Mark Bell's Power Project - Athletes, DROP Olympic Lifts & Grab a Landmine - Landmine University’s Alex Kanellis || MBPP Ep. 902

Episode Date: March 14, 2023

In this Podcast Episode, Alex Kanellis of Landmine University, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about the incredible benefits an athlete can receive when doing landmine exercises. Follow Landmine University on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/landmineuniversity/ New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin! ➢https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!! ➢Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements! ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order! ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en  Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz Stamps: 00:00 - Wrestling power 03:38 - Integrate wrestling lessons in school 05:25 - How wrestling helped you in football 08:19 - How lifting has helped you 12:30 - Does lifting affect athletic performance 14:37 - Process of starting Landmine 17:15 - Replace Olympic lifting with Landmine drills 21:03 - What makes Landmine training different 27:13 - Landmine Advantages 29:19 - Any Olympic lifts that are better than Landmine training 34:37 - Teaches how to build explosive strength 37:24 - Missing key components of athleticism in teenagers 40:19 - Landmine shoulder throw & catch 43:11 - Rep & set scheme 44:52 - Landmine Bosu ball workout 49:29 - Landmine shoulder movements 53:09 - No trace of fatigue 54:54 - Landmine movements for back pain 58:23 - Favorite tools 59:37 - Neck & Grip training for wrestlers 1:02:19 - Landmine Squat variations 1:04:47 - Box squats 1:06:35 - Nordic Curls 1:06:57 - START when you are young 1:08:27 - Sled push 1:09:38 - Famous across the country 1:13:59 - How to learn more about Landmine program 1:15:16 - Landmine University Certification 1:16:35 - Way to connect with Alex 1:16:42 - Outro. #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

Mark told me to tell you that if you don't give us a five-star rating on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you listen to the podcast, that I should choke you out, which I would never do, but he suggested that. So please, if you enjoy the podcast, we're trying to grow, go ahead and give us a star rating on iTunes and Spotify. Enjoy the episode. Never really did, but. Hops into a nice mood.

You might want to just try to take half of it or something. Yeah. Or you can do it after if you want. Whatever. I'm going to take some. No pressure. I'll do it. Oh, okay.

He likes to party. The taste is unbelievable. That's really... We nailed that flavor. That's what you're going for. Flavor profiling. That's good. Yeah, that's a great commercial for it right there.

Whenever you're ready, Mark. I'm ready to rock. Let's do it. Wow. We, you know, this past UFC, you saw how prominent and still how powerful wrestling is in the UFC. Did you get an opportunity to watch any of it or did you kind of hear what happened and stuff? I saw the highlights and I did watch that fight. Yeah.

Yeah. The fight is a highlight. It's like two minutes in. Yeah, what was the fight it was a real damn okay yeah it was wild right um i mean i i just i was pretty blown away i mean um you know when a fight ends that quickly i guess i guess that can happen to you know can happen for many, many reasons. Sometimes get caught with stuff and things like that. But it was just so obvious

as soon as Bones just touched the guy, as soon as he put his hands. Wrestling is so undeniable. You feel like nine out of ten times it would have ended the same way. Not only is this guy going down, but this is over too. You kind of thought that right away.

I was trying to think about that in terms of ufc matches that i've seen and then in terms of title fights i've seen uh i've never seen that happen before quite that way where it was just so clear the other guy was outmatched as soon as not as not when they squared off when they squared off it seemed like oh shit like this is going to be wild. But as soon as it came to the wrestling is when you were like, this is kind of lopsided. You've got a long history of wrestling? Yes, I do. Yep. I wrestled my whole life.

State champion high school, did all that stuff. Ended up playing football in college. But right now I'm working at a wrestling club in iowa and uh working exclusively training wrestlers youth wrestlers through high school i don't know if you guys remember but like when you were in high school like when i was in high school um i was pretty like intimidated i was friends with a lot of the wrestling guys but i was like kind of intimidated by like the workouts that i would hear that they did and uh i was always like man i don't want to ever mess with any of these guys you guys remember that my school didn't have a great wrestling team but like i knew of wrestlers and their workouts didn't compare like i mean i did a lot of competitive soccer we did a lot of running wrestling workouts blow that shit out of

the water as far as there's the fatigue that they bring those kids to yeah my friends would ask me all the time like can you go out for the wrestling team i I'm like, no, I think I'm good, bro. Like, I'm a little too fat. I don't think I can do all the conditioning and the running that they do. Yeah, I did a little basketball in junior high, and I was like, oh, my God, this is so fun. I think I want to do this, you know?

But it wasn't really an option. Just I looked up always. We always looked up to the wrestlers. I'm from Iowa City, University of Iowa. So when I was growing up, they won everything every year. Dan Gable was the coach and I wanted to be like those guys. So, yeah, that's what you had to do. But it is brutal.

It's like a soccer workout if someone's also trying to crank your neck the whole time. You know, there's no break and it's just exhausting. And you're always in a fucking position. A lot of those workouts, they have those kids in that stance the whole time while they're doing all those movements. Yeah, that's enough. It's so fatiguing, but they end up moving so well. Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Do you think, because you work with kids now, do you think that wrestling, you're working with young kids that wrestle, do you think that's something that should be like integrated maybe a little bit more at school or something like that? I really do. And I think one of the cool things to see is, at least in Iowa, the women's wrestling is also gaining a lot of popularity.

And I think it's really powerful for them too. As you see, talking about the fight, like a certain level of self-defense, but also confidence, and also just carry over into whatever they want to do athletically. Everything else is going to seem easy, and you learn how to learn. You just do so many different things with your body as part of that sport. It opens a lot of doors athletically, and also I just think self-esteem, self-defense, opens a lot of doors athletically. And also I just think self-esteem, self-defense,

and self-defense in a way where our kids don't have to get their faces beat in, but they still get to experience it. They're all kid on the concrete. There you go. Right. There you go. Do you see some big confidence boosts in some of the kids? Maybe they come in and they don't have that confidence at first. Have you seen some pretty big changes?

You know, it's hard to say. I think it's easier to look at the kids that aren't involved compared to the kids that are. A lot of our kids, it's a family thing. It's a culture thing. So they do it from the time they can walk. But

they're some of my favorite kids. I've trained, worked a little bit with kids outside of the sport, but it's really been refreshing to be back home and be around this type of kid. They're always well-behaved. They work hard. They come in expecting to work hard. And there's just a certain level of respect that I think is ingrained into the sport. Did wrestling help you a lot when you played college football? Absolutely. You know, on a bunch of levels. Because other sports are like little mini battles going on all over the place, right?

I think especially. Basketball, football, and so on. I think especially on the line and football. And that's one thing that we at the University of Iowa have done consistently is that we have good offensive lines. That's how we compete with, you know, bigger states, bigger schools, and they all wrestle. So I think it's pretty undeniable. And for me, it was my biggest advantage was that I was really comfortable with physical contact and, you know, moving

another person. Yeah, using your hands. Yeah. Right. Right. It would be advantageous if, like, a lot of football players learned how to wrestle, especially in just the safety of tackles. Because you see some football, like, again, I'm not crazy football.

Yeah, you see Ray Lewis, you see some of the best guys. Was he a wrestler? He was a state champion. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Ray Lewis has been riding his bicycle like a madman. Have you guys seen that? No. Yeah.

He's been, uh, doing endurance stuff. He's been doing like 50 miles, a hundred miles. Makes you feel good, huh? He's the greatest.

I'm like, damn, look at him. He's going, he's going nuts. I'm such a fan. I saw him, he was talking with a friend.

Oh, he's talking with Tyreek Hill. And Tyreek Hill is like, can you, you know, it's third and one and I get the ball out in the, out in the flat and we're one-on-one, you know,

who makes the play and raise like, you know, just with his normal voice. He's like, well, it depends on the situation and they're going back and forth. And Tyreek Hill is like, how come everything you say sounds motivational?

Yeah. Ray Lewis always sounds like giving motivational speech. Yeah. Here he is on his bike. Wow. Oh, he's the coolest guy. He's still Justin's big, isn't he? Bo Jackson did the same thing. When he quit, when he got

done with baseball and football, he started doing like triathlons or something or I'm sorry, bike. This endurance like bike stuff, whatever the hell it's called. That's actually really awesome to see like pro athletes getting out of their sport and doing something. What did you do after football? Like how was that for you?

And how long did you play football in college? It was tough. So I played my true freshman and sophomore year. And then my career ended due to a couple injuries. I actually had a head injury that sidelined me and I ended up giving it up. I got way into coaching and powerlifting. And that's when I got heavy into the west side barbell stuff and the weightlifting. Equipped or raw?

Raw. And you know what? I actually was a strength coach. I got my numbers up to a place where I felt like they were respectful, but I didn't compete. I was just a gym guy. But that was my way of sort of my outlet physically, and I was always coaching too. I fell in love with coaching right away.

So that filled that sort of void for me. Yeah. What did lifting do for you, and what did it not do for you? After football? Yeah, after football. You also mentioned, I guess you mentioned even during football, you kind of went down the rabbit hole of doing a lot of Olympic lifting, correct? Well, Olympic lifting was a big part of our program,

as I think it is pretty commonly in college football weight rooms. Yeah. And I got huge. I mean, there's a lot of, I think, confidence and just raw power that I gained out of it. Did you get that really wide football face going? Absolutely. Oh, you wouldn't recognize me. Yeah, I was like 310 pounds after football just because of it.

It's so great. You're like, this is great. I'm going to destroy everybody. Your face is all filling up in front of your football helmet. Did you say you were 330 pounds? I was up to like 310, 315. Yeah, he's a big boy over there. After football?

After football. Oh. And during. So, yeah, I finished my career at offensive line and I was like 310 pounds. How much do you weigh now, dog? Like probably 245. Wow. He's like, I'm down to nothing.

He's still huge. I did one natural bodybuilding competition, and I was all the way down to like 203 when I stepped on. Damn. So I've been up and down. I've always loved training, and I always get too into something. So it's one thing or the other. But, yeah, it's fun to watch you go through all the bodybuilding stuff

because it's just – I remember it and I was the same way. I did one and that was enough. And I have so much respect for those guys. But that is one of the most intense like few months of my life really. Do you think lifting enhanced a lot of what you were doing like when you were playing sports? I think so. I think for – for yeah to a certain extent absolutely i think if you take that 300 pound guy who benches 485 and squats 650 and you put them up across from someone who hasn't done any weight training then you can see the full spectrum that that guy doesn't have a

chance you know what i mean i think think that without a doubt, your performance increases, especially in the physical positions and the guys that need to move somebody. So yeah, I mean, absolutely. And Chris Doyle was our strength coach, and he was a huge influence on me. As soon as I got done playing, I interned with him, and I really enjoyed that part of the football experience for sure. One of my favorite things was the weight training. It was one of the things I looked forward to the most when I got into college, and it was really one of my favorite parts.

Did it ever feel like it got too lopsided that maybe you should have been working on some other stuff, or do you think there was enough athletic intervention too? I think we did a good job i'll say when i was done with football and all the sprinting jumping all that stuff went out the window and i got way into the power lifting uh i told people as soon as i started sort of waddling i felt like all right uh waddling and wheezing. Yeah, waddling and wheezing. I felt like I had gone a little bit too far away from, you know, what a wrestling practice would look like or what the athletic things that we needed to do for football. always our best football players and that there wasn't a platform strength training-wise that would help certain guys catch up to the best players. The best players are going to be the best players. We were going to get a little bit of an edge in the weight room, and that's

undeniable. But I've been in the place where I've been doing so much bilateral stuff that anything unilateral became more difficult to access. And it hurts and then you're not encouraged to do it. Yeah, right. And that's the other thing. You put your energy into the powerlifting, the putting on muscle, and you'd have to pay me a substantial amount of money to get me to run. Or to do a lunge. Right. Lunge is absolutely not. Right.

That's not going to happen. Right. Right. Do you think, because we were talking a little bit about it yesterday and, you know, we've had the go-to guys here and they actually like doing a lot of landmine stuff. I think Gary said that that's some of the things that they actually do. But do you think that the lifting that they talk about, do you think it takes away from athletes as much as they believe it does?

Because they're very anti-doing a lot of deadlifting and some of the classic movements that a lot of athletes typically do. I don't think – I mean I'm – I would imagine much less dogmatic in what I – I really – because I loved strength training so much and I still do, I think there are better alternatives to some of the things that we're doing in the weight room. Yeah. But I also think there's a certain amount of value to any type of training. And for the most part, people just need to move more, not necessarily athletes but gen pop people. I'm really hesitant to tell them that they shouldn't be doing this or they shouldn't be doing that.

I'd much rather present an alternative that can maybe check that box in a more athletic or more functional way. That's kind of where my system comes from is that I really do respect and appreciate Olympic weightlifting and sort of the power and explosiveness that those guys develop. I just wanted to provide an alternative to that style of training that was a little more functional, a little more rotational, and would help more with locomotion. That would help you run faster. And that was sort of the precipice of the whole landmine thing because I do think that the Olympic weightlifting,

it builds a certain speed, a certain explosiveness that I just couldn't, I needed to keep that as part of my program. Yeah. But I wanted it to mimic more of what we were doing on the field, on the mat. And that's where this whole all kind of came about. Power Project family, how's it going? I want to talk to you guys about the best gym fits in the game. You need to head over to Viori.

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When did you start like I guess thinking of the landmine and when did that come into your mind as like a whole process? So I, like I said, went down the power lifting sort of rabbit hole and I was working as a strength coach with junior high, high school this entire time. And then with a few private athletes. Had a big-time powerlifting program. Then I got into Olympic weightlifting, and that became my focus. And then I got into David Weck's stuff and the spinal engine stuff. stuff and the spinal engine stuff. And it was a big light bulb for me that, man, when we run, when we move, we don't brace our core in neutral like we do for every single exercise that we've been doing.

Imagine bracing your core while running. Like, just imagine running that way. And legitimately, man, I'm telling you that that is what's being taught. And yeah, I think that to brace your core neutral and 90-90 arm swing. Seriously? Oh yeah, those are the drills we did and that's still how they're teaching it. They watched it from the side.

This is all new, this concept of rotating through the core. The spinal engine theory, Serge Grachovetsky is a book, a textbook that David put me on. And basically he says that the spine is the primary engine for locomotion. So movement rotation through the spine is actually what generates most of the power. So when I heard that, when I started thinking that way, and when I met David and saw some of his coiling core stuff, I really wanted

to connect dots between what he was doing and the strength training. And that was just – became an obsession for me. The way that we're showing some of the demonstrations of the way some people are moving, it's interesting because they're moving their body around the object, which is very common in sport. A lot of times in a weight room, we're moving the object around our body and we're not really getting ourselves into some of these positions. Again, lifting weights is amazing and sometimes it gets to be confusing because when you see

an Olympic lifter, sometimes some of these Olympic lifters that you see are such good athletes. They can jump and do all these crazy things. But a lot of times, a lot of times those guys are very, very high level Olympic lifters. So it's sometimes hard to tell, is that just Dmitry Klokov? Would he have similar,

you know what I mean? And like what you're saying, when you slow down and watch these Olympic lifts, the most explosive thing they're doing is moving their body under the bar. The bar's not moving its fastest when they're moving the most explosively. And I think that's powerful. The advantage of the landmine is now we can add some rotation and some side bending. And we can really mimic the patterns that we generate this force from in our core.

And we can really mimic the patterns that we generate this force from in our core. And that's why I think, for me, that's why so many of the fighters have really liked it. Because those patterns is over and over, rotate, side bend, rotate, side bend. And that needs to be part of their strength training. Otherwise, they're getting explosive with a pattern that they're just never going to replicate in their sport. They're never going to do a two-foot vertical jump. They're not going to come at you and push you with both hands. It's always going to be rotation and side bend through the core.

And that's one of the big advantages of the landmine. That's when I fell in love with the landmine. And I think the first time I really fell in love with it was one of David's old videos. He used to get all coiled on the landmine and throw it. And I thought, man, it's too good to be just one exercise. So we just started racking my brain about how can I replace my hand cleans? How can we do a split clean? How can I replace my snatch? How can I do a rotational snatch?

And then how can we replace the jerk with our split jerk? What's some of the reason to do a different exercise? Have you found in coaching and exploring Olympic lifting that there's just a certain level of difficulty and a certain level of education that kind of comes with it? I felt like this in college. I went to college without a background in Olympic weightlifting, and I wasn't necessarily good at it. I had wrist mobility issues that made it hard to get into, like, a front rack position. And what I scratched my head at the most in college was that when we were doing heavy hand cleans, which is something that we did regularly, you could look at one side of the room

and the other side of the room, and you could see two guys doing a totally different exercise. Like if you're, one guy's got his feet way out in the side and he's got a horrible front rack, then the other guy's nailing it. And he's obviously done it, you know, in high school. And that learning curve is something that is almost impossible to get past for athletes. When I went down to work with Phil DeRue in Florida, they had gotten completely away from Olympic lifts because a lot of the fighters just didn't have time to learn that type of movement and it didn't come naturally to them. One of the big advantages of what we're doing right now is that I've got it down to a system where we can take a room full of kids and they'll all be looking the same by the time they finish a one-hour workshop. Again, for the people that are Olympic lifters or into it, we're not saying-

Fuck you. No. Yeah, your lifts suck. No, no, no. That's what we're saying. They're dumb. No, we're joking. I think Olympic lifting can be amazing.

It really can. And some people are like, well, just take the time to teach it. And I totally understand. And, you know, if it's someone's forte. But what I would say against Olympic lifting, one of my biggest things against it was always that the heavier that people normally go, the worse their form and technique gets. And in powerlifting, which I don't think that people should necessarily powerlift or weightlift only for sport. I think you would want to sprinkle in a lot of other things to be more athletic. But in powerlifting, if your form's not better, you're not going to be able to do the lift.

Olympic lifting, you can almost say that that bad form almost promotes you to sometimes get the lift to a certain degree. And I know, again, like, you know, there are people that teach it with a lot of precision and there are people that do take their time. And I do think that Olympic lifting has a great place in sport. But again, I think it would just take a lot of diligence and would take a lot of

patience to keep the weights light so you can actually move them properly and move your body around them properly. Yeah. And I can say coming from a Division I football program that we, as much time as we put into it, exactly what you're saying was the case that when we got heavy, everyone looked like shit doing these cleans. It became a dangerous thing. But they didn't know how to check that box.

I want you to move this weight as explosively as possible. And this is the only exercise where we move the bar that fast. And I am not anti-Olympic lifting. I'm not anti any type of lifting. But I do think we're providing a really great alternative. And if you're trying to make your athletes more explosive, then I think you should have multiple tools in your toolbox that involve explosive weight training. So this is another good one.

And sprinkles in a little bit of this forward intent. So we're always driving forward. The whole lift is done through the balls of your feet, which is different than powerlifting or Olympic weightlifting. I feel strongly about that advantage. Olympic weightlifting. I really am. I feel strongly about that advantage. When you do one of our landmine sessions, you'll be on the balls of your feet driving forward the whole time so that that aggressive shin angle is layered into everything we're doing. And that's one thing that we are going to look for in most sports. And then the rotational component is really what makes it so special is that we're generating core-driven power,

and these long side, short side core switches are how we generate the force, how we move the bar fast. And it's just that there's a lot of carryover there to be had for fighters and anyone who wants to sprint. The shin angle on both sides, right? Like the front leg, you're going to have the knee driving forward quite a bit, but on that back leg, the shin sometimes is, what, parallel to the floor, right? Like the front leg, you're going to have the knee driving forward quite a bit, but on that back leg, the shin sometimes is what parallel to the floor, right? Yeah. And our goal is really a congruent. So your spine and your shin are both going to be

parallel at an aggressive angle with that, that front shin. And that's just how, you know, you can move forward. And you watch someone do a takedown, watch someone throw a baseball, watch somebody, you know, dunk a basketball, you're going to see these kind of low shin angles or somebody playing defense in basketball or somebody throwing a ball from third to first and stuff like that. You'll see it time and time again in sports.

Just the path of the bar, the fact that we're moving it a little bit horizontal as well as vertical. That was like a kettlebell swing, but to the side. That looked brutal. You know, I want to reiterate, though, because as you were showing it to me yesterday, the feet are huge. Like when you think of if you guys were to visualize someone doing a snatch or someone doing a clean, think about the feet of those athletes. And again, let's think of field athletes and grapplers. field athletes and grapplers.

But then if you pull up another video of you doing some of these different landline movements, the force that you need to be able to receive in your feet going from side to side, not only are you able to work with load, but now it's like your ability to just move with that load and be explosive with that load on the balls of your feet is something that you don't typically get with these other lifts. You don't get that with Olympic lifts.

You got to catch the weight too. You have to catch the weight. Like don't, and don't get me wrong for all you Olympic lifting lovers. Yeah, there's portions where you go up with that force and you receive that load, but you're receiving it flat-footed. And an advantage too is just the fact that it's all unilateral. If we're going to flex one hip, then we're going to extend the other one, and that's mostly what you do in sport.

So even a small pattern like that, the more times we can grease that groove, right? How many times are you going to perform this pattern? Because as we know from doing a lot of bilateral, both hips flex, both hips extend, that becomes how you move. That starts to— Dude, and another cool thing is that like this ingrains quickly when we, when you're doing it yesterday, I remember when I walked up to the bar and you're like, Oh,

that's the wrong foot. That's the wrong hand. I was like, Oh shit. Yeah. Yeah. But when you do a few reps with just the bar and you, you get the hang of it,

an athlete can get the hang of this quickly and can probably start loading it quickly. And the carryover is just, it's, it's quick. There's, there's a minimal learning curve for most people. Yeah, that's because it's natural and because that is, I mean, it's an exaggerated range

of motion from how you walk. Yeah. But to flex one, extend the other one, my experience has been that people pick this up really quick and we're getting a lot more range out of your core, your trunk muscles, but it's crazy how fast people learn it. I can comfortably go into a room full of 20 kids, which is, that's always my measuring stick. If someone introduces something to me, gives me information that I don't feel like I can share with 20 kids, because that's who I'm going home to, I lose interest really fast. So I need it to be simple. I need it to be straightforward. And I need the learning curve

to be small because we're trying to use this to train. We're not training Olympic weightlifters. We're training wrestlers. So we need the tool to be easy to present. And then we need to be able to load it to our liking. It doesn't always have to be super heavy, but if you're looking for a certain range or a certain speed, I want to be able to get there and spend most of our time actually training. Another huge advantage here, I don't know what the science would say or show, but there's really not a lot of like spinal loading, like spinal compression, but you do have loading, right? So it's like it's a way to load your your your

hips your glutes your legs your calves and it just doesn't seem like there's that same downward compression that you might get from a deadlift i know and sema has mentioned uh he's like i think i'm just going to kind of nix sumo deadlifts because i don't know like when am i that in that position when i'm you know doing my jujitsu so And again, Olympic lifting, a lot of times people's feet, they flop way out to the sides in a lot of powerlifting movements. They just don't seem like they – I hate the word carryover, but they don't seem like they have a great purpose and have a great carryover. Now, if you're doing them because of consistency and because of fun, well, now we can have like a slightly different conversation because I think it's important that you get to the gym. It's massively important that you develop some strength and it's massively important that you develop some muscle. So that might be a different conversation rather than like what's optimal.

Yeah, and I do think there's a big spectrum there where if you are maybe sedentary compared to a guy that does a lot of Olympic weightlifting, well, gosh, he's going to be more explosive. Also, there's a lot of carryover to our stuff from Olympic weightlifters. If you have experience with traditional cleans or snatches, when I show you the landmine versions of these movements, you're going to pick them up really fast because the rhythm is similar. There are things that you develop through any type of strength training that I believe are super powerful. If you trained sumo deadlifts your whole life and person B didn't train anything

and then we brought you guys in to do some split squats or lunges, I do think you'd perform better because I think your muscles are stronger. But when we're going for max carryover, which is really what I'm interested in, when you're training with athletes, you don't have a ton of time. You want as much carryover as possible. I think we're doing some pretty powerful stuff here. Yeah. Can I ask you a question?

I want to know since I know you've thought about this a lot, but right now we've been really just talking shit on the Olympic lifts. But I'm curious. He's like, no, please. No, no. Okay. No, no, no, no, no. I want to know this. Like when you compare the landmine clean landmines, uh, snatch, et cetera, to the, you know, normal Olympic lifts, is there anything that those Olympic lifts have that are better or that they, that, um, that are advantageous versus the landmine version of those lifts? Um, I would say. For an athlete. Sure.

Like, uh, I think it's a different pattern. Um, you, you can load those really effectively and you're, if you've measured the absolute force, or just another one, so I'm going to tangent here, but the grip, we need to find a better way to grip the bar. For Olympic lifts. A cap. Olympic lifts, you have both hands on the bar. Your whole body goes into moving the bar the same direction. You might say that you're producing more maximal force, but then on the other side of it, because the landmine lifts are unilateral all the way down to the core, I think that's advantageous for training an athlete because we can produce

force one side at a time without taxing the athlete as much. It's a tough question because I'm so diehard on what I'm doing right now. But again, I do love the Olympic lifts. Uh, it's just, I think what we're doing is, is sort of building a similar strength profile. One major disadvantage for the landmine would be the strength curve. That's what we talked about. Adding bands to the bar is something that we do regularly because as, as we get towards the top of the lift, the bar is going to get lighter.

Yeah. Um, easy to negate that with bands, but it takes some setup. I would say Olympic lifting, too, might have an advantage in the plyometric effect. If you look at like a snatch, somebody, they get under it, they got to squat their body underneath it, and they got to catch and receive the weight. Somebody else could argue and say, hey, well, there's better ways of doing that. We could do that with box jumps or jumping down from a box or what have you. And in some of the positions we're getting in, it looks like with the landmine, it doesn't look like you're getting as low, like you're in a much higher position. Sure.

like you're in a much higher position. Sure. Sometimes you'll feel a lot of hip flexor action because as one hip flexes, the other extends. This is one that I think could be advantage or disadvantage, right? So one thing about hitting a good snatch is it's really hard to get someone to that level mobility-wise, and you don't necessarily need that level of mobility to play your sport, but that could also be seen as an advantage that, you know, we're building more mobility with this exercise.

I'd also say it's a different kind of mobility just because of the bilateral nature. So advantage of the landmine would be it's accessible, I think, and really easy to modify. We can take people that aren't super mobile and we can get them training explosively with these movements. We can shorten their split. They might not be as coiled if they're not comfortable with that. And then with the Olympic lifts, I think it can be more difficult to fit that movement in with someone who's not super mobile. They might hurt themselves because they just can't do a snatch. They can't get into an overhead or a rack position.

As far as that rack position, by the way, our buddy Graham, the barefoot sprinter, and other people actually know, one of the times years ago when he was doing, I think it was maybe a clean, he injured his wrist. You know what I mean? My wife actually, she played softball in college and had a bad wrist injury doing cleans, which is sort of inexcusable. I mean, like if you're a strength coach and you have someone playing softball and they hurt themselves doing a clean, if that doesn't get you fired, I don't know what should. That's like really stepping outside of your job. Yeah. So I've seen multiple people hurt their wrist doing cleans,

and it's not people that are competitive Olympic weightlifters. It's athletes who were doing it to build explosive strength, and then they hurt their wrist. Yeah. Bad. You know, so. And we've been lucky with, I don't know of anyone injuring themselves doing this, but it'll happen.

It's new, right? It's new. You start bending and moving your body in new directions. That's why the other day – yesterday, you showed me a couple of things, but I didn't want to participate any further because I ran earlier. And I'm like, I'm so stiff that it's better off for me to try this on another day. And it is. It's explosive weightlifting. So it would be the last part of a rehabilitation program regardless. stiff that it's better off for me to try this on another day. And it is. It's explosive weightlifting. So it would be the last part of a rehabilitation program regardless.

If I said, okay, we'll just do traditional cleans instead, you wouldn't want to do that. Right. Absolutely. But there's a lot of stuff that we do, slow stuff, coiled stuff that can be really good building blocks for someone coming back from a back injury. But this is not like an answer to, okay, my back's hurt. This is something I can jump right into now. It's explosive weight training. It's performance-based.

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Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. What about some bodybuilding? Like, do you have the kids, so they mess around with these, they do landmine drills and they do the warm-up and they do their drills and so forth. And then after that, do you have them work on like a little just straight hypertrophy

curls and overhead presses and stuff like that? Absolutely, yeah. I'm still in love with all that stuff. Yeah, why not look like something, right? Yeah, right. I always loved pro wrestling, pumping iron. It's still my favorite movie. I mean, these things, there are some cool things like I saw you doing where we can manipulate

the core to make the connecting muscles longer, shorter, doing some coiled exercises to get into different ranges. So there are some advantages there, but I love a good overhead press. I love some pull-ups. I love some rows. And I think that should be part of everyone's program. I think a good well-rounded program involves doing a little bit of everything. And if you take that stuff away, then your gym's going to end up empty.

I mean, I think that's one of the main reasons people come in the weight room in the first place. Even these wrestlers, whether they want to admit it or not, they're wrestling to get better at wrestling, and some of them are in the weight room to look better in that singlet. I mean, it is what it is. And I'm just – I've always been a huge fan of strength training. So I really want to stress to anyone listening that this is another fun way to load.

It's going to give you some quantitative feedback. It's something else that you can max out on. It's something else that you can use as part of your program. But it doesn't need to be a replacement. I would say alternative is a better word. What are some people – what are some young people missing that you're because you're working with i think you said all the way from the age of like what four well we have we've got young kids that come into wrestling club my little baby landmine guy of course there's some of my little guys so the younger guys they're

probably not really missing much but when somebody gets to be like 13 or 15 or so like what are those guys when you work with them? Has there been anything surprising that you're like, wow, that's interesting. I didn't really realize they would be so deficient in this area. I think one of the things that I've seen just from on a global level is a gap between we have more sedentary kids and then we also have more super high-level kids. So we have kids that the best wrestlers are now better than they ever were before because they have a platform to train and to get started earlier,

and they have really good coaches. Then on the other end, the kid that says, hey, I'm just going to go out. I need to get involved in sports. I'm going to go out in seventh grade, has been on his phone for the last three years already, and that gap has widened. And that, to me, is a tough thing because when I was in school, all my buddies would come out for wrestling in junior high, even if they weren't good. Some of them would get better and stick with it.

Right now, I think we're seeing a big gap where the best athletes are getting better because training is evolving and competition is evolving. They're getting more opportunities. At the same time, the bottom of the barrel is getting worse. And that's something that I just from a broad range have seen more matches end in pins, things like that. Matches end in pins, things like that. But in terms of what they're missing athletically, I'm pretty blessed to be in the little bubble that I'm in.

I just have a lot of awesome, hardworking kids that to me seem like they're just doing great. I think as we get more competitive and specialized with these athletes too, there are some things that you'll see. I think you see it less in wrestling because there's so much involved. You have to be able to do so much. But an example would be playing catch. Some of the wrestling kids aren't going to be very good at that, right? And I think you're seeing that with kids globally that they'll start specializing as a baseball guy.

I'm a baseball guy who's in fifth grade, right? And eventually, give them until seventh grade, they can't do a somersault. Things like that that I think, I don't know, I think PE kind of sucks. And a lot of these kids can get by without really having uh an athletic base yeah giving kids more of an ability to just move more yeah just be more well-rounded i think they should all play a bunch of sports and do a bunch of of things uh when they're younger you know one there's a there's another cool thing actually there's a few things i wanted to talk about but when it comes to the landmine, you were mentioning the throwing aspect of it.

Because like when we look at it and as we've spoken about it, we make it sound really simple and it is somewhat easy to pick up. But the intricate aspects of it that you were teaching me yesterday, it's like when you're coming up, you are throwing that weight. You know what I mean? you're when you're coming up you are throwing that weight you know what i mean and when i think of like other movements in the gym there aren't many things that allow you to throw and you're like doing that and then you're also catching it it's those those make a difference in the way you actually handle that load yeah to me that's sort of the uh another parallel with the olympic lifts because when when i'm doing the Olympic lifts, I feel like I'm throwing and catching the weight in a similar way.

And I think that's what makes them so athletic. That's one of our big advantages, and it's one of the things where when I got down the functional training rabbit hole and I was hanging out with David and with all these guys rolling ropes, moving really well. I also sort of felt like, man, these guys could use a little more snap. Yeah. You know, they could be stronger.

They haven't found an alternative to that. So they move extremely well. But a lot of those guys I thought would actually benefit from doing a little bit of explosive weightlifting. Yeah. They don't know how strong they could be, you know. Seems like you're getting a lot of like hip extension, right? With that knee traveling back behind the body. And that's something that you hear a lot of coaches talk about for performance.

Yeah. I think one of the big cool things about what we're doing is that when we are extending that hip, we're also flexing the other one and bringing that foot up. And if you were going to stretch your hip flexor, I think very rarely would you try to stretch both of them at the same time. So if you can feel that difference of what it means to stretch one hip flexor, you know, to find hip extension on one side, to me, that's a huge benefit.

That's one of our huge advantages. Let's see what you're pulling up here. This one's crazy because like, where does the bar go? It's a hands gun. Oh yeah. We use that as sort of a, that is actually throwing the weight like we were doing on our snatches. It's a way to teach that firsthand to really throw. Yeah. Doing it from the middle looks kind of interesting, but for people watching a cool thing too, is like, you're not only throwing the weight when you end up here,

it's like from the bottom, when you're picking that up, you are. So the first clip on this one, it's really fast, but the first clip is him doing what you're just talking about. Starting that snatch and then not catching it with the other. Let me pull it up again.

Let's see. Here he is. Yeah. So that's what, so, so that again. Let's see. Here he is. Yeah. So that's what's really dope about it. You know what I mean? You start getting deep into like rep and set schemes, or is it more of like a feel, or how do you manage some of that? Yeah, for me, and that's one of the big questions that I get.

And we were talking about hanging out with David and Chris, which is I learned so much from them. It's crazy. But when me and Chris would train together, Chris out with David and Chris, which is – I learn so much from them. It's crazy. Yeah. But when me and Chris would train together, Chris Chamberlain, I need the numbers and I need the sets and reps and I need an exercise that I'm going to master. But he loves every time it's a little bit different. And he's innovating and he's strong. He's getting stronger.

He's strong. But it's like, what are we going to do today? Well, I don't know. I don't have a name for this, but this is what, you know. And for me, I just really needed a base system. And so split clean, split jerk, split snatch. And I tried to program it the same way that I would the Olympic lifts. So for us, for my guys, it's mainly dynamic effort in that sense that we're going to do

sub-maximal weights for maximum speed. Usually it's like sets of two or three. And we try to hang out in the 60, 70% range. And that's not everything you'll see on Instagram because those aren't the flashiest videos. But consistently, my kids are training with the landmine four days a week dynamic method is what i would call it doing our split cleans split jerks split snatches and waving bands um in that in that way so i'm a big conjugate guy and i like to have a little bit of organization there's chris watch this next uh do you? Check out this next exercise, though. Chris is insane. He's really strong.

We got way into deadlifting on that BOSU ball. How did that feel? It was probably a lot of hamstring, right? It was great. I would do it with the hex bar on the BOSU ball. I think I got up to like 630. Damn. And it didn't feel, it felt great. Like for me.

Both feet were on the BOSU ball and you were a hex bar deadlifting 630? Yeah. There's some footage of Chris doing some pretty hefty weights on there. We were big on the squeezing the ball and what you really feel is a lot of right where your ass and your adductor connect.

Yeah, I'm imagining it's going to blow apart. I realized how big that piece of leg was. And I will say it never hurt my back. And I've always associated deadlifting with sort of a sore back. Yeah. And I started doing only the – when we were doing a lot of deadlifting, I was only doing it on the Bosa ball because, number one, I think that little learning curve, like first time I did it,

it was like 515 and it was tough. And I kept getting better at it. Yeah. Which has made me keep coming back to it. And my back felt great. Can we talk about the Bosa ball real quick? Because I think some people, when they think about the BOSU ball, they still think of it as a joke. I saw you doing some landmine snatches on the BOSU ball. How do you implement it?

And how can people use it smart, in a smart way? That elite ball that David has, which is not as much give, it's, to me, just a way to train on a non-flat surface so it's not really about stability it's it's more about squeezing in on the ball putting your feet and your knees at a different angle to produce that force and I think there's a lot of ways to use it David be a better guy to ask gotcha but uh I think it's a lot of ways to use it. David would be a better guy to ask. Gotcha. But I think it's something that everyone should explore a little bit and think about just a different angle. What it does too is it domes your feet.

Right. You know, and we've had so many people come on here talking about that inside ankle bone and trying to keep it like neutral or kind of trying to keep it high. And the BOSU ball will kind of do some of that for you and what you can do when you're on there you're talking about squeezing the ball well that's you trying to get to pronation that's you trying to get to the other side if you were running because you're gonna you're gonna push off of your big toe and you're gonna start to travel uh in the kind of opposite direction going back and forth i think the david stuff you know it takes a while to hit he'll say something and you're like i don't know and then you know a week or something goes

by and you're like oh my god he's right did you uh when you first started uh listening to some of the stuff that he had to say were you like man i don't know about that you know i i think the first thing that really got me into david's stuff was it was first just like a royal coil a step-by-step like tutorial that i went through and i did it and that was for me pretty instant like all right i haven't been in that position before and i need to because you know it's i feel like explain it more be like deeply because like i was noticing too it's been a while since david was here and that was the last time i did the Royal Coil stuff. But when we were doing the landmine, you were making me drill that.

And I'm just like, I need to seek that position out. It's not something that I've been getting into. Yeah, it's essentially just full range of your spinal engine. So one shoulder down and back, that same hip up, and getting that lat and that oblique as short as possible. That hip up is a big – that's another intricate thing that you mentioned. Yeah. Because you can come here, but once you bring that hip up also, you just feel everything. Your lat, your oblique, your QL start working together.

Yeah. And, yeah, I just – I knew he was brilliant. And for me, it was about picking out the things that I felt like I could share with my kids again. So that's what I'll always come back to. I needed to learn from him. I moved to San Diego to learn from him and work with him because I wasn't getting this information anywhere else. And I just really wanted to find a way to make it presentable so that I could come back to a room full of 30 kids and say, all right, you guys are all going to feel this. You're going to appreciate it, and we're going to use it as part of your training. But we won't go too crazy with explaining the why behind it.

Is that a monkey foot? It's one of those ISO tip bars from HGG. Sick. They use it for tip stuff. That's wild. That looks really hard. It's a hip flexor killer. You know, I think sometimes people aren't really thinking about how often we use these movements.

They've been kind of hiding in plain sight for so long. Sure. I don't think we've seen them or we haven't been paying attention to them because we're looking at other stuff. So, for example, when you go to do a single arm row in the gym, let's say you're doing the hammer strength piece. Well, you can kind of just row on there and you can get the lat like to activate, you know, by kind of strictly just, you know, getting this short range of motion and stuff like that. But if you simply take, if you're using your right hand to do your row, you simply take your left shoulder, hike the left shoulder way up, bring that right shoulder way down, you're going to start to feel more contraction in that lat, just from being in that position. And throughout the day, if people listening, just pay attention to what they're doing, when they're doing it, you're going to find yourself, you're going to be

like, oh my God, I'm kind of doing head over foot. I'm in this position. I'm in that position. You could be, you could be mixing something with a spoon and you're going to find that you're going to like choose a side. Yeah, you're going to choose a side. You're going to be like, oh my God, I'm coiling. You're not even going to like recognize it, but you're, you're kind of doing it all the

time. It's true. And then you get like not only a coil, but you get like a twist, you know, as you're moving forward. And to me, like, and I've always been a bodybuilding fan too. You see some of these guys, I think I saw Kai Green doing some heavy rows and looking like he was, you know, intentionally doing exactly what you're talking about. For sure. When they're bodybuilding, they're not square. Yeah.

Or you're coiling. He is. A lot of those guys, they've learned to drive their shoulder at least towards the floor. Maybe they don't tilt as much. Maybe they just drive one shoulder down, but you see it a lot. Right. And to see an amateur who's really bad at posing,

often that is kind of what they lack. They're going to keep their shoulders square and they don't understand how to get in those positions. Big advantage of kettlebell pressing, you know, is getting from here to here. Right. And if you feel stuck with this shoulder, you can simply pull your other shoulder down more and you'll get more from it. So what I do for my system to make it easy is we talk about this landmark. So if you take the bony part of your elbow and you connect it with your hip below the belt line, we call that a landmark. And with our system, whichever foot is –

Immediate cramp. Yeah, right. So for our system, we just constantly – It's David right here. I just constantly use that landmark. So when guys are in a goofy position, I just say landmark, and they tighten it up. It makes it so that everyone looks the same. We keep consistency.

That's one of the ways that we've made all this stuff that seems kind of complex, just made it simple and accessible. seems kind of complex, just made it simple and accessible. And I think that's one of the reasons why the landmine university system is starting to gain popularity is just that concept. We rarely say coiled. All we say is landmark, and it just helps people get into that position a little bit faster. Yeah, so at home, if you take your elbow, bony part of your elbow, connect it with your hip below the belt, and then just create as much pressure there as possible. Elbows driving down, your hips also hiking up.

We can layer that into a bunch of different movements. So you're shortening one side and intentionally getting that other side to lengthen as much as possible, right? And it's something that I saw a lot of fighters doing naturally where they're moving their head as they punch, but this distance is constantly opening, closing. Another cool thing is the fatigue aspect of it. Now, obviously, we were talking about this yesterday, but we went through that little workout that you had me do. And I was just like, I could do this multiple times a week without just draining myself. It's not going to take away from jujitsu. It's not going to take away from anythingjitsu. It's not going to take away from anything else like I do, but it's extremely effective.

I think the taxing aspect of it, again, I keep coming back to it, is going to be really similar to the Olympic lifts. So if you were a CrossFit guy that wants to do sets of 20 snatches, you're going to be exhausted and you can do that. If you're looking for max force production, you can do singles, and it's purely concentric, so it's not going to be super taxing. You're not going to break yourself down too much. I think you can use it a bunch of different ways,

but the key is that you're going to be moving fast, explosive, with those forward angles. Yeah, it can make it microdose it as part of your program to make you more explosive and make sure you have time to do the other stuff. Or if you wanted to, you could get yourself super tired doing it too, but that would involve doing more reps.

And then the constant forward intent is something that I think, like we kind of mentioned it with the throwing, but with these movements, it's like you're constantly trying to imagine that you're breaking through that bar yeah forward right and again football grappling all these sports like there's usually forward intent when you do the movement you're not static yeah you don't get that from

a squat or a deadlift sure right in wrestling too like it's not the whole time but on those important moments where you need that strength it it's going to be forward strength. You're going to be moving horizontally. And that's big for me, too, was to find a little bit more of that in the weight room. Yeah. Power Project family, your normal shoes are making you weak. This is why I partner with Vivo Barefoot Shoes, because they have a wide toe box, they're flat, and they're flexible. a wide toe box they're flat and they're flexible so with every single step you're taking if you're taking a 10 minute walk outside or when you're working out in the gym your feet are able to do

what they're supposed to do in this shoe they have tons of options for hiking running training in the gym chilling and relaxing casual shoes if you're out on a date you need to check them out and andrew how can they get it yes that's over at vivo barefoot.com slash power project. And you guys will receive 15% off your order automatically. Again, vivo barefoot.com slash power project links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Admittingly, I don't I don't really mess with landmine movements at all. Because when I do do them, it kind of loads a lot on my lower back where I've had issues for a really long time. So one, I guess what am I doing wrong? And have you ever worked with an athlete that does have lower back issues and, you know, trying to build them back up to being able to do some of these

explosive landmine movements? Sure. Do you have any experience with like Olympic weightlifting? No, for the same reasons. Sure. Yeah. I think the explosive stuff, if you've experienced back injuries, is going to be the last piece of the puzzle. I'll say one of the things that I have seen, we talked about a little bit yesterday, and I've seen it with people with healthy backs or non-healthy backs, is that because the weight's in front of you, just reaching down for it, sometimes we need to double-check your posture, make sure that you're close enough to the bar. There's a couple little things that can be helpful. But the danger there is that you're going to get overextended.

The weight's in front of you, and you can't pull it back to you. It's fixed. It's in the same spot. So you want to make sure you're doing it right, especially when you start doing explosive stuff. The other thing is just one of our principles is positions before transition. So making sure that you can find the positions that you're going to need to get into and be really comfortable in them, that's where I would start. But for sure, really be conscious of how you're picking that bar up off the ground

because if you are too far back or you just round over and pick the bar up, it's going to be really hard to reclaim that posture. So I'm big on setting yourself up before you even start to approach the bar. Make sure your feet are far enough forward and just don't do anything that hurts. Yeah. So then like, is there a, an alternative movement, like maybe using a kettlebell instead so that way I can keep the weight more like center? Yeah. You'll make a couple sacrifices.

You won't be training with that forward intent, but you'll still get all the rotational benefits that we're talking about. But you can also do an empty bar. Cause when you were showing me the empty bar landmine, I was just like, this is like, you're still getting it all of that. You can do it with a stick mobility stick. And I think that it's, yeah, I think that that's really worthwhile. Okay. Um, because once you feel just the base exercises, the screwdriver switches, if you can start to feel that snap, then you're going to fall in love with it.

But you got to be really, um, conservative when you're loading with a back injury, regardless of the exercise. And that landmine allows us to do a lot of things because it's in a fixed position. But it also can be unforgiving if you're not ready for it because you can't move it the same way you can with a kettlebell. And then so with that in mind, what are some of your favorite tools for these types of movements? You mentioned those balance sticks. I know there's a ton of landmine attachments. What type of equipment, like bars, do you like to use?

Are you using traditional 45s? Are you using Olympic bars? What do you prefer? So I think I'm not a big equipment guy for the landmine stuff. It's really easy to set one up if you don't have a landmine. I was telling Mark you could put an old shoe on the end of the bar and put it in the corner. I mean, we've done all this stuff.

Oh, okay. That's cool. That part of the bar isn't meant to hold on to. yeah the bar isn't that part of the bar isn't meant to hold on to when we start turning the bar over for our cleans and those those screwdrivers you could say that an olympic bar might be better because it'll spin better um but when you start loading weight on there i'm not so sure how much of an advantage that is anyway um yeah i i'm big on just, hey, you can do this right now. You don't need to buy any fancy type of equipment. If you have a power rack, if you were.

Yeah, I don't have those connections right now. When it comes to wrestling, it seems like the neck and the grip are big things. Are those things that you train in addition to what you're doing? Yeah, for sure. And I do think that it is one of the benefits of that landmine is that your grip gets really strong when you do this stuff a lot. It is essentially a fat grip that we're being explosive with. It's going to be similar to the size of a wrist.

I like that. The neck training stuff is stuff that I like to do the old school wrestling way. We do a lot of bridging and moving on our neck. I think the best way to train your neck is to bridge. I don't have any fancy neck equipment. I'm not big on putting stuff on your neck. Never tried the iron neck? Don't think it's –

I'm sure it's great. I have. I mean, I personally have. I'm sure it neck? Don't think it's – I'm sure it's great. I have. I mean, I personally have. I'm sure it's awesome. I think it's a cool idea. But I would use the iron neck if I wasn't strong enough in my bridge. Okay.

What about conditioning? Conditioning is a huge part of wrestling. Do you have to get these guys conditioned on top of what they probably are already doing for wrestling? I think probably the best way to get in shape for wrestling is going to be wrestling. Our kids are in great shape because of what our coaches are doing in that part of practice. I always hesitate to address that as a strength coach. I think that's one of the main mistakes that strength coaches make. If you say, okay, get your first strength job and you're going to be working with wrestlers.

Some guys think, okay, we're going to do a lot of sets of 15 and we're going to do a lot of, you know, high rep stuff because they need to be in shape. And really that's not your job. That's not going to get them in shape for wrestling. If we all did a bunch of really high rep training and then stepped on the wrestling mat, we'd still gas out, right? I think the job of the strength coach should be to improve their max explosiveness, to improve their power when it's time to actually move as fast and explosive as you can. So that's where I try to live with the wrestlers is more in the, hey, I'm going to make you more explosive when you're moving your fastest. I'm going to make you stronger when it's time to really produce as much force as possible.

I'm not going to necessarily try to beat you up with conditioning in the weight room. We've got the exercise bikes and the mat, and if they put me in charge of conditioning, we'll be doing, you know, a lot of mat work. And I like the Airdyne. I love all that stuff. It's not something generally that I, that I try to address in the weight room because I don't think that's one of the advantages that I can give them. When you use like squats and maybe deadlift variations for athletes, because there are a lot of people that they, they do other types of sports. What type of variations do you have people use? Or do you just go with the classic squat?

Um, I, I like box squats. I like split squats. Um, I am a big West side guy in terms of my background in training. I love the way that I felt doing that stuff. I always try to –

What aspect of it? The variation? The variation, the way that I felt, the way that my numbers kept going up, the whole concept of a speed day, the use of bands. A lot of times for our dynamic squats, we do split squats with bands. For the heavy stuff, depending on what I work with, I like a lot of pin squats or pin split squats. And we really do a lot of – I try to mix as much single leg stuff

in with the double leg stuff as I can. I just, I think that it's, I don't want to say safer, but it's less of a price to pay in terms of your spine. So I would love to have a kid hit grinder split squat, one each side with 200 pounds as opposed to 450 for a grinder back squat. It just makes me a little more nervous. So because I do work with kids that are competing regularly and competing all year, I want to get them as strong as possible with as little bit of a cost in terms of just compression. So I do like the single leg stuff, but I love box squats. I love back squats. Love bench press because it's just the kids like it.

It's easy. But you're still careful with the loading on it, I'm assuming. Like you're not – With the bench? Yeah, like how do you – I mean, I think you don't have to be as careful. I think like my kids still really love bench they love to see that number go up it's easy to teach yeah it's relatively safe when you try to get into a bunch of overhead press i feel like

the numbers don't go up as fast i don't know i think the bench is just like uh it's a special thing and i always loved it so So we're always going to bench. What is it about the box squat? I mean, everything Louie said, breaking up the eccentric and the concentric, I think is great. I'm saying this. We don't have good boxers right now, so my kids are probably listening like, we haven't been doing much boxing. For me, I really like the consistency is the biggest thing,

especially when you're working with a big group of kids. I like the fact that every single one of their squats is going to be the same depth so that they can practice. I mean, I'm the first guy that as soon as you load too much, I'm going to cut it short. And I like that about box squats. I thought that was actually the main advantage that we got out of it was that we could actually do the same movement over and over as opposed to that one's two inches high, that one's two inches low, and I'm screaming. Nordic deadlift is one of my favorite variations for a deadlift. Yeah.

Why is that? It just doesn't hurt my back. My hamstrings cramp. And for me, the numbers have gone up so fast. It looks tough. I don't think I've ever even seen that before. You'll cramp. I was with Chris when he was here last.

You'll cramp. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You guys were doing that. Were you guys doing that? Yeah. That was the first time I did it. I was like, wow.

Yeah. It puts your hamstring in a shorter position. So there's pros and cons. Your glutes are going to get a lot out of this exercise. They're going to go super long to super short. Your hamstrings are going to be engaged right away. Yep. A lot of people are like, oh, you're going to hurt your back. You're going to hurt your back. And I have not experienced that at all. My hamstrings are so sore the day after I do that. It's crazy, but not my back. And that was one that I fell in love with because the first time I did it, I grinded two plates.

I was like, this is a range that I am not comfortable with. And then a couple weeks in, I was pulling big weight with it. You find that the kids are pretty good at Nordics? Have you exposed them to that movement? We don't do Nordic deadlifts, but we do Nordic either hinges or just partner Nordic curls. It's one of our big milestone things that I want my kids to be able to do a Nordic hamstring curl. It's a staple with me. I've always really liked them. Sometimes they're pretty good at it because they're like kind of strength to weight ratio. Yeah, no, I think it's one of those things like uh if you start young enough it's

it's become second nature i think a lot of the gymnastic stuff is also really similar i was watching i was telling someone i was watching some episode of i think it was the biggest loser but it was this gal that had become obese but in her youth she was a high-level gymnast. And they showed a clip of her, and she's like, I'm 280 pounds. And then they showed her doing cartwheels and handsprings, still heavy. But she did that growing up, and I think that that's something where it's easy to look at a gymnast and be like, oh, look, their physiques are amazing. That's why they can do all that stuff.

Well, it's actually a skill, and if you pick it up when you're young, then, their physiques are amazing. That's why they can do all that stuff. Well, it's actually a skill. And if you pick it up when you're young, then you can almost never lose it. And wrestling is similar. These kids start wrestling when they're young. They're always going to have that hip awareness. But if you wait until you're an adult, it's really hard to get into that. Rolling with guys who are like former wrestlers, like even older guys who were former wrestlers, you can tell they were former wrestlers.

Yeah, you're not going to lose your hip awareness. It's also really hard to get when you get older. I can't teach myself how to like probably water ski right now. There's just things that I didn't do when I was a kid that become really difficult when you get older because you've just learned too much. Well, and then you think you can't do it and then you're really screwed. That's probably my problem. How about sled work? Do you have the kids doing anything?

Well, first off, do you have them doing sleds, and then do you have anything special in regards to the coil and all that stuff? I think sled stuff is the best. I think it's a thing that I don't think you need to overcoach. We can do some of these exaggerated swagger walks. We call them engine walks if you want to. Our problem right now is that sometimes we'll wrap bands around the throwing dummies and drag those, but we don't have a great space for sleds right now.

Oh, throwing dummies. Which is tough. Got it. That is really sick. The Statue of Liberty doing the – what's that stretch called? Wall stretch. The wall stretch. Yeah.

So this – my buddies in Korea, which is where this has really been the most popular, which is like shocking to me and pretty cool. I just got back from Seoul. But they said, hey, is it okay if we design a new logo? And I was like, oh, I mean, do whatever you want. And they sent me this, and I was like, wow, this is so American. So cool, you know, but they just love it. Yeah. Oh, man.

Yeah. I'm a fan. There's the stretch. That's cool. What's that like, you know, going and traveling, you know, to another country and they're practicing the stuff that you've been teaching. It's really, like, life-changing, man. Really humbling and powerful.

Like, I remember putting all this together and, you know, you focus on the work and the process and what your end goal is with it. To go over there and to see that people around the world are doing these exercises has really been like almost get a little perclumped you know I get I get emotional talking about it because it's been so cool and it's really hard to one thing I've noticed as you go over there and I've made some just incredible friends over there then you come back and you try to explain people how special it was, and it's impossible. So for me personally, it's been really – I can't explain it enough,

but it was really cool. Yeah, and they're such great students, and they love to learn, and it's a different type of atmosphere. Why, because Americans don't like to learn? Or exercise. No, no, no. They just have a lot of respect. My experience has been that they're just really great students.

They take notes. They focus. And it's maybe a cultural thing or maybe just lucky to meet the right guys. Universal language of movement too, right? Right, yeah. It doesn't matter if they don't understand something that you might say, but I'm sure you have a translator

or something like that. I have a really great translator named Johnny that helps over there and a master coach that teaches the certifications there as well. But I'm a big not over-co guy. I think like to demonstrate, to communicate is really powerful too. So I actually had a guy come and visit me in Iowa from Korea that just wanted to learn one-on-one, spoke zero English. We handed the phone back a little bit, but it was

more just physically miming what I wanted him to do. And there's so much you can get done that way. Yeah. Which is, it is powerful. It's sick. What was that? Well, check out these ISOs, though. These are really cool. What's going on here?

Yeah. Or what were they doing? They were back arch with the bands, working on a full back arch, and then sort of rotating that blade. Yeah. What has some of the results been like? You know, when you guys show up to a tournament, are people like, oh, fuck.

I mean, it's one of those things. The club that we're at or that I started working at, my buddy started when I was back in California. They're great anyway. They were great before I came. They'd be great if I left. I think it gives the kids a little bit of a confidence boost to feel like they're doing something that not everyone's doing. And that might be the biggest thing. I feel like they're doing something that not everyone's doing, and that might be the biggest thing. But, you know, strength coaches in general,

I think it can be easy to overplay our role in their athletic success. What about the kids? What do they tell you? And what about maybe the parents? You know, some parents will say, oh, it's a night and day difference you know that's not always true your kid's working really hard he's growing up and he's good at wrestling we're in Iowa and all these kids are crazy

and they all love wrestling that was some crazy strength these kids are look at this bam wow I feel lucky to be where I'm at and I'm the first one Look at this. Bam. Shit. Wow. No, it's fun. I feel lucky to be where I'm at.

And I'm the first one to kind of downplay my role in their success. If nothing else, just keeping them off the streets, getting them more stuff to do, getting them up early and teaching them what that's all about. But, yeah, club was great before I showed up. It's on a really great trajectory right now. We had an awesome season, and they would have without me as well. So, you know.

What are some ways for people to, like, learn more? Obviously, you can watch your Instagram, but, like, how do people, like like sign up? How do people get you to do seminars, things like that? So I do travel for the in-person coaching certifications and that's kind of the route that I'm trying to go is to get this in as many hands of professionals as we can. Um, and sort of just see that trickle down effect. The certification is also available virtually, virtually, which is a great option. It's 100% on demand, like 100 lessons, so you can work through it at your own pace, and you can find that online. And then I also have a virtual one-hour workshop that I make cheap so people can get in.

That would be the same thing that we did, just working you through each of those exercises so that you can learn our version of the clean, the jerk, the snatch in a pretty quick way for under a hundred bucks. And then now you've got tools that you can use. I don't work with people individually outside of the kids. So right now it's either coming to a class or checking it out online. But I'll be in Austin at the end of April at Onnit doing a class. And then we kind of just schedule one at a time. And that's awesome because for any coaches listening,

you've been able to put this into a very understandable system and you explain things really well. So when somebody gets their hands on that bar, you have the cues so set in that like anybody can pick this up and then instruct things really well. So when somebody gets their hands on that bar, you have the cues so set in that like anybody can pick this up and then instruct it pretty well. Thank you. And that is the goal with the certification class is not to see how many moves you can do or see how good you are with it,

but to really make sure that you're comfortable communicating it. Like I keep coming back to a room full of kids. That is our goal with the certification classes is that I don't want you to make 100 cues. I don't want you to talk about every single joint. I want you to focus on this and this. And if you do, then everyone's going to look the same when they're doing it, and you're going to be able to use it, and it's going to be effective for you. Take us on out of here, Andrew.

Sure thing. Thank you, everybody, for checking out today's episode. Please drop those comments down below. Let us know what you guys think about today's conversation. And like today's episode and subscribe before you guys head out. Subscribe. And then follow the podcast at MBPowerProject on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, and everything podcast-related over at PowerProject.live.

My Instagram is at IamAndrewZ. And Seema, where are you at? I'm Seema Inyang. I'm on Instagram and YouTube. Thank you guys for all the reviews. We're almost at 2,000 on Spotify

and a lot on Apple. So y'all are helping us out. So thank you. And Seema Inyang on TikTok and Twitter. Alex, where can people find you? Lamine University on Instagram.

Thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciate it. I appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. I'm at Mark Smelly Bell.

Catch you guys later. Bye.