmations. Cost of change of direction. Play is awesome. Really. Like the lateral stance ro lateral stance.
When I’m dumb or something I’ll probably start using more and programing more than I have traditionally. But pass it on over to Keiran. See what you got.
Keiran Halton: Yeah, I think the weekend was so great, like you said, just to be around a lot of like-minded people, just because you get so caught up in the monotony, you know, like especially like we talked about, like all you’re really going to do as an adult now, especially feels like in the northeast is like go out, grab food, grab a couple of beers and like, you know, you’re the weird one because, like, you want to go play Spike Ball or like, God forbid, you mentioned, like, hey, you want to go play baseball, volleyball or something, you’re like, no, that’s super weird.
So surrounding yourself with some of those people, like about your community that you guys can get after together, you have similar values and you want to, like, push each other. Being able to meet some of those guys, like I’ve known Ryan since 2018, and it was the first time we met in person, I think Covid kind of push that back a little bit. But same thing with Allen, that was in the first silverback right, so 2019?
James Cerbie: Yeah, the UTS crew.
Keiran Halton: Yeah. So he’s another one I’ve known for years online and finally got to meet in person. So having that online community is great and then taking it to the next step where you can actually get around each other and meet and have that face to face time as that community for me is huge. And I think another thing was just living really intentionally. And I think that kind of goes kind of in the community. It’s really great seeing you out there with your routine and stuff like that.
You know, you eat, sleep and how if you want those people around you, you’re selfish. I just want to, like, kind of hang out with you guys and actually make it happen. Right. Like, just so just living that good life, like very intentionally. It’s a little work on the front end. But the payoff to be around the people that you want to be around and to have those habits in place are really, really important.
And then I think one of the things from the training perspective, I really mean, I had a ton of fun. I was obnoxious.
James Cerbie: That’s the most fun I’ve had lifting in a while. I was going to say I like the music out loud, like we started with some weight. And it’s like, all right, here we go.
Looking at Drills From a Different Lens
Keiran Halton: Yeah. I mean, I feel like I’m pretty reserved a lot of the time, kind of lay back and I think I almost lost my voice, just like yelling at guys, like going crazy. So that was super fun. But then I got so much value out of the track day where all the guys had great questions, but then it just got the wheels turning and a little bit. And I’m listening to you and Ryan speak about how you think about programming and stuff like surfing the force velocity curve where you have the programming for that.
That was super helpful, seeing how you guys can do some of the basic drills that I like to use. But just looking at it from a different lens. So just being around other super knowledgeable coaches, but seeing it from their perspective, like I love the series, but you’ve talked about how you kind of like the dead, like where with the snap down and the emphasis on like the repositioning on the way down, which and then Ryan got into that a little bit.
And I love that I used it with my hockey guys a little bit. I mean, it was awesome to see how quickly I can implement stuff like that just from being able to pick your guys brains a little on that. The track day was really valuable for me as well. And then I think the last thing definitely like on a personal note, the change of direction needs to be getting a little more volume and attention on my own because my hips, it was like not even my deep hips, my groin.
I think the person on the plane wanted to, like, shoot me because I was just trying to move and find a comfortable spot the entire time. So I definitely need to spend a little more time with some of the changed direction stuff. But again, we have a nice little library level where I could pick some of that up. But yeah, so definitely living intentionally. The community is huge. Those two are huge for me. And then from the training side, like revisiting the force velocity progressions and then given the changed direction with more love.
James Cerbie: He added on the change of direction from before we hand it over to you. I was going to say another thing that I took away was, I think unanimously across the board when we’re talking about if you don’t think of that five, 10, five, like anything where I’m having to run plant turn around pretty much on one hundred and eighty degrees and go back in a straight line, one of the things that across the board, I think people struggled with and maybe just because they weren’t ever coached and cued this way as the importance of the inside leg, because most people like they come into their cut and that lead legs decelerating and then they try to use that lead leg as the primary way to get them going the other direction.
And so, yeah, like the lead legs need to stop you and get you going. But the leg that really gets you that drives you out of a cut is the inside leg. And we unanimously saw all the guys, they’re like really easy inside legs where there are super aggressive on the outside leg with an inside leg just was just it was just there. And once they started actually driving off that inside leg, it’s like, OK, now we got some people coming out of cuts a little bit better, like we’re going here.
So that’s one. I think that’s also worth mentioning. But Patrick, what do you got, my friend?
The Curved Run Series
Ryan Patrick: I will jump right into the quad stuff and I just kind of tag along with what you said. Then I’ll get into my takeaways. But if you have a lot of difficulty with that, the inside leg curve to run is essentially a series of that penultimate step and learning how to transition. So it’s a very easy way to clean that up. And you can just play with the radius of the curve. But, you know, on the idea of the quad, I think competition is absolutely one of the biggest missing elements in training.
I have been training by myself for years just because of my schedule. It doesn’t align with other people. It’s hard to make a commitment to somebody else because I never know when exactly I’m going to get to train, you know, because I have kids and the brick and mortar and we’re always kind of navigating stuff because my wife owns a business, too. But being in an environment that fuels competition on some level, not that every session has to be a PR session, it just drives you.
And that goes all the way back to when we got in the Silverback. It was just one thing each week where we really just got up for it. But man made all the difference in training because then it started to be, well, I need to hit these accessory work because it’s going to help my conditioning. And if we have a conditioning test, I need to be prepared. So it just, you know, it really gives you something I think locks people in.
I know it’s a huge part of what we’re doing, a performance with the team training, but it’s a missing element, I think, for a lot of people. I don’t know about you guys, but I really really suck at fitness for recreation every time. I just like just like I just want to be out there, just feel a little bit better. I crash and burn. It’s just not motivating at all. So I have to have some level of like you’re not a man of moderation.
I could do moderation, I can do low intensity workouts, but I have to be moving toward something. Otherwise there’s just no trajectory. Secondly, I think the environment is really key. I don’t have the luxury of being around people. Even though I was remote with silver back when we did it, there was just something inherently motivating, knowing there were a lot of other guys doing the same workouts in different time zones. We’d log in, we check in, and then being around you guys there, I mean, we already talked about, you know, we got into the gym, everyone.
It was a beautiful place. You cross it is amazing.
James Cerbie: You have a quick thank you. Huge. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, definitely cross.
Ryan Patrick: Awesome. Yeah. But we got there and we kick the music on and it was OK during the warm up and then it got a little louder during college so we could still talk over it. And then we got into the lifting and it just kept getting louder and louder. We got louder, the weights went up. Mary told you Mike, Mike’s like I think I’ll stop at two. Twenty five know in the back of my head and thinking, oh no, no, no chance.
Not a chance. I think he ended up hitting 275 or 315. I mean I remember what it was but it was well above what he, he had planned and that environment. I don’t think anybody got sloppy either.
James Cerbie: No, he was smooth. Maybe your first set of lunges was a little sloppy, but Mike’s front sports were great.
Ryan Patrick: I’ll touch on that in a second. But yeah, that environment of being around people who are motivated, if you’re in a place where people just don’t align with your values and the things that you’re doing, it’s really hard to find these people who secondly, you have a ton of time to hang out with. I mean, you know, I am at this point in my life, I’m in my mid-thirties. I have very few relationships outside of, like, stuff.
I do a business, my immediate family, like, there’s very little time left over. And so I have to carry that group very tightly. And I know a couple of years ago is almost exactly the time we started silverback. I was kind of angry, like I was just really upset. I’m like, why? Like, why is everybody I. I feel like everyone around me is mailing it in, just calling it quits, talking about back when they were in their prime.
I still feel like I got a lot of kick left in me. I know I can get stronger. I know I can do all these things. And it was really associating myself with you guys, even though it was remote, where it just made a significant difference in what I was able to do. So I can’t I can’t emphasize the value of the environment, not just for training, but just for how I conduct myself day to day. And then Keiran’s point, seeing even your routines in, you know, just how methodical you are about taking care of yourself and the play and even the people in Utah.
I mean, we got out to the trail before 7:00 a.m. and we couldn’t find a parking spot. I love that.
James Cerbie: I thought it was forty five minutes away.
Ryan Patrick: It was crazy, but it was awesome. I’m like, man, these people are here. They get in. The crazy part is we only waited for a little bit and people were already coming back from the trail as they knew. So, I mean, I just think that culture is just really energizing to me. Just speak to me. It was a lot of good soul food just being there with you guys and everyone else.
So I think we’re trying to create this at is bringing these people together who are very closely aligned, not to pluggers, but I think it’s awesome. And I love the people that we are associating with. It was so cool to finally meet everybody that has been, you know, at a distance for a couple of years. And, you know, Covid was crazy. But even still, I mean, just knowing we got some time to come together to break bread talk shop, it was really cool.
Sensory Motor Work
And, you know, the lasting warm ups are overrated. They’re overrated cos there’s so much stuff about positioning and flossing and flows and ISO’s and all that stuff. And I think it does have value. But I think some people forget to warm up. And if you really know what you’re doing and I feel like if you understand these concepts, even if you’re not the best mover at the sensory motor work, can accomplish a lot of the positional goals that you want to achieve, because I stupidly and impulsively jumped into two twenty five on the reverse lunges because I saw you guys doing at the music was getting loud.
I got a little jacked up and I just went for it and I’m fine. You know, I’m not saying you should always jump into Max, but I think there are multiple opportunities throughout the session to program intelligently and keep yourself healthy. For the most part, I’ve been able to keep injuries at bay, and it’s just by treating my accessory work very appropriately, not trying to go full throttle on everything and really chasing the positions and feeling muscles and finding the right joint angles.
And it’s made all the difference. It’s allowed me to continue to get stronger. It’s allowed me to progress in multiple domains, which I think is at the heart of rebel. And it was something that was very shattering to me. Right. You interference effect. I think for the average person, you can stretch the boundaries in multiple directions at the same time and pretty far much farther than you probably have considered up to this point. You know, at some point I think specialization does play a role.
But I mean, many of the guys that we work with, they could shift into endurance events. They could go to strong man, they could go to max strength or power lifting. Like they’re just very agile physiologically, which I think is, you know, the more robust you are as just ideal. Yeah, that was a big takeaway, too, it’s just, you know, I even said we were warming up. I’m like, this is the most I’ve warmed up in probably six months.
I’m usually just hitting the ground running. So those were definitely a lot of the big, big things that I took away from it. It was an awesome weekend. I can’t speak highly enough. If you’re part of the rebel community, my God, you have to be out at the next one. It was just a blast there.
James Cerbie: Absolutely. It’s come back to the wonders. I think that’s another takeaway moment that we can probably talk about because. I can tell you from experience. You can get people as strong as Pierce with a reverse lunge because a lot of times you have people who just don’t squat well, they don’t have levers for squatting. A perfect example are baseball guys. I used to train like they’re six, five, long, lanky, like they got so much weird stuff going on.
If you try to squat that person, it’s a train wreck. Like maybe if you have a squat or you have it like a pendulum squat, you can make it work and it’d be nice. We didn’t have access to that. And so don’t overlook the value of really heavy SSB barbell front rack, either reverse lunges or rear foot elevated Bulgarian split squat style stuff like you can get really strong on one leg. And those patterns, like I’ve had a baseball guy go four or five for a double or triple per side on an SB reverse lunge like, yeah, just dumb strong.
So you don’t have to squat, right? Like, that’s another sacred cow if you have a lot of tools and options. This individual, as an example, his main lower body left was a S.B reverse lunge and we treated it similar to a squat like we hit doubles, triples, we hit fives and he got some strength there. And then he also could go and deadlift. He ripped probably like five fifty five seventy five on deadlift. So definitely don’t overlook the value of that heavy reverse lunge.
Replacing Main Squats with Single Leg Variations
That’s a potential replacement for squats. If squats are a problem for you. Like I know, Keiran, we did that for you and you came into silverback and having some knee issues the first time we just got you heavy front rack of first longen and you got strong as pissed doing that.
Keiran Halton: Oh, yeah. I felt like a million first, like I was like a super bomb, but like I had to like, keep cutting the squats or something. Like, let’s just let’s throw this in there, see how you do. And to your point, I got. Brick shit house, I mean, reverse lunges, like I think the second iteration, it was the first silverback after the beta test and it was like an accessory where you were like, all right, let’s say like a six hour.
And I was like three sixty five. Like I was like, oh, like this feels good. Like I got a little juice on the suit, whereas just felt great, felt strong, like I could push low. Like I think I had so much fun with that on Saturday. So that everybody felt pretty solid under the bar. Ryan liked it so much he jumped over to the reverse lunge and then with.
James Cerbie: The front squat in front of the first lunge and he was just eaten from the buffet.
Ryan Patrick: Super, super superset with us.
Keiran Halton: I turn around, you’re already back front squat and get us guys going for it.
Ryan Patrick: Dude you did to seventy five. It was just butter. I mean it was such a smooth cake.
Keiran Halton: I just feel like that’s a great main option for guys, for a lot of people who have issues with that. That’s true.
James Cerbie: So especially athletes like it makes a lot of sense for people that want to be athletic. So don’t be afraid to pull a squat out and go with that heavy lunge pattern, because like you just said here, and I think that three sixty five was that a barbell front rack or an SSB.
Keiran Halton: It was an SSB front rack.
James Cerbie: That’s a yeah. Yeah. It’s like and he did it for what, a six per side.
Keiran Halton: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah.
James Cerbie: Right. I’m like bro there are a lot of people that would love the front squat. Three sixty five for that. And it’s like I think it has so much application, it makes so much sense. The first place I ever saw that really use channels for like twenty three was when I did my first internship at Cressey performance. Like we have a reverse lunch with people all the time, like almost no one squatting. We did tons of heavy lunges and deadlifts and I like these guys are getting strong as fuck like yeah a lot of people do this.
Keiran Halton: It carries over really well to your squat if you want to throw it back in.
James Cerbie: Then you come back to a squat and you feel like an absolute just like a brick shit house. It’s like, oh, I am locked in, locked in. Not to mention if you are interested in this more athletic outcome where like, hey, I would like to be able to sprint and jump and cut. Newsflash heads up, if you didn’t know this, you’re going to spend the majority of your time doing that on one leg.
So it’s probably worth your time getting strong, like you can vet that. Also, you can vet that reverse lunge. It’s just something I don’t see utilize enough and people listening, like, don’t be afraid to pull that trigger and go there because it’ll be humbling at first. The reason I think a lot of people don’t go there is because they get embarrassed. It’s like they’re not moving a lot of load. They feel like they’re super off balance.
It’s like, just give it time to stay consistent with it. Like put your ego away. It’ll pay for itself and dividends in the long run.
Keiran Halton: Oh, yeah. I think oil is definitely a favorite in this podcast. Talking about all single lifestyles.
Ryan Patrick: Yeah, I was going to bring that up man. Some of the the younger traders, I mean they were probably in Haggis at the time Mike Boyle came out with like functional strength coach two or three when it was like pooping on squats and doing all the single stuff. But I mean, that’s probably 10, 12 years ago now or more.
James Cerbie: Because in that model, he’s still dead lifted at them, right?
Ryan Patrick: I believe so. And I have to go back and look.
James Cerbie: Because you’re still getting your big bilateral movement on a deadlift, which more people can get into safely than a really well executed squat, I would argue. Yeah, I think it’s far easier to get some of the high handle trap bar deadlift than it is to get somebody to do a really good squat. Oh, for sure. Right. That’s an old great cook thing like you. I think I remember him talking about that once.
Ryan Patrick: This is way back in the day, right? You maintain the squat, you train the deadlift. It was something in those lines. He thought of the squat just like maintaining the pattern. But then if you’re going to push load and velocity, like go after it. The deadlift.
Keiran Halton: Yeah I like that.
James Cerbie: Yeah. But OK, so you can get really strong on these single leg, reverse lunge, refed elevated Bulgarian squat variation. So don’t be afraid to go there, especially if you’re the type of person who when you squat it’s like my hips hurt my back hurt, my knee hurts. Like one of the simplest things you can do is just pull it and go with a single leg variation. It’s amazing how much cleans up pretty rapidly.
Ryan Patrick: Put the bar in front of you for the next six months. Good. On one leg. Be strong.
James Cerbie: Yeah, exactly. I think that on the track they also are getting to actually walk through a lot of the drills and the progressions and the throws and kind of how we think about more of that once we get standing up that top speed realm. Because day one in the gym, we were doing way more agility, change of direction, like half kneeling accelerations. We live more in that very short five to ten yard realm. And then we went up to the track on day two, hung out in the field.
And that’s where we’re able to actually talk about getting up, standing tall, like this is what top speed needs to look like for people. And I think one of the things that I noticed as a struggle for people was like the arm action, the difference in arm action on acceleration versus then being at top speed. A lot of people were super, just like a little drum beaters in here, like a high school football coach. Listen to this laugh, because that’s what you always call us, beating drums.
But if you’re in here, like beating drums, that’s no good, like during the acceleration phase, like you need a punch and get long. And then, like that arm swing, once we actually get up tall, we’ll get smaller and tighter. But it’s not just like elbow flexion, like you’re still getting a logit arm. I don’t know if you guys felt like you saw something really similar.
Keiran Halton: We got around.
Ryan Patrick: Yeah, I mean, it’s pretty typical what we see with most of the athletes we work with anyway. I think one of the barriers for guys who do lift a lot and haven’t been out running is that my shoulder flexion might be 90 degrees. So trying to get that front arm up, it usually flops out to the side like a chicken wing. So I think that’s why I see a lot of these guys have this rotational and coil. But yeah, I mean, you almost have to put them in positions where they are falling and they have no option but to split the arms and do it.
And I’m kind of a lazy coach. I’ll just throw people on hills because you can’t get up a hill, the steep one anyway without pumping the arms. So it just teaches a lot of the behaviors that I want without me just, you know, berating them constantly. But a lot of resistance to, I think, have been beneficial because it just slows the speed down. It allows them time to open up to kind of explore these ranges of motion.
But some of the strong guys just get this like yabba dabba doo Flintstone run out of the gates where it’s just real hurried and choppy and they go nowhere fast.
James Cerbie: I was going to piggyback on that super quick and then Keiran will go to you in terms like the really strong guys who are coming back to some type of maybe like sprinting, more athletic stuff. I think one of the points that also came up, which is really important, is you probably need to do less when you’re getting back into sprinting because like when you are really strong, when you have that strength background, your first instinct is going to be like you’re trying to muscle everything.
And that’s not speed. Speed is like it’s fluid. It’s loose. Like go look at a YouTube video headshot of U.S. Bolt running one hundred meters, homeboy. Looks like he’s taking a nap. He’s totally flowzone. But you take people that have been primarily just lifting in a weight room and bring them out to the track. And it’s just like, oh, this is like max effort. Everything’s tense. It’s like, bro, go like eighty five, 90 percent like do less than you think you need to.
Like, it’s very forgetting Sarah Marshall in that realm. But Keiren, what do you get on this also.
Keiran Halton: I agree with both of you guys. I really like it. Actually, you I think Lance had made the point about the Olympic podcast episode, just like slowing people down, getting them on the four side. And that’s where you can actually learn a little bit more. Right, because you’re actually going a little slower. So I really like what we talked about. The Hills is probably like the easiest, simplest, lowest barrier for clean stuff up for a lot of guys.
And then to your point, James was like, we probably need a lot more extensive methods early on when you’re coming from the gym out back to the feel a lot more sub, it’s OK to cut your sprints to like, you know, eighty, eighty five percent as you kind of like, start to build some volume back in. So I really liked both of those methods and then also just doing the basics really, really well, because I know people hadn’t been out to the track in a while, but even talking about coaching their athletes and stuff like just a really well executed like skit for distance, you know, the guys had to like had a little brain fart, like trying to get that going to get even or like.
Yeah, like really well done. Extensive bounds or like anything in that realm, like going back to like pee in middle school and stuff, like revisiting those basics. And then once you have those tools you can start challenging motor learning or whatever by starting to layer things right. Hit your bounds and then hit your ten yard flying sprint out of that just to build some USAC before the sprint. Or then you can combine your broad jump just passed in your sprint. Get the basics down really well before you start trying to do anything too funky. But then you could layer on top of that if you really want to.
Doing Less When Getting Back Into Sprinting
James Cerbie: Yeah, I think that was another big one, especially with this. If you want to get back into sprinting, start way slower than you think you need to. A little bit goes a really long way to spend time on more of those extensive jump variations we talk about. Right. Like the bounce, either the alternating or the single, like bounding, like get your tendons and ligaments and things like you used to this type of activity. Again, when you start to actually do stand up and do more top end speed work, like just make your flying sprint 10 yards have like a twenty yard build and 10 yard sprint and then cool down because I know a lot of people will just go from like zero to one hundred, like, OK, I’m going to go do flying sprints, I’m going to do a twenty build up at the thirty top end.
And then I’m like, yeah, you’re going to blow a quad or hamstring during that thirty yard top end. Like sprinting more than anything else. Like when you don’t use it you lose it and you got to be really careful and patient when you’re bringing this back into your life because like yeah, I got the notion that you should be able to sprint. If you’re a human and you want to consider yourself an athlete, you should be able to sprint.
If you can’t sprint, not an athlete. Like let’s be honest.
Ryan Patrick: Being strong is cool, but nothing looks more athletic than being slow and ordinated.
James Cerbie: Yeah. Oh yeah. That’s really well said.
Keiran Halton: I think one of the cool things was like, obviously we’ve all been using the rebel programs or the methodologies for a few years now. And and so we’re the guys who come out are the guys who have been on the program. You could tell like. Speaking about light, like all the vertical integration, like just the dimmer switch in everything, everybody did pretty solid with the athletic movements, everybody was hammering the weights pretty good, right? Like there wasn’t anybody who was like you wouldn’t look at anybody, say you’re not supposed to be here.
Right. Like, everybody was kind of in the wheelhouse. Everybody did fine, like picking the drills up. I’m sure if we had done like a back on the hike, everybody besides the elevation, everybody was able to keep up on the hike. So it was pretty cool to see the methodology really does pay off and you can kind of be the total package.
James Cerbie: Yeah, the weekend is a microcosm of that idea. Right. We went and had a nice hike at an elevation in the mountains. We did change of direction where we jumped, we sprinted, we lifted heavy weight. We got massive arm pumps, like you saw a little bit of everything in a short period of time. Like everybody did great.
Keiran Halton: Everybody wanted to get on the spitball, too. I was pretty impressed watching everybody.
James Cerbie: Yeah. Did Spike Ball as the game of champions and the best warm up of all time.
Keiran Halton: Yeah, 100 percent.
James Cerbie: So when we build the barn we’re just gonna have a dedicated spike ball court. That’s all I’m going to do to warm up is I’ll play Spike Ball for twenty minutes and then I’m going to go left.
Ryan Patrick: Yeah, I think that’s great.
James Cerbie: What other thing I did want to bring up here, we can finish on this because right when you brought this up earlier and I thought this is really funny. So you had mentioned that someone had a funny Instagram post about how someone was disqualified from the Olympic Games because they had a wide ISO, which I thought was hilarious. That was so good. And like you mentioned earlier, guys like don’t get so lost in that realm that you blow it so far out of proportion.
This is Signal-to-noise, like Nassim Taleb one on one. Some people are like, oh my God, I have a wider now I say, I’m so fragile I can’t do anything now. And it’s like, that is not the case. Stop it. Like it’s important for us to keep that in mind. You’re not a fragile little butterfly. Like Go ham, go train hard, have fun. We’ll manage that in training. But it’s like sometimes people take this wide inside narrow.
I say my name for pubic angle. They take all of these things and they make themselves feel like, oh, I can’t train hard until my essay is normal. I’m like, bro, there’s not a strong, powerful human on the planet that has a quote because who knows what normal actually is like. Normal is so just a thing like if you find yourself stuck in that rabbit hole and you’re beginning to think like, oh my God, I can’t train hard, like similar to the people who it’s like I woke up today and like, oh, well, my HIV score is bad, so I can’t do anything.
It’s like working out. Yeah. I’m like, you’re OK. You’re going to be fine, OK. Like it doesn’t like you’re not fragile. OK, so just stop it.
Ryan Patrick: There’s some of you like me who might see the red score and let’s go. It’s a challenge. It’s like prove it. Prove yourself today. Red just means full said.
Keiran Halton: How many people have you seen PR with a crappy readiness score. Right. You just like it. All right. Well, it doesn’t matter. You’re the red anyway. Let’s see what happens. And it just blows it out of the water.
Taking HRV Tracking With a Grain of Salt
James Cerbie: Yeah. Just be smart. Like, go warm up and see how you feel. Like if you start warming up and you’re like, man, I feel like trash, the bar’s not moving, then obviously be smart. But let’s be totally honest. Most of the things that people are using to track these things are not that accurate. Yeah, sorry. Let me change my phrasing. They’re probably not that precise. They may be accurate. They’re probably not very precise.
Like I have an oura ring, I wear it. I don’t think it’s really that close and the ballpark for my sleep and readiness scores. I think if you have a low resting heart rate, like mine’s about forty four, it doesn’t do a great job with that because it sees a larger one because you get larger deviations and swings and heart rate and it’s taken. That is like oh I told me I was awake for like three hours last night.
I slept great last night. So just take a lot of that stuff with a grain of salt like. And it’s frustrating when people go too far down that realm and think, well, I can’t lift hard now and correct, you just need to probably program better.
Keiran Halton: If you’re a real athlete, as in you get paid to do it or even if you just compete recreationally like they are not going to delay tip off because your HRV score is red, whatever that’s like.
James Cerbie: We’ve been very fortunate here to get a good number of military people in training with us, either in one on one or on the team, guys in Special Forces, Marines, et cetera. And it’s like, oh, sorry, you can’t go out today. Your HRV is not looking too good. It’s like it’s called real life. I don’t think that’s an option. Yeah, it’s just one of those things where we’ve probably amply beat this dead horse.
Now I’m getting really repetitive, but that was another one.
Ryan Patrick: I’ll circle back because I do want to go back to the ISA stuff. It’s yeah. You know, I think a lot of trainers and I put myself in this category, like intellectually all that the science and the theory behind that stuff is very interesting to me. And I think a lot of other people find that. And this industry, above all, from what I’ve seen, is just very biased towards self-improvement. That’s kind of the name of the game with fitness anyway.
And it carries over to education for a large number of people in this industry. And it’s you know, you start to learn these things and people get so absolute about it to where it interferes with actually making these binary decisions of our primary job is to deliver a training effect and make sure that we’re making progress in certain aptitudes of fitness. And we can identify those and we can quantify those speed, strength, endurance like these all have quantifiable metrics. But, you know, when we’re dancing in this theory, it’s like we’re first of all, anybody strong, they’re not going to lose their way to strength.
Like, I’m not going to breathe and recapture all this.
James Cerbie: You can manifest. You can manifest. Your deadlift, right?
Ryan Patrick: Yeah, I don’t know so that’s just my thinking on it and, you know, I’ve done many rabbit holes throughout my career. I mean, we were big into the PHMSA at one point. It was a very simplified version, but it became, you know, very limiting in some respects because I was younger and just didn’t have the perspective to train around some of these things. And somebody may pass the test before the session. And training affects what they look like after vice versa. You so it’s very dynamic.
James Cerbie: This just comes back to that point you made earlier of we have to respect these things. We also have to remember there’s a lot of unknown going on in this world at the end of day, like we just got to choose better exercises like. Like most everyone on the planet can hack squat, they can hack squat, they can move some weight, it’s just I just don’t think people do a good enough job of figuring out, like in a training session, they’re going to be places where I’m going to do my sensorimotor work and I’m very intentionally trying to improve movement competency.
That’s awesome. If that’s all you do in a training session, you’re terrible. You have to have some place in a training session where you’re chasing load or velocity that you have to work hard and getting adapted to. I think people don’t do a good job of choosing those exercises. I guess you have to just throw them on machines. What’s wrong with that? I don’t understand why that’s such a big thing. I think we saw a lot of people that are hesitant to utilize machines that are full advantage here.
Keiran and I were talking about this before we started recording. Like all of my lifting right now is on machines I freaking love. It is amazing. I’m like, I barely have to warm up. I get great muscle, feel like I’m getting stronger, I’m putting on size. I have my track and field day to integrate what’s going on in the machine world. It’s like I just think people need to broaden your scope in terms of the exercises that you think you can choose.
It’s like we can move past just barbells, even specialty bars, even using a heel wedge, like find the dumbest caveman gorilla exercise you can find if you have someone who really needs that help. But you have to find some place for them to be able to actually work hard. And that’s just choosing the right exercise, choosing better exercises for these people.
Keiran Halton: Yeah, I think to summarize the HRV and ISA conversation go back to that. Was it Kevin? Kevin was right, right. Let’s just go back to the other thing. I think. Yeah, I don’t think I’m going over that. Yes, you are. And then he crushed it. So yeah.
James Cerbie: Then he smoked two seventy five for a triple on each leg. Yeah absolutely. Well OK, we probably ranted enough here. Anything else that really jumps off the page that you guys that would be worth bringing up talking about here, trying to think like next time I’d love to have someone who just follows us around like videos, everything, because there are so many good little conversations and spin offs or we talked about stuff that was really high quality.
Keiran Halton: Yeah, I think just the last parting words is Ryan saying curating your community and being really intentional about that. And I know for me it’s kind of like Ryan. Right. Like kind of at a frustrated place back in 2018, not surrounded by you know, I have a good view, a few good people around me here, but looking for more. And you know, back in the day it was a lot smaller, but you definitely curated that community and made it a lot easier to get in and find those like-minded people.
And even though we were communicating like we didn’t meet for a few years, I learned so much in that time from you guys. And to Ryan’s point, I knew I had a crazy challenge on Saturday. I lived my life a lot differently when I was being held accountable. No one I had to catch, like Ryan or Dayton or any of those guys. So this is the place to be. And I came in as an athlete. I know I’m a coach now, but I still very much believe in what’s going on here. So that’s a huge deal for me.
James Cerbie: Yeah, oh, totally piggyback on that, like, that’s just I think my entire purpose and goal in life is to try to bring this total package evolved model of strength conditioning to more people. I think there are so many people out there that were athletes in high school or athletes in college, and they just feel like they don’t have a home. That’s like they tried powerlifting and they liked parts of it. They’ve tried bodybuilding. They like pieces of it, like you can have all of those things, like you can be strong in the big three.
You can be jacked, you can be powerful, you can be conditioned, you can move really well and not be in pain. Like this outcome is very one hundred percent attainable and we can get you competitive. You can throw down, have fun, have a community like. That’s just what I want to keep working to build, because, like that weekend was so much fun for me and I 100 percent believe just and the purpose and the journey and the mission that we all agree upon here. Ryan Patrick, any wise parting words for the people?
Ryan Patrick: I’ll sum it up in the conversation you and I had coming down the mountain, but just play long term games with long term people.
Keiran Halton: I love that.
James Cerbie: That’s really good. That’s really good. Another one of my massive band crushes. Have you found that book or you don’t get the book because you can get the podcast, which is really good.
Ryan Patrick: I have the podcast.
James Cerbie: It’s like three hours. Yeah, it’s phenomenal.
Ryan Patrick: It’s good out of university. Yeah.
James Cerbie: Baluchis highly recommend Novara advocate how to get rich. It’s not what you think it’s going to be. The title is a little quick baby, but it is phenomenal. Or the Almanac of Naval. I have two copies on my bookshelf. I’m going to give you one. But yeah, I highly recommend that we leave it with the long term gains of the long term people. You’re not a fragile little butterfly. Figure out where you need to work hard and can work hard.
Surround yourself with the right people. Play, have fun. Choose got exercises.
Ryan Patrick: Take your vitamins, say your prayers.
James Cerbie: We get in on that. Have a great week, everybody.
Keiran Halton: See you!
Ryan Patrick: Thanks, guys.
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