*NOTE*: You can learn more about what we are doing, get a chance to be featured on the podcast, and more at http://GarageGymAthlete.com
In this episode, we discuss knowing your why for long-term success with garage gym athlete Douglas Alexander!
Listen:
Watch:
Top 3 Highlights:
- The power of sticking to a program
- How to assemble a badass garage gym from DIY to Craigslist
- Knowing the ‘why’ behind your training
About Garage Gym Athletes on the show:
The athletes in this podcast all have a diverse background; some from Powerlifting, CrossFit, Olympic Lifting, Endurance Training, Military Operators, Collegiate Athletes, Spartan Racers, Obstacle Course Racers, and many other forms of physical training. We listen to the experience of these athletes braving the extreme heat, bitter cold, early mornings, and late nights to tackle their training and become athletes. This podcast is for Garage Gym Athletes and by Garage Gym Athletes. Athletes share their experience (whether a beginner or advanced), share their knowledge, and give us a glimpse into the life of a Garage Gym Athlete!!
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Transcript:
Jerred Moon: 00:10 Hey, my name is Jerred Moon and I’m part of a group of underground athletes you’ve probably never even heard of before. Most of us don’t even have gym memberships. We don’t have every piece of equipment known to man, nor do we have a ton of time to train. And we don’t need it, because we’re achieving amazing things without it. We are Garage Gym Athletes, and these are our stories. All right ladies and gentlemen. Jerred Moon here from Minute 3 Fitness, and welcome the Garage Gym Athletes podcast. With me is Joe Courtney. What’s up, Joe?
Joe Courtney: 00:40 Hey, man.
Jerred Moon: 00:41 And Douglas Alexander. How’s it going, Douglas?
Douglas Alexand: 00:44 Pretty well, coaches. How are you guys?
Jerred Moon: 00:46 I’m great. I think Joe’s doing-
Joe Courtney: 00:48 Not bad.
Jerred Moon: 00:48 He’s great. He’s feeling … I don’t want to steal any thunder here, man. I want to get right into it. If you could give us a quick intro about who you are, what you do, and how you train would be great.
Douglas Alexand: 01:01 Sounds good. My name is Doug Alexander. I’m not one of the End of 3 Fitness coaches, through End of 3 Fitness. Very proud about that. Who I am from my day job, I’m a Supervisory Attorney for the US Government, and my night job is I’m a Fitness Coach, an End of 3 coach now. Started off the normal weight lifting kind of thing. I transitioned from there to martial arts, boxing, MMA. That’s what I was doing before I found Cross Fit, and then like one of those people, I found Cross Fit a little bit too random, was looking for something a little bit more structured to get you through the plateaus and to get you there. And I was looking to build a bunch of stuff in my gym on the cheap. And that little intersection of stuff led me into End of 3 Fitness and you guys, and I’ve never left ever since I found you.
Jerred Moon: 01:46 Yeah, man. You’ve been around End of 3 Fitness for a while. How long’s it been?
Douglas Alexand: 01:51 Good Lord. I don’t even know. Before we had Garage Gym Athletes, before-
Jerred Moon: 01:55 Yeah, it was-
Douglas Alexand: 01:56 Back when it was a website with a bunch of DIY stuff and really, really hard work outs posted randomly on the website.
Jerred Moon: 02:03 Right. Perfect. Yeah, man, you’ve been around for a long time. I’m super pumped to get you on. You’re actually in your garage right now, so what is your garage gym set up? What do you have? If I remember correctly, you have a pretty bad ass set up. But, what all do we have here?
Douglas Alexand: 02:21 For a garage … I can give you a little quick tour if you want?
Jerred Moon: 02:23 Yeah. Just make sure you-
Douglas Alexand: 02:24 Is that okay?
Jerred Moon: 02:24 Call it out, too, for people who are doing audio only.
Douglas Alexand: 02:28 You see the giant whiteboards behind me here, right?
Jerred Moon: 02:30 A necessity.
Douglas Alexand: 02:31 I call this my Garage Gym by Craigslist. Everything is basically from Craigslist, or Ebay, or I found it on sale somewhere. I’m a living testament to the fact that you can do this on the cheap if you stay committed to finding what you need to do. This is a giant white boards that used to be paneling for showers, when you’re doing DIY projects. We got the Concept Two rowers here, we got the skier sitting right over here.
Jerred Moon: 02:59 Awesome.
Joe Courtney: 03:00 Wow.
Douglas Alexand: 03:01 That was the most recent thing. Some guy used it like five times, and this idea wasn’t for him, so he gave it to me, basically was brand new. Still had the plastic on the computer. It was $300.00 off, plus he gave me gas money to go up and pick it up.
Jerred Moon: 03:15 Dude. You found a skier on Craigslist. That’s amazing.
Douglas Alexand: 03:18 Yeah. If you look over here, you got the two Aerodynes, also off of Craigslist.
Jerred Moon: 03:24 Perfect. Yeah.
Douglas Alexand: 03:26 We got the rogue sleds, homemade sandbags sitting in the corner over there. Your standard rack that you do for just about everything you do here. For the bumper plates. I got all kinds of bars, again, from Craigslist and optimists who had to give up. These should look familiar, these are off the End of 3 Fitness do it yourself plyobox. One of my first projects off of the website.
Jerred Moon: 03:48 Nice.
Douglas Alexand: 03:49 And then you got your standard rings, pull up bar, big heavy kick bag for the guys who want to get some aggression out. Oh, wait. [crosstalk 00:03:58]. Off the End of 3 website, right?
Joe Courtney: 04:03 That, I’m jealous of.
Douglas Alexand: 04:06 And of course the flooring is all, the [inaudible 00:04:08] that you can get from the Tractor Supply Company. It’s that one inch thick, just soft enough to make it a little bit easier to do body weight stuff, but firm enough to where you can still do the heavy lifting and feel like you’re still pretty steady down there. I’ve got the kettlebells, kind of random, you fill them in as people put things on sale. I have athletes who train with me for a while and they’ll actually … They realize that they’re not using them at home so they’ll bring them in, they’ll donate the kettlebells to me, and to the gym.
Joe Courtney: 04:36 That’s awesome.
Douglas Alexand: 04:39 It’s taken probably a few years, three or four years to build everything up, and you have to figure out what works and what doesn’t work. You figure out what you really need. Some things sound really cool on paper or when you read them on a website for a workout. You get them in the gym, you’re like, “I never use it.”
Jerred Moon: 04:52 Yeah.
Douglas Alexand: 04:54 It’s good for like one workout and then you’re like, “Yeah. There’s better ways to get that.” And you just never use it. But, other stuff you use all the time. Seriously, one man, one kettlebell, the kettlebells, I got a couple guys who went off to college, I told them, “If you can only afford, and you only have room in your dorm for one thing. You can do everything with it.”
Jerred Moon: 05:13 Yeah. kettlebell is great and incredibly versatile piece of equipment to have. I think that would be, if I could only have one piece of equipment, I might change my answer to kettlebell, given how much you can do and how creative you can really get with it. How long have you been in your garage training?
Douglas Alexand: 05:34 Oh, God. There was a previous smaller iteration in another house as a garage gym. I’ll have to say maybe like four or five years I’ve been a Garage Gym Athlete.
Jerred Moon: 05:42 Wow, that’s awesome. You’re on Garage Gym 2.0?
Douglas Alexand: 05:42 2.0.
Jerred Moon: 05:45 2.0. All right. I think Joe is on 1.0, now. Right, Joe?
Joe Courtney: 05:53 I’m on like .5.
Jerred Moon: 05:55 .5? I’m about to be on 6.0, something like that. It travels … It doesn’t travel well. I’m not gonna lie. Garage gyms do not travel well. They are a huge pain, but that is the only time that they are a downside. All right, man, you’ve been doing it four or five years, why did you decide to start working out in your garage?
Douglas Alexand: 06:15 The short story is my wife and I, we ended up moving out, kind of farther away from the main part of the city and there weren’t a lot of gyms available, it was a long commute, we had kids to deal with. If we wanted to get any kind of work out in at all, we had to do it in the garage. The longer story is, down the street there was actually a woman who had a garage gym. She was a Cross Fit Level I, she and her husband, she was doing classes and I saw it. We started, but she was so expensive, we could only afford to go once every two weeks and get our butt kicked by her, so we started doing our own, on the cheap version of what she had. You do everything, you buy the cheap mats to start because it’s all you can afford, and you buy just the basic kettlebells. You have one bar with some bumper plates, you know.
Douglas Alexand: 06:57 Then you start building, and you start upgrading, and you realize, ” Hey, this is cool because the kids are inside. We don’t need a babysitter.” The little one can tumble around and they get interested in fitness. They start copying what you do, so they get really active, which is really cool. And there’s just so many benefits to it that we just kept investing money in it and building it up. When we moved it just seemed natural to upgrade. So we upgraded the flooring, we added some more stuff into the gym, made it really nice because if you want to spend time, it might as well be a pleasant environment. So you paint the walls, add a little flash here and there, next thing you know you have a four year old who’s doing handstands and practicing burpees with you and wants to go running, who’s doing a workout.
Jerred Moon: 07:39 That’s one of the best parts of a garage gym in my opinion. If you’ve got kids, there’s no better way to influence their lives through just showing and doing, as opposed to telling.
Douglas Alexand: 07:50 And then other people see what you’re doing, and see your fitness and your work, and they see it’s comfortable and they want to come do it with you. Next thing you know, you have a tribe of people who are showing up asking to work out with you, so you’re programming work outs for them, and their kids start to see what’s going on. Next thing you know, it’s just a movement. I think that’s one of the things I like best about it, it really boils it back down to I think, what Cross Fit and a lot of other functional fitness places were supposed to be, that grassroots, it doesn’t have to be fancy, it doesn’t have to be chrome plated, you don’t need to have TVs and air conditioning, and juice bars. You just need to have some basic space and the will to do it.
Douglas Alexand: 08:31 Then you just start tapping into people who have done it before, who have done the work and the research. Had the most effective on you. You find what works for you. I tell my athletes, there are so paths to the same goal. If your goal is fitness, there’s a thousand ways to get there. Pick what works for you and what you like, and that might change over the years. You may start out with heavy barbell work, and then realize that, yeah my joints are feeling it, I want to go run for a while. I want to go ruck. That’s cool. You’re still going to be fit. Just do it smart and don’t be afraid of asking questions when you don’t know. There’s a lot of experts out there and I think that’s what you really need to tap into is the fact that there’s people who have done it before, they know what works, and you just got to appreciate that and take advantage of that.
Joe Courtney: 09:17 You train people out of your garage gym, correct?
Douglas Alexand: 09:20 I do.
Joe Courtney: 09:21 So, have you found that it’s been better word of mouth? People that want to come and train there, or has it been like your garage has been open and-
Douglas Alexand: 09:29 I tell you that I think my neighbors think we’re crazy. When they’re driving home from work and there’s someone pushing a dog sled or flipping a tire down the street, and in my front yard some guy’s doing ground to overhead with a barbell and slamming it down onto the gravel. They think we’re nuts. But the best advertisement, honestly, is word of mouth and that’s the best advertising from that it just people asking you, “Hey, what do you do to stay fit?” When you’re wearing your T-shirt, you’re walking around, your arms are showing, you just feel like you have a lot of energy. It’s not like you’re talking about it, you’re not bragging about it. I don’t advertise. It’s just if people ask, “Hey, what do you do?” We’re like, “Oh yeah. Well you know, we ran it out of my garage. If you want to stop by sometime, come on by and check us out.” Some people like it and they’ll stay, and other people, it’s not for them. It’s too sweaty, it’s too dirty, it’s too whatever. That’s okay.
Jerred Moon: 10:18 You mean you don’t give your people towels? Where’s the sauna?
Douglas Alexand: 10:26 We do put bottles of water in the fridge over there, and I tell them just help themselves. And if they have to throw up, please do it out in the gravel.
Jerred Moon: 10:35 What were you doing before you were a Garage Gym Athlete?
Douglas Alexand: 10:37 Long story, but I was actually a Garage Gym Athlete, but in a different way. One of my boxing instructors is a professional MMA fighter.
Jerred Moon: 10:45 Okay.
Douglas Alexand: 10:45 And, lived in the same general neighborhood and had advertised on Craigslist he was doing MMA boxing instruction out of his garage gym. I recognized him, we reconnected and I was working with him and he was kicking my butt over in his gym for a while. Like I said, things change, and timing changes, and parties change and I started going more towards that functional fitness model, and that led to the garage gym. But probably four or five years it was all boxing, MMA before that.
Jerred Moon: 11:12 Walk me along the journey as far as results you’ve seen. Training in your garage, by yourself, I think that it takes a certain level of education and I know that you’ve done that constantly going out there and learning more things, and being able to program for yourself to some degree, or at least understand what’s happen. What has your progression be as far as seeing results? I know some people out there thinking like, maybe I won’t know what to do really, or maybe I won’t stay motivated. What have you done over the last four to five years?
Douglas Alexand: 11:43 First of all, you’re right. I think one of the keys is education. You have to know, you have to learn, you have to be willing to read, you have to sort out what works, what doesn’t work. The BS versus the hype versus the real solid stuff. I’m a big fan of explaining the why. Probably to the point where I bore the heck out of my athletes for the first five or 10 minutes of a workout. When we’re doing the warmup and I’m talking about why we’re doing it this way. Why this time. Why these movement. But, I think it’s important for the buy in. I substitute teach some, and I teach a few classes at a local Cross Fit box, a straight Cross Fit kind of stuff. And I was explaining the why to the athletes, and the owner of the gym said, “You’re going to make everyone a trainer.” I’m like, “Yeah. Isn’t that the point?” We should be, everyone should at least have that level of knowledge where they feel like they can be a trainer because they understand the why.
Douglas Alexand: 12:32 I think that’s the difference between getting results and not getting results. If you’re just blindly following what ever programming you get in your email, or the popular websites do, or the magazines do, you’re never going to get anywhere. And the other thing is, like you said, it’s hard to train by yourself. I joke that I’m the last person to get a work out in any day because I’ve got other athletes I’m training, I’m taking care of other business, I’m doing my regular job. I’ve got to take care of the kids. It’s hard when you’re tired and you just want to go to sleep, to get yourself out in your cold and/or hot garage gym by yourself, no encouragement, no people cheering you on, no coach yelling at you to get that last rep in, or to watch your form. And to have the discipline to do it.
Douglas Alexand: 13:14 But the results speak for themselves if you stick with it. This is something you said a long time ago Jerred, in one of your podcast, was that idea that you have to stick with it. You can’t program hop. If you’re willing to stick with it, you’re going to see the results. And for me, the results were I got stronger. And I kept getting stronger consistently every time I did another program with Garage Gym Athlete, or through End of 3 Fitness, I kept PRing. Even when I started to plateau, I’d PR by another five or 10 pounds. I set my personal goal to do a 400 pound dead lift into a 400 pound back squat. You know that. You saw me tracking that. I set that a couple of years ago. I finally got them.
Jerred Moon: 13:50 Congratulations, dude.
Douglas Alexand: 13:51 And that was for you guys. You guys encouraging me and altering my program and giving me tips on what to do, and I was able to do them. And one of the best things in the world was videotaping those results, and sending in and getting my PR shirt.
Jerred Moon: 14:08 Yeah.
Douglas Alexand: 14:09 That community of other people like good job. Getting faster. And the other thing is too, I’m 49 years old, and I guess for the one thing is, I love the fact that I’m 49 years old, but I can out perform guys half my age. That’s pretty cool, one, just as an ego boost for guys who are getting older.
Jerred Moon: 14:29 That’s awesome.
Douglas Alexand: 14:29 But two, also having the knowledge to realize, okay, as I’m getting older, I know my body is going to start to change. My joints are just going to have a little more wear and tear on them. I’m going to start to slow down. I won’t recover as fast as I used to recover between workouts. Being someplace like through End of 3 Fitness and doing the Garage Gym Athlete and becoming a coach, and the knowledge that you pass on through you guys research, says okay, what does that mean for my programing. I have the knowledge now, it’s like okay, I know I got to work on the recovery. It’s going to be more important.
Douglas Alexand: 15:01 I know that I have to watch what exercises I do, maybe I need to sub some in to get the same results. But, thanks to you guys, I have this library of other exercises to do if I need to. Something to get the same results. The fundamental philosophy of programming is still the same. What you’re teaching about the pathways to how we want to train, and why we train certain time domains, and how we alter them, how we cycle them, the mezzo cycles, the micro cycles, that’s all still going to be the same. And I think that’s one of the most important things that you don’t just blindly follow some programing with no idea of the why. Next thing you know, you’re hurting yourself, or you’re not PRing, you’re actually losing weight, you’re losing strength. You don’t understand why that’s happening, and it’s just frustrating. And then you quit.
Jerred Moon: 15:47 Right.
Douglas Alexand: 15:48 Where does it go?
Jerred Moon: 15:49 I think you bring up a really good point, is that, and I like to talk about this pretty often too, is if someone is starting out in a new school, or a new program, they’re going to see a lot of results at first with just, it’s rapid adaptation. It happens in fitness. But, you’re someone who’s you’ve learned the why behind a lot so you’ve continued to see results for almost half a decade. And most people can’t say that because most people will get into, I don’t know, say Cross Fit or strength training or something, and they’re like, “I’m just gonna follow this program over and over again.” That’s going to stall you out really, really fast. You will see results at the beginning.
Jerred Moon: 16:26 I will not argue with anyone on that. Most programs work, especially if they’re only shorter duration, but it’s trying to stack those things on top of each other for a year or two years, that when it gets … Not necessarily more complicated, but a lot more thought has to go into it. And you were willing to put in the work to do that. All right man, I’m going to ask you, what’s the hardest workout you’ve ever done?
Douglas Alexand: 16:50 Joe and I were just talking about that. There’s two answers to that question. The very flippant, but very true answer, whatever workout I’m doing right now is the hardest workout I’m doing because-
Jerred Moon: 17:00 I like that mentality.
Douglas Alexand: 17:02 Yeah. If you commit to it with the right intensity that I’m just going to kill this workout the way it’s programmed, it’s going to be the hardest. I had to switch up my workouts yesterday. Today for my Garage Gym Athlete programming on Air Strike, it was supposed to be the three 10 minutes runs, with the five minutes in between, for the the 20 minutes total. Interesting side note on that, I was trying to explain to people, the why on that. Because I said, “Hey, my coach usually programs on Fridays. 30 minute long runs, max distance.” But, this Friday he broke it up to three 10 minutes. I’m like, “And I know why.” The why is because of it’s only a 10 minute time domain, I need to be able to hit it to a different gear. I need to know that I can go faster because I only have 10 minutes, not 30 to partial out for my energy.
Douglas Alexand: 17:43 And so in theory, I should be able to run longer distance, cumulative, with those three 10 minute … That total 30 minutes than if I was just running 30 minutes total. And knowing the why, I said, okay, that means my mentality has changed, so that 10 minutes, I know I have to kick it up a gear. If you understand the why behind the programming, that influences the intensity that you’re going to commit to that programming. That’s another reason, knowing the … Seeing behind the curtain and understanding the programming, helps you become a better athlete because it will change how you attack that workout.
Jerred Moon: 18:15 Yep.
Douglas Alexand: 18:17 That’s kind of cool.
Jerred Moon: 18:19 Yeah.
Douglas Alexand: 18:20 Uh oh, hang on. I got my four year old joining me here.
Jerred Moon: 18:26 Hey, we’re all Garage Gym Athletes. I know my kids are in my garage all the time. I love it. Hi.
Douglas Alexand: 18:30 This is Harper.
Jerred Moon: 18:31 Hey, Harper.
Harper: 18:35 Hi.
Douglas Alexand: 18:35 She does great burpees for the record. And ring stuff.
Jerred Moon: 18:39 That’s awesome.
Douglas Alexand: 18:41 Yeah, I know, its-
Jerred Moon: 18:41 So, if it’s not the current workout that you’re doing, what’s the hardest workout that you’ve-
Douglas Alexand: 18:46 The real hardest workout though is condition me to the grave. Flat out. Because I have never finished it under the time cap.
Jerred Moon: 18:53 Yeah.
Douglas Alexand: 18:54 Ever.
Jerred Moon: 18:55 Condition me to the grave is brutal.
Douglas Alexand: 18:59 It’s brutal, Jerred. It’s brutal, Coach.
Jerred Moon: 19:03 I’m not wearing it currently, but the whoop strap. I like to track a lot of data on the whoop … Is everyone still with me? Everyone still with me? Okay. So I track a lot of data [crosstalk 00:19:15] I track a lot of data on the whoop, and that workout, at the time cap is 60 minutes. And whoop tells you how hard you pushed yourself, it gives you a strain score. This isn’t like … I’m not trying to plug whoop or anything, but the max you can get is 21.0. That’s like you pushed yourself to the max potential that they can have recorded for your body.
Jerred Moon: 19:39 So I did 100 mile bike race not that long ago, and 100 mile bike race, seven, eight hours, whatever, I’m not an endurance athlete and I’m constantly pushing myself there. It was really awful. Super hot. Joe was there. My score at the end from the whoop was 20.6. So, almost 21. As high as you can go. Condition me to the grave, same exact score. 20.6 for a 60 minute workout, it is the hardest workout. If anyone wants to check that out, you can Google condition me to the grave, or check out the YouTube channel that we have and you’ll see the explanation there, but that workout is absolutely brutal. Absolutely brutal.
Douglas Alexand: 20:19 Yeah.
Jerred Moon: 20:20 All right, man.
Douglas Alexand: 20:22 I’ve never even come close to finishing it under the time cap. I’ve got the aerodyne, I’ve got the rower, I’ve got marked out distances. I have the will. I ate, I carb loaded, I did everything I possible could, and utter failure.
Jerred Moon: 20:37 Yeah. That one is-
Douglas Alexand: 20:39 The funny thing is though, even failing the workout, you still feel like you did a lot of work.
Jerred Moon: 20:42 Oh yeah. And you do.
Douglas Alexand: 20:44 I’ve done it, I think two or three times in the course of my programming, it doesn’t come up all that often, and each time I get a little better. It’s a little bit faster, a little bit farther into the workout, or the movements are a little bit crisper. Something happens that’s good, so even on that horrible workout, you still progress.
Jerred Moon: 21:08 Yeah, dude. I think as long as you’re making some progress in it, that’s all that really matters. All right, so I’m gonna go to the quick fire questions here at the end. In your opinion, what’s the best activity for building mental toughness?
Douglas Alexand: 21:21 Wow. Honestly, for me, committing to a program. I know there’s a lot of other things we talk about. The ice baths. We talk about the … Actual committing to a work out. I think just committing to a program, and it’s not going to be a sexy program. No one’s watching you except for yourself, and seeing it through to the end is probably one of the toughest things I’ve ever done. Only because it’s so easy to want to quit.
Jerred Moon: 21:47 Yeah.
Douglas Alexand: 21:48 Especially mid way through. You’re tired, it’s a grind. You think, it’s not like I’m in a three month program, I’m going to be doing this for a year, two years, five years. I can skip a few workouts. And next thing you know, you’ve skipped a weeks worth of workouts, or two weeks worth of workouts, and you’re completely derailed. Life happens to us, and it’s understandable. No one is gonna criticize you for it, but at the same time, it’s really tough to make yourself, when you’re exhausted and stressed out, and busy, to get in there and do something for yourself in the gym. And then not only just to do it, not to just go through the motions, but to do it hard. With the right level intensity.
Douglas Alexand: 22:26 For me, that’s been the most challenging thing from a mental toughness standpoint, is just committing to finishing. Do it, and do it right. Sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I fail. I have to give myself permission to fail once in a while, but that’s the demon I struggle with and I think that overcoming that is a really hard thing for a lot of people to do, but you can do it. That’s the other thing.
Jerred Moon: 22:45 Yeah, I think that’s my real view of mental toughness these days. It’s going to be that day in and day out grind over years. And whatever it is that you’re doing, whatever takes your daily deliberate practice, but that, for sure. I 100% agree with that, man. All right. If you could only have one piece of equipment to train with for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Douglas Alexand: 23:06 I liked Bobby Maximus answer to that in your podcast when he said the floor. I actually have quoted people on that, because he’s right. There’s no excuses. If you have some bare floor you can do whatever workout you want to do and you’re going to get some results. Not copying from him, we talked about this earlier, I think a good heavy kettlebell.
Jerred Moon: 23:23 Yeah.
Douglas Alexand: 23:24 From a practical standpoint. And especially after the one man, one kettlebell training that you guys have put out, it shows that you can, with a good heavy kettlebell, just one, it’s space efficient, it’s cost efficient. You can do strength programming, you can do endurance work, you can do the short term power met con type of thing. It’s just so versatile that if I’m not just being cheeky with the floor answer, I think that’s probably your best investment dollar for dollar. Is that and then purchasing a good program that’s going to get you there with someone who knows what they’re talking about with the kettlebells.
Jerred Moon: 23:57 Awesome. Awesome. Last question. What is the best advice you have for Garage Gym Athletes?
Douglas Alexand: 24:03 Wow. I think the best advice, really, is start small and be smart about how you grow it. I know some people who came into money and they decided they would do a garage gym, and they bought all kinds of equipment that I don’t even have. They were showing it off to me and I’m like, “That’s great. It’s brand name. It’s brand new. It’s awesome stuff. Personally, I don’t need a Land Mine.” I can shove the end of a barbell against the end of bumper plates and do just fine. I can use that money for something else. But, my aerodynes are like gold. They were 100 some odd dollars cheap on Craigslist. No one ever uses them, they’re in mint condition, but they’re so versatile for conditioning. You don’t have to go out and run. Just be smart about where you put your dollars because they’re going to be with you for a long time. And you want to be actually able to use them. That’s the difference between actually using your garage gym, or just having a bunch of coat hangers.
Jerred Moon: 24:52 Yeah, right. Somewhere to hang all your clothes to dry.
Douglas Alexand: 24:55 Yeah. It’s gotta to be something that you’re actually going to use. And see results with. I think you guys proved that with one man, one barbell. It’s like if you have a barbell and a few bumper plates and a rack, you can get incredibly fit. You don’t need a lot of stuff in your garage, you just have to have the right stuff in your garage gym, and then just build from there.
Jerred Moon: 25:14 Well, man-
Joe Courtney: 25:16 One thing.
Jerred Moon: 25:16 Oh, go ahead Joe.
Joe Courtney: 25:16 One thing.
Jerred Moon: 25:17 Yeah.
Douglas Alexand: 25:17 Yeah.
Joe Courtney: 25:18 We know your garage gym is very impressive and you have a lot of things. The skier is pretty rare to have, but Santa is coming and he wants to know what is at the top of your wish list for what you want to have in your garage gym. What is the one piece of equipment that you’re like, “I wish it was on Craigslist.”
Douglas Alexand: 25:39 Wow. It’s not sexy to say this, I’m gonna be flat out and tell you. I’d have two answers. One would be, I could really use some more wall balls. If Santa were going to throw them my way, those are the one things that you can almost never find and they’re so expensive.
Jerred Moon: 25:56 Yeah.
Joe Courtney: 25:56 Yeah.
Douglas Alexand: 25:57 It’s crazy how expensive wall balls are. And the homemade ones, just-
Jerred Moon: 26:02 They have a shelf life. They don’t last forever, the homemade ones.
Douglas Alexand: 26:08 The store bought ones I’m already starting to see … I’ve duct taped a few of them together just to try to preserve them. But otherwise on my wish list, I think some really good high quality racks is the other thing you can really use. That’d be my big wish list. Finding a really good rack, is hard. All of them have the pulleys, they’re like weight lifting racks. They’ve got the pulleys on them so they have something sticking out, or they’ve got tricep extension, connection, stuff like that. So, just a good basic power rack it seems like is really hard to find because they have a lot of unnecessary junk on them.
Douglas Alexand: 26:46 I think that’d be the one thing, if for me, personally, in this gym, if I could throw a couple more racks on because that’s a limiting factor. When I’m training athletes, I only have one rack and trying to get multiple athletes, I’ve had as many as 12 athletes in the gym training, trying to get them to cycle through barbell movements, and go heavy, is hard because they can’t clean and press into a back squat with really heavyweight, and I only have the one rack, so it’s hard to cycle them through a good weight work out. I’ve actually had to break up my weight lifting clients from my general fitness people, just for that reason. Because I have limited space and availability for the barbell stuff. Whereas for the general fitness people, I can throw them on the street and they can … I can run 20 of them.
Joe Courtney: 27:26 Scare your neighbors.
Jerred Moon: 27:27 Mostly traffic aerobic endurance, and you’re good to go.
Joe Courtney: 27:30 Exactly.
Jerred Moon: 27:32 All right, dude. It’s been a blast having you on. I know I’ve learned a lot. Every time I talk to you it’s a blast. I really appreciate your time today. Joe, you have anything else?
Joe Courtney: 27:41 Nope. I think I’m good.
Jerred Moon: 27:42 All right. Cool, man. Douglas, thank you so much. Perfect, man. See you later.
Douglas Alexand: 27:47 Take care, guys.
Jerred Moon: 27:50 Thanks for listening to the Garage Gym Athlete podcast. If you want to learn more go to garagegymathlete.com. You can learn about our training. Let us send you a copy of our book, The Garage Gym Athlete, or you can even get featured on the Garage Gym Athlete podcast. Thanks for listening.