Hey, Athletes! Have you ever done trap bar deadlifts? Would you consider adding them to your training? Listen to this week’s episode to hear how trap bar deadlifts could actually make you a better athlete!
Episode 38 of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up!
Are Trap Bar Deadlifts Better than Conventional? (+Building Habits)
On this week’s episode Jerred, Joe, and Ashley share what has been going on in their lives and go over announcements. Next, they go over this week’s study on trap bar deadlifts vs. conventional deadlifts. This week’s topic is Atomic Habits by James Clear. The team goes over some good highlights and encourages all the athletes to read this book in order to start better habits and break bad ones. Fit Week is this week so the crew go over their tips on how to tackle it! Lastly, this week’s Meet Yourself Saturday workout is the EO3 5K.
If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to the Garage Gym Athlete podcast either on Stitcher, iTunes, or Google Play by using the link below:
IN THIS 59-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
- EO3 5K
- Trap Bar Deadlifts vs. Conventional Deadlifts
- Fit Week
- Women’s Health Track Is Back!
- Atomic Habits
- T-Shirt Giveaway
- Updates and Announcements
- And A LOT MORE!!
Diving Deeper
If you want to go a little bit deeper on this episode, here are some links for you:
Study of the Week
Garage Gym Athlete Workout of the Week
Be sure to listen to this week’s episode:
Related Resources at End of Three Fitness:
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Thanks for listening to the podcast, and if you have any questions be sure to add it to the comments below!
To becoming better!
Jerred
Transcript:
Are Trap Bar Deadlifts Better than Conventional? (+Building Habits)
DETAILS
[00:00:00] Jerred Moon: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the garage gym athlete podcast. I’m your host Jared moon. The garage team athlete podcast is a result of my desire to build better humans, unequivocal coaches, and autonomous athletes. I’ve spent the last several years obsessing over program design, nutrition in every other way you can optimize human performance.
This podcast is stills the latest scientific research with what I’ve learned and blends it with the not-so scientific field of mental toughness. We are here to build you into a dangerously effective athlete. If you enjoy this podcast, you can find out more about our training at garage gym, athlete.com and if you want to pursue more into the field of coaching and programming, head to end@threefitness.com.
All right, [00:01:00] ladies and gentleman, welcome to the garage gym athlete podcast. We have Ashley Hicks here. What’s up Ashley?
Ashley Hicks: Oh, LA.
Jerred Moon: Oh, LA. Here we go. And Joe Courtney. How’s it going,
Joe Courtney: man? it’s good to be in the future instead of in the past.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. You’re on the East coast now. Slowly making your way. Across the central might not even happen.
I’m betting doesn’t happen delayed. I think the whole world’s going to get shut down and you’re not going to, not going to be able to go anywhere. All right, so let’s get some, Updates actually, which got,
Ashley Hicks: yeah, so I got a new wearable. I updated my
Jerred Moon: app.
Joe Courtney: Did you like, Oh man, I would love this. And did it just show up?
Ashley Hicks: No,
Joe Courtney: not
Ashley Hicks: I actually, my Apple watch series two is what I had, and it was not connecting to my phone, so I wouldn’t get. You know, if you guys sent something on Slack or, I mean I wouldn’t get random things on my phone. I only keep certain [00:02:00] things on my watch. I don’t like to get like Facebook notifications or Instagram or anything like that.
But, if it’s work calls or texts, like that’s something I kind of want, cause I walk around all the time cause I have a kid, so I leave my phone, Lord knows where, I never know where it is. But my, for some reason my Apple watch wasn’t connecting. So finally I was like, you know what, I’m just going to sell this thing on eBay.
And then. By a series five. So that’s what he did. And I like it. It stays on all the time. So Jared, it’s really nice when you work out. but there’s nothing profound. I would say that’s for different, it’s the exact same thing. It just is a little bigger.
Jerred Moon: that’s what I was, I was thinking about buying. I mean, I have the.
I have the four, but I was going to buy the five because a lot of the rumors were that it was going to have like robust sleep tracking stuff on it and none of that. You still have to download apps and whatever for that stuff. So yeah, maybe wait for the six, maybe they’ll finally do something like that, but
Joe Courtney: no GPS better.
[00:03:00] Jerred Moon: I
Ashley Hicks: haven’t
Jerred Moon: a lot better. I mean, I don’t know, between the four and the five, I don’t, probably not a ton of difference between yours and Ashley’s the old one and Emily has the same one, like, yeah, they’ve, they’ve just, yeah, they just gotten way better over the year because some of the things, problems that she runs into, I’m like, yes.
Not an issue for mine. I don’t know
Joe Courtney: cause I did the first series.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. I think that they’ve just gotten better. Better. GPS has gotten better. Battery life’s gotten better, and that’s about the other cool things that they’ve done that, Emily’s didn’t do. Like you can put audio books and podcasts on your phone.
And not have to be connected to your phone, which is your watch. Yeah. Yeah. No, I have not had to be connected, so like that’s a, that’s huge because you can go running and listen to a podcast or whatever if you have, you know, AirPods or whatever. Why the wireless headphones? That’s been really cool. My favorite way to run it [00:04:00] is.
Ashley Hicks: Yeah. And that, that’s what I was going to say. I write all my workouts down and now I don’t have to bring, cause I used to have to physically bring my phone with me. I would just have it on, Like, do you not just, well, not even on do not disturb, cause then I wouldn’t be able to listen to music and stuff.
So now I can stream Pandora off my phone and listen to all my playlists and what you said, like you can even download whatever podcasts you want and do that as well. So I have yet to take it on a run. I haven’t done any running stuff very far. We’ve just been doing rowing so, Yeah. So that’s that.
And then my other quick little update is, our Walmart here is stocking stuff. Slowly but surely. So I’m hoping that’s happening across the country. So they’re, you know, signing people’s names out per household. You get two things of toilet paper. but if. I have heard from other people. Thankfully here I haven’t had an issue, but, I know I talked to Emily and she said she went to whole foods and lots of vegetables [00:05:00] and actual like fresh stuff was gone.
And so my quick little tip for that is if you are in a pinch. Go ahead and just go buy frozen veggies if they’re available. cause you S you’re still getting good nutrients. It’s obviously not as great as if it’s like right there and fresh, but you can still at least get some good food. when you go and you buy your frozen stuff.
So that was just my little tip and I thought of.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. And that’s just so everyone knows there was no actual toilet paper shortage. Right. And it was just this ridiculous and stupid demand that people were like, you know what? I’m going to run out of toilet there. It’s really hilarious. I mean, I don’t even want to dive into that any further, but like that is, that’s what that’s happening with everything.
And. The, I have no doubt that all of the suppliers we get our stuff from will meet the demand of everything within the next few weeks. And it’s not going to be a problem. But people are funny.
Joe Courtney: Just that, just get on Amazon order. You have a day, [00:06:00] we’re good to go.
Ashley Hicks: Yeah, I bet those sales are have gone up.
Joe Courtney: I did see, so kind of related.
I saw that a lot of dumbbells on Amazon are sold out, so people are like actually trying to work out at home now.
Jerred Moon: Yeah, that’s, that’s a good, good idea. I w I mean, I’m not biased at all, but I think if you want to start exercising at home and you want to follow like some good programming or whatever, there are options out there on the internet and ours is the best.
Joe, what, updates do you have? Man? Not
Joe Courtney: much, but as we alluded to earlier, I made it to the East coast. I survived the pandemic traveling, flying across the country, which was kind of awful. There were still a lot of people in the airports. A lot of people flying, washed my hands a ton. Yeah. My flights were actually like 80% full.
I think it’s also because I’d have lay over in Vegas and the entire strip shutdown, so that doesn’t help.
Ashley Hicks: Everybody leaving.
Joe Courtney: Yeah. But either way, there’s still a ton of people, [00:07:00] but I went on line to see, cause I was thinking about going out to North Carolina. and flights are like ridiculously cheap right now.
So I guess a lot of people still aren’t traveling, but
Ashley Hicks: just made an announcement yesterday on TV that it’s the worst. Like it’s even worse than nine 11 was for the airlines right now.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. I mean, I dunno if you guys there. They’re trying to get a bail out right now from the government. So it’s pretty bad.
Joe Courtney: Everyone’s going to below a, I also got an update last night cause I’m in the air guard, California in regard that they are being put on alert or we, but you know, I’m on, I’m on the East coast now, so sorry. Oh man,
Jerred Moon: you’re out of that 300 mile range. I think I heard about, or. Yeah. Should we be recording this
Joe Courtney: anyway? They’re not listening as far as updates, I’m going to really try and run. The weather’s not too, too bad here right now. It’s actually really nice today, so I’m going to try and get a run in and some it’s just in calisthenics, but it’s also been raining, [00:08:00] hit or miss on and off.
Jerred Moon: yeah, just cold.
Joe Courtney: It’s way cooler than San Diego. I mean it’s, it’s nice for, for a year. It’s like low 50s, but I just looked back at San Diego weather.
Jerred Moon: I get, no, it’s over, man. Huh? Yeah. Those times are gone. We’ll talk about them anymore. Everybody know you have to move on.
Joe Courtney: Cause I mean, Bahrain right now is actually really nice weather.
But then like the summer, I’m just going to
Jerred Moon: die. We’d be fine. We’d be fine.
Joe Courtney: That’s not much updates. Just, just kind of a ramble.
Jerred Moon: All right. Well then I’ll get to my updates cause they’re very important.
Ashley Hicks: basically just said we weren’t important.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. Well it leaves me compared to what my updates are, maybe, but they’re not personal updates.
They’re updates for stuff that we have going on. So there is a barbell go giveaway going on. You could go to garage malik.com or industry fitness.com to enter that giveaway. But we also said we’d be doing some podcasts, free shirt stuff. So I’m going to read three right now. If you. hear your name or username, [00:09:00] should I say, go ahead and email us and let us know that we read your review and we will give you a free shirt.
So the first one is, I love this one because it’s not some weird username. And so I just, you, you can’t lie to me. So it’s Keith Fields a great podcast and training. He says, I started listening. you know, back when it was back when we had the better humanology podcast. the new format has me coming back each week.
I enjoy the podcast so much that I read the book and sign up for the training, all of which has truly changed my life. So really appreciate that. Keith. you get a shirt, so email us and support it in three fitness.com and we will shoot you a shirt. Next we have Scott Dom, bro. The title of his review is health and longevity backed by research.
I’ve been aware of GGA from industry fitness for. For a couple of years now. Love the new podcast format. [00:10:00] Keep up the good work. Ear three will get you to your goal if you put in the work. and then the last one we have, let me see. OB 1973 exclamation Mark. So I had to pick some that weren’t names. Oop.
Said I’ve been following garage mathy for over a year as a 46 year old firefighter. It keeps me in shape to be able to do the job. Also keeps me going on my days off doing the physical activities that I do. The community is great. Podcast info is awesome. So those three, and we’ll do some more next week as well.
You get a shirt, really a shirt of your. Choice. So just go to garage, mathy.com we have a store, pick whatever you like and we will send it your way for free. And then we’ll also announced that barbell winner when it comes up. So that is that other stuff.
Ashley Hicks: Nice comments, guys. It was really cool.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. I, loved their views and the community [00:11:00] really is awesome.
Those, that’s what we get a lot of feedback from and reviews and stuff. People love the community and think you really have to be a part of it to understand that, the Facebook group is a, is a major part of that. The podcast is it as well. next is women’s health track.
Ashley Hicks: Oh
Jerred Moon: yeah. So we mentioned this, and this is covered more in the webinar that you guys now have access to.
Yeah. That has, that has happened already. if you’re listening to this, it has a, so you probably already know from there, but also a real quick women’s health track. So women’s health track is more. Coaching and regular garage gym athlete memberships. So this, the, the update is there is, it’s going to be a $49 one time fee for the coaching with the women’s health track.
And I just want people to know that. And the reason we were doing that is because Emily and Ashley actually do a ridiculous amount of work. and not that it’s a, it’s a bad thing. It’s a, it’s a great thing. But. [00:12:00] more than expected, a lot of help, a lot of coaching, answering questions and really making sure all the women on the women’s health track are, are getting the results they want.
So it is more of a coaching program. I want to be real clear on that. If you’re a, you know, a female who’s just looking to lose weight or a male. Eh, you know, following a lot of our guidelines and just being on the shred track, we’ll be fine for, for you. you don’t have to be on the women’s health track if you are a woman.
but the women’s health track is just a very inclusive coaching program. So like when we do the fuels course, we charge a little bit extra for the fuels course because the fuels course involves coaching in, in more in depth work from our coaches. So the women’s health track is the same. But we tried to make it like the most nominal fee we possibly could, for our athletes.
So that’s the, that’s the only update there. You guys have anything on women’s health track?
Ashley Hicks: I just want to echo what you said. If you’re a female, you don’t have to do this. I mean, if you love harder to kill and you are seeing amazing results or shred or [00:13:00] strength or whatever, it may be, stick to it. This is for women who potentially have tried.
Some things and just need help tweaking, maybe some nutrition or maybe you’ve got, you know, some sort of autoimmune disease or something like that and your hormones are kind of off balance. Emily and I are really focusing on that. So, yeah, give us a shout out. Let us know. if you want in and, we will, I’m assuming, get that link and sign up stuff real,
Jerred Moon: real soon.
and the only other thing I’ll say to. Hit on what Ashley just said. Really, if you feel like you’re doing everything right and you are not seeing results, you might want to be on the woman’s health track. Because women are complicated. And I’m not talking about, you know, from, I’m not talking about from a relationship standpoint, not to talking about from a.
There are just so many more factors with hormones, whether or not, you know, kids versus no kids like, ha, you know, all these things, thyroid [00:14:00] problems, all this, like women are just more complicated. and I, I’ve just learned that as a coach, that. A lot more has to be taken into account, especially if, yeah, like I said, if, if the mother is breastfeeding or has had two kids, or you know, all these different things.
And so if you feel like you’re doing everything that you can be doing, or you’ve done everything that you could do and you don’t feel like you’re seeing the results that you should. Then the women’s health track is going to be a great place for you to look at it. So I’m saying this to all the, not just the women listening, but also, all the guys out there whose wives are interested in the women’s health track.
If anything that we just explained kind of sounds like your, your wife and you want to share this information, then definitely do. So it’s going to be a great place and they’re going to be very well taken care of. but a big thing that we got when we did our beta cycle last. Last year was people wanted to like do hard to kill track, but get the women’s health coaching and we kind of, we tried to be lenient on all that stuff and we’re not doing that anymore because you need to be on the women’s health track [00:15:00] programming.
You need to be on the women’s health coaching because you’re taking one element of this. It doesn’t work. It’s a very all encompassing program. Where we’re taking everything into account. you’re really getting your hand held for a lot of it by Ashley and Emily. So I think that just has to be known.
Like this is a full program. You can’t mix and match because you would break the system that we’ve built. So just keep those things in mind when you’re thinking about this or thinking about recommending it to anyone. But that’s all I have on wht. And, getting to people in the program.
Joe Courtney: Yeah. So I just have two quick things, even though I don’t touch the program at all, but, unlike the beta, this will be in team builder, so you’ll still, you’ll, so those people will get access to team builder and tracking and stuff like that.
Good point. And it will model a previous shred cycle from awhile back, so there will be some barbell and other work. so just heads up on that.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. Which can be said, if needed. Okay. That’s it on a woman’s health track. Now, book is the last thing. I’m actually undecided, but I just want people to know.
So [00:16:00] I, I wrote a book. It’s called killing comfort. What end? we’re pretty much, I mean, it’s pretty much done. Like it really is. editor finished that first pass with the million corrections and now we’re onto the second review, second one, but the second one goes real fast and she’ll probably be done, I don’t know, like in a day or two, but I might delay the publishing of the book.
We’ll, or we’re going to see, it just doesn’t feel right right now. To be like heavily promoting something with the coronavirus stuff going on. I’m like, I just actually don’t feel right about it. Like, you know, even with this new cycle coming up, we’re going to like. You know, announce everything, try and get some new people in the program.
But it just feels weird and awkward to try to do any marketing or promotional stuff when there’s a crisis going on. Cause we’re not trying to capitalize on that. Like we’re not profiteering or like, you know, trying to be like, yeah, Corona virus. Make sure you go go be a garage gym athlete. Like, yeah, it’s a great fit.
And we kind of joke about it, but it really doesn’t feel right to me to be running like [00:17:00] campaigns or doing promotional emails and all this stuff. When coronavirus is going on. So I might delay it. I’m just giving people a heads up if, if people have been interested in the book. but I also might not. it did cause things could slow down and I wasn’t looking to do it till the end of April, beginning of may.
Anyway. so just a heads up for everybody. Cool. Now we can get into the study quite a bit of a updates there. This one, I could sum it up in a sentence, but no, we’re, we’re looking at a trap bar, dead lifts, versus conventional that barbell dead lifts, so just a regular barbell versus a trap bar. If you’re not familiar with the trap bar, trap bar is like.
That’s like a hexagon, right? Yeah. So hexagon. Yeah. Even the name of the study. so you stand inside of the hexagon and it has handles and a you, it’s basically, you can dead lift with it. So if anyone, I know everyone’s probably seen one, maybe haven’t used one, and some people have. And [00:18:00] so the actual name of the study is effect of hexagons.
Barbell on the mechanical demand, a dead lift performance. And this study was done in 2017 but I really wanted to pull it up because this conversation has actually happened in garage gym athlete, people talking about, pulling conventional deadlift versus trap bar dead lifts. And while I’ve had a personal opinion on that for a long time, research can sway my opinions.
I don’t, I don’t get dogmatic about any of my ideas to, I’m like, I’m not going to be like. Barbell deadlifts are the best because I do them. And so, you know, we’re, I’m, I’m, I’m very open to having my mind changed on things and this study, they have done it, you know, so, we can get into some stuff. I’ll just read the, the basics of the study.
Subjects were 11 young men who were proficient with body, with both styles of deadlifts. The average dead lip was more than two times body weight. which I thought was pretty good for a study. Finding people who. [00:19:00] Are relatively strong, pretty strong, athletes. the protocol, the study was conducted over three lab visits with a visit separated by at least 48 hours.
The first visit was a one rep max testing session for both the conventional and trap bar. Dead lift. The order of testing was counterbalanced, so that. About half of the participants did trap part that deadlifts first, and about half of the participants did conventional deadlifts first and the second visit participants perform three sets of one rep with 90% of their conventional deadlift.
One right max. And the third visit they performed three sets of one rep with 90% of their trap bar dead lift, one rep max. So heavy lifting with trap bar, dead lift, and conventional deadlift. And I’ll just kind of lay out some of the data, like what the. Outcomes were, and then get, you know, get input from you guys.
some of the basics was 6%. They were able to lift 6% more weight with a trap bar, dead lift, not as concerned with that. the law city with 90%, one rep [00:20:00] max was 15% greater. The velocity. We’ve talked about this multiple times in this podcast and 28% higher power output as well as the proportion of the lift that was acceleration was 36% so if speed is your thing.
And power. Seems like trap bar dead lift has a lot of benefits. now you have some more stuff, but I want to go to you guys first. Ashley, what do you have? What do you, what are your thoughts on the trap bar? Dead lift. First conventional dead lift.
Ashley Hicks: Some kind of like you. I actually looked into purchasing one last night after reading this study.
And his speed and power and velocity. You’re saying that should be a heck yes. If you’re a garage method, and that’s my personal opinion, you are looking to be a well rounded out athlete and everything and yes, you want to be strong, but in order to be a good athlete, I think you need to be well rounded in.
In that as well. So, the numbers per se, like you said, for the one rep max, the [00:21:00] 6%, you know, that’s kind of small, but I think that’s a significant increase using the trap bar for, with the velocity as well as the power. and then, yeah, I, and I just put on my notes. I said, if you can. Even if it’s 6% more, if you can lift more or heavier weight quickly, doesn’t that make you a better athlete?
So that’s what I took away from this study was, you know, if I can move things faster and quicker, I was interested in hearing about how sometimes with the conventional deadlift, people were struggling more mid. Range, like in your deadlift, like
Jerred Moon: strum your,
Ashley Hicks: yeah, your sticking point as w, versus, I guess with the trap bar, dead lift, it was if you couldn’t even get it off the ground kind of thing.
so I, I would like to actually try, you know, Maxine, you know, for fit week, if you would, with a conventional bar and maybe not quite what they did. Like they did it. Pretty much back to back whether one group did [00:22:00] the trap bar dead lift first, and then the conventional barbell. I would like to do maybe a conventional lift, wait a couple of days, and then go trap bar and see, could I potentially deadlift more just using a different apparatus, if you will.
So yeah. That’s my takeaway.
Jerred Moon: And I think that’s, and the reason I said I’m not concerned with the 6% more weight is because to me, they, and this is more stepping to my, my coaching or AF athletic opinion, they’re just different lifts, right? Like it would be like comparing, you know. A front squat to a back squat to me and saying, you, well, I back squat more than our friends who it.
Well, there are different lifts, you know, there. And I just don’t consider them both. They’re both a deadlift, but I don’t consider them the same at all. I just consider them completely different lifts. And I think that’s where like power lifters get butt hurt and like everyone else is like, if I’m like, Oh yeah, I can, I can dead lift 600 pounds.
And then I walk up to a chat bar and do it. They’re gonna be like, Oh, get outta here, dude. Like, that’s a trap bar. What are you talking about? Your dead lifts a [00:23:00] hundred pounds. so I think that’s where, where it comes in. Joe, what, Joe, what were some of your thoughts on this?
Joe Courtney: So I do have a biased against, trap bars, so I’ll just get that out of the way right now.
Jerred Moon: It comes with the territory.
Joe Courtney: Yeah, I’m not really as much a fan, but as far as good things for the study, it was cool to see that the sticking points were different. And I think to specifically work on certain parts of the, the deadlift and the sticking points are good. And then specifically adding of. The velocity two or the velocity training could be cool if you do it as like an accessory to deadlift.
So you mentioned like how the pretty much treat the glyphs is different is how I would see a trap on down the, let’s just like a Sumo deadlift is not the same as a conventional dead lift. I think it has a place and a purpose to enhance your deadlift, but it shouldn’t be your prime deadlift, in my opinion.
Jerred Moon: so what’s your beef?
Joe Courtney: So. Okay. So to me, Oh, the biggest, the biggest one is if you’re going to lift something in [00:24:00] real life. So like deadlift is simulating lifting something like that’s heavy, 2000 down on the ground. Like you’re gonna lift something and had the heavy real life. It’s going to be down on the ground in front of you, not to the sides of you.
Jerred Moon: I dunno. Like that’s exactly how I lift grocery bags.
Joe Courtney: Okay, so, so, trap bar, you’re getting ready for your groceries. Nothing else
Jerred Moon: really heavy groceries, man. I want to be able to do all of them. Or one trip
Joe Courtney: or a child on each side of you. Did you have like overalls or something like that? so that’s, that’s my biggest takeaway is there, like Tara carry over for life, but, and also like cleans you the first pool of a clean is a.
There’s a dead lift. I think dimensional deadlift, so that’s one. Two is it is a great lift for like, you can do a lot more weight and B, and because of that, I think people will just fall back to whatever is, has more weight on the bar because it’s easier. And I think it can be a crutch because it’s [00:25:00] like, Oh, well I can dead lift two 25 on a bar, but I can do 300 on this trap bar.
So I’m just going to do the trap bar because it’s more weight. But that’s not necessarily means it’s better to me. Yeah, kind of like push press and strict press, like, yeah, you can push press more, but that doesn’t mean just because you’re putting more weight overhead doesn’t mean you should be doing that all the time.
So I think it was really cool to see that. and, and we’re going to jump in there.
Jerred Moon: I was just gonna say, I think where it gets polarizing, if it, if you do think of it as this either or is like, right. Yeah. Like this is what I do for dead lifting. And we talked about this a little before we started recording.
You can buy a really cheap trap bar and like Amazon for like 80 bucks. But if you want a legit one from rogue, I think they’re closer to like 400 300 400 bucks. So it is a lot of money cause I mean, you can get a barbell from rogue for like two 50 you know, two 60 something like that. So that, that is a, if, if cost is not a factor for you, then.
I w I would say like, why not get one? Just get one added to your [00:26:00] training. It’s going to make you faster, probably more explosive, and it might help with your conventional deadlift. But yeah, they are completely different. I remember watching the movie American sniper. And who’s that guy? Who is that guy?
What is, you guys remember his name? He was in, yeah. the actor, not, not the, Oh, Bradley Cooper. Yeah. Anyway, they’re trying to make Bradley Cooper look all jacked and strong in that movie. and so there’s a scene of him doing trap bar dead lifts, basically rack. Trap bar, dead lifts. So it’s elevated like, jeez, I think onto tires or something.
So we’re talking about like six to eight inches elevated and trap bar. So he could, I don’t know. So he could do like 405 pounds on the dead lift or whatever. And they’re trying to make them look like super strong. Like, well that’s, that’s elevated. And it’s trap bar dude, like in the fitness community you’re getting laughed at right now.
but anyway, yeah. I think if you want to move a lot of weight and build some speed. Trap R is great. I mean, the reason I want to kind of experiment with it is because of the power that we’ve, we’ve talked about, [00:27:00] like if you can generate more power, like I’ve done everything with my deadlift, like I’ve done everything, you know, I’ve got to the triple bodyweight deadlift.
I’ve. I’ve tried lifting for speed. I’ve just, I’ve done everything you can do with a conventional dead lift. So now I’m like, yeah, maybe I’ll throw the trap bar in to get faster. And maybe it helps with my conventional deadlift more. It’s kind of like why I bought the, concept two bike ERG. I’ve had a rower for like seven years and I’m just like, alright, like I’m good.
Like, I get it, you know, like, I, I want to take a break. I didn’t get rid of my roller. Yeah, I still use my ruler, but I’m more on the bike more often because I’ve just been doing this stuff for such a long time. You want to switch things up so that, that’s my case for like why I might think about it when I get more powerful.
And two, it’s, it’s just switching things up, you know, keeping things interesting in the, in the garage gym.
Joe Courtney: Yeah. I think the way to carry it would be really cool with the a trap bar. To be able to do that.
Jerred Moon: And one thing, it’s funny, a what’s starting strength guy, a Mark, Mark crypto. he has a video you guys should go [00:28:00] watch on why the trap bar is completely useless.
Piece of equipment hates, hates the bar. And I hate the trap bar too. If I built my entire career teaching people how to do conventional deadlift, but he talks about the, the main reason he hates it is because of the different planes of movement. It can move back and forth. You know? So that’s, that’s not something a deadlift, a regular barbell can do.
And I don’t know if I fully agree with his assessment there. He, I think that you can, you can stay fairly stable without a lot of fluctuation back and forth doing a trap bar, dead lift. but he thinks that that’s dangerous. And. Well, I mean, just don’t be dumb. Like don’t swing the trap larger core. Yeah.
Like don’t swing it back and forth. Deadlift. But he does have a point there. Like you, you get, you can’t move the deadlift. Like backwards. You can move it forward if you want and like hurt your lower back, but you can’t move it backwards cause your legs pin it in place. Right. So it can’t, it can’t go all these different directions [00:29:00] in different planes and it can even go left or right a little bit easier because of how it’s positioned.
Ashley Hicks: Yeah. That was my thing for the trap bar. Dead lift. I was wondering like what were the. Like, is it a different setup? You know, versus when I come to a conventional barbell, cause I’ve never done trap Bard.
Jerred Moon: It’s fixed grip. So like if you and I were lifting, we’d have the exact same. Width on the grip cause you can’t change.
Right. Okay. Yeah. So like that’s a, that is one thing that, you know, you’re, you’re shorter than me, but you’re going to open, so you’re going to open your arms a lot wider than I would, and a taller person is going to be more narrow, like a conventional deadlift. So that’s the second thing about, Chatbar deadlift is like, okay, why does everyone have to have the same grip?
That’s not true in a dead lift. You know, we’re all gonna take a dead lift, grip our own way based off our body type and stance and everything else.
Joe Courtney: So I think another thing for when you’re talking about setup is, and I noticed this when I’ve watched people do it, is that you can squat down a lot farther on a trap bar than you can with conventional.
So [00:30:00] your knees are going to be bent more, which loads the quads a lot more. But in a conventional deadlift, you are in the way. So you actually can’t, and right now on Lizzie’s ships, so they only have dumbbells. A Smith machine, which you can’t deadlift. And then somebody brought a trap bar and bar and stuff so she can actually dead lift.
But I had to tell her like, okay, you know, this is going to be much different than a barbell. She’s never used it. So I said, you know, really pay attention to your setup. Make sure you’re not squatting down and make sure you’re actually loading up your hamstrings and your glutes. So that doesn’t turn into like a squat.
So that’s another mistake that I see some people make, but as long as you’re cognizant of it, you’ll be fine.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. And so I think taking all of those things into account, if you want a chat bar, get one, like just no, no. All of those, especially what Joe just said, I think if you like, I’ve dead lifted so much and for so long I feel like I would set up on a trap bar.
Just how I would on a normal deadlift. It’s been a while since I’ve done trapper. I will, only time that I’ve actually normally done them is when I’m traveling and like that’s what that gym has [00:31:00] and I’m like, okay, yeah, I’ll use it. But yeah, you trying to not squat so down so far down. I forgot about that being a fact.
If, yeah, if that’s where you’re starting, you’re basically doing like a squat. You could basically do a squat and like just pick it up, which is a. Will be funny to see.
Joe Courtney: so I, that’s it. My two actual takeaways that are, you know, the, the positive points of not just my bias, I think for, so new lifters, if you can have access to also view, like in regular gym, I think it’s great to start with a trap bar because it doesn’t load you back as much.
You’re not, a lot of people are finding it really awkward to pick up a barbell because they have to bend over so far and they’re just not used to getting that position and hurting themselves. So I think that is a really good place to start for very brand new people. And then later on, once you get used to like doing more barbell deadlifts.
I think it’s great to use to add the velocity that we were talking about and we mentioned program before, is that we add the dynamic lifting after we’ve [00:32:00] already built a baseline of actual strength and stuff like that. Then when you start adding speed and dynamic to it, I would be interested for like myself to get on drop part now and actually try and like focus on lifting fast just to see how, how it feel and how
Jerred Moon: fast.
That’s what’s most interesting about it is cause they’re, they’re talking about 90%. Of one rep max here and still moving a fifth percent more, 28% higher output, a higher power output. which is just, that’s a lot. And Oh, something that just to know is, and it was noted in the, in their review, but that is not peak power.
Like if you, all these other studies that have looked at these, this isn’t the first study that’s looked at conventional versus a hex bar deadlift, but. They look at peak power and other studies, meaning what was the fastest, no matter what point was, whether it was the first inch of the lift or the last inch of the lift, what was the highest point of power that we hit?
Everything in this study was average, which [00:33:00] makes it even more powerful cause they’re, they’re talking about the full range of motion. 28% higher output power output. That is significant. when we’re talking about power output and it just being an average because that means peak power was probably much greater than that.
And, that’s something to take into account too with the study. It was, it was a really, really solid one. yeah, and I, I’d say you, you mentioned for beginners, I’d say for people who are. Like I mentioned, maybe getting bored in the garage or if you feel like your body is beat up from dead lifts, like if you’re having some lower back issues after heavy deadlifts or you’re not, you’re just not feeling great.
Like by the way, that’s stuff that’s not normal. I, I, I, I run into those things with athletes all the time. They’re like, yeah, I did, did a dead lifts and you know, my, my lower back will hurt for like two or three days now and I’ll get back to normal. Like, that’s not okay. Like it’s not anything you do should not cause you pain for multiple days until the next week when you do it again.
So if you are running into those problems, one fixture, conventional deadlift [00:34:00] form or life, like lighten the load or try something like a trap bar, dead lift and keep your body fresh because at the end of the day, who cares? if all you’re trying to do is lift in your garage and live a healthy lifestyle, then it doesn’t matter if you have a big conventional deadlift.
seems like the chat bar will get you most of the way there. And I didn’t think I’d ever say something like that. So
Joe Courtney: washed out your mouth.
Jerred Moon: There it is. Yeah. Edit. No. now we can move to the study unless you guys have anything or the topic, unless you guys have anything else.
Joe Courtney: I vented enough,
Jerred Moon: I think. I think we gave very, like.
Good reasons on why you think you want to think about. okay. So the book this month was atomic habits by James clear. And we’re going to talk about that a little bit, and then we will just briefly give like some fit week suggestions cause this is fit week, at the time of recording this. All right. [00:35:00] I have a lot of little things to say about atomic habits, but I’ll let you guys go first.
Joe, you can go first on atomic habits. What were some of your takeaways?
Joe Courtney: so it’s been a while since I’ve read it, but I do, when I went to look back into it, it is a very practical guide on to how to start habits little by little, effecting a small amount of change over time. And I think, I think there were some really good steps to follow onto how to do that.
which I won’t get into specifics if anyone else had to, but that was, I think that’s really helpful to me because it’s not necessarily the most, whoever’s the most motivated to get, to start a habit. It’s just whoever has the best approach to it, the most useful approach to it on how to actually make changes versus just, you just got to do it.
You know, we love that Shyla buff video as much as possible, but, you know, just do it. But, yeah, very, very practical way to actually start to change it. So if you need to act, to want to incorporate changes in your life and not have it be a [00:36:00] hindrance, this is a good one to check out.
Jerred Moon: How about you, Ashley?
Ashley Hicks: So, I also, I have kind of little ones too. I guess the biggest thing for me about this book is it made me. Realize how many habits that I have naturally built in to my daily routine and something he talks about. He goes over, I just pulled it up actually, so I could read this little snippet, but it says why your brain builds habits, and he talks about that habits are simply reliable solutions to recurring problems in our environment.
And. You know, he goes over how to build good habits and how to get rid of negative ones. And I love the suggestion that he did. He talked about changing your environment in order to take away a bad habit because, even if you try super hard and we talk about, you know, the determination and you just got to stop being lazy and he actually talks about that your brain has already built in triggers to your body to make, so [00:37:00] he’s saying, if you want to stop a bad habit.
Completely remove yourself from that environment or change it up. so I really liked that. I liked that he gives you practical ways on how to practice on getting rid of those negative habits and then how to build your good ones. and then. So this, my biggest takeaway for this was small habits lead to a big impact.
I mean, that’s exactly what I think he hits on in this book. the little things you do daily will build and become something bigger later on. So, yeah, it was a great book. and yeah, I really liked
Jerred Moon: it. Awesome. Well, I’ll go over mine and I, I kind of want to share some personal stories too. So one this.
Books like this. A part of the reason I wrote my book killing comfort is because the subtitle to killing comfort is the overlooked prerequisite to extraordinary results. And I think implementing something like habits for fitness or whatever, there’s, there’s this a zone [00:38:00] of of a crap Venus that people don’t talk about to doing new things like building new habits, like it’s really hard.
It’s really hard. And so that’s kind of what my book is about. Killing comfort. Like how do you actually be uncomfortable long enough? And then for something like what James clear is teaching to, to take over, you know, and build these habits. and so this is something, the reason I say that just this is something I’ve been fascinated with with years, habits in general, why some people can stick to things and why people can’t, and, and building these habits.
so if, if this book interests you, I think you’ll definitely like my book when it comes out. now a few things that I wanted to say is like, I, I picked up the, at least 10 minutes per day of audio books several years ago. Like, and now. By the end of this year, I’ll probably have 250 books listened to too.
And I don’t listen to any big chunks ever. It’s always like 10 minutes while I’m, you know, doing the dishes or 10 minutes in the morning. now [00:39:00] I can do that multiple times throughout the day. But, or just the whole idea he had of like little habits adding up to big things. Yeah. It doesn’t seem like anything.
When you listen to 10 minutes of an audio book, you’re like, okay, like barely even got started there. But now, like I said, fast forward several years. You know, I’m getting closer and closer to, like I said, 250 books, which is a lot of books. You know, it’s a lot of books to crush. little by little. So I think doing little thing, like things like that is really big.
he talks about implementation intentions in his book. So this was also a good, from another book recommendation called a nudge by Richard Thaler. He talks about this a lot. just human behavior in general and in our coaching program, we talk about if when then statements like. So just having, being very clear about how you’re going to do something and never being vague in your execution of that.
So if you want to start a new habit, very clearly, say what that is. So [00:40:00] that’s what an implementation intention or statement would be is like. Okay. Now I’m going to start working out. It’s tomorrow morning at 6:00 AM I’m going to put on my shoes and go out to my garage or go outside and go for a run.
Like being very clear, and I’ve, I’ve found that to be true of myself. Like if I want to start something new and I’m real clear on like what I’m going to do and when it’s going to happen, even in work, if I’m like, yeah, I need to do that. Video or whatever that needs to happen for, for stuff we’re doing. If I’m kind of vague about it, like I put it off and it gets I, you know, I don’t do it well, but if I’m very clear, like this is exactly what it’s going to be, when it’s going to happen, I, you know, it gets executed.
So I think those are huge. Or do you announce
Joe Courtney: it publicly
Jerred Moon: or now? Yeah. Like, Hey, I’m writing a book. You haven’t even started yet, but now I have to. and the last one I wanted to point out was, he talked about breaking bad habits to make friction in your life. with bad habits. So making things that you don’t want to do harder to [00:41:00] do.
And this is something that Emily and I have done to an extreme. So we, we bought two timers, outlet timers, and they’re cheap. I think. I honestly think like two of them. It’s like five bucks on Amazon. and two things happen at our house. towards the end of the night. I can’t remember, maybe it’s like nine 30 or something like that, but timer one goes off.
And it cuts off our TV. Our TV’s no longer can no longer be turned on because the outlet timer fires. And so I could go over there and, and turn it back on cause it has a override switch. Second thing that happens. The internet, the wifi router gets cut off by outlet timer, about five minutes after that.
So now I have to go to sleep. I could go to the TV and change that. Then I could leave my room and go, you know, get the wifi router turned back on and let that fire back up. But that’s way too much friction for me at the end of the day. And I’m like, okay, yeah, I’m not watching TV. [00:42:00] I’m not, I’m not going to go try and fix the internet, so I’m just going to go to sleep.
And that helped me. Cause sometimes I had a bad habit of staying up later. And you know, we’ve talked about prioritizing sleep. Like I wouldn’t stay up super late, but just later than I wanted to, like, you know, into the tens, maybe 11 as doing nothing. Most of the time, you know, like nothing super productive that late.
And I’m like, well I want to, I want to stop that. So that was, that was my friction story that we have that’s like. It works. It works. I’ve never once turned both of those back on and been like, Nope. You know, I want to do something on the internet so badly that I’m going to get up and turn all this crap back on.
I’m just, it never happens. I’m like, yeah. All right, and
Joe Courtney: you’re like self grounding yourself.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. It’s a kind of like having a, a parental curfew. That you set for yourself.
Joe Courtney: Yeah. I can not do that. I mean, awesome. I had an awesome bedtime routine, but if I had something that did just cut off on me in the middle of it, I get so pissed.
Jerred Moon: It’s happened to us before. We’ve been watching TV and been like, the [00:43:00] TV show and like stops and it’s like they start spiraling cause it’s like, Oh, we can’t find a connection. and I’m like, yeah, there it is. It’s
Joe Courtney: murder ended.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. So we’ve actually done that. Oh, I did have one more. he talks about habit stacking.
I just think that’s a great, a great thing in general, if, if you already do something every day. I’ve been, I do stuff like this before I even knew it was called something, but like if I need to take, I primarily done it with like supplements. Like I wanted to start supplementing with vitamin D 97% chance.
I’ll forget to do that if I just have it in my medicine cabinet. But if I put the vitamin D on top of my coffee maker. Never gonna miss a cup of coffee in the morning. That never happens. So if I walk up my walk up to my coffee maker and I see the vitamin D on top of it, I’m like, Oh yeah, take the vitamin D.
so habit stacking, adding a, you know, a habit you already have and putting a reminder next to it or whatever, I think is a really great, a great strategy for getting things done. So in [00:44:00] the end, I love this book. I think it’s great, and I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to build a break, build good habits or break bad habits.
and now fit week quick recommendations from each person. what is your best? So fit week is our testing week. I kinda wanna just mention the evolution of my personal journey and fit week and how I’ve changed over the years. But I’d love to hear any tips that you guys have. Ashley, what do you have.
Ashley Hicks: Yeah, so mine have changed too. When I first joined grudge to mathlete, I had a bunch of numbers and stuff that I really wanted to hit. And I think my, I have slowly transitioned to just wanting to be healthy and, you know, if I lift heavy things and lift heavy things, that’s great. so that’s my tip. I don’t necessarily focus too much on PRS.
I try to hit it. It’s not like I go, I go at it how fast, if you will. I still go in. It. Full every single time. And I like to try, but if I don’t hit a PR, I don’t beat myself up. I think that’s the biggest thing [00:45:00] for me is it’s, I have changed my mental, my inner, chatter, if you will. We talked about this a couple of podcasts ago.
And I just try to have fun with it. I still use my jams. Everybody knows I love jams. So I listened to a ton of heavy metal
Jerred Moon: and rock new spread on bread.
Joe Courtney: I was almost made that joke. I held that,
Jerred Moon: I saw it. I could see you thinking about
Ashley Hicks: it. You two are killing me anyway. Music. Muzak I listened to a ton of it, and so I listened to heavy metal and rock when I left.
That’s just, I know what motivates me. And so that’s, that’s what I use. and then when I’m going for that 2000 meter row, which I don’t even want to think about, I, I have to listen to EDM or something, techno, something with the high beat. for me, I know that. Again, I still think we should do a study on it, but I think a bunch of cadences for me, like it helps me, Do that, and for some reason, if someone’s screaming, I feel like
[00:46:00] Joe Courtney: music behind you musically.
Jerred Moon: It helped me on the 2000 meter row for like four minutes, and then the last two and a half or three, whatever it’s upset or something, I would rip the headphones out of my ears. I’m stopped with the noises. Like there’s enough going on right now.
Ashley Hicks: Well, let’s be clear, your 2000 meter row and my 2000 meter row looks a little different. So
Jerred Moon: yeah, I know painfully nonetheless.
Ashley Hicks: But it’s, it’s funny because I know what songs that kind of get me or what songs, like what kind of cadence. And so, especially for a 2000 meter row or for a mile time trial or a mile and a half run, whatever it is, I know where I need to list my songs cause I, I buy my own music some of the times too.
And so I make my own playlists, especially during fit week. And I know that’s dumb, but I do, I spend 15 to 20 minutes tweaking my own playlists. Like, okay, this needs to come on here and here. And Oh yeah. So.
Jerred Moon: I was on Spotify, you should share them with the community.
Ashley Hicks: They’re not. So I am working on that. so I will make [00:47:00] some more playlists and share them.
I know we have some
Joe Courtney: Joseph one, but I made like two years ago and I’m only got, it’s been awhile. I’ve only added a few things since then, and I’ve been meaning to update it some. So there’s one out there and I can update more to it. And there’s a large variety, so it’s like there’s rock, there’s EDM and things that are upbeat.
I
Jerred Moon: think that was just kind of like a sample pool of like people’s recommendations. Right. And so it was like one
Joe Courtney: comment thread and I was like, yeah, I’ll put these on there. And then some other things that I like. And then,
Jerred Moon: so you might have classical then transitioned to,
Joe Courtney: well, I rooted some things out.
Jerred Moon: Awesome. Yeah. That’s cool. so look, be looking for Ashley’s jams on Spotify. And as a Etsy store in which she sells strawberry and
Ashley Hicks: stop
Joe Courtney: me if you make different jam playlist and then you can just be like, this is my strawberry jams. This is my blueberry jam. They can be like,
Ashley Hicks: these
Joe Courtney: are my very jam.
There’s a strawberry day.
Jerred Moon: All right, Joe, what do you have for fit week?
Joe Courtney: So for, for [00:48:00] starters, don’t stress or worry about doing every single component of that week if you don’t need to or want to. I’m at the point now where my squat or my, like my back squat and my dead lift, I might not improve. I might only do twice or once a year to actually like one rep max.
I’ll go up to like a heavy one. So work up to like a heavy one, but don’t. You don’t need to go into it thinking, okay, I need to try and PR. I need to match my PR. It’s not necessarily important every time. And you know when, when it comes to PR, when you PR something that might mean that that day you’re 1% more ready than you are.
And other days you might not always be equally ready. Every single time you go to PR. Don’t necessarily worry about that. Or all of the, conditioning metrics as well. just do it. You know, you can even do like a 90 95% effort or you can even skip them. We have other workouts that we program on fit week now that are just extra stuff that you can do that isn’t max out testing because it’s not always good they give you, if you’re not ready for testing, then, then don’t worry about
Jerred Moon: it.
[00:49:00] Yeah. And you know, I’ve kinda been towing the line mentally between holding the standard and. Relaxing, like being like, okay, whatever. So I really want to try and make sure that I do fit week twice per year at a minimum. So we do it four times per year. I won’t be doing it four times this year, but definitely twice.
Cause there’s, I think there is like if you’re really in that mindset of like, I’m not worried about any PRS could care less, then that’s fine. But for me personally, and it could just be an ego thing. I’ve been at that competitor level. For our standards for a long time. And if that starts slipping, I don’t know how I’m going to handle that mentally.
So I have to, and if it starts slipping, it would only be because of my, the effort I’m not putting in. Right. So I need to, you know, kind of hold that standard. I want to hold that standard for as long as I can. So I will be testing, primarily conditioning metrics. [00:50:00] This one, because after the MERF project was over, I tested all my max lifts, just out of curiosity.
And I also did the, EO three fit test or the kettlebell tests, you know, so I did those things right after the project was over. So I have fairly recent, Barbell PRS and other metrics. And now I’ll be doing all the conditioning metrics, like the twoK roads will be awful and the run and everything.
So I’ll knock those things out. So I will say, just know where you’re at and how you feel like me personally, I’m still in this mindset where I want to hold a certain level and a certain standard. And so I’m gonna, I’m going to try and make sure I at least check those, cause I don’t want to say I’m at the competitor level.
But be like, Oh yeah, well, I mean, it was tested three years ago, but I’m not competitive level. Like I hate it when people do stuff like this. Like, what’s your dead lift? Well, it was six 50 a 19 years ago, but I haven’t tested it since like, well, probably not six 50 anymore. Like, if I had to guess, you know, and I don’t want to be that guy.
So, I would just say, know who you are and what you want to do. Yeah.
Joe Courtney: Goals can [00:51:00] be a factor too. Like if you switch to strength, strength, check the last one or two cycles, your two K Rose probably could have gone down. It might not be better.
Jerred Moon: A hundred meter row is going to PR.
Joe Courtney: Exactly. Did you do the power for ones that the shorter ones and you’d be good.
And then I’ll just have one little note toward fit week just because I know it comes up every time. We do program bench press, but we don’t test bench press because of safety reasons.
Jerred Moon: Not for fit week. Oh, it’s not. Yeah. Oh, why we don’t do it is
Joe Courtney: because we always have that, that remark of like when we do the strict best day of the people are asking, okay, I did bench, but where is it on here?
Well, it’s because we don’t actually program it to test for PRS, and you can do that safely with somebody then go forward. But it’s not actually one of our fit week things.
Jerred Moon: You know, it’s funny about bench press. I never do it. Like we’d even programmed it in sometimes and I still will be like, I’ll opt to do strict press.
Like I’m just, I’m not a huge bench guy like I, but what’s really funny about it, I don’t have a [00:52:00] massive bench. I think the most I ever benched ever was like. Three 15, and that was when I was in college. And the bench was super important. and that’s still not even that big of a bench press for a lot of guys out there.
But I just, I recently max out on the bench press, just, it was during the, that Murph testing and my, I hit two 85 and. I’m talking like super surprised, like super surprised because I just never do it. Like never. I was like, I was like, this might be embarrassing. Like I might, I just might be like a 225 pounds.
bench press. so I, I was just like, curious more than anything else. So it’s funny, like you’d never, we never really trained bench press needs specifically, even when it’s programmed. I don’t do it most of the time. And I mean, I would still say that’s fairly respectable for someone who never bench presses, like ever, you know?
So I think that was a, I don’t normally throw numbers out on the podcast. and I don’t think that that’s a very good [00:53:00] bench press. And so that’s why I’m throwing that number out there. But. You’d be surprised what your body can maintain when you’re just doing solid, well-rounded training and in every other regard.
Joe Courtney: But big picture, somebody that could probably bench press over 300, how fast can they do 200 pushups?
Jerred Moon: Right. Well that’s, and that’s part of the reason I wanted to test bench press is because of the Merck project. There’s so much, so many pushups in that, cause my strict press was about the same, whereas where it’s kind of always, always has been.
And I was like, I don’t, I don’t have a recent bench press. Max to compare it to, but I’m like, what does a lot of pushups every week do for you? So maybe, maybe that was the only factor.
Ashley Hicks: But funny thing, I hate pushups, but I absolutely love to Ben for us, it’s so weird. And I, I test out my bench cause I make sure Scott’s with me.
But yeah, I really love. The bench press. And then the other thing you said that made me think, for all you ladies out there who had a baby, it definitely moves you from the [00:54:00] competitor level to the establish level. So I will definitely be paying time PRS, because I have not gotten back up to my competitor level that I was at before Connor.
So, and you know what? If I never do, that’s fine. It’s just, it might be different for the rest of my life.
Joe Courtney: Who knows? You made your own little competitor.
Ashley Hicks: The after baby competitor level. We should have just like a little,
Jerred Moon: there are age brackets. We did like, Hey, some significant though. I’m the oldest one
Joe Courtney: here.
Ashley Hicks: That’s me.
Jerred Moon: Hey, I know. I was trying to, there are if no, if you guys haven’t seen those, like I actually, I even pulled up studies for this. I didn’t just arbitrarily do it.
Like I looked at. VO two max reduction based off of age brackets and all that stuff. And so we have our standards that are also then, For male, female, and, age brackets. So I don’t, I don’t even know where it’s at, where it’s at. no, I’m kidding. It’s, it’s in the, yeah, so if you go, we built, so we’ve built [00:55:00] so many things over the years.
We’re not very organized, but I’m 99% certain. If you go to the app and you go to more documents and links or whatever, there’s a. The standards are in there and you’ll see the one with the age brackets and everything. So go check that out if you guys are interested. like I said, male, female, or age dependent stuff.
So cause you could be in the competitor level if you’re, yeah, if you’re like 47 and you’re like, Oh, competitor, you know, I’m never going to try that. But you might be there based off the age bracket. So. That’s fine. All right. Last but not least, it is because it is that week. We always test the EO three, five K during fit week as the meet yourself Saturday workouts.
So that’s what we’re doing. You guys know it well enough to brief it off the top of your head.
Ashley Hicks: It’s six times of an 800 meter run, followed by three rounds of five pushups, 10 setups, 15 air squats, and then, right, so you repeat that six times and [00:56:00] then you rest for. Two minutes, I believe, and then you do. Nope. Did I mess that up? I’m pretty sure you rest two minutes and then you sprint a 400 yeah.
Joe Courtney: It’s like it’s a foreigner that a 200 I got it.
Jerred Moon: So you’ve got the six rounds, 800 meters, three rounds, five, 10 15 push ups, sit ups, squats, rest, three minutes, a hundred meters, sprint, rest, 60 seconds. A hundred meter sprint time cap is 60 minutes.
Joe Courtney: Well, it’s emotional part. That’s hard.
Jerred Moon: Nope. Nobody ever does that. Only people only ever do really the six rounds of 800 meters. So you run a hundred meters and then you would do three rounds of five pushups, 10 set of 15 squats. You do the, that little circuit six times. Yeah. But it wouldn’t be a full fiveK and unless you do those two additional 100 meters sprint.
So that’s, yeah. Well, what people always ask, and I think, I don’t even know [00:57:00] if we like land on like what we officially do. I mean, I guess I, I should be the one who could determine that, but. The rest, three minutes is supposed to count as part of your time. Right, and so is the rest 60 seconds.
That’s when I wrote the workout out of this, what it was supposed to be. But most everyone, just so you know, when they’re reporting their times in the Facebook group or whatever, they’re really probably only reporting their times on that. Those six rounds of the 800 in the, in the calisthenics, because you already have four minutes of rest built into your time.
Like. Everyone should have that. And some of the times I’m seeing, I’m like, no, you did not. That’s it’s fine. It’s fine. Like, I don’t, I don’t care which one you’re reporting, but maybe just let people know, because people do both. Yeah.
Ashley Hicks: Yeah. No, I did it the right way. Do you want to go Joe?
Joe Courtney: Oh, man, I can’t remember what I’ve, what my Tip’s been with the past.
This is the one where we had VD on and everybody was like, Oh, the run is the rest. And then me and you I think were like the, the, the calisthenics or the rest or something like that. the [00:58:00] run you have to pace. I think you have to do like a good 90% of whatever your mild or not mild time, but basically 90%, 85, 90% effort on the run to keep those runtimes consistent throughout and then the calisthenics as fast as
Jerred Moon: possible.
Yeah.
Joe Courtney: That’s how I basically do mine.
Jerred Moon: So calisthenics are the hard work and the run is your rest.
Ashley Hicks: Yes, that’s what Joe and I agreed on last time too. And then you and VD said the run is your,
Jerred Moon: that’s only if you want a good time. Okay.
Ashley Hicks: Hey, I do it that way and I have gotten under 40 minutes. The
Jerred Moon: last couple of you.
You really can’t do it either way. I think, yeah. V D and I may have a slight leg up on the calisthenics having done Murph for a year, like. You being like, w we just can’t do them much faster. Right. The setups would slow, slows down. We have been doing a lot of those, but yeah, I mean I just think that you should on the run, like whether you [00:59:00] want it to be your rest or whatever.
I just think that it should be a consistent pace is what you should be shooting for. Right. Cause a lot of people. A lot of people can’t run fast for 800 meters. They just, you know, people don’t know how to pace that in general terms. So just maybe give that some thought before you get started because you’ll think that you can run a hundred meters a lot faster than you can.
And as that time goes on, it’s just going to creep up further and further. So, you know, maybe take whatever your fastest mile time is and. Try to do close to that for 800 meters or just a little bit, maybe 10 20% above that. A slower than that. Should I say that would be my best advice, but I mean, my actual plan of attack when I do it is as fast as you possibly can.
Shocker. But for this one, for real, like, you know. What I mean? What, why do you need to slow down on anything? There’s no, there’s no reason to slow down. And, if you wanna make it harder, where vest, I’ve done that before. It makes us sit up stupid. It just makes him dumb. [01:00:00] But
Ashley Hicks: it’s like cross your arms on your chest.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. I think, I think you have to end up like doing like crossing your legs. Like kind of like Indian style. If you were to sit down, you know, like crossing like criss cross applesauce type thing. Yeah. Because of the butterfly. Yeah. Same. Oh, there you go. I
Ashley Hicks: don’t do normal setups. Yeah, that was my thing is like the transition from the pushups, like right.
Immediately from pushup, I immediately flop over.
Jerred Moon: Right. Like I look like a.
Ashley Hicks: I look ridiculous when I do it. And then my last set up, I immediately push myself up and then immediately start my year squats right then and there and then go from there.
Jerred Moon: So I don’t really know from sit up to feet up and you’re in the squatting position and you stand up.
Would that count on this count?
Ashley Hicks: Okay. That’s cheating.
Jerred Moon: Just making sure everybody’s aware of what a full rep
Ashley Hicks: is. Yeah. No. Stand up first and then start your hairs. Squats.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. All right, cool. I think that’s everything. that’s all I have. Crush [01:01:00] it in a fit week. I will say if you, Why don’t I get started with garage mathlete and you and you.
You’re not now is a great time. You could do a 14 day free trial. I think we’re doing 30 days for dollar. Like we’re, we’re just doing a lot of promotions. right now for people who interested in getting started. Like I said, it feels kind of weird to have any sort of promotion going when you’re. In the middle of a crisis.
But I, I mean, I feel like our service helps people more than anything else and we’re not trying to take advantage of anybody or any situation. We’re just looking to provide training like we always have to the best of our ability and provide the best service, for online programming that’s out there.
That’s our only goal, our only mission and the only thing that we’re going to keep doing. So if you want to be a part of it, now is a great time to join. You get started with fit week or the first day of the new cycle. we’d love to have you. And now for everyone who is around like. You know, get after it.
Like get that killing comfort patch, stay consistent. We don’t know how long people are going to be quarantined and all this other stuff that could happen. And the only thing I think that you can do in these [01:02:00] situations is focus on what you can control and what you can control. If you have a home, gym, garage, gym, whatever you want to call it, is your consistency and getting after it because things can get a little bit depressing if you’re not used to staying home.
A lot. Maybe you know, maybe you’re a really social person. These are all things I don’t know anything about. By the way, if you’re really a social person and you go out often, like right now, it could be a depressing time for you, and if that is the case for anybody. Do not let fitness drop, like do not let it fall off whether you’re doing a walk or run or following our programming.
Stay consistent and stay after it because that it will, if things ever get tough for me, mentally, I feel like the only thing that I need to hold on to is his fitness. Like that’s the only, like everything else. I just got it. Like that’s the only thing that’s going to keep me. In line and keep me moving forward.
So I give the same recommendation for anybody if you’re struggling through this time, with a quarantine or just family members, Krone, buyers, all this other stuff. Either way, thanks for listening to podcast and, it [01:03:00] started with us on the new cycle and we’d love to have you. All right. Thanks for listening to the garage gym athlete podcast.
Do you want to learn more? Go to garage gym, athlete.com you can learn about our training. Let us send you a copy of our book, the garage, the mathlete, or you can even get featured on the garage gym athlete podcast. Thanks for listening.