The Art of Manliness - #154： Strength Training for Everyone with Matt Reynolds

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast we've had mark

00:00:18.740 ripetale on the podcast the author of starting strength but what a lot of people don't realize

00:00:22.240 is that you can get certified to be a starting strength coach it's pretty rigorous and there

00:00:27.400 are a few starting strength coaches around the country and one of those coaches a guy by the

00:00:31.600 name of matt reynolds he's a co-owner of a gym in springfield missouri called strong gym it's one

00:00:35.960 of the largest barbell based strength gyms in the country he's a former powerlifter himself

00:00:41.500 strongman competitor and he also does online coaching i've been doing some coaching with him

00:00:45.680 online and i've seen some significant progress with my strength training since i started with him

00:00:51.020 so i want to get on the podcast to discuss his story of how he opened up strong gym because it's

00:00:55.840 really it's a great inspiring story for entrepreneurs out there completely bootstrapped

00:01:00.860 operation but then also we get into some details and some nitty-gritty about strength training so

00:01:05.700 how barbell training can help if you're an endurance athlete if you're a trail runner obstacle course

00:01:10.240 racer why you need to incorporate strength training to your programming we discuss why strength training

00:01:15.800 or barbell training is a great stepping stone for someone who's completely out of shape never

00:01:20.560 exercised and they need to lose a lot of weight why barbell training is a great way to start that

00:01:26.120 process we also discuss the prehab and rehab you can do to overcome and prevent injuries that often

00:01:32.560 occur when training and we also discuss the psychology of strength training how do you get over those

00:01:38.620 plateaus right you how to lift weight you don't think you could lift but your body can actually do what

00:01:44.400 you can do to psych yourself up so a lot of great information if you are a strength trainer i think you get a lot

00:01:48.460 out of it so without further ado matt reynolds and strength training

00:01:52.300 all right matt reynolds welcome to the show thanks for having me man all right so matt is actually you're

00:02:05.340 the first person i've had inside my closet studio to do the podcast how does it feel this is the first

00:02:12.900 time i've been in a closet with a guy maybe my entire life so yeah so um anyways matt is uh i got

00:02:19.920 matt on here he is actually he's a he's a strength coach owns a gym in springfield missouri called strong

00:02:25.400 gym but he's also does online coaching um and he works a lot with mark ripito we've had on the

00:02:30.380 podcast before with starting strength and so today we're going to talk about uh matt's story of how he

00:02:36.260 got into strength training how do you open up this amazing gym that is one of the largest strength

00:02:40.760 gyms in the country um and then we'll get delve into some like strength training questions and

00:02:45.460 helping the guys out there get stronger so matt tell your story how did you get to become a strength

00:02:51.680 coach what's the story that got to the point before you opened up strong gym sure well uh that probably

00:02:57.480 starts with i was very painfully average in junior high and high school and uh you know i was just a

00:03:03.700 normal guy i was a smart kid i was skinny kid played a lot of sports um was always usually the the

00:03:09.980 last starter on the team um you know and there were two or three other people on every team that

00:03:15.360 were better than me um that didn't start and so i just worked hard and and so i think part of who i

00:03:20.860 am now as a pendulum swing into kind of the strength conditioning world uh came from the fact that i just

00:03:26.340 was really probably unhappy with being average and so uh i i started to fall in love with with strength

00:03:32.680 training my senior year of high school um just did it for sports and again wasn't great at sports and

00:03:38.180 and seemed to be a little bit better at weightlifting than i was sports and uh so got into

00:03:42.560 that and uh got out of high school wasn't good enough to to play anything in college but was

00:03:47.960 unbelievably competitive and so um needed an out for that competition and so shortly after i graduated

00:03:54.420 high school i actually found uh an article actually by dave tate who runs elitefts.com uh called how to

00:04:01.240 bench press 600 pounds i didn't think that anybody in the whole world could bench press 400 pounds so this

00:04:06.620 this whole 600 pound thing was new to me um and i read the article and it was about power lifting

00:04:10.920 basically and it was this introduction to power lifting and so uh i was 19 years old it had been

00:04:14.980 1998 somewhere in there 1998 1999 and uh realized like hey there's a sport where the goal is to eat

00:04:21.860 tons of food and and get really big and really strong and so um that really appealed to me so i i got into

00:04:26.860 power lifting uh come trained for power lifting did my first competition in 2001 um and and did okay you

00:04:34.240 know it was just kind of still average and uh slowly got better and better and and by the 2005 or so i

00:04:39.820 had i'd achieved my elite status in a handful of uh of weight classes and so um and so it was about

00:04:45.820 that time in 2005 i graduated college um and started teaching school and started uh working as a strength

00:04:51.380 coach at a big 4a high school in missouri and and so a big piece of this with the strength coaching

00:04:56.280 side is uh you know i've always been interested in this stuff and i read everything i get my hands on

00:05:01.460 you know everything that louis simmons wrote or all the stuff that the the soviet uh coaches you

00:05:06.480 know pre uh communism falling wrote and you know they came over and either stuff had been translated

00:05:11.180 into english or they came over in the 90s and and started to teach here and i just love that stuff

00:05:15.820 it just it just and i it never wore off i mean it wasn't just a it wasn't just this phase i went

00:05:20.720 through and so um so yeah so i i just i love coaching so i started coaching 2005 and and it started

00:05:26.460 with mostly high school kids um and the interesting thing about that is that high school kids a lot of

00:05:31.160 times are the toughest thing to coach i mean they don't listen very well they don't eat enough

00:05:34.620 they don't sleep enough um you've got kids you know i had eighth graders who were pre-pubescent for

00:05:39.760 sure um i had kids smack in the middle of puberty i had kids who had been way out of puberty and you're

00:05:43.920 trying to deal with all of those kids 60 of them at the same time in in the same weight room and so

00:05:48.700 um so we did that and then at the same time i continued my competitive career and so i in 2005 i switched

00:05:54.380 over and started competing in strongman like the what you see in in world's strongest man

00:05:58.240 and uh won my pro status in 2006 at utah strongest man won that actually um won the pro card with the

00:06:05.600 same at the same show that brian shaw who is now the world's strongest man we won at the same show

00:06:09.720 and uh competed on the strongman circuit for for a few years there uh 2008 open strong and open

00:06:17.960 strong gym with really no um delusions of grandeur just wanted a place to train for for power lifting

00:06:24.940 and strength training well let's let's talk a little about the your gym because uh it's different

00:06:29.920 from a lot of it's not a it's not like a power lifting gym right where like it's grungy and like

00:06:34.800 they're playing pantera like and it's not like a nice big box gym where they have a spa and all that

00:06:41.560 stuff they don't have like you guys are focused primarily on barbell training but barbell training

00:06:47.500 for soccer moms or soccer dads uh so how did how do you make that a viable business because most people 0.94

00:06:55.820 aren't really into barbells if they go to the gym they're going to do machines so what did you do to

00:06:59.780 turn strong into one of the largest gym strength gyms in the country sure yeah i mean you're exactly

00:07:05.120 right and the reality is uh i didn't know it was going to be able to do this i didn't know we were

00:07:09.700 going to be able to be successful and so as we have worked and uh we we really focused on a couple

00:07:15.520 of things we focused on correct training so strength training with barbells and that really

00:07:19.300 is the same thing that most powerlifting gyms do but you're right the difference really comes in in

00:07:23.500 all of the other stuff so uh there are tons of great powerlifting gyms in the country but they're

00:07:28.280 exactly what you said they're they're in a warehouse there's no air conditioning there's no heat there's

00:07:31.980 no showers they're grungy they're dirty and so so we looked at how can we make ours better and so

00:07:38.320 we ended up uh opening up an unbelievable 15 000 square foot state-of-the-art facility super clean and just

00:07:45.120 had an incredible focus on customer service and then look the reality is this i have an unbelievable

00:07:51.440 staff that buy into what we do and so i have a staff that most of my staff that work for me now i mean

00:07:56.380 from the the guy lowest guy on the totem pole all the way up to my managers started as interns for me

00:08:01.940 they all have exercise science degrees the colleges sent them over they they got passionate about what we

00:08:06.940 do they see that the results that we get like what we the way we train works but it works in an

00:08:12.600 atmosphere that's appealing to business professionals and soccer moms and so now you've got this gym

00:08:17.480 that's full of people who are in their who are in their 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s and they all

00:08:22.020 deadlift and they all squat and they all bench press and they all press and they train in a similar

00:08:26.540 style that the powerlifters do so at lunch today you were telling me that one of the things you take

00:08:31.980 pride in about your gym is about the the amount of people who can deadlift a certain way tell us like

00:08:38.360 what the average weight that people are deadlifting at your gym yeah so so one of the things you'll

00:08:44.220 hear a lot of gym owners or or even i would hear high school football coaches say is they would they

00:08:48.180 would brag about their their strongest guy right so i've got a high school football kid who who

00:08:51.960 deadlifts 600 pounds and who squats 500 pounds and and the reality is that has nothing to do with

00:08:56.820 your program that kid's a freak he's gonna he's gonna squat 500 pounds in any high school in america

00:09:01.460 and and strong is really no different i we have some i mean some of the best powerlifters in the

00:09:07.280 whole world are at our gym but if they weren't at our gym i mean i'd like to think that some of our

00:09:11.580 atmosphere helps them and facilitates that but the reality is they would be some of the strongest guys

00:09:15.840 on earth with or without strong and so for for me what we really like to to be able to brag about is

00:09:21.780 that our average guys we have we have 100 guys that deadlifted 500 pounds so a 500 pound deadlift is

00:09:27.260 entirely average at our gym um a 300 pound deadlift for a female that is an average deadlift for a 1.00

00:09:33.060 female we have a handful of females that deadlift 400 pounds and i'm not talking about girls that 1.00

00:09:37.540 look like they're going to step on a bodybuilding stage girls that look like guys that that uh you 1.00

00:09:42.160 know that read art of manliness we're talking about we're talking about soccer moms we're talking about 0.91

00:09:46.160 ladies who are 36 years old who drive their minivan to the gym drop their kids off at school and they 1.00

00:09:51.140 walk in and they deadlift 350 pounds that's what they do um and that's that's i'm really proud of that for

00:09:55.600 sure so i mean what i mean what's the secret i mean if it sounds like you know deadlifting 500 pounds

00:10:01.540 like that's a goal i've had for a while uh haven't been able to reach and i'm hoping i can get that

00:10:05.580 with your with your coaching i've been doing but what's the secret sauce i'm sure there's a lot of

00:10:10.440 guys out there that they want to have a 300 pound 315 pound bench you know 405 pound squat uh you know

00:10:16.720 500 pound uh deadlift it sounds like you don't have to necessarily have the genetics for you can train

00:10:22.600 this i mean what is the secret sauce is there a secret well i mean there's there's no there's no

00:10:27.260 magic pill it's it's form programming atmosphere right so form here's the deal starting strength

00:10:34.600 is the best thing ever put out ever for form um every single person that lifts at our gym that

00:10:40.580 comes in that's a novice does a starting strength program we teach them how to low bar back squat we

00:10:44.100 teach them how to deadlift correctly we teach them how to press we teach them how to bench press

00:10:47.820 um it's the most authoritative piece ever put together on how to lift and so everything we do

00:10:54.360 even when someone comes out of novice programming so you know you hear that that name starting

00:10:59.320 strength well it's just it's it's for absolute beginners and it's it is great it is it's great

00:11:03.160 for absolute beginners but the form the method that we use doesn't change as you become more advanced

00:11:08.740 and so then outside of that it's we start with very basic programming programming should be simple

00:11:13.500 hard and effective and so uh programming is often way too complicated in the beginning programming

00:11:19.260 should be we're going to add a little bit of weight on each lift every single workout that's it 1.00

00:11:23.700 right and if that if that works why would you do anything else like if you can come in and add five

00:11:28.440 pounds to your squat three days a week why would you not do that right and so people get in a hurry

00:11:33.480 to not do novice programming and that's a mistake right because they compare it to other sports like

00:11:38.260 i don't want to be a novice basketball player i want to be an intermediate or an advanced

00:11:41.780 basketball player but the reality is that the best type of lifter is the novice lifter because

00:11:47.140 you can get better every single workout and so then as they move out of that progression we just

00:11:51.700 still have simple slightly more complicated progressions for our intermediate and advanced

00:11:56.620 lifters and then when you take somebody who's lifting exactly correct over a long period of time

00:12:01.760 and you put them in an atmosphere where the strength standard is hey a 500 pound deadlift really

00:12:05.880 isn't that impressive now look we celebrate pr so if we i have a i have a 79 year old lady actually 1.00

00:12:12.180 she turns 80 in two weeks uh she's 80 years old today she deadlifted 105 pounds for five reps she's 80 0.55

00:12:17.780 right so we celebrate that as as much or more than a 700 pound deadlift because a pr a personal record

00:12:23.660 is a pr that's huge for somebody and so when you're in an atmosphere that celebrates prs along with this

00:12:30.080 same atmosphere that cultivates correct lifting correct programming simple hard effective work

00:12:35.280 that's our people have an understanding that anything that's valuable is going to take some

00:12:39.700 work it's going to take some effort and so um the easy way isn't the way that works like we don't

00:12:43.560 we don't uh walk on purple treadmills and read cosmo magazine that's not what we do at strong right

00:12:48.000 we squat let me so it sounds like consistency is a big thing i know one of the things that i've got in

00:12:52.840 trouble with is that what you just said that like i don't want to be a novice like i'm doing the same

00:12:57.260 thing this is boring this probably isn't working anymore so there's this idea that i have to do

00:13:01.160 something new and sexy and like some kind of crazy i don't know weird auxiliary exercise to actually get

00:13:06.740 something going um and i just stopped doing the programming is that one of the big mistakes you see

00:13:10.900 people making with strength training yeah absolutely not only that you see it with with trainers and so

00:13:15.480 the hard thing to get across for for trainers is to you have to be able to continue to motivate your

00:13:20.700 clients to do essentially the same thing every day for a long period of time so you know day one they're

00:13:26.420 going to squat they're going to press they're going to deadlift day two they're going to squat

00:13:29.500 they're going to bench they're going to deadlift day three they're going to day 50 they're going

00:13:33.540 to squat they're going to press you know and so very quickly the the concept of we don't even like

00:13:38.580 the term trainer i don't i don't like to be called a personal trainer i'm a coach i coach form you think

00:13:43.500 about it more like if i were a sport coach i would be coaching form i'm not here to count reps i don't

00:13:48.720 go three four five that's not what you're paying me to do and so being able to motivate somebody

00:13:54.080 to stick with the basics while the basics work is huge i mean that's a big motivating factor

00:13:58.160 people get bored and they want to move on to something else and so a good trainer can still

00:14:02.280 add some variation to programming we can we can change up the conditioning a little bit we still

00:14:06.220 do conditioning we push the prowler we do things like that that kind of allow people to sweat allow

00:14:10.760 their heart rate to get up they can put themselves in great cardiovascular shape and and it gives them

00:14:15.780 enough of that variety that they can stick with the program and then here's what happens somebody

00:14:20.020 comes in and they say look here's my goal i want to run a half marathon in six months right now i may

00:14:26.600 or may not think that's a great goal but i'm not going to shoot down their dreams on day one i'm

00:14:30.340 gonna say let me show you how strength training will make you be a better half marathoner and what

00:14:34.780 will almost always happen is two or three months into the program they get so addicted to getting

00:14:39.740 strong they kind of forget about the marathon thing and they go you know what like actually i'm kind

00:14:43.520 of thinking about you know what i kind of think i might want to do a powerlifting meet in six

00:14:46.820 months what do you think about that i think it'd be great right it would be great because if you

00:14:50.640 mail in an entry form on a powerlifting meet your training level goes up a notch because now you go oh

00:14:56.720 my gosh i'm not doing this just in front of my coach i'm doing it in front of a whole group of

00:14:59.900 people and so man there is nothing cooler than seeing a 75 year old lady doing our first powerlifting 1.00

00:15:05.420 meet that's great right and and the reality is it's better for her than running a half marathon 0.56

00:15:09.540 it's more healthy it's less impact on our joints and so part of that too is just knowing what

00:15:13.720 knowing how to work with people we do low impact exercises we don't we don't have them doing high

00:15:18.980 rep jumping we don't have them do um you know you know they're not doing stuff that's going to get

00:15:22.400 them hurt we don't put them in vulnerable positions and that's where we have a this constant commitment

00:15:26.840 to come back to the main barbell list because that's where the biggest bang for your buck is

00:15:30.680 well uh speaking on that that idea of strength training for half marathons uh are do you do you train

00:15:36.880 people who that's what they do like they do long distance running uh and how can strength training

00:15:42.220 help with endurance you know endurance uh sports sure yeah we we train it all the time and we get

00:15:47.560 people all the time especially with uh this uh culture right now of of um you know spartan race 1.00

00:15:52.560 type things i mean and and i love that that outlook i mean people that are training for something like

00:15:56.760 a spartan race i think you had joe de seno on at one point um you know that that's an incredibly

00:16:01.880 tough thing to train for and so if you think about it like this let's let's take something really

00:16:06.300 simple like endurance bicycle ride right we're going to ride our bike i'm going to be endurance i'm just

00:16:09.620 going to go ride my bicycle right so it's not complicated at all and so i can go out and let's

00:16:14.580 say i can ride i'm going to ride in a certain gear let's say let's say i can squat 100 pounds i'm not

00:16:19.800 very strong squatter 100 pounds my legs aren't really strong and i can ride at 17 miles an hour

00:16:25.580 in a specific gear and let's say that in that gear five i'm riding in every stroke of the pedal

00:16:32.060 represents 20 percent of my max leg strength right and let's say i take that person i take them off the

00:16:38.900 bicycle and i get them in the weight room and i take their squat from 100 pounds to 200 pounds

00:16:43.040 which still isn't that strong but i've doubled their leg strength now what percentage is every

00:16:48.020 stroke on the pedal it's not 20 anymore it's 10 so now now every stroke it's easier every single

00:16:54.280 pedal stroke is now easier for that person because i've got their legs stronger which means

00:16:57.760 they can now ride in a gear that allows them to be more powerful and ride faster

00:17:02.480 or they can now because they're only representing each pedal stroke being 10 of the strength they

00:17:08.440 can now ride longer twice as long even right because i've doubled their leg strength so

00:17:12.260 for endurance athletes the hardest thing to deal with with endurance endurance athletes is to get

00:17:17.500 them to either stop or cut back on their endurance training for a season and listen right now is the

00:17:22.400 perfect time here we are we're going into holiday seasons right we're going into winter time and so it's

00:17:26.640 not easy to go out and run trail run when it's when it's 30 degrees outside or 10 degrees outside or ride

00:17:31.620 your bike so now would be a perfect time to to keep continue to do your endurance training say once

00:17:36.740 a week but get in the weight room and get strong three times a week and then watch what happens when

00:17:41.500 the springtime comes and and here's what you'll notice your first couple rides you'll feel a little

00:17:46.280 bit out of shape because you put on some additional muscle and your cardiovascular system isn't there

00:17:50.160 but your cardiovascular system comes back extremely fast it's the quick the most quick thing gained

00:17:56.200 piece of fitness gained it's also the quickest thing that you lose so this is why if you're in great

00:18:01.260 shape and you go on vacation you go to cancun for 10 days you just sit in a pool and drink margaritas

00:18:05.360 and come home your conditioning is not very good all of a sudden but it doesn't take very long to gain

00:18:09.700 it back strength is the exact opposite strength takes decades to build but then it doesn't go away very

00:18:15.440 fast right so it i mean like a long long time so i could probably you know i've bench press i don't

00:18:20.960 know 450 pounds i could probably not bench press for two years and still lay down and bench press

00:18:25.320 300 pounds right well 300 pound bench press is still fairly strong but if i got good at cardiovascular

00:18:30.980 conditioning didn't do anything for two weeks and came back and tried to do it i probably wouldn't

00:18:35.840 be that great for the first workout or two so when that endurance athlete comes back and gets back on

00:18:40.160 their bike or back on their trail running or back on whatever the first workout or two isn't going to

00:18:44.100 be great but by the third fourth fifth sixth workout they're going to be better than they were before

00:18:48.640 they before they started strength training right so awesome that's great so because we often get out

00:18:52.940 whenever we publish things about strength training we often get the comments that this is going to

00:18:56.300 ruin my endurance training but uh yeah it's great that strength training training can actually

00:19:00.340 supplement and even make you a better runner and here matt another question we often get uh from

00:19:05.420 readers who are they they want to start they read our articles on the site about fitness and strength

00:19:10.160 training they want to get started but they're they're like i'm really out of shape like i am obese

00:19:14.260 like that i i don't know if i can do this any advice to those guys so they just get started right with

00:19:19.140 barbell training even if they're you know a couple hundred pounds overweight i mean is that something

00:19:23.800 barbell training can help yeah i do i actually think it's easier than what what you will tend to

00:19:29.300 find is people don't know what else to do so they start jogging and so it's not a great uh thing on

00:19:35.860 your joints for a 400 pound man or woman to go out and start jogging around the neighborhood right

00:19:39.500 that's pretty tough on your knees and ankles and so what you'll find is that you'll gain a tremendous

00:19:43.860 amount of cardiovascular fitness from just barbell training theoretically if you weren't doing

00:19:49.500 anything you started riding your bicycle you actually your squat would go up for the first

00:19:53.820 week or two but after that first week or two riding your bicycle doesn't make you any stronger

00:19:57.320 but strength makes everything better for a long period of time so if i want like if i get to take a

00:20:03.320 kid that says hey i want to increase my vertical jump how do i increase my vertical jump well i can work

00:20:07.820 with him and teach him how to jump correctly and within the first two or three sessions i can get him

00:20:11.980 within 95 of a correct jump then what then how do i increase his vertical jump i have to get him

00:20:17.480 stronger it's the only other option right so it's the same thing here i can take somebody who is really

00:20:22.040 out of shape what told what we call totally detrained like they haven't done anything they haven't walked

00:20:28.060 they haven't run they've sat on their couch they've eaten a bunch of junk they've never done anything and

00:20:31.780 i can take them and bring them into a weight room and i can teach them how to body weight squat they

00:20:35.520 might not be able to put a barbell on their back on the first day but you know what i can probably do is i

00:20:39.440 can probably sit them on a bench or sit them in their dining room chair and teach them how to squat

00:20:43.280 down correctly and not get on their toes and not get into their knees and be safe for the knees and

00:20:48.320 teach them how to body weight squat and then i can take a barbell and i can teach them how to deadlift

00:20:52.540 an empty barbell and then i can take them on that same empty barbell or even something lighter a very

00:20:58.280 light barbell a 10 pound barbell and i can teach them how to press and that's enough on day one thanks

00:21:03.560 for coming in come back in two days and what they'll find they'll get done and they'll go i don't feel like i did

00:21:07.540 very much and then the next day they they text me or call me i'm actually kind of sore you go i know

00:21:12.320 you haven't done anything in 20 years you know and they come back two days later and we go up a little

00:21:16.660 bit more right and what you'll find is for for those people they will lose a tremendous amount of fat i

00:21:21.340 mean especially people who are really really morbidly obese they'll lose a tremendous amount of fat gain a

00:21:26.120 tremendous amount of muscle gain a tremendous amount of cardiovascular fitness their blood lipid profile

00:21:30.700 is often better after just a few short months of only barbell training of no cardio of no cardio if i can just

00:21:36.600 get them to basically cut out the mcdonald's and cut out the fast food and quit you know stuff in their face

00:21:40.540 with junk and just start barbell training then they make lots of increases and then we start to add in

00:21:46.100 those additional steps all right now we'll bring in some cardiovascular work um so you know matt we've had

00:21:51.560 rip on the podcast um actually that's kind of funny can you tell us how you met rip uh because it cracks me up

00:21:57.660 every time you tell me the story because for those of you know like rip is a character um and i love

00:22:03.880 matt's story about how you met mark ripito so share that with us matt all right so so i actually rip had

00:22:09.640 a coach that was his olympic lifting coach that i knew before i had never even heard of mark ripito

00:22:15.080 so i just knew this guy and he was an olympic lifting coach he's a fairly well-known olympic

00:22:19.140 lifting coach and and i had one of my workout partners a super strong kid actually one of the

00:22:23.260 strongest kids probably that's ever lived the kid uh he deadlifted 800 pounds when he was 19 years old

00:22:27.620 and uh we ended up sending him down he had gone to to kansas university we needed an internship for

00:22:33.700 his exercise science degree and we sent him down to wichita falls athletic club to what is rip's gym

00:22:38.820 i just didn't know it was rip's gym i just thought it was where this olympic coach coached and so uh

00:22:43.380 he got down there and um he uh he calls me back and he said hey um i saw the best coach i've ever seen

00:22:51.760 today and i said what i said yeah it's this olympic coach that you're working with right no no no it's not

00:22:56.460 him it's a it's actually the owner of the gym and he said and and remember this kid is smart this kid

00:23:01.120 has his is finishing up his degree in exercise science he's an extremely advanced weightlifter

00:23:05.600 very very smart very intelligent kid he said i worked with a girl for for two hours on how to

00:23:11.260 squat correctly and she could not get it and this guy who's the owner of the gym he literally sticks

00:23:16.860 his head out the window out of his of his door of his of his office and just barks like three words

00:23:21.860 at her and she does it right immediately right and i said what and he said yeah i'm telling you this

00:23:26.380 guy is he just he's the most efficient he's got the best eye i've ever seen i said what well who is

00:23:31.540 he and he said well his name's his name's mark ripito but they call him rip he's super weird he uh he

00:23:37.320 drinks mead from a horn he's in a norse mythology and that's pretty much that that's really who rip is

00:23:41.580 and so um i was writing for for some online magazines bodybuilding.com and stuff like that at the

00:23:46.260 time and uh and i had done some interviews with that olympic coach and so i i called rip and a couple

00:23:51.800 days later and and introduced myself and he kind of knew who i was from the interview i had done with

00:23:56.340 his coach and said hey i want to i want to interview you um i'd like to just talk to you about coaching

00:24:01.040 and and what you do with underweight high school kids i hear that you're really good with underweight

00:24:05.380 high school kids he said you know it's actually interesting that you'd ask um i'm actually writing

00:24:09.140 a book called starting strength and so he was smack in the middle of the book it was still i think a

00:24:12.320 year from coming out um but he wanted to be able to start promoting it and and i think i did one of the

00:24:16.660 first interviews he ever did um that that article that interview is still in his lobby and it's just

00:24:22.220 so you go in the gym it's sitting right there and it's uh it's uh and you can still find it online

00:24:25.880 well i'm curious so you know um one of the things that i love about rip because i i went down there

00:24:30.700 did the videos with him right and that's i was amazed like that was the first time someone actually

00:24:35.080 sat me down and told me how to lift because i know in high school i did the usual typical strength

00:24:40.620 and conditioning and the coaches basically just say okay there's a squat rack there's the bench

00:24:45.800 that's it um and i learned a lot of bad habits that way but i'm curious what makes for i mean what

00:24:53.440 what makes rip such a good coach you're like what should people look for if they're wanting to hire

00:24:57.720 a coach to help with their their strength programming what makes for a good strength coach

00:25:02.680 sure well i mean there's a handful of things one of them is that the coach has done it before

00:25:07.180 right so not just coached it but have they actually been under the barbell because you you have to ask

00:25:13.440 man it is hard to get under three sets of five of heavy heavy squats and you're asking something

00:25:19.980 that's not just physically demanding but extremely emotionally and mentally demanding of your clients

00:25:24.320 and so if you haven't been there if you don't know what it's like to get under the bar and think i don't

00:25:29.180 know if i'm getting through this set or if you if you haven't gotten there and go like i i might pass

00:25:34.180 out on this or i might i could die right if you haven't been there how can you ask that of your

00:25:39.060 clients so one is have they been there and then two is uh you know charlie munger has a quote that

00:25:44.480 that i love where he says i i've never met or heard of anybody in my life who didn't totally and

00:25:50.520 completely immerse himself in books right and so another thing that makes a good coach is this this

00:25:54.420 guy who wants to constantly learn it i don't care how long you've done it one of the things about rip

00:25:58.620 my favorite thing with rip i i see rip at least once a month we do seminars together uh one of our

00:26:03.620 favorite things to do is we go back in his hotel room after the seminars we hang out we have a drink

00:26:07.260 and we talk about the stuff we're reading so i mean here's a guy who's coached for 40 years right

00:26:12.120 barbell training is owns one of the oldest longest standing single proprietorship gyms in the country

00:26:18.500 the most well-known strength coach of all time and the guy is still reading everything he can get his

00:26:23.400 hands on to be a better coach every single day and so that's one of the things that makes a great

00:26:27.260 coach and then and then from there there are some actual kind of genetic pieces that are hard to learn

00:26:31.940 a great coach is a great communicator and one of the things that makes rip so great is he's a great

00:26:36.460 communicator both in person with spoken word and with written word if you've ever read starting

00:26:40.680 strength or you've read you've read the articles that he writes he's really really good at

00:26:44.500 communicating he's efficient and he's effective at communication and so a good coach has got to be

00:26:49.160 able to do that with their clients when when i'm watching you squat and we're going to go do a session

00:26:53.660 here in a few minutes right so i'm going to use the fewest words i can to fix your squat that makes a 0.65

00:26:58.900 great coach so if your knees aren't going out and i want them to go out i'm not going to say

00:27:03.300 okay brett what i want you to do is i want you to get your knees out that was way too many words

00:27:07.660 i have already told you knees out so if you're in the middle of a set here's what i have to say

00:27:12.720 knees or at very worst knees out and they go out and so you've got to have somebody that

00:27:19.740 understands has the content knowledge anatomy physiology biomechanics and then is able to

00:27:25.280 communicate what you're doing based on a model we have a model starting strength has provided that

00:27:30.480 model for us we know what a squat is supposed to look like we know what a deadlift is supposed to

00:27:34.020 look like if i know the model if i know the anatomy if i know the physics i can then watch you squat

00:27:40.780 and compare it to the model and if it doesn't hit the model exactly and it probably won't it's going

00:27:46.080 to be off a little bit i know what to say efficiently to fix it that's what makes a good coach and some of

00:27:51.520 that is experience i mean it's just experience well on that same line i mean what you've you've

00:27:55.900 you've spent your almost your entire career coaching right whether it was 60 kids in a single

00:28:00.640 gym or now with your gym that you have now in your online coaching i'm curious what your in what

00:28:06.620 your idea of an ideal student i guess we'd call them i mean how do you be is there are there traits

00:28:12.240 that a coach a coachable person has yeah they'll do anything i say i've got a kid right now um he'll

00:28:20.520 hear this and he'll know who i'm talking about i got i got a college kid tall red-haired kid who

00:28:25.200 literally will do anything i ask and will never question it right and and look you've got a lot

00:28:29.780 of trust in your coach to do that right i'm not saying you should do that with with all of your

00:28:32.960 coaches you got to make sure you've got a great coach but i have a kid who never complains right

00:28:36.900 as a matter of fact this kid squatted he had rotator cuff surgery about six weeks ago and five

00:28:42.680 days after rotator cuff surgery he was in squatting we put a safety squat bar on his back which is a

00:28:46.960 little bit different kind of bar that's got a yoke he can hang on to and it protects his shoulders

00:28:50.340 and the kid squatted and so one of the things i'm looking for is is somebody that walks in

00:28:54.280 and says hey you know what i don't know what i'm doing um i've read up enough to know that you

00:28:59.900 know what you're doing and so i just want you to tell me what to do i'm not going to complain i'm

00:29:04.720 going to do it and so you know i've had a lot of clients like that that that come in and they're

00:29:08.400 just their man they're joy to work with and then what what will happen over time is you develop a

00:29:12.140 camaraderie i mean you spend a lot of time with your clients right so i i am really close friends

00:29:16.540 with all my clients all of them um and so you know i've got that same 79 year old lady she's the 1.00

00:29:21.280 organist at her church when she has a concert i go to her concerts right we've developed this

00:29:25.600 friendship because we spend a lot of time together every week and so but i've also had clients that

00:29:29.440 walk in and every single day when they walk in their first thing that they tell you is they

00:29:32.720 complain about something or they call in every every other workout right and so consistency is huge i i

00:29:38.780 had a lady that i had for several years it was a great great athlete i mean she she had no genetic 1.00

00:29:43.440 skills as an athlete whatsoever but she never missed a workout and so a lot of times we talk about

00:29:49.320 i talk about blue collar days in the gym and so those blue collar days are days that you absolutely

00:29:54.120 do not feel like training you don't want to train you don't want to go in but you go in you take your

00:29:58.720 time card you take your punch card you time you clock in you get your work done you clock out and

00:30:03.620 you leave those are the days that make you better right so everybody has the days where they go in

00:30:07.780 everything feels great and everything feels light and they're hitting prs everybody has those days

00:30:11.760 those don't make good lifters great lifters people who make incredible changes to their body are the

00:30:16.700 ones who will never ever miss now there's caveats all right you wake up and you're running 102 degree

00:30:21.560 fever you shouldn't go to the gym but outside of that like you know you got the sniffles your stomach's

00:30:26.020 kind of hurting or you're just achy or sore walk in the gym punch in your time card punch out get

00:30:32.400 your work and that makes a great client so matt one thing i've encountered with barbell training is

00:30:37.700 that at a certain point when i started getting really heavy with the weights uh injuries start

00:30:42.320 not really injuries just weird pains happen um and we just published a post of yours about bicep

00:30:49.680 tendonitis it's something that i've struggled with with the the low bar squat i'm curious besides the

00:30:55.520 some of the stuff that we've we talked about on the website do you emphasize like prehab or like rehab

00:31:01.860 uh in in your your programming that you do with your athletes sure we do although i'll say this that

00:31:08.300 the best prehab is just correct barbell movement right so if you do a press correctly an overhead

00:31:14.640 press what some people call a military press what we call the press if you do it correctly you will

00:31:18.580 not hurt your shoulders so if we are having shoulder issues while pressing there is a problem right and

00:31:23.520 at that point yes we have to rehab sometimes and we will do prehab there are things that i do that i

00:31:27.820 just sometimes they just make me feel better right so there there's a lift called a face pull where you

00:31:33.180 take a high cable like a tricep rope and and you pull you you stand away from it and you pull the

00:31:38.800 bar back towards your temples and it's just a really good it opens up your shoulders and makes it feel

00:31:43.100 good on your rear delts do i know if that helps my shoulders any for my press i don't know but it

00:31:47.100 makes it feel better right so a lot of times prehab what we call prehab which is you're not really

00:31:51.740 hurt but you're trying to keep yourself not hurt is a lot of times i think more mental rehab becomes more

00:31:56.900 of an issue of how to deal with soft tissue and we deal with that all the time too so we see

00:32:00.560 bicep tendonitis all the time you see muscle strains all the time hamstring muscle strains

00:32:04.760 bicep muscle strains pec muscle strains i tore my pec uh september two years ago now so just just

00:32:09.960 over two years ago and we have methods to fix all that stuff right so um for us we have found that

00:32:15.880 an aggressive being aggressive with the injury will often help it a lot more than letting it sit

00:32:21.100 around if you've got and if you just think logically if you have a muscle strain which is really kind of

00:32:26.000 a small muscle tear um and you do nothing right so if you call your doctor physical therapist

00:32:31.880 whatever they say oh don't ice it don't do anything for two weeks and then come in and we're going to

00:32:35.560 start doing some isolation movements what happens in those two weeks when you're icing it is it's

00:32:39.580 just going to scar just gonna scar up right it would be much better if i could actually safely move

00:32:44.880 it through a full range of motion and pump a bunch of blood into that muscle because that blood

00:32:48.980 brings nutrients in it and it fixes it right so um you're exactly right in strength training um it has

00:32:55.320 a very low injury rate like surprisingly low injury especially compared to other sports when you look

00:32:59.600 at it compared to say soccer soccer is super dangerous right but there is a there's a pendulum

00:33:04.940 swing here and i have to have this conversation with my clients sometime when they hire me they are

00:33:09.560 almost always very very weak and unhealthy and so then we spend let's say six months seven months eight

00:33:15.680 months together and they get pretty strong and healthy and then they have to make a decision

00:33:20.600 when they get pretty strong and healthy do they want to stay pretty strong and maintain their

00:33:25.080 healthiness or at that point have they been bitten by the competitive bug and do they want to get

00:33:29.420 competitive and do they want to do power lifting or strongman or olympic weight lifting or or whatever

00:33:33.340 that is and at the point they decide to be competitive we're going to start swinging the pendulum

00:33:37.360 away from healthy again and back to a little bit unhealthy like nobody would argue that playing in the nfl is

00:33:42.940 healthy it's not right but rarely does somebody say oh you shouldn't play with the nfl because i mean

00:33:47.660 you know maybe we're getting that way with head injuries but but it's it's so that's a decision

00:33:51.900 you have to make the reality is as you're as you're moving from very very weak to generally strong the

00:33:57.820 chances of you being injured are very very low once you've been generally strong and now you're getting

00:34:02.340 to an advanced level of strength like where you can compete and do well at at competitions then you

00:34:06.920 absolutely start running the risk of of injuries and so outside of that we're looking at just really basic

00:34:11.740 so yeah we'll we use lacrosse balls and we use foam rollers and we definitely use massage i'll tell

00:34:16.280 you this massage is significantly better than than lacrosse balls or foam rollers i mean significantly

00:34:21.200 better because you get that lateral shear from their hands so you can't when you when you roll on a foam

00:34:26.260 roller it just smashes you you're just smashed but when you have somebody's hand that can move

00:34:30.540 laterally or like across the surface of your skin that's really what you're looking to do because we

00:34:34.840 need to bust up that scar tissue and adhesions and places where the skin and the tendons and the fascia are

00:34:39.640 sticking to muscle where it shouldn't be stuck to and so we want to be able to to really kind of

00:34:44.640 rip that away so it's almost like combing out the like like a female's tangled hair so she had tangled 0.66

00:34:50.500 hair and her hair was all tangled you're trying to comb it out it takes a little bit of pain and 0.88

00:34:53.520 some lateral shear you can't just mash on it and have all the tangles go away and so yeah we see that

00:34:57.960 stuff all the time and it's just bicep tendonitis is a big deal most of the population by the time

00:35:02.800 they're 40 years old have some form of a herniated disc in their back that's a scary word for most people

00:35:08.060 they think like oh i have a herniated disc i can't do anything there are four clear grades of

00:35:11.940 herniation grade one is not a big deal grade two is really not that big of a deal grade three is kind

00:35:15.760 of nasty and grade four means you're going to have surgery on it right but most people have a grade

00:35:19.940 one or grade two herniation and we can work through that and get through sciatic nerve pain so so uh another

00:35:25.800 aspect of strength training that i'm encountering i think we're going to talk a little about this today

00:35:29.480 during our workout because you sort of mentioned it is the psychological aspect of training because

00:35:34.960 there's a certain point when you get heavy right and you you squat down with that bar and you're

00:35:39.440 like i don't know if i can get this up or when you're in the middle of a bench right and you're

00:35:43.820 like you have that one rep uh that's it's really hard to grind to get out but you have like two more

00:35:49.380 to go um is that at that point is this the strength training becomes more psychological than physiological

00:35:56.060 yeah definitely probably the if there were a fourth thing that i was going to tell you would be

00:36:01.660 make us successful at strong is that we teach people how to strain you have to learn how to

00:36:06.280 strain and straining is uncomfortable right like if you if you do a super heavy deadlift you're picking

00:36:11.420 up something really heavy off the floor the most you've ever picked up off the floor is 100 pounds

00:36:15.200 or 200 pounds and now you're deadlifting 300 pounds that feels incredibly heavy and your mind is

00:36:21.160 you're saying put it down put it down put it down right and so you have to learn how to strain

00:36:25.660 through that so the best lifters i've ever seen in my entire and i've lifted with some of the

00:36:30.660 absolute best power lifters historically the best power lifters guys like kurt karwoski he was never

00:36:36.040 scared of anything he got underneath it was unbelievable the guy could throw a thousand

00:36:39.380 and three on his back a thousand three on his back and squat it for a double that something is crazy

00:36:45.340 about that guy i mean that's not normal right so but teaching people like it's going to be okay like

00:36:49.760 we have spent months and months and months and months making perfect form what's the worst that could

00:36:55.040 happen the worst that happened is it's not going to go up you're not going to hurt yourself

00:36:58.520 because we've taught you that the motor pattern in your brain and the motor pattern established in

00:37:02.580 your body is that the form is going to be perfect whether it's the empty bar or whether it's your

00:37:07.300 max weight and so you just decide like this is a confidence lift there's all the time of something

00:37:11.620 like a press a heavy press i yell a word this i work yell the word confidence all the time to my

00:37:17.880 to my clients when i feel like they need a boost yeah tell them like look i know you can get this

00:37:22.720 and they get underneath the bar and go confidence i yell confidence and you can kind of see them

00:37:26.440 like yeah i got this i got this that's a big piece of it and so how you take the bar out of

00:37:30.800 the rack how you're feeling going into that's why people listen to the music they listen to

00:37:34.320 in in while they're working out because they're trying to get stuff that pumps them up and kind

00:37:37.900 of gives them confidence you want a little bit of that adrenaline rush for those heavy sets so that

00:37:41.760 yeah it's it's so much mental so much of that is mental all right so matt uh we're coming to an

00:37:47.700 end here i'm curious where can people learn more about your work and can you tell us a little

00:37:51.920 bit about the the online coaching because i think a lot of people they hear like how can a guy

00:37:56.060 coach me online can you tell us a little bit about what goes on with the online coaching sure

00:38:00.360 yeah so uh first you can find me at reynolds strong i think i'm reynolds strong on almost

00:38:05.600 everything social media so reynolds strong on twitter reynolds strong on instagram i'm probably most

00:38:09.460 active on instagram facebook reynolds strong and reynolds strong.com uh email is reynolds strong

00:38:14.380 at gmail.com and then and then yeah i do online coaching so here's what online coaching is

00:38:18.080 uh i send you if you're interested in coaching send me an email you're not you know just you're

00:38:23.640 not signed up to start we're not going to guarantee we're going to take money from you send me an email

00:38:27.380 hey i'm interested in online coaching i'll send you a questionnaire the questionnaire is pretty in

00:38:30.820 depth it's going to ask about all your kind of background here how have you trained you have

00:38:33.560 injuries uh what have you done over the last several weeks what's you know what do you what's

00:38:37.720 your diet look like it's kind of all that kind of stuff it'll take you a little bit of time to fill

00:38:41.020 that out measurements height weight uh waist measurement chest measurement hips measurement

00:38:44.720 and then uh and then basically i sit down and work and it takes me quite a bit of time there's a lot

00:38:48.500 of front end work so i sit down and i really lay out a program that will work now again it's not

00:38:53.580 necessarily complicated a lot of times for if it's an absolute beginner it's going to look a lot

00:38:56.500 like starting strength and so what am i paying for if i can just get starting strength well what

00:39:01.220 you're paying for is that the your last set of every heavy of every barbell work you videotape

00:39:06.500 on your phone i mean we all have hd cameras on our phone now so you videotape your last set

00:39:10.360 and at the end of the day you you text me or email me your sets and then i'm able to break down those

00:39:15.320 sets and i really just break down the form of the set okay i see here's what's going on um first three

00:39:20.060 reps on your squat were great i noticed on four and five the bar slid forward of the midfoot a little

00:39:24.600 bit so that's why it looked harder because it didn't stay over the middle of your foot uh deadlift

00:39:28.740 your low back got rounded a little bit it's really important to get tight there um you got a belt that

00:39:33.040 doesn't look great make sure you get a better belt right whatever so um so we can start to tweak

00:39:37.800 those things and so then each time is and then there are times when if i've got clients who are

00:39:42.400 who have a big day coming up and i know they've got a big day coming up they've got to hit heavy

00:39:45.960 weights um they have my phone number and so they can text me and and in the middle of the workout

00:39:50.360 a lot of times i'll say okay here's my last set before the heaviest set can you break and so yeah

00:39:54.280 tweak this let's tweak this and then i text them right back real time and so look is it optimal

00:39:58.660 compared to uh hiring me or hiring a good coach to to work with you one-on-one in real time and yelling

00:40:04.680 at you during the set no it's not as good but but here's the deal most of us are between 100 and

00:40:08.680 200 an hour to to have us train you face to face and and online training is going to be closer to

00:40:14.960 that 100 a month for that and so um or somewhere in that ballpark right so um it's a lot cheaper

00:40:21.260 and so you know if you live in a town that has a starting strength coach and you can go to

00:40:26.500 startingstrength.org or startingstrength.com and find starting strength starting strength coaches

00:40:31.460 uh look them up in your town then you should hire a starting strength coach there are no

00:40:35.120 bad starting strength coaches and there aren't very many of us i mean there's just a few

00:40:38.280 i think there's 110 or so uh but if there's not in most cities there aren't then there's some great

00:40:44.300 options there for online coaching so i'm i'm one of them that does it but there are other guys that

00:40:47.780 are good too well yeah like i said i'm doing the coaching with you right now i'll be um posting my

00:40:53.100 progress on instagram so you guys can follow along with that well matt reynolds uh thank you so much

00:40:58.440 for your time it's been a pleasure thanks man thanks for having me i guess it was matt reynolds

00:41:03.040 he's the co-owner of the gym strong gym based in springfield missouri if you live in the area go

00:41:07.620 check it out you won't regret it it's awesome you can also find out more information about the gym

00:41:11.220 at stronggym.co and uh make sure to check out his personal website reynoldsstrong.com lots of great

00:41:18.320 content there as well you can find out more information about matt's online coaching program and as someone

00:41:24.000 who's doing it right now who's seen significant progress i can't recommend enough so go check it out

00:41:28.100 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:41:35.600 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy

00:41:39.420 this podcast i'd really appreciate it if you give us a review on itunes or stitcher

00:41:42.900 help us get the word about the podcast also give us feedback on how we can prove the show

00:41:47.100 thank you for your continued support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay

00:41:51.220 manly

00:41:52.020 you

00:42:08.600 you

00:42:10.600 you

00:42:12.600 you

The Art of Manliness - November 10, 2015

#154： Strength Training for Everyone with Matt Reynolds

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript