#199： Garage Gym Athelete
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Summary
Jared Moon has spent his career doing garage gyms and helping people transition to a garage gym. In this episode, we talk about how to become a garagegym athlete, the pros and cons of starting a gym in your garage, the economics of garagegyms, why it might be more affordable than a regular gym, and how to motivate yourself when you're working out by yourself in a garage.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so
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last year i went and switched over to a garage gym uh in my house and it's it's been fantastic
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but it's not without its problems you know for starters there's the the issue of space
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how do you cram in a gym when you have to fit a car in your garage as well cutting down on costs you
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don't spend a lot of money furnishing your garage you're like which equipment do you need and then
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the other part is motivating yourself when you're working out by yourself there's no other people
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around it's dark outside it might be 30 degrees outside that happened during the winter time
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how do you motivate motivate yourself to get out down there and work my guest today uh he has spent
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his career doing garage gym and helping people transition to a garage gym his name is jared moon
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he's written a lot of content for our site how to make diy fitness equipment like diy prowler
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he's got a new book out though it's called garage gym athlete and today on the podcast we're going
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to talk about how to become a garage gym athlete the pros and cons of garage gyms the math of garage
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gym the economics of garage gyms um why it might be more affordable than a regular gym and how to
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motivate yourself when you're working out by yourself uh really interesting podcast if you
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want to listen to the show notes with links to the resources we mentioned in the show you can go to
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awim.is slash moon and as always i appreciate if you would give us a review on itunes or stitcher if
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you enjoy the podcast jared moon welcome to the show hey brett thanks for having me man really glad to
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be here all right so you've written some great content for us over the years about strength of
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fitness uh the stuff that's been really popular is your diy gym material you know how to make
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gym equipment for your garage just with some wood uh you even have like use basketballs to make
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medicine balls and you've written a lot of other great content over there your site into three
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fitness but you've got a new book coming out called garage gym athlete it's about starting a garage gym
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in your garage obviously and how to program when you're working out by yourself in your garage
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i'm curious if you can tell us your story of how you started a garage gym and why you decided to go
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that route instead of going to a big giant globo gym yeah man i could definitely tell you the story
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how i got there because it was kind of i mean it wasn't necessarily on purpose i was uh in the air
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force and uh 2010 had just gone active duty and uh at the same time my wife and i were in a lot of debt
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we were actually in a hundred thousand dollars in debt and we were really aggressively trying to pay
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that off so we weren't just sitting in debt and doing nothing about it which uh all of our extra money
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was going that direction so it really limited how much money we had and uh i was in pilot training
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at the time and i'd been injured and i was kind of on bed rest for a little bit because i had had to
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have surgery uh from that injury and so i'm just sitting around and super passionate about fitness i
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mean i always have been it's not something i picked up when i started the garage gym i started a very young
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age and in fitness and i decided i wanted to make a garage gym because um the my introduction to the
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air force was much like anyone else um joining the workforce you know extremely busy uh you find out
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what real life is kind of going to be like how much time you're not going to have and so i decided
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i was going to start a garage gym to be a little bit more efficient and uh save money and just be able
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to work out at home and get it done so that's kind of the the quick backstory of it i just did it
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pretty much out of necessity right you say we save money because i think a lot of people hear that
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starting a garage when they hear starting a garage and there's a lot of startup cost to it you get to
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buy a lot of equipment the barbells the plates etc can you really save money on a garage gym compared
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to paying just 20 bucks or 30 bucks a month um at a global gym yeah i mean it kind of depends on
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where you're going um if you are you know like a planet fitness that costs 10 bucks a month or
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something obviously uh you could save a ton of money going somewhere like that but it also depends
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on what kind of fitness that you're interested in and i think that's where the the big split and shift
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happens for me because i'm i'm more strength and conditioning you know is what i'll call it um
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kind of similar to crossfit but not really kind of similar to strength training power lifting but not
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really so just strength and conditioning in general and being able to do that stuff like
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really out of planet fitness they have the lunk alarm that shuts you down they actually kick you
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out of the gym if you make any noise um and so you can save a ton of money if you look at it
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uh long term and something i actually break down in the book is uh there have been a lot of corporate
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wellness studies done uh in corporations where they they look at uh their employees and they
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they say okay for every dollar we spend on the well-being or health of our employees we get
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x amount back and you know that that being them being more productive missing work less and all sorts
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of stuff but what they found was uh any for every dollar they spend they were finding that they'd get
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between a three to five dollars back and some extreme outliers all the way up to 13 dollars back
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for every dollar they spend and so you know if you look at it that way if you're not that consistent
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at actually going to the gym and you feel like having a home gym is going to make you more consistent
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uh other than actually saving you money in the long term because a gym membership is forever
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uh you know you kind of have the sunk cost after you spend it and then that that equipment you have
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in a garage is going to last forever and so after that it's all savings it's saving
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on health insurance by being healthier it's working out more being more productive missing
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less days of work and all that stuff so yeah i think that a garage gym versus a commercial gym
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or globo gym can definitely save you a lot of money especially if you're more into the uh i say the
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fancy ones the globo gyms that actually do charge you closer to like 200 bucks a month you're obviously
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going to save a ton of money uh by going garage gym route right i also feel like with globo gyms and and
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for those of you who don't know what a globo gym it's sort of a derogatory term that people in the
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crossfit power lifting world use for big gyms with weight machines saunas and things like that towel
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service uh when you're going to a gym you're often paying for services you don't even use right
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i mean you might go there but you never use the weight machine or you just use the barbell and squat
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rack you don't use a towel service or their sauna so you're just paying for stuff like you might be
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paying 15 bucks a month for stuff you don't even use but with your garage gym there's going to be a lot
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of upfront costs but you're only going to have the equipment you actually use right it is a definite
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it's a definite uh different way of looking at training i mean you really go my recommendation
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for most people is going bare bones and and so we only like we really strip it down to just what you
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need uh and then if you want to get crazier as you realize that a garage gym is awesome uh you know
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like my my garage gym started bare bones and now i basically have my own like training facility built
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into my house but you know where you go from after you start it is up to you all right so what
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are the bare bones things that you would need to start a garage gym you know i actually don't
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recommend a lot uh just a barbell and some plates to get started and uh you know i have a ton of diy
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projects i've done and and the first one if i had to go back the very first one that i would do
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is uh squat and bench stands so it's a super simple project you just buy a couple of four by fours
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uh throw them in a some of those big gallon buckets you can get at home depot i think they
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might be like five gallon buckets uh and then pour cement around them and then you have uprights to
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set the bar on um obviously that there's a little more uh detail to actually how to do that project
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um but that would be the first project so now you have barbell you have weights and you have
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somewhere that you can squat off of and bench off of so you obviously need a bench if you're gonna do
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bench press but you can do strict press and all sorts of stuff and i mean that that squat pro the
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stands project's gonna cost you 30 bucks and then the uh barbell and plates depending on where you get
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it i mean it could cost anywhere from 300 to a thousand dollars really depends on the quality of
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your equipment but grand scheme of things not too expensive but that'd be my recommendation for
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starting out uh very very simple stuff right there where do you suggest people go to get the best
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equipment i mean should they buy new um where can they go if they want to buy used i mean one of
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the things you advocate is um when if you're going to go use buy stuff on craigslist yeah so
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one of my favorite things and it's still working right now it's actually how i've bought a few items
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is uh have you heard of if the i-f-t-t-t yeah yeah yeah so it's if this then that and you can go to
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the website uh to check them out and it basically have they have what are called recipes and it's
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triggered so if if something happens then it'll do something for you and they have all sorts of
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cool stuff that they do but one of the things that you can do is you can set up a search in craigslist
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and uh the search in craigslist could be say for a barbell and then you can also select the price range
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and your location so everything your your criteria and then um if that ever pops up in craigslist
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uh you'll get an email you can set it to where if it will send you an email and then you right there
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you have you'll get the the first dibs the first shot at it because a lot of people aren't doing this
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uh and i originally i i saw this uh but not not for a garage gym use and so i i was like i'm gonna try
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it before i write about it on my website um and i did it for an airdyne at the price i wanted
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and within i think it's just a few days i set it up airdyne showed up at the price i wanted
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contacted the guy he's like man i got a ton of people contacting me but you were the first so
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i'm gonna give it to you um and i i got it so i think craigslist uh and letting just setting that
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on autopilot is probably the best way just leave that stuff running uh because you might even want
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more stuff later so i i have uh stuff that i've set up that i just keep going because i could
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always use more play through another barbell if someone you know abandons the garage gym scene
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or whatever so one thing i've noticed too it's just putting the word out uh just like telling
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people i'm looking for certain pieces of equipment and somehow magically word gets out and stuff just
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starts showing up it's kind of funny there are a ton of people who maybe thought the garage gym was a
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good idea you know and and they decided not to continue maybe they did miss some of the amenities
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or whatever um and so they they will sell their equipment for very cheap because it just becomes
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uh cumbersome to have all that stuff and move it around if you're moving and all that other stuff
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so yeah it's it's good to just put the word out and ask around what do you do about space i mean you
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only have i mean if you only have a one car garage and your wife wants to park her car in the garage
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how do you accommodate for that when you have limited space for a garage gym yeah man limited space this
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this is a common one and that some of the struggles are they're pretty common struggles with garage gym
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athletes i've actually done surveys with thousands of people at end of three fitness and space is one
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of the biggest things that people are like what do i do without space but you know over the years i've
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seen some really creative stuff i've uh there's actually a girl here in dallas who emailed me a picture
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and they they had moved from i think somewhere in the the midwest and they moved here to dallas and
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they got an apartment uh but they're on the bottom floor and it was like straight concrete floors and
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stuff and uh some of the coolest stuff that she did she actually made part of her garage gym
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equipment into like the decoration of her house like it would be a stack of bumper plates with a lamp in
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the middle and her and her husband would like remove this stuff and uh you know work out at night and
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then put it all back together but her her apartment looked amazing to me uh maybe i'm a little biased
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but that was really cool that that's obviously like an extreme situation trying to turn your garage
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gym into the decor of your house so you can just work out at any time um but i also know guys in
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california who are killing it in really small one car garages uh but really uh just go outside i mean
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unless you live in just an extremely cold climate and i'm talking about the guys who are getting below zero
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anything else with i think you should be able to put up with with some extra layers of clothes
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uh but go outside like i said this isn't a ton of equipment if you have a truck or a car
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i mean i was like i before i had a truck i was lugging around all my stuff and uh my wife's honda accord
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you know barbell will actually fit through the trunk and all the way up through the console if you uh
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really want to and you could take it just about anywhere and train anywhere yeah take it to the park
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or something yeah also you just said that a person um put their gym inside their apartment so this
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doesn't necessarily necessarily mean a garage gym has to be a you know in your garage right
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it could be in your home or anywhere else in the in your apartment no yeah i like to think of the
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garage gym athlete if you will more as a mentality as opposed to just having a garage um because i mean
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if you have an extra room in your house if you have a concrete slab outside if you have a basement
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obviously a garage you know a park near your house any of that stuff i kind of consider you a
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garage gym athlete because it's more the mentality of look i don't have a ton of stuff but i'm going
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to get the work done no matter what so if you're going to have a gym inside whether you're your
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garage or inside your home and you're going to be doing barbells and plates are there considerations
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that you should take into account in order to avoid undue wear and tear on your space on the space
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itself yeah uh yeah i would say the so the equipment's one thing but the space itself um i highly
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recommend i used to i didn't i didn't say this and that's me lifting a garage for many many years
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before i started giving this recommendation officially i just always deadlifted on concrete
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or whatever um and to save my equipment um i didn't you know but i ended up straining my neck
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uh on some heavy high rep deadlifts and it's just from pounding into the concrete so i do recommend
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getting some rubber flooring the best place to do that is going to be tractor supply company they have
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like horse stall mats um it'll be the cheapest best um bang for your buck because you can just get
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one uh i think it comes in like a six by four or something or something like something like that
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like that which is uh almost fits a barbell it'll fit where the plates sit on the barbell at least
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and uh that's all you need and you go up from there they're not too expensive so i started a garage
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gym and it took me a while to finally pull the trigger on it and i was thinking about it for almost a
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year because i was just worried that i was going to buy this stuff and i wasn't going to use it or
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i wasn't going to like the garage gym so how do you avoid buyer's remorse i mean how do you avoid
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being the guy who buys the garage gym and he doesn't like it and he has to sell it on craigslist
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for much less than what he paid for it you know that's that's really a mentality question and it's
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something i approach in the book that's the whole first part of the book because i know that that's a
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real possibility uh that people are gonna i don't know maybe you see something maybe hear this podcast
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or you see something on youtube or whatever and you you get fired up for a garage gym and you want
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to do it you know and then yeah a few months later you're like yeah well that wasn't working out
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and it was personally for me when uh you know i'll tell this story and maybe it'll help
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people relate to you know what they can do in their lives but when i started i told you my wife
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and i were in a ton of debt since then we've gotten out of debt completely but we were in a ton of
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debt putting all of our money towards that we did not have a lot of money and i was gonna buy
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that the the first big purchase i like to call it which is going to be your barbells and plates
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and that was a big decision for me and my wife at that time um so i had to i was like hey you know
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are you cool with me buying this stuff uh she she was uh i have a great wife and you know she supports
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me and so we did she knows how passionate i am about fitness um but that that whole you know
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making this huge decision to spend that money um i kind of had a mind mindset shift for me because
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i realized i wasn't working working out or continuing to do what i was doing just because
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i wanted to lift in my garage it was more it was something much deeper than that it was the fact
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that i did not want my wife to think that i was the type of guy because we were newly married at this
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point um and so i didn't want her to think that i was the type of guy who's going to waste
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our family's money i you know the guy who doesn't stick to things that he starts i didn't want my
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wife to think any of that so really i i got a very big why from the get-go and that why was
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what kind of man does my wife think that i am and you know having a huge why this is something i
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realized after the fact isn't that something i went in like oh yeah i gotta you know do this and
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that it's just kind of analyzing myself after the fact and so if you can tie anything that you're
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doing to a huge huge why you know like you know i'm doing this i'm working out in my garage
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because i want to be healthy for my kids or i want to be able to play with my kids when i'm old
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older and i i say kids because i have two kids but you know whatever your why is um i know a lot of
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people want to look good with a shirt off and and all that stuff and i i totally get that but it's
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proven over and over again that those extrinsic motivators aren't going to last when it comes to
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your motivation you need something intrinsic to you uh that's going to make you stick uh you know
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for a long time i think if you answer that question first you'll never be the guy who's
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selling your weights for pennies on the dollars on on craigslist so obviously you're the big advocate
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of the garage gym you're the garage gym guy but what do you think are the downsides of it i mean if
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someone's making this decision or weighing the pros and cons what are some of the things they might
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miss if they go they don't go to a big gym anymore you know the two biggest things that are going to
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be a huge problem for most people uh the first one's going to be weather because i know a lot
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of guys out there they they live in like michigan or minnesota uh they're still getting it done by
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the way but that takes a little different uh mental toughness than most people are willing to
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to uh fork over if you will because i mean that's freezing cold weather or maybe it's the extreme heat
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i've had that i live in wichita falls and it's 115 degrees but you really just have to adapt to that
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situation and if you can't then maybe it's not a good good situation for you but uh that's the first
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one you know the elements the second biggest one um and i don't know if you get this as much in a
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global gym but it's going to be accountability if you do have some sort of workout partner that you
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meet at the gym or if you go to a crossfit box which is just a crossfit affiliate gym um then you
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know there are people there holding you accountable people you can work out with uh so the accountability
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piece if you have that um and you start working out alone in your gym that's a huge factor as well
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so i'd say those two are the biggest i guess with the first one you can do something right if it's
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hot add a fan to your garage yeah if it's cold you know get sweats there's i mean space heater maybe
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yeah i've done all all of that so like i work out in the morning so and granted it doesn't get super
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cold here in in dallas texas but i do if it's gonna be cold we do have some winters where you know
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it'll drop a little freezing everything i'll just turn on a space heater while i warm up and everything
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and the garage will warm up a little bit by the time i'm ready to go so right so on to the second
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factor the motivation because that's what i found is one of the hardest shift to make when i went to
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my garage gym was that going to the gym it put you in a mindset i had to get on my gym stuff my gym
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clothes i got in the car and was like this is gym time it's weird whenever you're you know have a
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garage gym i just have to go down the garage and i start working out and to be honest be honest at
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first it was hard to make that shift that i can just work out anytime i want and that's what's
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weird it was sort of counterintuitive is that because it was so easily accessible there's this
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tendency to be like well i can do that sometime later so i'd had to schedule for it and i don't
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feel like i had to schedule it for i didn't feel like i had to schedule for it but i've learned that i
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had to just treat like i was going to the gym five minutes away from my house you get into the book
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about some mindset things you can do to yourself into that gym mindset even when your your gym is
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in your house and you're training by yourself can you share some of those tips on developing that pro
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mindset you call in your book yeah because that's uh that's a big thing man and i completely agree
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with you when i first started the garage gym it it is kind of difficult um to make that transition
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you know it's almost like pavlov's dogs you know uh with the conditioning you know it's uh you
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have to train your mind that when you step over the threshold of that doorway into your garage gym
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that that is that is a different place you're no longer you know you are working out you're not
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like for instance i work at home so my my computer is literally 15 feet like if i just walk through
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the door to come back uh there's no checking email all that stuff is gone and you need to treat it as
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such once you're in the garage gym but some of the stuff that um i get into about you know training like
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a pro um is there's a lot of one thing is as big as commitment and consistency and you know it's a
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it's a huge psychological principle that's been researched and if you commit something to other
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people um that is one way that's going to help you stick to your goals and this isn't necessarily
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the pro mindset but it's just a tip that people can do that i recommend is if you were to like get
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some business cards blank business cards like the templates from walmart or whatever write down your
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goal as a statement say you know i will run a mile this fast i will lose this much weight i will lift
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this much weight and give it to like 10 15 20 of your closest friends um letting them know what you
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have like dedicated yourself towards and obviously put it in a time frame i will squat 500 pounds in the
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next year or whatever and then give that to them and and let them kind of now that they know about it
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it just will hold you accountable uh but a lot of other things if you are training alone on a
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consistent basis and i've been doing it for years thousands of sessions in the garage gym alone
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completely alone i've gotten a few uh things that i i've done over the years that have really helped
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me and uh putting yourself in what i like to call like a no quit situation and one of the the workouts
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we commonly do at into three fitness is called the iron mile and this one's more of a mental toughness
00:22:20.420
thing than it is like strength training or whatever but uh say you put just put weight on your back say
00:22:25.480
it's 185 pounds and i want you to walk 800 meters away from your garage so a half mile and then you have
00:22:34.260
to come back and so the the first half mile won't be as bad but you're putting yourself in a no quit
00:22:39.060
situation because if you have a barbell on your back and you walk a half mile away your only option
00:22:43.560
is to come back or you know where if you're you know you just can't handle it i guess you could call
00:22:48.260
your your spouse or whatever to come pick you up but putting yourself in no quit situations like that
00:22:52.940
is is a huge one um and then another one i have is is putting your money where your fitness is
00:22:59.440
and this is similar to telling your friends your goals but uh i have a mentor who did this i thought
00:23:06.620
it was really cool is uh write a check it could be to to your friend or to a charity or whatever
00:23:12.020
and say if i don't achieve that goal that i've told you about i want you to send this money away
00:23:18.560
and to that charity or i want you to keep it and because motive money is a huge motivator for a lot of
00:23:24.360
people uh and i would make it an amount of money that's going to hurt for your personal financial
00:23:28.720
situations just a little bit whether that's a hundred bucks or a thousand bucks or whatever
00:23:32.300
say your best friend's going to keep a thousand bucks if you don't achieve your goal that that'll
00:23:36.320
motivate a lot of people uh and then also i i just challenge people to have a mental toughness habit
00:23:42.460
that they perform each and every single day uh for me that's cold showers every single morning
00:23:47.440
um whatever it is for you something that you don't enjoy doing that you're going to do every day
00:23:52.020
that's just going to cause you to push yourself a little bit more uh but you know there's a lot more
00:23:57.640
that i get into about all of that stuff uh training like a pro i mean you need to benchmark yourself
00:24:03.500
regularly stick to a program for at least 12 weeks i mean these are just kind of some of the highlights
00:24:09.260
um you know and and holding yourself accountable um in and how much you're lifting and you know how
00:24:16.880
far you're how far how fast you're running like actually pacing that stuff out if you're going to go for
00:24:21.140
a mile run don't just jog it out like you need to you need to know your paces you need to know your
00:24:26.040
splits and then try to get faster each time be knowledgeable about your training don't just
00:24:29.700
you know be you know off the cuff training that's not going to help anyone honestly you're not going
00:24:34.900
to progress very much and you probably will quit the gym scene because you don't know what you're
00:24:39.780
doing so you just really need to benchmark yourself and keep up with with getting better yeah don't
00:24:43.920
exercise train exactly yeah most people exercise when they go to gym they go there i'm going to do some
00:24:48.560
curls maybe maybe some shoulder presses oh man that yeah that just confuses me like i don't even know
00:24:54.340
i would probably just rather skip the workout if i told i had to do right like that just do that so
00:24:59.560
have a plan have a program yeah for sure this is great uh some great ideas about motivating yourself
00:25:05.120
when you're training alone the whole paying someone i've done that before not for fitness but for
00:25:09.640
writing there's a website out there called stick that's spelled s-t-i-c-k-k and uh that's what you do
00:25:16.380
you make a bet you put money on the line if you don't completely completely um finish it then your
00:25:22.300
money can go to your friend but it can also go to a charity or you could do what they call an
00:25:26.440
anti-charity it's a charity organization that you don't believe in so if you're a republican you can
00:25:30.960
have it go to the democratic party if you're democrat have it go to the republic party the idea uh your
00:25:35.960
money is going to go to some group that you completely disagree with that could be a huge
00:25:39.800
motivating factor right i think if you that that's what i call step one kind of the the big purchase
00:25:46.980
because there's really no way around it i i'm not going to suggest that anyone and i've looked
00:25:52.860
into this stuff i've looked into every single diy option out there but as far as cast making casts
00:25:58.240
for your own plates and pouring cement and building your own barbell i don't recommend any of that stuff
00:26:03.300
it's all going to break it's not going to last so you you kind of have to if you're going to do this
00:26:06.980
the things that you have to buy and you have to buy quality are be the barbell and plate the plates
00:26:12.220
are not as important on the quality as the barbell but you're going to have to spend the money and so
00:26:18.160
that will at least hopefully get you motivated stuck in it for enough time to make it a habit
00:26:23.060
right so if you're looking for other places to buy equipment or just like the barbell and plates i know
00:26:27.740
rogue is the big company out there that they're supplying crossfit gyms as well as garage gyms but
00:26:32.180
one of the things i found with them is they can be pretty pricey so one company that i like and this
00:26:36.980
is what i've used to outfit my garage gym is fringe sport based in austin texas they've got some
00:26:41.780
great stuff at affordable prices so if any of you are interested in looking into that go check them
00:26:46.600
out uh they've got some great equipment down there yeah man i second that notion both of those uh and
00:26:51.160
completely agree rogue is uh great really high quality stuff can be pricey uh and then fringe
00:26:57.000
yeah i know peter keller as well down at uh down in austin with fringe sport uh awesome company
00:27:02.460
awesome equipment as well great places to buy from right so as as far as the plates go do you
00:27:07.460
recommend iron bumper plates or a mixture of the two uh official recommendation if you want to save
00:27:12.980
money is going to be a mixture of the two because uh you know the the bumper plates it really depends
00:27:18.560
on your fitness but the bumper plates are going to you know dampen the noise and if you're doing
00:27:22.460
olympic lifting you can drop them and whatever but if you if you don't drop weights like you're a power
00:27:27.560
lifter uh and you're doing squats and been pressed i mean the deadlift you might drop but you can get all
00:27:33.380
iron uh but how i would actually do is buy a small set uh the smallest set of bumper plates i think
00:27:39.980
you can get like 160 pound pack uh for pretty cheap and then and i actually say go to dick
00:27:47.040
sporting sticks for goods not for their barbell uh but you're going to get a barbell in the process
00:27:52.180
this is the best deal and they always have it it's 300 bucks uh for 300 pounds of plates
00:27:58.440
which comes out to about a dollar a pound and i think that's not including the barbell and so you
00:28:04.260
really get like 345 pounds of stuff for less than a dollar pound which the industry average i think is
00:28:10.080
closer to a dollar fifty if not two dollars a pound depending on where you're buying from so
00:28:14.380
i'd get that that's what i did get the iron plates um and then i have the bumper plates as well so i have
00:28:21.440
about i don't know like six or seven hundred pounds worth of plates in my garage but you never want
00:28:26.400
to be uh you never want to be stronger than the amount of plates you have that's one of my rules
00:28:30.180
so uh you know buy them however you have to right speaking of another downside you mentioned the
00:28:35.740
bumper bumper plates reducing the sound another downside you might want to take into consideration
00:28:39.740
and i found this at the very beginning of my garage gym i have a weird house where my garage is
00:28:45.840
underneath my house and it's right underneath my two-year-old daughter's bedroom so i work out at
00:28:50.400
5 30 in the morning and when i first started doing the garage gym i was doing deadlifts i had
00:28:56.220
bumper plates i don't drop the weight but i'd lower it in a controlled fashion sort of dropping in a
00:29:01.700
controlled fashion uh it makes a lot of rack in the first few weeks like i was waking her up
00:29:07.020
yeah no yeah quiet her down that's something i don't think about as much now uh i i do have young
00:29:14.540
kids i have a almost four-year-old and almost two-year-old um but our new house that we moved
00:29:20.520
into last year um my garage is almost like behind my house and then i have this huge cement slab in
00:29:27.240
the backyard so i'm almost on my own now but uh i was in the military and moved around quite a bit
00:29:32.280
when um i was having my first garage gym and had the exact same problem i lived in a really small
00:29:39.040
house in florida uh my son you know a newborn i couldn't i couldn't get far enough away you know
00:29:45.460
i was like i tried to work out like almost on the sidewalk and street now if i was doing heavy
00:29:50.540
death my wife would still be like you can still hear i can still hear you and uh you know william
00:29:56.140
is waking up because he was a really bad sleeper early on um and so definitely a huge consideration
00:30:02.000
and there's not a ton that you can do you could try getting a lot of rubber and
00:30:05.940
and bumpers but it's still going to be right my daughter's the same way she's a terrible sleeper
00:30:10.260
so you're always walking on eggshells around at the very beginning the very beginning of the
00:30:13.800
first few years of her life she's gotten better um and she's used to the garage gym so she doesn't
00:30:17.940
wake up so that's great let's talk a little bit more about your program because you talked
00:30:21.820
that your approach to programming is not really crossfit but it's a combination of strength
00:30:26.540
conditioning can you walk us through a little bit of the programming you do and recommend at end of
00:30:30.560
three of fit at end of three fitness and your garage gym athletes yeah so there's two things about
00:30:35.160
my programming and and the reason i say it differs a little bit than crossfit there's still
00:30:39.260
metabolic conditioning which are the that's kind of the typical crossfit workout you see
00:30:43.760
uh you know where you're doing a ton of pull-ups and a ton of thrusters or whatever
00:30:47.160
we do stuff like that but i want to toe the line more of balancing as much strength with as much
00:30:53.120
fitness as possible and so that's uh you know i put my myself as the human game again and everything i
00:31:00.120
i do and program and uh you know i've been able to get the triple body weight deadlift which was 540
00:31:07.580
pounds for me at the time and and still maintain a sub six minute mile so that's kind of the fitness
00:31:13.020
that i'm looking at and the aesthetics as far as how you look if you can if you achieve things like
00:31:18.920
that you're gonna look how you want to i can almost guarantee it you're not gonna you're not
00:31:23.980
gonna have a pot belly and run a sub six minute mile that's just not gonna happen but you can have a
00:31:28.480
pot belly and lift 800 pounds that's actually way more common um and so yeah i really like to
00:31:33.980
toe the line of you know strength and conditioning so how much can you balance it but at the same
00:31:39.220
time i i like to keep it realistic for the garage gym athlete the people the garage gym athlete is
00:31:46.380
not the rich fronings of the world uh if you don't know who rich froning is he's the guy who won the
00:31:51.380
crossfit games multiple times he trains like six or seven times a day so i try to break down the
00:31:56.880
training to realistic uh blocks for people to do and so that's the big thing about about the
00:32:04.300
programming inside garage gym athlete is what i've uh coined as block program block programming
00:32:10.920
and so block programming is um each block is 10 minutes and there's five blocks inside of that
00:32:19.960
window and so it's gonna it's gonna in equal an hour i know it's it the math comes out to 50 minutes
00:32:25.460
but if you add in transition and getting lazy here and lazy there it'll be 60 minutes every time so
00:32:31.040
every athlete that i train knows for a fact they'll never be training more than an hour it's like
00:32:36.020
physically impossible because if you don't complete something you have to stop and move on to the next
00:32:40.640
thing uh and so within those five areas we work uh strength and prehab stuff so you're going to be
00:32:47.880
doing you'll always be doing some sort of strength work in the first part of the uh your first block
00:32:53.200
your first 10 minute block and sometimes that can be two blocks that's going to get you stronger
00:32:57.060
uh but it's also some accessory work to make to prevent you from getting injured injured so you
00:33:03.020
know whatever accessory works that that could be for your shoulders your back or whatever just to
00:33:06.500
avoid injury and then uh you know we're also going to work on what we call the daily which are
00:33:11.960
abdominal stuff lower back stuff all the little muscles the hamstrings to make sure that you're
00:33:16.580
you know you're ready to go and then we have uh metabolic conditioning which i kind of mentioned
00:33:22.520
and then we have z stability which is basically the zurcher lifts and if you're not familiar with
00:33:28.220
zurcher lift it is holding it in the crook of your arms so if your arms are bent you're holding it in
00:33:34.480
between your elbows and lifting it there and then also general fitness and i know i just covered a lot
00:33:39.580
so we have five areas and those five blocks you're going to hit all throughout the entire week and it's
00:33:45.460
just really well rounded because you're getting an accessory work you're getting a strength work
00:33:49.200
you're getting in some general fitness stuff which could be like just running or rowing and then
00:33:55.180
you're also getting in the high intensity metabolic conditioning stuff a few times a week what kind of
00:33:59.460
metabolic training sessions are you doing are you guys doing uh it can it really varies so what what
00:34:05.320
breaks it up differently than typical crossfit training because that metabolic conditioning is the
00:34:10.800
closest that we get um sometimes we'll just do really intense intervals so some of my favorites are
00:34:16.100
six rounds of 30 seconds on followed by 30 seconds off and running or rowing but you have to have a
00:34:21.800
meter goal for those 30 seconds and that keeps people really honest and it gets really hard really
00:34:26.320
fast but then also doing stuff um like so say you sprint for a full minute and then you would uh you
00:34:36.220
know lift weight squat do 10 10 back squats at 50 of your one rep max and then rest for a minute so the
00:34:42.120
rest is kind of built in i'd say that's where we kind of differ is because if you're doing three
00:34:46.440
rounds of something and i tell you just go as hard as you can for until you're done i i like that to
00:34:52.120
a point but i i don't think it's realistic for everyone all the time maybe we do that once a week
00:34:55.820
or once every other week i like to tell you okay this is three rounds you're going to go as hard as
00:35:00.820
you can into different exercise for two minutes you're going to rest for two minutes and then we're
00:35:04.620
going to do that three times and so when you know the rest is built in there you're going to go so much
00:35:09.980
harder at the beginning part of that metabolic conditioning that you're going to get more
00:35:13.740
benefit than if you were to do the first two rounds burn out and then just kind of do a half half
00:35:18.840
effort the rest of the way so here's another question that came to my mind let's say you don't
00:35:23.320
want to train by yourself and you've got a bud who's like yeah i want to come do the same program as you
00:35:27.900
are there considerations you're taking taken to account uh whenever you start inviting people into
00:35:33.880
your garage gym i'm talking like legal or insurance implications you know obviously there's
00:35:39.960
there's going to be something there i mean do you need a neighbor waiver uh maybe it depends on how
00:35:45.720
how serious you're getting um but hopefully if they're your buddies and they hurt themselves that's
00:35:51.120
kind of they're not going to sue you for it yeah i would hope but uh i do and it all depends on how
00:35:56.380
you're doing because i i'm a i'm a coach i've coached a lot of athletes so if someone does come to train
00:36:01.740
at my house then and i know i know their fitness level asking a ton of questions and everything
00:36:06.660
i'm going to instruct them first but if you are just you know having a bro sesh you know and you
00:36:12.140
invite someone over and uh you guys are just going to work out and the guy hurts himself um because
00:36:16.620
there's no instruction there or whatever then yeah that can get a little dicey i would just to be safe
00:36:22.200
if it like i know that there are different home owners insurance out there that covers like a certain
00:36:26.260
amount right for that that kind of stuff um but if you want to put together some sort of uh i'm
00:36:32.080
obviously not a lawyer but if you want to put together some waiver that would be great just to kind of
00:36:35.840
cover your own but or maybe get umbrella insurance yeah yeah hey jared where can people learn more
00:36:40.860
about your work yeah so you can go to end of three fitness.com that's all spelled out um end of
00:36:47.060
three fitness.com what does that mean by the way so it came up with it a long time ago um i actually
00:36:52.700
thought it'd be a cool name for a band you know how the drummer's like one a one two three and then
00:36:56.880
they go yeah uh and so when i decided i was going to start a fitness website i had told my wife about
00:37:02.080
that a long time ago and she's like that's a perfect name for it because that's kind of where
00:37:05.940
the that's where the fitness happens at the end of three you know at the end of that countdown and so
00:37:10.940
that's that's what it means okay yeah i was curious about that and then it's uh garagegymathlete.com
00:37:17.440
as well it's not not a different website it's just with the book coming out you could just type
00:37:21.520
that in maybe easier to remember but garagegymathlete.com will take you to the book uh because we're giving
00:37:26.860
away uh free copies when we first uh launch it so all right jared moon thank you so much for your
00:37:32.460
time it's been a pleasure yeah man super glad to be on thank you so much my guest today was jared moon
00:37:37.540
he's the author of the book garage gym athlete you can find more information about his book at
00:37:41.700
garagegymathlete.com you can find on amazon and also check out his other site endofthreefitness.com for
00:37:47.840
more diy fitness equipment tips and plans and also make sure to check out the show notes for the show at
00:37:54.460
aom.is slash moon well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more
00:38:05.900
manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and
00:38:10.000
if you enjoy this show and have got something out of it i'd really appreciate it if you give us a
00:38:13.260
review on itunes or stitcher as that helps spread the word about the show and also just tell your
00:38:17.240
friends about us as always appreciate your continued support and until next time this is brett mckay