Order of Man - August 01, 2017


124: Starting Strength | Matt Reynolds


Episode Stats

Length

43 minutes

Words per Minute

230.8936

Word Count

10,140

Sentence Count

635

Misogynist Sentences

9

Hate Speech Sentences

6


Summary

Matt Reynolds is the founder of Starting Strength Online Coaching and a man who has nearly 20 years of experience competing in strength sports and coaching barbell-based strength and conditioning. He has not only created one of the premier online coaching services on the planet, but he is also my personal strength coach. Today he s here to share why all men should consider adding barbell training to their routine, the core lifts we should work on improving, how strength training improves mental toughness, and how to get started on your own journey to building more strength.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 There are a lot of tasks that we're called to do as men. Among other things, your physical
00:00:03.740 strength will make the difference between your ability to accomplish those tasks or not. My
00:00:08.380 guest today is Matt Reynolds, the founder of Starting Strength Online Coaching and a man
00:00:12.640 who has nearly 20 years of experience competing in strength sports and coaching barbell-based
00:00:17.940 strength and conditioning. He has not only created one of the premier online coaching
00:00:22.180 services on the planet, he is also my personal strength coach. Today, he's here to share why
00:00:27.180 all men should consider adding barbell training to their routine, the core lifts we should
00:00:31.740 work on improving, how strength training improves mental toughness, and how to get started on
00:00:36.880 your own journey to building more strength. You're a man of action. You live life to the
00:00:41.200 fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you
00:00:46.300 get back up one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient,
00:00:52.700 strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end
00:00:58.960 of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
00:01:03.980 Men, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler, and I am the host and the founder of
00:01:08.240 this podcast, The Order of Man. I want to welcome you today. Whether you're new to the show or an
00:01:14.200 Order of Man veteran, you are in the right place if you're working on becoming a better man in every
00:01:19.460 facet of life. A lot of people ask me what that even means. What does it mean to be a better man?
00:01:25.460 And at the end of the day, I want you to have more in your life, deeper relationships with the people
00:01:31.100 you care about, a thriving business or an expanding career, strength and health that you deserve,
00:01:36.360 which is what we're going to be talking about today, more money in your bank account, growing
00:01:39.940 life experiences, and the quiet confidence that you're living life the way that it is meant to be
00:01:45.420 lived. So in order to help you do that, I interview successful men. I ask them great questions,
00:01:50.480 and then we deliver our conversations to you. Today is no different. This is usually where I'd
00:01:55.020 get into a couple of announcements. I don't have a lot today as we have sold out our first ever
00:01:59.560 live meetup. And if you are coming to that, I am really looking forward to meeting you. And
00:02:04.680 we don't yet have the dates for the next uprising experience. We will shortly. So be on the lookout for
00:02:10.960 that. So that said, let me just give you two quick resources, and then we'll get into the
00:02:14.820 conversation. First, our closed Order of Men Facebook group with over 35,000 men. And you
00:02:20.700 can access that at facebook.com slash groups slash Order of Men. And second, our exclusive
00:02:25.820 brotherhood, The Iron Council, which you can learn more about at orderofmen.com slash iron
00:02:31.360 council. All right, guys, enough with the delays. My guest today, like I mentioned before, is Matt
00:02:36.600 Reynolds. He has nearly 20 years of experience competing in strength sports and coaching barbell
00:02:41.320 based strength and conditioning. The guy first totaled elite in powerlifting in 2004. He won
00:02:47.660 his professional status in the sports of strongman in 2006. And he founded one of the strongest and
00:02:53.700 largest pure strength gyms in the country, strong gym, which was named powerlifting watch gym of the
00:02:59.080 year for 2013 and 2014. He holds his starting strength certification and has traveled throughout the
00:03:06.680 country serving as a staff coach with Mark Ripito, which I know a lot of you guys are familiar
00:03:10.700 with for starting strength seminars. But rather than talk about the rest of his accomplishments,
00:03:15.900 which are many, I think the best compliment I can pay the man is that he is a great coach. And I've
00:03:21.600 worked with a lot of different coaches. I know from experience that he is a great coach because he's
00:03:26.140 been coaching me for the past two months. And I can tell you that I have gotten a lot stronger in a
00:03:31.240 very, very short period of time. And again, that's the best compliment and testament I can give.
00:03:35.960 So without further delay, let's dig into the conversation with my strength coach, Mr. Matt
00:03:40.520 Reynolds. Matt, what's going on, brother? Thanks for joining me on the show today.
00:03:45.200 Hey, Ryan. Thanks for having me on the show, man. I'm excited to be here.
00:03:47.840 So I just learned we're pretty well connected with Jordan Harbinger, Brett McKay, Andy Priscilla,
00:03:53.020 Joe DeSena, like all these guys that I know, you know, so it makes sense that we're having this
00:03:56.260 conversation, man. Yeah. I seem to find this on these podcasts. We all kind of run around in the same
00:04:00.580 circles, right? That's kind of the way it works. So yeah, I trained Brett McKay and Jordan
00:04:04.440 Harbinger and I've known Andy Frazella since, uh, well before the years before he was the MF CEO
00:04:09.920 in town and same start in business there. So yeah. Right on. Cool, man. I'm looking forward
00:04:15.260 to this discussion because this is something I think I'm going to benefit from just as much,
00:04:18.880 if not more than anybody who might be listening. The first question that I want to ask you as we
00:04:23.360 lead this thing off is why do you feel barbell training is so valuable as opposed to, and maybe
00:04:29.280 not opposed to, but, uh, compared to conditioning or dumbbell training or free weights or whatever
00:04:35.300 it may be. I'm really curious what you have to say about that. I think it really comes back to two
00:04:38.860 things. One barbell training gives you the most bang for your buck. It's that, it's that simple in a,
00:04:43.960 in a world where my primary demographic of client really would be the type of guys would be to listen
00:04:49.480 to this podcast. They're 30 years old to 50 years old, kind of upper middle class, executive,
00:04:54.680 upper class, executive guys. They don't have a ton of time. They can't train five, six, seven,
00:05:00.100 eight hours a week. And so barbell training gets you the best bang for your buck. So sort of a
00:05:06.080 greatest return on investment for the most minimum effective dose. And so I love barbell training that
00:05:11.540 way. But the, the other piece of it is this, if you think about every possible physical attribute
00:05:17.560 you can have, um, strength being one of those speed, agility, coordination, uh, balance,
00:05:24.580 accuracy, all those sorts of things that even CrossFit sort of defines as the 10 basic physical
00:05:28.760 abilities. Strength is the only one that makes all of the other ones better. So for example,
00:05:33.880 you know, we'll, we'll get overweight and a big overweight guy will come in and we'll teach him
00:05:37.460 how to squat and we'll teach him how to squat with a full range of motion and his mobility will get
00:05:41.600 better, especially for the first several months because the guy's never done a full range of motion
00:05:45.580 squat. But this isn't a two way street. If the same guy didn't do strength training and went and
00:05:50.640 joined a yoga class, he would certainly get more mobility, but he would not get any stronger.
00:05:55.660 And so again, for an absolute beginner or a novice, all of those things get better by simply strength
00:06:02.200 training using the barbell lifts. And we think the barbell lifts are better than other things because
00:06:05.620 the barbell lifts are, are very easily incrementally loaded. One of the problems you have with say body
00:06:12.220 weight exercises and we're not antibody weight exercise. We use things like pull-ups and dips
00:06:16.460 and whatnot as accessory movements, but you get good at those relatively quickly. And then what
00:06:21.600 are you going to do? It's very hard to incrementally load a pull-up. I mean, at best, you've got to put
00:06:26.880 a, you know, a dip belt on or a pull-up belt on and you add little plates at a time and you get heavier
00:06:31.840 and heavier. And it's, it's just far more difficult than adding two and a half pounds to a barbell.
00:06:36.940 Right. And so for us, it's really comes back to biggest bang for your buck. That's why we love it.
00:06:41.180 Yeah. I mean, it sounds like the ease and efficiency of barbell training over anything
00:06:44.300 else is just that much more, like you said, I mean, we're busy. We've got so much to do. I know
00:06:47.960 for me, as I've done CrossFit and we talked a little bit about that, even when we have strength
00:06:52.780 days, I know that also is a conditioning component. So I can see how it crosses over to these other
00:06:58.040 elements of, of health as well. You know, when you look at the Olympic lifts, things like
00:07:01.540 cleans and snatches. If you have a guy that deadlifts 600 pounds, even if he doesn't work
00:07:06.940 on his clean and snatch very much, he's going to be able to clean far more than the average person
00:07:10.660 just because he's so strong. And so if I work on the skill, say like a clean or, or snatch or both
00:07:17.580 while I'm getting stronger, uh, that working on the skill is what we consider practice. It's the
00:07:22.540 same thing as throwing a baseball from a pitcher, throwing a shot put or, or whatever. I, I'm not
00:07:26.760 going to stop doing the skill. I'm not going to stop practicing the skill, but at the same time,
00:07:30.680 I'm going to really push to, to get generally stronger from squats and deadlifts and bench
00:07:35.060 presses and presses those, those big kind of major four lifts. Um, what's going to happen
00:07:39.560 is the skill is going to get better because the motor pattern is going to continue to develop
00:07:43.680 so that as I get stronger and bigger and more muscle mass, the motor pattern, it doesn't
00:07:48.340 get screwed up because I continue to practice the motor pattern. But the training is the, is
00:07:53.100 the squats and the deadlifts and the heavy lifting with the barbell. So it works really
00:07:56.420 well. The motor pattern I think is hard too, because a lot of the times you're not
00:08:00.100 getting instantaneous feedback. And for me, for example, without having a very, I won't
00:08:07.040 say it's not that great of form. I imagine I'm really anxious to start working with you
00:08:11.460 about this, but it would be easier for me to lift more weight with improper form right
00:08:17.680 now than it probably would be to lift with proper form just because I don't have those
00:08:22.880 muscles developed. Is that right? Or am I misunderstanding that? Yeah, that, that makes sense, especially
00:08:27.320 for a beginner. One of the things you want to think about is, you know, a lot of people
00:08:30.380 will develop what we call form creep, which is they, as they, as they move along, maybe
00:08:34.960 they learn from a coach early on in their training. And then, uh, for whatever reason,
00:08:38.520 they don't continue to train with that coach. And so they continue to get relatively stronger,
00:08:42.100 but they're not focusing on their form. And so they let this form creep come in. It's
00:08:45.200 the need to have a good coach. And what will happen is, is that they, they will, they
00:08:49.600 will lift in a way that is not optimal, but they can still lift more in a suboptimal
00:08:53.700 way than they could with correct form. However, that the ceiling for lifting with incorrect
00:08:59.500 form is far lower than the ceiling for lifting with perfect form. And so usually when we get
00:09:04.040 a client, we'll, we'll back their weight off just a bit. We'll perfect form first, and
00:09:08.140 then we'll go up just a little bit at a time while perfecting or keeping that form perfect.
00:09:12.920 And, and even, even making the motor pattern better and more efficient. I mean, that's, if
00:09:16.820 you see somebody, you interviewed Chris Duffin a while back as a unbelievable power lifter.
00:09:20.840 If you watch him, his, if he deadlifts, the guy deadlifts up around a thousand pounds,
00:09:25.840 his, his deadlifts at 135 look exactly like his deadlifts at a thousand pounds.
00:09:31.140 Interesting. Yeah. And that's because his motor pattern is, is perfect. I mean,
00:09:34.000 the guy has so efficient at the lifts. And so that's what we're trying to do with our
00:09:36.980 clients is develop this very perfect, very clean motor parents. Also one of the problems
00:09:41.040 that we have, man, CrossFit has done some tremendous things for the strength community
00:09:44.620 and for the fitness community in general. But one of my issues with CrossFit is that they tend
00:09:48.640 to force middle-aged business executives and soccer moms into doing high rep conditioning with
00:09:55.300 the barbell lifts. And so what you see when you see, you know, 30 cleans for time or 30 snatches for
00:10:00.260 time, or these sort of Olympic lifts in, in the Metcon wads is that you see a lot of form fall apart.
00:10:06.020 Yeah. And so I don't have any problem with Metcons in general. I would just rather them to be low
00:10:10.460 skill and low impact, especially for non-competitive CrossFitters, and then focus on strength
00:10:17.300 training for the things that are high skill movements like snatches and cleans and squats
00:10:21.680 and things like that. I know this is really hard, especially for a man like myself who at times
00:10:26.960 tends to be ego driven. Like I'd rather put the big numbers on the board than do it correctly and put
00:10:31.440 up a lower number. So I know it can be difficult, but we're talking about the long-term gain here as
00:10:37.180 opposed to the short-term, Hey, I get to put up a big number on the board. So I can see how valuable
00:10:41.700 that would be. You talked a little bit about some of these core movements. I think everybody's
00:10:45.940 probably familiar with, you know, the deadlift and the, and the squat and the bench. Are there
00:10:49.740 other core movements that we should consider adding or at least starting with? Yeah. I mean,
00:10:53.940 we, we like the heavy presses too. So the bench, I mean, everybody bench presses, whether we want
00:10:58.120 them to or not. Right. That's what guys do. They've been, that's what they know. Rarely does someone
00:11:01.660 walk up to you and say, how much do you deadlift? Although I, it's a far cooler question.
00:11:05.320 So yeah, probably more significant. I imagine as well as the deadlift, right?
00:11:08.380 Sure. I mean, is there anything that we're not crazy about the term functional movement,
00:11:12.100 but is there anything more functional than just picking heavy weight up off the floor? I mean,
00:11:15.360 that's, that's, uh, you know, back to our roots of humanity. And so, but yeah, we, we love, uh,
00:11:20.220 we love the heavy presses as well. So what we call the press and what most, most of your listeners
00:11:24.080 would understand is the military press, just a strict overhead press out of the wreck. We do that
00:11:29.080 as well. And the bench press and, and the, and then of course the cleans and snatches for more
00:11:33.380 intermediate, uh, lifters are fine and younger lifters. We, we wouldn't tend to have, uh, guys over
00:11:38.520 probably 45 clean or snatch unless they just specifically wanted to. Why is that? Because
00:11:43.140 you can't develop power when you're old. That's really what it comes down to power. It's hard to
00:11:46.960 develop power, impossible really to develop power. So in the ages that power can still develop. And
00:11:51.420 if you think about power in the most simple sort of way, power is just strength expressed quickly.
00:11:56.720 Yeah. I can't really, I can't really get quicker when I'm older. I can only get stronger. And so the
00:12:03.020 strength expressed quickly only makes the strength portion better for older guys. That's really
00:12:07.460 you need strength because you need the explosion getting the bar over your head. If I understand
00:12:10.660 correctly. Yeah. That's what's, you know, we see this all the time where we see, um, you know,
00:12:14.100 in a, in a high school football class, you, you'll see, uh, you know, the eighth graders come in and
00:12:18.280 the second semester and they're getting ready for high school football and the coach thinks they
00:12:20.960 need to clean in eighth grade. Guys can't clean 75 or 85 pounds. Right. There's just no reason for
00:12:26.620 them to clean 75 or 85 pounds until they get up to deadlift, you know, 275. And they, and with,
00:12:31.460 with our programming, they can deadlift 275 and usually two months or so. It just doesn't take very long.
00:12:36.940 And then certainly at that point you can incorporate the clean. And so, uh, and for
00:12:40.900 an eighth grader or, or 17 year old kid or 21 or your listeners that are 25, they definitely
00:12:46.160 can do things like the power clean. Those are big lists. So there's a reason we come up with
00:12:49.460 these lists. Let me, I'll, I'll do it real quick. So we look at the list. We know the lists
00:12:53.380 have the best impact or the biggest bang for our buck are the lifts that number one use the
00:12:59.140 most muscle mass. So the most muscle mass moves on an individual lift is a, is a major criteria.
00:13:04.680 So things like squats are better than things like leg, leg press, because while the legs
00:13:10.620 still bend the leg press, the only thing that is basically loaded on a leg press are the,
00:13:16.180 is the body from the hips to the end of the feet. But on a spot, the body is loaded from
00:13:20.780 the top of the shoulders to the bottom of the foot. So you're engaging more of your body.
00:13:25.800 Absolutely. So that's, that's one criteria. The second criteria is using the most weight
00:13:29.740 possible. And that's easy way to think about this is, is it going to be more beneficial for
00:13:33.080 you to squat, say with good form, 315 pounds, or is it better for you to do a hundred air squats?
00:13:39.020 And I think most people understand that the weight is the thing that's going to continue
00:13:42.460 to drive adaptation. And the third one is we want to move that weight for the greatest
00:13:47.400 effective range of motion. So this is why we do full squats or squats just below parallel
00:13:52.460 and not quarter squats. And we, why we also don't do ass to ankle squats, because ass to ankle
00:13:58.400 squats, especially for men mean that you are, you are going to actually reduce some of the muscle
00:14:03.780 use because you're going to have to relax your hamstrings or worse, relax your low back to get
00:14:08.880 into that deep squat position. So we start returns, right? That's exactly right. It's a law of diminishing
00:14:14.280 returns. And so for us, the greatest effective range of motion for a squat is going to be a squat
00:14:18.360 that's performed just below parallel. So if I use those three criteria of, of most muscle mass,
00:14:23.820 most weight, greatest effective range of motion, I take all of these infinite number of exercises
00:14:28.680 that I could possibly do when I walk into a gym, especially a globo type gym with all of the
00:14:33.060 machines and whatnot. And it pairs it down to really four primary exercises and two power exercises.
00:14:39.780 And that again is the squat, the deadlift, the bench press and the press, and then the clean and
00:14:43.820 the snatch. And those, that's really those six exercises. Um, and if you're over 40, just the four
00:14:49.480 primary strength exercises should make up 90% of everything you do forever. Uh, and the other
00:14:55.560 stuff is not nearly as important. So you talk about lifting heavy versus going for reps. And I can
00:15:01.580 certainly understand that because the odds of me having to lift a car hood off my wife in a car
00:15:07.180 accident versus doing a hundred air squats makes sense. But is there a reason why or how the muscles
00:15:13.060 respond that a hundred air squats or even a lot of reps with low weight actually makes sense?
00:15:18.720 Uh, probably not. Okay. Yeah, no, fair enough. I'm trying to figure this stuff out for a competitive
00:15:23.860 crossfitter. Of course. Right. Because that's the actual competitive game. Right. Yeah. So let me
00:15:29.220 just think about it this way. So I, I used to own a crossfit code, a crossfit and would go in there
00:15:33.900 and play around some and do the wads and I've squatted. I'm not a great squatter like Chris
00:15:38.060 Tuffin, but I've squatted over 600 pounds in competition several times. So I'm a strong squatter.
00:15:42.100 I have no problem doing a hundred air squats with the, because I can do a 600 pounds. But the problem is,
00:15:47.820 is the guy that does a hundred air squats all the time, probably can't squat to 25 and that's a
00:15:53.660 problem. Yeah. So you won't be doing Murph then coming up next week. It sounds like I have done
00:15:58.480 Murph once before. That's a Murph is a guaranteed way to, uh, to make yourself sore for about two and
00:16:03.520 a half weeks and screw up your training real bad. So, but it's for a good cause. And you know,
00:16:08.960 Michael Murphy was a hell of a soldier. And so it's a, I'm certainly if guys want to do it,
00:16:12.600 that's fine. Let them, let them do it. I'm going to go back to something you said,
00:16:15.220 you talked about the term functional movement and you said you did not like that from my
00:16:18.960 perspective, the way I understand this. So help me if I'm wrong is transferring your strength to
00:16:25.220 the ability to operate in everyday life. Am I misunderstanding that? And maybe no, that's
00:16:29.900 definition of it. Yeah. And if that's, if that's the way you define it, that'd be,
00:16:32.880 that'd be perfectly fine. So then the question is, what do you do to get that adaptation? If that's
00:16:37.880 the adaptation you want to be prepared for everyday life, do we need to run around in the woods with our
00:16:43.060 shoes off barefooted or do we, I mean, what, you know, what are the things that we do that's going
00:16:47.340 to give us the best return on that investment? And for us, it's heavy strength training is going
00:16:52.220 to be the thing that at least for the first, say six months is going to drive that adaptation
00:16:57.260 better than anything else. It's going to make us faster. It's going to make our vertical jump go up,
00:17:02.160 not tremendously because most of that is genetic, but if you take an endurance cyclist and he squats
00:17:06.700 a hundred pounds, as some endurance cyclists will do, and we get him off the bike and we're
00:17:11.480 basically rather than having him ride the bike six days a week, we have him ride the bike two days a
00:17:14.960 week. And in a month we increase his squat from 100 pounds to 200 pounds, which is not that difficult
00:17:21.060 to do, certainly in six weeks. Then now every time he is pushing on the pedals, if originally the pedal
00:17:28.060 stroke was, was 20% of his max leg strength, now it's only 10%, which means he can ride in a more
00:17:34.680 powerful gear, which means he can go faster or he can go longer. So this, this stuff works even with
00:17:40.360 endurance athletes. We do this all the time. I don't need to make an endurance cyclist squat
00:17:45.260 600 pounds, but if he only squats a hundred pounds, the guy should probably squat 300 or 275. That's not
00:17:53.040 that hard to do. We have tons and tons of women that we coach that squat 300 pounds. And I'm not
00:17:57.800 talking about big bodybuilder girls. I'm talking about 45 year old soccer moms who take their kids
00:18:02.860 to school and go to soccer class and go to hot yoga and, and don't eat a ton of protein and they can
00:18:08.100 still squat 300 pounds. So if your listeners are out there going, man, I can't squat 300 pounds,
00:18:11.520 but look, every single normal female that we have can squat 300 pounds after, after a year or so of
00:18:18.460 training with us. Um, it's just not that difficult and they don't, you know, they don't become big
00:18:22.220 muscular behemoths. They look great. Their body responded the way they wanted them to respond.
00:18:26.340 They get more tone and less fat and all of those sorts of things they wanted. And so now they're more
00:18:31.060 functionally fit to be able to conquer life's normal things, like pick up your kids and go play
00:18:36.820 soccer on the soccer field. And the sort of things that we want to do as men as well with our, with
00:18:41.180 our kids and our families, uh, strength training is going to get you there faster than anything else
00:18:45.160 will. Yeah, that makes sense. I know for me, one of the biggest things was being able to, and I can do
00:18:49.480 this right now is outlast my children on the trampoline, which is awesome. I love that. These
00:18:53.700 kids, that's an intense exercise. We've got one of those too, man. It's crazy. You know, 30 minutes on a
00:18:58.480 trampoline. That's an intense cardio session for sure. Yeah. And then we've got a pool too. Same sort of
00:19:02.980 thing. My kids just swim all day and it's, it's a lot more fun to sit in the floaty and drink a
00:19:07.540 margarita, but you know, yeah, you got to do, right. Yeah. Being able to keep up with your kids.
00:19:11.500 That stuff is important. And then we look at longevity too, man. We've got a lot of,
00:19:14.700 a lot of guys are like in their seventies and this stuff matters because it keeps them out of nursing
00:19:19.700 homes. And so, you know, you think about it, the fitness industry is rife with just kind of
00:19:23.880 a shallow world that's based on aesthetics, which we can't stand. We train for performance first and
00:19:29.080 aesthetics as a by-product of that performance. But if you're, if you're a 65, 70 year old man
00:19:33.860 and you're having trouble getting in and out of your car, or you're having trouble getting on and
00:19:37.600 off the toilet, this stuff really matters. I mean, it allows you to hold your independence.
00:19:42.140 I want to be able to walk, not just my daughters down the aisle at their wedding, but I want to walk
00:19:46.400 my grandkids down the aisle. And strength is the best thing I can do to invest in that sort of
00:19:50.720 future. I don't want to feel, I don't want to have a 15, 20 year decline in health and then die
00:19:57.060 having looked back and say, man, the last 20 of my years were brutal. I just want to live, you know,
00:20:02.380 just have an incredible high quality of life and then just die one day. That's, that's what I want.
00:20:07.360 Right. Sure. Yeah. Die in your sleep, right? That's right. I just want to die in my sleep.
00:20:11.340 I don't want to die because I wasted away with some wasting away disease. And you, you know,
00:20:15.660 you watch somebody, they break their hip and then they lay in bed and they get pneumonia. And it's
00:20:19.160 just a, man, it's a terribly painful place. And they wouldn't have had to do that had they focused
00:20:23.820 on strength. Now, this makes sense. I mean, you're talking about quality of life,
00:20:26.640 but in addition to quality of life, there's also the cost of healthcare and rising health costs.
00:20:32.720 And what's really funny is I have people that say, oh, you shouldn't train too hard because
00:20:35.860 you might injure yourself. I'm like, what's the greater risk? Me injuring myself or me not doing
00:20:41.200 anything and developing diabetes or dying early. And that's the risk I'm worried about.
00:20:46.040 Yeah. Probably 90% of your listeners today have a herniated disc in their back. So probably 50% of
00:20:52.000 those guys know about it and 50% don't, but most people over 30 have a herniated disc in their
00:20:56.900 back. And the conventional medical wisdom is, well, don't do anything. Don't do anything on
00:21:01.320 your back. Don't tax your back. So what happens is your back just continues to get weaker and more
00:21:06.240 vulnerable to injury. But instead we could lift with absolutely perfect form and we could strengthen
00:21:12.440 the muscles around the spine. Those, those erector muscles and the psoas and the muscles of the trunk
00:21:17.400 and the muscles of the hip. Then what we'll do is that musculature will grow and we'll see
00:21:22.600 hypertrophy there and they'll become stronger and denser and they'll protect the musculoskeletal
00:21:27.620 system. And so that you are far less vulnerable to injury. And so that's, you know, we look at
00:21:32.780 injuries a little different too. We're, we're pretty aggressive with the way we rehab our injuries.
00:21:36.600 We rehab disc problems that way, but we also rehab torn muscles that way that nothing gets better
00:21:41.940 when you sit on it and do nothing. We're going to push pretty hard to get rehabbed.
00:21:45.040 Interesting.
00:21:47.400 Men, amazing things are happening inside the iron council. If you don't already know
00:21:52.380 what this is, this is our exclusive brotherhood designed and program to help you do big things
00:21:58.240 in your life. I don't know what those big things are for you. They're different for everyone,
00:22:02.240 but regardless of the things that get you fired up and the goals that you have, we have created
00:22:06.900 the framework for reaching those objectives in a very short period of time. And at the end of the
00:22:12.320 day, we're teaching guys a new operating system for life, their mindset, the way that we
00:22:17.180 plan and conquer the day, their bodies and health, their businesses and the relationships
00:22:22.120 they care about most. If you're interested in tapping into the brotherhood of strong and
00:22:26.620 ambitious and motivated men that we've created, I want to invite you to claim your seat at the
00:22:31.460 table and gain immediate access to the tools and the resources, the guidance, direction, and
00:22:37.340 accountability to help you become the man that you are meant to be. If you are interested in a new
00:22:41.600 way of doing things, we will show it to you and hold your feet to the fire. You can join us
00:22:46.440 at orderofman.com slash iron council. Again, that's orderofman.com slash iron council. Now let's
00:22:52.960 get back to the conversation with Matt. Let's talk about the other perspective or taking this too far
00:22:58.740 because I think there is an element I'm assuming of overtraining. What does that look like? And how
00:23:03.600 do you know you've reached that point? Maybe the easiest way to think about this, if you think about
00:23:06.640 training kind of on a pendulum, when most people come to us, they are weak and unhealthy and the
00:23:12.320 pendulum is way over on the left side, weak and unhealthy. And after they've trained with us for
00:23:17.440 say six months or a year, 18 months, somewhere in there, we get them strong and healthy. And then
00:23:23.040 they have to make a decision at strong and healthy. And that is, do you want to keep pushing the
00:23:27.340 strength? Do you want to become competitive? Do you want to compete in powerlifting meets? Do you want
00:23:30.680 to compete in Olympic weightlifting? Do you want to compete in CrossFit? Do you want to compete in these
00:23:34.240 things? At which point the pendulum starts to swing towards the right side, which is really strong,
00:23:40.420 but not quite as healthy, or at least in a point where you are risking injury because it is now
00:23:44.840 competitive. Yeah. Because we've seen, I mean, I've seen guys who just take this to the extreme,
00:23:48.840 whether it's the way that they look or their inability to function in everyday life. And yeah,
00:23:53.060 there's that element of competition, but it's like, man, what's your standard of living at this point?
00:23:56.980 That's exactly right. So the thing that most of your listeners need to understand is they're not
00:24:01.400 going to wake up one day and be that they're not going to wake up one day. I get this all the time
00:24:04.860 where guys hire me and they'll say, man, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to be a big bulky
00:24:08.500 powerlifter. You're like, don't worry about it. You're not, you're not, you're not running that
00:24:12.140 risk right now. Correct. It doesn't happen accidentally. And so usually I, I I'm happy to
00:24:16.520 have that talk with my clients. Matter of fact, I had that talk with, with Brett McKay just two weeks
00:24:20.720 ago. And I said, okay, so Brett McKay went and did his first powerlifting meet and he deadlifted 533 pounds and
00:24:26.220 he squats, uh, almost four 50 at this point. So he's a nice, strong guy looks good. It's super
00:24:31.480 healthy. Everything's awesome. And I said, what do you want to do? And he said, I think I want to
00:24:34.740 keep getting stronger because that's, because that's what he wanted. And so, uh, I said, Hey,
00:24:38.520 you want to just maintain strength and go do mud runs with your wife and what, that's totally fine
00:24:42.980 too. This is, this is not my goals. These aren't my goals or your goals. And so you don't have to
00:24:47.880 make that decision on day one. You have to make that decision when you get there and, and you're often a
00:24:51.860 different person by the time you get there. And it, it certainly refines you. I mean, the strength
00:24:55.360 training is an incredibly refining experience. When you, when you have to squat three sets of
00:25:00.100 five, really heavy, the sort of stuff that we prescribe in starting straight three sets of five
00:25:03.880 across. So the same weight, and you've been doing this for three or four months and you go in on
00:25:08.820 Monday and you squat three sets of five. Let's say you squat 300 pounds and it's really, really heavy
00:25:14.320 and you barely get your three sets of five. Well, then you've got to come back Wednesday and you've got
00:25:18.720 to go up to 305 for three sets of five. We keep putting weight on the bar and there's a refining
00:25:23.220 process to that, not just physically, but there's a refining process to that, to that mentally and
00:25:27.760 emotionally and relationally, because, uh, you know, it's, it's this idea of, of, of taking the
00:25:33.320 hardware, the hard way it's, it's voluntary hardship. It's, it's, we find things that are hard that bring
00:25:40.200 us value. So there's value in the work itself. Like certainly it makes us stronger and it makes us
00:25:44.840 physically look better and feel better, but there's actually this intrinsic sort of value that occurs
00:25:49.080 mentally for people who have gone through these very difficult things. And for your listeners that
00:25:53.200 have gone through difficult things that aren't, aren't even things like squats, they'll understand
00:25:56.600 this. The harder things you do, especially when they're voluntary, the more they will refine us.
00:26:01.340 And so this is one of the ways that we refine ourselves as men. And it makes it so that when our
00:26:05.720 jobs are hard or our marriage is harder or raising our kids are hard, it's, it's, we can handle it a
00:26:10.720 little better because we know what hard feels like in the weight room. And we know that we're going to,
00:26:14.940 we're going to fight this and come out on the other side. And so I, I love the refining process of
00:26:18.720 strength training as well. Yeah. I mean, that's makes sense because I know from a day-to-day basis,
00:26:23.100 even like I can tell you without knowing, for example, if I were able to do this, that I didn't
00:26:27.400 go into the gym. Like I can feel that mentally. I can feel that in my mind, I can feel that when I
00:26:32.800 do go to the gym, that I'm, I'm, I'm much sharper, I'm much more engaged. Things don't get to me quite
00:26:38.120 as, as much when I go to the gym every morning. So I can see it a day-to-day basis. And I've told the
00:26:42.900 guys and they're going to get sick of hearing me say, this is three and a half or so years, almost four
00:26:48.020 years ago, I weighed 50 pounds more than I do today. And I started my journey with getting in
00:26:52.720 shape. And that decision has permeated every element of my life. So it's a great place to start. If
00:26:58.540 you're in a bad position, even mentally or emotionally, physically getting in check is a
00:27:03.300 great place to start in my opinion. That's exactly right. And for, for a lot of us, it provides a
00:27:07.420 transition period out of businessman into daddy, husband, right? So for me, I, I train right after
00:27:14.680 work every day. So I try, I get up really early, you know, four 30 and start training and start
00:27:18.460 working around five. So I'm usually done mid afternoon. And then I train and that training
00:27:22.760 is a, is a process for me. That's not just refining me physically, but it's also allowing me to de-stress
00:27:27.940 the things that have occurred throughout the day. So that when the training is over, it's far easier
00:27:33.360 for me to go in and play with my kids. And I've got two daughters and wrestle with them and play in
00:27:36.940 the pool and jump on the trampoline and make dinner with the family and hang out with my wife and
00:27:40.840 actually engage my family and be present rather than sitting there with Netflix playing and, and
00:27:46.560 my mind is somewhere else. And so I love that training provides that transition period for me as
00:27:50.300 well. It's, it's made my family healthier. There's, there's no doubt about it.
00:27:53.760 How do you find this line of nature versus nurture? For example, I don't tend to be great
00:27:59.700 on the lower body stuff like deadlift squats, upper body. I feel like I'm a little bit stronger.
00:28:04.820 When do you throw up your hands and say, I'm just not a good deadlifter versus no, I can,
00:28:08.300 I can work this out. I can get stronger. And how do you find where that line is? If there even is
00:28:12.680 a line? Yeah, that's an excellent question. You know, I've done a ton of podcasts. Nobody's ever
00:28:15.700 asked me that question, but here's, here's the easy answer. It all comes down to anthropometry,
00:28:19.500 which is a word you've probably never heard. And maybe you're so anthropometry, it just means how
00:28:23.720 we're put together. So if you are built to squat, which means you have short femurs and a long torso,
00:28:30.580 you are not built to deadlift. That's, that's actually me. I've got, I've got very short legs,
00:28:36.580 very short inseam, and I've got a long upper body. All right. So you're, so you are built to squat
00:28:42.340 and you're not built to deadlift, but we still have to, and vice versa. If you have long legs
00:28:46.060 and a short torso, you're built to deadlift, but you're not built to squat. That's pretty easy to
00:28:50.140 understand. If you have really long legs, you have to move the barbell a lot farther. That's right.
00:28:54.100 And the same thing kind of occurs with the, with a, say like a bench press and a press. If you have
00:28:58.140 long arms, that's going to help you on the deadlift because the deadlift doesn't have to move as far,
00:29:02.640 but that's going to hurt you on the bench press and the press because it has to move a lot further.
00:29:06.440 And so shorter arms, so this makes sense. Right. So the thing is that we're going to try to focus
00:29:10.940 on is that in general, I'm trying to get general people generally strong. I'm not trying to train
00:29:16.900 competitive bodybuilders or high level competitive powerlifers. I mean, my demographic is Brett
00:29:21.500 McKay and Jordan Harbinger. It's these, it's just normal dudes who just try to be generally strong
00:29:26.160 so that they're better at life. Not somebody who is like a Chris Duffin, who's an international
00:29:31.100 level powerlifers. Certainly we've trained some of those guys, but if that's the case,
00:29:34.860 if I'm just trying to get generally strong, then it doesn't really matter what you're good at and
00:29:37.900 not good at because we're just trying to get you generally strong because of the adaptation we get
00:29:42.620 both strength and physically, but also what we get mentally, emotionally, relationally,
00:29:46.880 spiritually, all those sorts of things from the strength training. So ultimately it doesn't really
00:29:50.880 matter what you're good at and not good at. There's a trade-off. Nobody's good at everything.
00:29:54.740 You can't be because it's based on how you're built.
00:29:57.300 Yeah. I mean, this makes sense. I'm never going to go to the Olympics, nor do I have a desire to. So
00:30:00.560 let's just get strong across all areas and not worry about where your, your specific strengths
00:30:04.560 are. Exactly. Right. Makes sense. So in doing a little bit of research with knowing that you were
00:30:09.460 going to come on the show, I was looking into this and it seems like you distinguish yourself from
00:30:14.480 powerlifting and barbell training is different. Can you explain to me some of the similarities and
00:30:18.680 some of the differences? Sure. So actually it goes back to that three criteria. So that criteria of
00:30:23.740 for general strength training, it's most muscle mass, most weight we could possibly use. And for the
00:30:29.180 greatest effective range of motion, powerlifting leaves out the last one, powerlifting lifts the
00:30:34.640 most weight possible for the least legal range of motion, which means they are going to do everything
00:30:40.940 they can to cut down the range of motion on the squat, the bench press and the deadlift.
00:30:44.300 It's a competitive sport, which is a little bit different than trying to get people generally
00:30:48.520 strong. Everyone who starts, who ends up powerlifting should start doing general strength training.
00:30:54.260 So I'm going to take all of my people and I'm going to generally strength train them and I'm
00:30:57.740 going to make them move the bar, the greatest effective range of motion, not the least. And
00:31:02.040 then once they become competitive powerlifters, if they decide to do that, then we can start
00:31:06.200 to tweak the barbell lifts a little bit to allow them to be more efficient, to move more weight
00:31:10.420 for the actual sport. So the, the rules of the sport dictate how much the barbell has to
00:31:15.540 move. So this is why you see like wide leg, wide stance deadlifts, correct? Yeah. This is why you see
00:31:21.020 sumo deadlift. So when somebody does a sumo deadlift, which is a very wide where your hands
00:31:24.740 are inside your legs that like, like Duffin does that artificially shortens the legs. You think
00:31:30.640 about like, if you're six foot tall, you take a really wide stance. You're no longer six foot
00:31:34.180 tall. You're five foot eight. Right. And you move the bar a little bit less. It's why powerlifters
00:31:38.280 take a great big, huge arch on the bench and a really wide grip on the barbell because the barbell,
00:31:43.000 they want the barbell to move the least amount it can. And so that's really the difference between,
00:31:47.200 between strength training with barbell lifts versus powerlifting. And so, yeah, uh, you know,
00:31:52.240 we, we certainly train both and we love it when our, when our novice trainees become intermediate
00:31:57.860 and advanced lifters and decide to compete, there's certainly nothing wrong with that,
00:32:00.960 but we're not going to bypass the dues that must be paid with reps of five, you know, with sets that
00:32:07.260 are in the five rep range and big, great range of motions on, on their, um, on the lifts. And so it's,
00:32:13.100 it's just going to make you more strong than anything else across the board. And now it's going to
00:32:16.520 build this tremendous foundation of strength so that when it comes time to become a power lifter
00:32:20.220 and shorten those range of motions and start kind of playing the, the little tools of the trade and
00:32:24.580 learning the tricks and tips to shorten range of motion that that foundation has already been laid.
00:32:28.640 So if I understand just to wrap this up a little bit is being good with barbell training and correct
00:32:34.920 range of motion and strength will help you be a better power lifter, but being a better power lifter
00:32:39.760 might not necessarily help you be stronger, have that range of motion.
00:32:43.040 That's absolutely correct. Exactly. So when, when guys are starting training,
00:32:48.680 they're getting into barbell training, they're doing starting strength. What,
00:32:52.160 how quickly can we see and expect results to manifest themselves quick enough that everyone
00:32:58.100 will think they're on steroids when they're not interesting. Okay. It's, it's, I listen,
00:33:02.720 it's crazy. It's a, it's, it's just really simple and it's simple, hard and effective. It's
00:33:07.880 incredibly boring and it works better than anything else. So what, what you do for starting
00:33:11.260 strength is you squat every single workout. You train three days a week, you squat three sets of
00:33:15.260 five, you go up every single time. So in the beginning, maybe you'll go up 10 pounds. So
00:33:19.480 you know, you start pretty conservative. Most guys will probably start at like one 35 or one 55 on
00:33:24.160 the bar. They'll go up 10 pounds of workout for two weeks. And then after two weeks, they'll go to
00:33:28.440 five pound jumps and they just keep riding that out as long as they can. And then if necessary,
00:33:32.380 they'll, they'll get some one and a quarter pound plates. So they only have to go up two and a half
00:33:36.020 pounds. And so they'll squat every workout. They'll alternate their bench press and their
00:33:39.940 press. And they'll go up three sets of five and go up five pounds, every workout there.
00:33:43.080 And they'll deadlift really every session in the beginning as well, and go up five to 10 pounds
00:33:46.660 on those. And so really with somebody that starts, you know, with very average sort of genetics and
00:33:52.960 age where they're squatting somewhere in the one 35 to one 55 range, they're probably deadlifting
00:33:57.400 around one 85, uh, within three months, they're squatting three 40 for three sets of five, three 35,
00:34:04.060 40, three sets of five. They're deadlifting four Oh five for a set of five. And that's,
00:34:08.260 that's just not that it's just not that complicated. I mean, I, you know, personal
00:34:12.440 trainers, which, which we refer to ourselves as coaches, because we kind of hate the personal
00:34:16.320 training industry. You know, I think of the 18 year old kid with the polo on with the
00:34:20.080 BOSU ball under his arm and with the name tag that says trainer. That's, that's not us. I mean,
00:34:24.040 the vast majority of coaches that work for me, I've got, Oh, 10 or 12 of my coaches have PhDs.
00:34:28.760 All of them have master's degrees. So we're not talking about somebody that's gone and taken a
00:34:32.480 group on personal training certificate and got a multiple choice test for a couple hundred bucks,
00:34:36.720 you know? So, so when we, when we work with people, they're able to make progress in a way
00:34:41.740 that, that they didn't think was possible. And it all comes down to just really simple,
00:34:46.820 basic programming, but a, a, a huge emphasis on perfect form. And so for most personal trainers,
00:34:54.540 I think they, they try to confuse their clients in a way that makes them have to continue to hire
00:34:59.560 the personal trainer. And for us, what we try to focus on is we, we're going to coach you to
00:35:03.980 perfection on the form and you're going to figure out the program on the first two days. Cause the
00:35:09.020 program's really simple, but the program works better than anything else. And it comes back to
00:35:13.020 that. Listen, there's value in the hard way. Yes. It is more fun to be random and do 400 different
00:35:18.220 movements and all sorts of things. It just doesn't work as well. And so we're going to do these major
00:35:22.300 lifts. We're going to increase the weight a little bit every single time. And we're going to get
00:35:25.680 brutally, brutally strong. And then once I'm brutally strong, three, four, five months down the road,
00:35:30.700 I can then say, okay, now what do I want to do? Do I want to do mud runs? Do I want to do CrossFit?
00:35:35.220 Do I want to do powerlifting? I can actually focus my goals a little more.
00:35:38.620 I love that you say it's boring because you're right. I think most people, what they're looking
00:35:42.360 for is they're looking for glamorous. They're looking for sexy. They're looking for all the
00:35:46.360 hype that we see. And in all reality, whether it's talking about strength and fitness or a
00:35:50.880 relationship or growing a business or whatever it may be, the right answer is usually the boring
00:35:56.260 mundane. I'm going to do this every single day and I'm going to be relentless. And that's where you're
00:36:00.220 going to experience results. Yeah, that's exactly right. It really comes down to discipline and the
00:36:04.020 people that can, anybody can train on a great day, day where you get up and you feel incredible and
00:36:08.260 nothing hurts. And of course I can train the people that really separate themselves, kind of the wheat
00:36:12.780 from the chaff are the people who get up and train on the days they feel like crap. And so, you know,
00:36:17.500 I call those days blue collar days or you just go to the gym, you punch your time card, you get in,
00:36:22.280 you get your work done, you punch your time card, you get out, you go home. Those are the people
00:36:25.620 that make the best progress. It's, it's all about consistency. It's not about, Oh, I trained when I felt
00:36:30.140 good. Of course you can train when you feel good. Of course you can train when the atmosphere is
00:36:32.900 great. Can you train on August 10th in your garage when it's 114 degrees inside? Can you train on
00:36:39.620 February 3rd when it's negative four? Can you train through the sniffles? Can you train through a cold?
00:36:44.580 Like we train through colds. That's ridiculous to think that you wouldn't train through a cold.
00:36:48.040 We don't train through 104 degree fever. That's crazy. But you know, I don't care if you have a sinus
00:36:52.400 infection. I don't care if you've got diarrhea. Like that's like, we're going to train. That's the deal.
00:36:56.200 Right. And so we train pretty much no matter what. And that, that was really well.
00:37:00.400 Yeah. Andy Frisilla talks about this a lot. He talks about dues paid, right? Get in there,
00:37:04.480 dues paid, do your job, then move on and get on with life. Makes sense. Exactly. Yep.
00:37:09.420 So Matt, we're winding down on time. I do want to address maybe a little bit of an elephant in the
00:37:13.720 room. And I'm sure you've addressed this question over and over again. You're talking about coaching,
00:37:17.260 but you're also talking about doing this online. And most of the time when people think about
00:37:21.260 coaching, they're thinking about immediate instant feedback from a coach who's standing
00:37:25.860 shoulder to shoulder, watching movements. How does this work for you when it comes to online
00:37:30.040 training? Yeah, absolutely. So, so I'm in a business called starting strength online coaching.
00:37:34.220 And, uh, and so that was a big thing that we had to tackle. So for us, coaching is coaching the
00:37:40.420 movements and for online coaching or what the world calls online coaching that almost always is,
00:37:45.760 it's just kind of a, I'm buying a program from somebody for 50 bucks or whatever. They're going to send me
00:37:50.420 a program and it's not coaching. It's actually online programming. So for us, we wanted to make
00:37:55.040 sure that we have the coaching aspect handled. And so there are starting strength certifies coaches.
00:38:00.020 It's the hardest certification to get in the country. They have about a 2% pass rate. I think
00:38:03.960 we've had over 6,000 people go through and, and 121 coaches that that's it. So it's really,
00:38:09.680 really hard to get 121 coaches, 35 of them work for me and they're phenomenal. They're just,
00:38:14.160 all of them are great coaches. So if you have a starting strength coach in your town or,
00:38:18.740 or closely, you, you should look them up and hire them. You've, you find a good coach at
00:38:22.300 starting strength.org and you search your state and you can see if, you know, who's close. But
00:38:26.760 if there isn't somebody close for those of you guys that live in rural areas, you're not in major
00:38:29.740 cities, online coaching is your best, your best next option. And so what we do is we've developed
00:38:34.640 a super simple, clean app that, that sends you your programming on that programming. We have
00:38:40.560 examples on how to perform the lifts. Here's how you perform a squad or how you perform a deadlift,
00:38:45.060 things like that. Here's how much weight, here's your sets and reps. You perform those lifts. And
00:38:49.780 when you perform those lifts, we teach you how to video yourself using your cell phone. So there's
00:38:53.520 a real short, easy video we send you on. Here's a, here's, here are the angles. We want you to video
00:38:58.680 yourself in, you video, your squat, you video, your deadlift, you upload it. And then your coach
00:39:03.620 breaks it down within 24 hours. So just like a football coach would break down the X's and O's of
00:39:08.360 film. We break down film every single day. That's why I get up early. I get up four 30 every morning
00:39:13.380 at five o'clock. I'm breaking down film for my clients every single day so that by the next time
00:39:17.880 you go to the gym, you have already had the previous workout broken down for you so that
00:39:22.120 if you're going to squat again, or if you're going to press again or deadlift again or whatever,
00:39:25.560 then you already have those cues to take into the gym with you to say, okay, my coach reminded me,
00:39:31.220 I was, I was a little bit on my toes on the squat. I've got to get back on the middle of my foot.
00:39:35.140 I got to push my knees out, not let them go forward. I've got to put my eyes here,
00:39:39.020 all of those sorts of things that we do. And so it's really the best of both worlds. And then
00:39:42.900 from a financial perspective, you can't hire a starting strength coach for less than a hundred
00:39:47.000 dollars an hour. They're going to be somewhere between a hundred dollars an hour to $200 an
00:39:50.620 hour. And online coaching runs 199 bucks a month. So it's, it's also pretty cheap. So for,
00:39:55.660 for the cost of hiring a coach for anywhere from one to two hours, you get one for a month. And so
00:40:00.620 it's a man, it's been an incredible business. You know, we're doing exponentially better than we
00:40:05.500 ever thought we would do. And again, people can go to starting strength, online coaching.com to look
00:40:09.280 it up. After you sign up, we'll send you a pretty in-depth questionnaire that you fill out with all
00:40:12.980 your goals and injuries and history and what equipment you have access to and all that sort
00:40:17.220 of stuff. And then, uh, I, I really pour over that questionnaire and assign you to a coach that I think
00:40:21.920 will work really well with you from a demographics and even maybe a geography standpoint. So maybe you
00:40:26.900 don't have a coach in the same town as you, but maybe you have a coach within, you know, 90 minutes
00:40:30.920 of you and you can go see them say once a quarter in person, they could also do your online
00:40:35.480 coaching and, uh, it works really well. So it's, uh, it's gone very well. We have a super
00:40:39.300 low attrition rate. People just don't tend to tend to leave because the progress is so
00:40:43.440 good. And so, uh, it's been an incredible boon for sure. Right on, man. I'm looking forward
00:40:47.360 to getting going with you guys. As we wind down, I want to ask you, uh, the question I did prep
00:40:52.060 before, and it sounds like you, you knew this was coming. And that question is what does it
00:40:55.520 mean to be a man? I mean, I, I think about this all the time, you know, I've got kids and
00:41:00.100 wife and I, I want to tackle this well. And so, uh, you know, to me, a man is somebody
00:41:05.320 that takes the hard way in a way that brings him value. It's a guy that's going to, that's
00:41:09.860 going to vault that voluntary hardship. So he's going to love his family well, but he's
00:41:13.380 going to cultivate and teach and lead well, where we're called to work. And I think strength
00:41:17.780 plays a huge role in that. I'm, I'm called to be strong. I'm called to be strong physically,
00:41:22.020 mentally, emotionally, spiritually, relationally, and that physical strength, that learning how
00:41:26.280 to refine myself under a heavy barbell, uh, is one of the best things I can do to get
00:41:30.200 there. So I'm, I'm always going to choose the hard way. And to me, that's what makes
00:41:33.680 a man. Right on, man. Well, how do we connect with you? If somebody is listening to this
00:41:36.980 and they think, man, I got to get going, I got to get started. How is somebody to do
00:41:41.020 that and connect and reach out with you? Sure. Website is startingstrengthonlinecoaching.com
00:41:46.200 or Google starting strength online coaching. Uh, all my contact information is there. You
00:41:49.720 can even, if you send me an email, I'll definitely respond to it within 24 hours on the, on
00:41:53.880 all the social medias. We're at SS online coach, SS online coach, Instagram, Facebook,
00:41:59.660 Twitter, all that fun stuff. We're pretty easy to find. So look us up, reach out, say, Hey,
00:42:03.520 and if you just need somebody to watch a video for you, say, Hey, what does the squat look
00:42:06.100 like? We're happy to do that as well. Right on. And I think you had mentioned a discount
00:42:09.480 for the listeners. Yeah, absolutely. So for you guys that have listened to the entire podcast
00:42:13.300 all the way to the end, you got to get through the whole thing. That's right. That's right.
00:42:17.000 If you go to started strength online coaching, sign up and use the discount code O O M O O M for
00:42:22.080 order of man. It doesn't matter whether it's capitalized or, or lowercase, it'll work.
00:42:25.340 You get $50 off your first month of online coaching, which is pretty cool.
00:42:28.920 Right on. Thanks, man. Well, Hey, I got to tell you, I appreciate you. Uh, obviously I
00:42:33.080 see the results that you're, uh, making happen for guys like Brett McKay. I mean,
00:42:37.220 a huge deadlift, what? 530 pounds. I think you said. Yeah. 33. Yeah. That's, that's,
00:42:41.780 that's exciting, man. And I know he's been excited about that and I'm excited to get going
00:42:44.980 with you. So thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for imparting some of your wisdom and
00:42:48.000 sharing what you have to share, man. Appreciate you. Thanks brother.
00:42:52.080 Guys. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Matt Reynolds, but I want you to do more than
00:42:57.220 just enjoy this conversation. I want you to do something about it. So whether you check
00:43:01.520 out his training programs or hire somebody locally, I encourage you to get into the gym
00:43:06.360 and work on that strength. I know that as I've gone on my own fitness journey over the past
00:43:10.900 four years or so, it has permeated every element of my life for the better. You can get the links
00:43:16.140 and the show notes at order of man.com slash one, two, four. In the meantime, guys, make sure you
00:43:22.200 check out our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash order of man. And also take a look at
00:43:29.680 what it's like to join our exclusive brotherhood, the iron council. You can do that at order of man.com
00:43:35.080 slash iron council. I will look forward to talking to you on Friday for our Friday field notes. But
00:43:39.740 until then take action and become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order
00:43:46.280 of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.
00:43:51.840 We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.