What’s up, Garage Gym Athlete!
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Episode 03 of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up!
03: Are supplements all in our head?, Knowing the ‘why’ behind your training, and DiCarlo
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:
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IN THIS 50-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
- Which supplements work and the ones that don’t…
- Why self-efficacy is the most important “supplement”
- How to Harness the Placebo Effect
- Why you should focus on the INTENT of training and not just sets and reps
- How to start thinking like a programmer
- How to properly sub almost anything by knowing the ‘why’
- Our best tips for our workout of the week “DiCarlo”
- 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
- Effects of placebo on bench throw performance of Paralympic weightlifting athletes: a pilot study
- Expectancy, self-efficacy, and placebo effect of a sham supplement for weight loss in obese subjects
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 add it to the comments below!
To becoming better!
Jerred
Transcript
Hey, my name’s 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 and welcome to the Garage Gym Athlete podcast with me this week is Joe Courtney. What’s up Joe?
Joe Courtney: Hey man. how’s the weather where you are.
Jerred Moon: Not fantastic lot of rain, but temperature wise is pretty good.
Joe Courtney: We are in may gray in San Diego and it is just the worst.
I feel like I’m in, I feel like I’m in England and it’s, I know it’s because I’m pretty much spoiled here with the weather, but I don’t care.
[00:01:00] Jerred Moon: Yeah. I don’t think anyone has any sympathy for you. Oh man. It’s a little bit shady on in San Diego. Oh no. Full blown
Joe Courtney: overcast and like fits every once in awhile, but it’s only for like three or four
Jerred Moon: weeks.
Yeah. Like beach beach, rain? Pretty much. Yeah. Nothing serious. All right, man. Well, let’s get into it. We have some, some updates this week. I want to talk about, first Murph, so. The coolest thing I think about doing the Murph project on a weekly basis. And for all of those, for all of you doing it, you know, tagging me on Instagram and, and following the EO three Murph par project, that’s the, that’s the hashtag.
It’s really cool to see you guys doing it. But one thing that I do specifically, and I see other people. I’m not saying you’re doing it incorrectly or correctly. I’m not saying that you have to do it this way, so it’s Murph once a week, but I help, I’m holding myself to a standard of Murph on Saturday, like specifically on Saturday, because to me it [00:02:00] adds a certain level of like.
A challenge to make sure that I hold it on that specific day. Cause we could have two soccer games and a football game and a birthday party for the kids. And I still need to fit in Murph somewhere, either first thing in the morning. If that doesn’t happen now I’ve got to figure it out. So it adds a layer of that mental toughness to it.
And, so this week, this past week was really challenging because I was in Utah for a business conference. And, you know, I could have knocked it out a couple of days early or something like that, but I still did it on Saturday. And, what was crazy about it is we ended up making good friends with the guy who was hosting the conference, and he has a garage gym and he’s like super into fitness.
And he’s like, we mentioned it to him. And then, my buddy who was with me at the conference mentioned, yeah, Jerred does Murph like every single week. And he’s like. Hmm. That’s, that’s really interesting. And, then he came, he came back later during one of the breaks and he’s like, all right, we’ve got to do Murph while you’re here.
Like, I gotta do it with you. And I was like, [00:03:00] okay. And so he’s, he tells us to show up Friday. And I was like, a Friday morning. I was like, dammit, I do more fun Saturdays. Like, what am I gonna do? And, so my plan was just to do Murph twice. I was like, I’ll do my Friday, I’ll do my Murph Saturday. No big deal.
And, what ended up happening is we did half Murph just for time constraints on Friday. So I did half Murph vested at his house. and then I did again Saturday morning. But both of these were in Utah. And the reason I bring this stuff up is one, I did it at elevation much higher than I was accustomed to.
And that makes it so much more challenging. Have you done any workouts at elevation.
Joe Courtney: I have not, I almost never go to the mountains,
Jerred Moon: dude. It was crazy because, I’ve done it before. Like there’s this, in pilot training, they start you off at, I don’t think it’s called this anymore, but it was called initial flight screening where they, they screen pilot candidates and you fly these like little tiny airplanes.
They see if you have the skills to be, to do well in pilot training. And, it’s in Pueblo, Colorado, which is at elevation. And I remember you have to take a PT test, like the first [00:04:00] day that you get there. So you’re like not even acclimated at all. And that was like my first, like, Oh, wow, I can not run as fast and I can’t consume as much oxygen.
So it’s a big, like, you know, eye-opener. But another thing that happened was I got to, in Utah, I got to see my heart rate illus crazy is my heart rate was only at like. One 60 on my last run and I’m going a lot faster cause it’s a half Murph. Right. And I’m only one 60 normally I make at like one 85 one 90 on my last mile and Murph.
And it’s because it was so fatiguing. I was at such a. You know, deficit and oxygen that my body was, I felt as tired as I normally would be, but I’m at elevation and so my, my heart rates, like you’re not working hard enough. so I dunno, it was just a really interesting, take that made it a lot more mentally challenging and doing it half Murph.
Then Murph, back to back. Also a little extra challenging, but I just wanted to share my, my elevated Murph story.
Joe Courtney: So does that mean that like people who train at elevation, it’s harder for them to get to higher [00:05:00] heart
Jerred Moon: rate zones? No. because you will acclimate and once you fully acclimate, you’re going to be fine.
And so what was happening to me is if you don’t have enough oxygen pushing to your, your, you know, your muscles and your extremities, then you’re just gonna. Feel tired, you’re not going to have the F basically. You’re not gonna have the fuel you need, to continue producing hard and your body’s just not used to it.
And so, my heart rate’s not getting super elevated just because it basically, it can’t, I can’t push it with the normal level that I want. But if I was there for a couple of weeks, I would acclimate, and, and I’d be more red blood cells and everything, and I’d be fine. Yeah. Okay. That works, man. How’d your training goes?
Week? I
Joe Courtney: think pretty good. I’m finally getting back to a heavy squat and dead lifts for, yeah. And Brian, going back to the heavyweights there, about six or eight weeks ago, I started doing PT to fix my hip issue. And while I, I was still being able to lift before that, but I would, I’d feel like this pinching and certain stuff in my, behind my right.
Hip glute area. So I knew I [00:06:00] needed to get a fixed, which, you know, it’s just a lesson to know your body and know, know to get a fixed. And I definitely have some hip issues going on. and I found that I was, as I, as I would squat, shifting to the right side, and that’s what caused some pinching, eh, but it’s actually due to my left groin or whatever.
Anyway, loosening things up. Finally getting back on track. And now I’m finally getting above 70, 75% of my everything that I was doing before, and it’s feeling great. So that’s a good progress, even though it’s still not. Dang, they really have your weights, but
Jerred Moon: when you bring them in, an interesting point, like I, I would challenge all Garage Gym Athletes out there to do is to, even if you’re not sending this to a coach, film yourself doing a squat or a deadlift, particular he leaves squat is when it’s normally the most, noticeable.
But film yourself doing a squat from the back, from the side. and same with like a dead lift and just see if you have any, like extremely noticeable, Lopsidedness, you know, for lack of a better term, like are you, yeah. Are you seeing your hips [00:07:00] shift? Are you leaning to one side? Is the bar perfectly parallel to the ground or is it leaning?
Does it have an angle, a slant? There are a lot of things that you can notice and those things will not like you. You could have had these problems for. A year, two years, you know, and then it ends up in an injury, over time when you’re, when something has to compensate for something else. So that just reminds me of like a good tip for Garage Gym Athletes out there.
Like, make sure that you’re as balanced as you can possibly be. If you see something, then maybe start working on, on a fixed.
Joe Courtney: Yeah, so I think it was actually just over a year from now when I did something minor to my hip. But I think I noticed when I would video myself, I would, there was a slight shift, but there wasn’t any repercussions.
I still would have PR for my back squat, but then. Later on in this past fall is when I started having the pains and then the pain just didn’t really go away and I was still feeling it. So, yeah. And then just yesterday, I was looking back at old Instagram videos and I’m like, Ooh. Like there’s a shift and a twist, and it usually happens, like right when I get out of the bottom of the squat, I’m just like, Oh my goodness.
[00:08:00] It’s just kind of painful to look at. It’s subtle, but I, I, I can feel it in my own body just watching it. Hmm.
Jerred Moon: Ouch. Okay. All right, man. Well, let’s, I have one little, one last update before we hop into the meat of the show. So we talked about episode one of this new format. We talked about, cortisol and CrossFit and high intensity.
And, and I promise it’s not going to become the CrossFit hate, podcast. It’s not, not my intention at all. but what I wanted to share, because I don’t think that I made this very clear. we got an email from, A podcast listener to this podcast. And, he kind of illustrates what I was pointing out, but he, he makes it very good point about the, the timeline.
So I’m going to read it and then, we’ll just go from there. So it says, I’ve been a CrossFitter since I was 33 now 46 I had gone to the gym four years prior, but found the challenge, challenge, pain, and stress of CrossFit right up my alley. Fast forward to three years ago, my sleep was poor and my weight carry around my waist didn’t make any [00:09:00] sense given my diet and fitness routine.
I found. My way to a doctor who focused on functional health and checked my cortisol levels. I was running on very little after burning them out. Weirdly, I never really made the no duh connection to listening to Jerred on the Garage Gym Athlete podcast this morning in the why we don’t do CrossFit section, he mentioned that function, functional movements across various intervals at high intensity, completely Jack up your cortisol and give you a whole range of problems he just described the last three years of my life.
Okay, so I’m reading that not to be like . See, I’m right. Like, that’s not what I’m doing. What I’m doing is, I think some people, and I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t say this in that podcast. Like, it really is the time domain that you have to think about. So if you’ve been doing high intensity exercise for two to three years, very consistently, like near daily basis, you might not have any issues yet, especially if you’re like in your 20s or something like that.
so you’re not going to notice any results. The problem with high intensity on daily basis over and over is the time component. So it takes a bodies are incredibly resilient, so it takes a long time to [00:10:00] like fully Jack things up. But if you find yourself in the situation over time, these are things that you might want to start looking at.
It’s not like, it’s not like high intensity. Training in and of itself is inherently dangerous. It’s just the consistency over time that can make it a Jack up your, your hormones and cause problems. Yeah. Yeah. All right, so I just want to point that out before we move on. So let’s hop into the show, man.
We’re going to stop. Start with a, a study. All right. Let me pull it up. So the study that we will be covering this week. Effects of placebo on bench throat, performance of Paralympic weightlifting athletes, a pilot study. So that is the name of the study. You can typically Google those. We also, if a, you’re on our.
Mailing list. you will be getting the podcast every Tuesday morning. so we go live on Monday, but we’ve emailed it out on Tuesday and we link to any studies we mentioned in those emails. if you guys want to get access to that, you can sign up [00:11:00] at garage gym, athlete.com or into three fitness.com and to all leads, all roads lead to Rome, and you’ll get your, you’ll get that email, if you sign up for a newsletter at either one of those spots.
and so what we’re looking at here specifically is. The placebo effect. And if you listen to the better humanology for any amount of time, you know, I absolutely love the placebo effect because I think it’s something that we need to learn how to harness it as human beings and use our minds to trick us into doing more cool things.
but let’s talk about it specifically into. In supplements, for now. So what’s, I’m going to throw it to you first. See what your, your overall understanding of the study, having skimmed it, what’s your overall understanding of the study and any key takeaway? And then I’ll kind of jump in, dive in a little bit deeper.
Joe Courtney: yeah. When I, when I first came across it, I started skimming and just thinking of placebo in general, I would always think about, like pre-workout. And stuff like that. And even like, even myself and how I would, it affected me like years ago when I used to take it. but it seems pretty, [00:12:00] yeah, pretty obvious.
I
Jerred Moon: dunno what seems obvious
Joe Courtney: that
Jerred Moon: I don’t know.
The placebo effect seems obvious
Joe Courtney: somewhat to, to the, to the, like caffeine, giving somebody caffeine or thinking like, Hey, this is going to, make you play or do better. You know, it’s like, back to, what is it? space jam. Michael Jordan. Special special drink. Yes. It’s basically that I learned that from a young age.
Jerred Moon: So it makes sense to you that when given a placebo and makes people perform better,
Joe Courtney: well, when, when people compete and when people, w when athletes can be an athletes want to do better and it’s all about, you know, just pushing, pushing further. And if somebody tells you, Hey, if you do this or God give you this, you’re going to do a lot better.
I mean. 90% of all of marketing in the fitness industry is basically that people just want more, want better, and are going to go searching anywhere to find it. And when that runs its course, they’re going to go find something somewhere [00:13:00] else. And it might not even have anything to do with said supplement or said component.
It’s just, Hey, you’re just doing, you’re just doing it.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. And so let me, let me dive into this study a little bit more. so what they were doing, they would give an, and, what’s interesting, so like the most proven supplements out there, in my opinion, if I had to name two would be caffeine and creating, they’re probably the most studied and most proven supplements for actually increasing performance.
And this one was, the placebo was actually, The placebo was, they thought that they were taking caffeine. so they were, you know, a supplement that is already proven. So it’s not like, you know what I mean? Like, you could be like, Hey, we have this new orange pill and we’re just going to call it the orange pill.
That’s gonna make you do a lot better. They, they specifically told the athletes, Hey, you’re taking a caffeinated supplement and, you know, a, a caffeine pill and, you know, saw what they’re wanting to see, what their performance was going to be in. Then. [00:14:00] What’s interesting is they didn’t increase, across all, all areas.
But they did increase across specifically, let’s see, hold on. They had the 50%, one at max bench throws, which is pretty crazy. So they, but they didn’t across the other ones, like there was a 70% and 80%. 50 and 60. So 60%. They actually did do the, the velocity was faster, and they perform better in those studies.
So, the, the only thing that I like to point out there is one, it wasn’t, the placebo wasn’t overwhelmingly like this. Like. Hey, we, we gave them placebo. Everyone got better in every single area. So the placebo effect is most of the time, not this overwhelming Lee, awesome thing. It’s just a slight effect.
So they tested like three or four different areas in one specific area. The 50% a bench throws. They got faster, there’s more velocity, their performance was [00:15:00] increased. and they looked at a bunch of different things and concluded, you know, that this the only real way to account for it was the placebo effect because these people were not actually receiving a caffeine pill.
And I like to point these, these things out, but you kind of have to contrast it with some other studies. and so let’s, I’m gonna bring up another one. It was a 2014 study on weight loss and participants were given weight loss counseling and guidance to lose weight. And also randomize into groups that were either one given a placebo for 12 weeks and told it was a weight loss supplement to given a placebo for 12 weeks until they had 50% chance of it being a supplement or placebo or three given nothing.
And across all groups of participants who believed more strongly in the effectiveness of supplements tended to lose smaller proportion. Of weight. So the people who who believe in the supplements the most lost the least amount of weight. so this is saying, and what this, this starts to lead us to towards is this self EF efficacy theory.
And there’s a lot of studies published on [00:16:00] STT, which is self determination theory, which is really like, if you don’t believe in yourself, you’re not going to be able to achieve much. And so I always kind of toe the line here because. you know, it’s pointed out that if you are the type of person who does not have a lot of self esteem, you don’t believe in yourself that much, then the tendency is that the placebo effect specifically for something like supplements is going to be more effective on you.
So that’s just kind of a statement of fact from the study and some other studies. But, what you have to keep in mind is to not look at that necessarily as a negative. If you know, you’re S you’re sitting here listening to this and you’re like, I don’t have a ton of self esteem, especially in the physical fitness realm, maybe supplements will help you.
Get that mental edge that you need, but overreliance on them will kill your self efficacy in the long run and not give you the skill that you need, which is self-efficacy. Believing in yourself. You know, [00:17:00] this overall belief that you can achieve something through hard work. so you got to toe the line, but on the other hand, like you need to harness the placebo effect.
Like if you. you know, I talk about this I this idea of, you know, the new running shoes, right? So if you get new running shoes, what are you going to be doing for the next week or two? Probably be running a lot more, right? So like, you’re kind of harnessing this like, okay, I got a new pair of shoes, I’m going to run more.
And the same with, Hey, I don’t really believe in myself as much. Then I’m going to have the supplement. It’s going to help me out. Like, you need to constantly be using these things to your advantage by, you know. Taking advantage of the placebo effect, taking advantage of new things, but not, not so much so that there’s this over-reliance.
It takes away your self efficacy or self belief.
Joe Courtney: Yeah. I think, when, of course when we first started working out and like being in the military and stuff, people would get me on pretty workouts and then after awhile I kind of realized that it was. A [00:18:00] a crutch. And I knew for one, I’m like, okay, I know this isn’t quite doing a ton for me, but I just, mentally I need, I can’t think of the right word, but I knew that I.
I needed that in order to work out or else I wasn’t going to work out. So,
Jerred Moon: I legitimately had friends in college who would run out of pre-workout supplement and skip the gym. I’d be like, Hey man, I’m going to go train. And they’d be like, well, I just ran out of Jack 3d. So like, I’ll go tomorrow after I get, I’m like,
Are you joking? Like, are you serious about that? And it’s true. It becomes this huge mental hold on your game. So what’s the big takeaway I have for Garage Gym Athletes out there? With studies that prove one, the placebo effect works, but only to to a certain degree and to with this other study, I’m kind of pointing out that self efficacy is probably the most important thing in your fitness journey.
I’ll just go ahead and say your life journey, believing in yourself. The main takeaway, what have. Is one, focus on self efficacy. [00:19:00] First, like making sure that you, you know, believe in yourself first and foremost. And knowing that a supplement is that it’s only a segment. And so my, and my second takeaway would be, you need to realize that you don’t need supplements.
That’s really like you don’t need them. That’s kind of what this proves like you can, if you can very strongly believe in yourself and your ability to do work, you don’t need supplements. Now, I did mention caffeine and creatine being too really pro proven through many, like we only have a couple of studies on supplements and placebo.
I could pull up probably at least a hundred studies each on both caffeine and creatine on performance, and we could talk about this all day and we probably will at some point, but those two are really proven will help you at a cellular level. Like they just. They just help you. caffeine. Even if you’re really addicted to caffeine, you don’t really notice it affects, there are studies that say it still helps you perform better.
And so what I would say is you don’t need all these other supplements. They are like a couple that actually work. So job the supplements, you don’t need them. A lot of [00:20:00] people in our group, our training, our community are already there. They’re kind of, they don’t really believe in supplements or use them too much, and that’s kind of always been my stance.
But if you’re someone who’s like, yeah, I need, I need the BCAs, I need the pre-workout, I need the posts you need, I need all these things. Remember, they’re just supplements. They’re not actually going to help you that much. If anything, it’s a slight edge over the work that you’re going to be putting in, and that’s what you should really focus on.
Not to go further. I kind of do like to differentiate, food supplements, which would be like protein or carbohydrates supplements. Like those are just macro nutrients. And are those going to help you perform better? you know, no more than an actual macronutrient would be. So, I mean, if, if after a workout, it’s more convenient for you to cook and eat a steak.
Then do that, but if it’s not and you need to supplement with some form of protein, then that’s okay too. But it’s really just a macronutrient. It’s not going to help you any more than a food. Would these other ones, like performance enhancing ones, that aren’t illegal? those are the ones that you could look into, but they’re not going to help you a ton.
[00:21:00] So believe in yourself and drop this up. The over usage of supplements, you probably don’t need them that much.
Joe Courtney: I’ll just also assess where you’re at. I mean, if you’re still. Get it into working out and doing a strict program, you probably don’t need to have an entire shelf of supplements because you know you’re, you’re, you’re gonna get so much more benefit or you’re still gonna get a ton of benefit.
Just working on the path that you’re on. You like the percent benefit of taking a bunch of supplements aren’t going to be that much until you’re getting to like a much higher level and when the smallest percentages might make a difference.
Jerred Moon: Yeah, that’s like 100% true. Like it’s . It’s not really going to be that beneficial for you.
And I see this a lot of people who, you know, who have money, basically people who have money and they get into fitness, say in their forties or late forties or even 50s, you know, they, and they have all this money and they’re like, okay, I’m going to get into fitness. And that comes with buying 20 different supplements just because they don’t care if they’re wasting the money.
Like some people don’t buy supplements cause it’s, it’s a monetary thing, right? Like they just like, I don’t have the money to spend on it. Some people that’s not a [00:22:00] factor at all. And so they just go balls to the walls. Like I’m going to buy every supplement possible. Because it sounds a lot better that this is going to help me as opposed to the hard work and, you just don’t need it.
You, you really, it really is a performance Hanser at that, at the tip of the sphere, that top of that pyramid, like you’re saying, that’s when adding a supplement might be beneficial. but not really before then. It
Joe Courtney: also makes me, something I thought about when you’re reading off the, the weight loss one about how people who took something or thought they were going to take something loss less.
And it’s probably because they, they let off the gas a little bit going, Oh, you know, I can, I can have this or I don’t need to do this because I’m taking the supplement and the middle balance me out. But really it’s not, and you really still need to just do more.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. And that’s so an interesting thing about that study.
So across all the groups, the participants who believe more strongly in the effectiveness of supplements tended to lose a smaller proportion. But then when you look at each group individually, there was no significant change between overall weight loss. So there wasn’t. They didn’t find that one group was better than the other.
They had to look [00:23:00] outside their initial parameters and find that okay. Across all groups of people who believed in the effectiveness of supplements tended to lose a small, smaller proportion. Yes. Cause you think that somebody else is putting in the heart or something else is putting in the hard work for you.
Right. You’re like, Oh, here’s my easy button. And when you, when someone else or something else is trying to hit that easy button for you, you’re damn sure that you’re going to see less results than you could have. Yup. All right. So I’m really, I think that’s about it. Like I just really want to emphasize with that study.
Yes, the placebo effect is real until we fully learn how to harness it. and I think that that’s something that we can do in, in daily life. Our daily practices try to be the. Less skeptical about every single damn thing that you run into and believe in things. But if you’re gonna believe in anything, believe in yourself, and that’s going to get you a lot further.
and then you can, you can branch off from there. All [00:24:00] right, so topic of the day, man. I’m gonna let you take it away.
Joe Courtney: Okay. So, this comes up a lot. somewhat in a programming and questions that we get for, scaling and daily stuff. Cause, you know, we’re programming for Garage Gym Athletes, people that have gyms at home and equipment’s always never going to be consistent.
So we have to program for the least amount of equipment and then we do like to change it up and program other things like, you know, wall balls or certain carries. And, we always get questions of, okay, I don’t have this, so what can I do for this or whatnot. And, A lot of what we’ll outlet, I try to stress and what we’ve talked about before is, to really think about the stimulus and each workout in each exercise.
we like, but we’re not, we’re not programming something just to program something where we’re going for a stimulus for each and everything that we do. So. I’m trying to figure out scaling. you got to think about if you need to sub something out. Okay. What stimulus is this doing? It’s not just, it’s not even an exercise case.
It’s case by case basis. So it’s not like, okay, [00:25:00] I, we had swings this time, so every single time there’s swings, I, I can do this other thing because the same thing as well. No, it depends on the workout. it could be strife. It could be a super set, it could be a, sprint conditioning and something like that.
But it depends on what you’re doing. So, yeah, they’re really trying to, and it’ll, it’ll take some getting used to, to think about what stimulate, what the proper stimulus Munis is working. a lot of times. The people don’t have a box and they can’t think of, okay, well I can’t do box jumps. So what should I do is like, okay, well, box jumps gets my heart rate up, so maybe I can just do jumping jacks.
They’re both jumping. It’s like, well, no box jumps. We’re doing a very explosive hip movement, so we’re going to do tuck jumps instead. that’s just one example for there. So, something that we really like stress with, with athletes and we can even help is, Trying to really think about what stimulus you’re doing and think about the muscles that you’re using.
Think about, you know, is this a powerful movement? Is this just a cardio type movement?
Jerred Moon: yeah. Yeah. And I think, to, to kind of elaborate on what you’re saying and then also give an example. You could call a stimulus the [00:26:00] Y. So looking at anything, if you see our programming or someone else’s programming and you can’t do a movement.
You should. Then, you know, a big part of this podcast I mentioned on the first, first episode of this new format is that we want to make athletes as autonomous as possible. So that’s what this entire conversation is about. and so keeping that in mind, when you see something programmed, you need to kind of look and not just always say.
Okay. They said, do a the sub for a equals B. So I will be doing B every time a comes up that it doesn’t actually work, that, you know, sequentially, or formulaic like that. You really need to be thinking about the why or the stimulus as you, as you’re calling it, a behind a movement. And one thing that, you know, really illustrated this for me and realize that we need to have a conversation about it was last year.
we programmed a lot of kettlebell swings over the course of a week. And one guy, I don’t know, I think he lit us up via E he was [00:27:00] very upset with us in having, programmed and I, to be honest, I think it was only like two workouts, but one workout had a lot of kettlebell swings and he was very frustrated with us cause he’s a, he was a coach and like, you know, he had some zone experience and everything and he was, he was.
We, the exercise demonstration video that we had put in was an American kettlebell swing. So the kettlebell goes over the head, you know, as opposed to a Russian kettlebell swing, which stops about eye level. And he was very frustrated, that we had programmed in so many American kettlebell swings and that it was going to Jack up people’s shoulders and all of these things.
and ever since then we’ve been very clear to differentiate because my response to him, was. Oh yeah, I don’t care which kind of kettlebell swing you’re doing, you know? And, he was kind of blown away by that, cause I’m like, that’s not, I don’t care. Like, I don’t care if you’re doing an American, I don’t care if you’re doing Russian.
I care about you having an explosive hip movement. I’m in a kettlebell swing to move the kettlebell forward. If that means you only want to move it, you know, [00:28:00] to eye-level with the Russian style or above your head because you have good shoulder mobility and it’s not going to be that big of a problem.
To be honest, I didn’t think it’d be that big of a problem. It sounded like he had really bad shoulders. cause kettlebell swing overhead is not something I normally deem as a limiting movement for most people. But anyway. To, to back to my point was I had to explain to him like, Hey man, all I’m looking for is explosive hit movement.
That’s what I’m looking for. When I program in a kettlebell swing. That’s what I’m trying to get you to do. I don’t necessarily care about what muscles we’re working the shoulder when you’re going overhead, that’s, that’s, that’s lower order. That’s much less important to me than what I was originally trying to program something for.
And that’s the. Overall idea in what we’re trying to discuss is you need to be thinking about, Hey, why was this programmed and how can I make it different, but still get the same way, the same stimulus? Like how can I still get that thing? And it takes a lot of time, right? Like the, you’re, you’re getting pretty good at it.
but I mean, how long would you say it takes to truly develop that skill and knowing [00:29:00] how to sub the Y, if you will?
Joe Courtney: Yeah. and even, recently it’s come up more like, okay, we might be telling you to carry a wall ball, but you know, it’s, if you’re on the wall by just carry something and, with, with the, and people are not comfortable with, Olympic movements.
That’s why we always used to try and say that, you know, clean poles or something like that, because all you’re doing is exploding your hips. But, Yeah, just trying to really think about what the workout is doing and working. And, so like if we’re doing a, sets, that’s just accessory work, generally those are lower intensity and you’re just, you might be doing something to kind of get your heart rate up, but you’re still, Do you just do an accessory work to kind of build strength, stability and stuff like that. So you’re probably not going to sub something with, like a run or something that’s going to really get your, your, your heart rate going crazy unless it’s like an actual short chick circuit or something like that.
So it’s, it’s, it [00:30:00] depends on every day and we try and like, whenever people reach out to break this down and, and Hey, always feel free to, to reach out and ask about that stuff as well.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. And we explain a lot of that stuff in our athlete briefs and everything. But another thing to note when we go through, so we have a coaching course where we teach all of our programming.
We’ve had a lot of coaches go through it and stuff. And this is a question I always get from coaches when they’re going through the program, cause we, we teach to program two different types of Metcons. So metabolic conditioning. The first is three B, because there, there are three parts to it. I won’t get into the full, like breakdown.
Maybe we can do that one day, but there’s three B and then there is four D and the fourD workouts are specifically designed to complement some form of strength training that you did early in the day. But we’re doing that. Yeah. Through metabolic conditioning, and then we call them four D Metcons and there’s a very specific structure to them.
We calculate volume, we make sure it’s very specific to what you did, not strength plus some random wad after the strength session. [00:31:00] Know, I find that incredibly frustrating. And so that is what we do with four D now three B. Is where we care a little bit less. They’re three different movements. They’re also a particular order, but they are energy system.
Metcons not, development Metcons, which is what the 40 is for. And so what they are for is to train a specific energy system, whether that’s a glycolytic oxidative, you know, whatever we’re trying to hit. that is what those Metcons are for. And so it matters less about volume. It matters less about movement selection and it matters way more.
Are you hitting the specific work and rest time ratios? Are you getting to the desired level of intensity through the movement selection? And I’m not trying to overcomplicate this, but I have to explain this to coaches too. So don’t, if you’re like, Hey, I can’t do that stuff. Don’t worry. Like you can either be a part of community who can answer questions like that, or you can learn this stuff over time, but sometimes.
Only certain types of stimulus or stimuli will matter. And that could be an energy system, or it can be movement specific, which is what we’d be doing in our [00:32:00] four D where Hey, you need to sub this movement appropriately to, to do the right thing or movements. Be damned. We’re trying to train an energy system, so just train that.
Like if we had, I’ll give you a real broad example. Like we have a lot in our programming this week. Oxidative Metcons so we call them sustain at times, but basically I’m trying to get you a Robic through metabolic conditioning, so aerobic exercise and not high intensity exercise, aerobic exercise. And when I do that, if you can’t do any of it for some reason, and it’s a 30 minute Metcon.
You know what would be equivalent to that? A 30 minute jog you are, you are then doing the same thing I was programming for without doing any of the movements. You know what I mean? Like you’re, you are hitting the interview system that I wanted without doing any of the movements. It’s not going to be as beneficial, but you’re still getting the same stimulus and you will improve in the area that I was looking for you to improve, improve upon.
so that’s just something that’s like the next level up of stimulus. but also [00:33:00] something that people could take into account.
Joe Courtney: Yeah, I’m just talking my next level is it, it’s, if you’re, if you know the stimulus you’re going into, then you can actually just really think about and focus on those muscles as you’re doing it, or energy systems or whatever.
But, yeah, it, it just takes a little bit to quite get there.
Jerred Moon: yeah. You really have to learn these things at a conceptual level, or you’ll always be, you’d just be like a Lego builder, right? You’re like, well, I’ve got some red Legos and some green Legos and I’ll put those together. that only works for so long.
You want to know how to like, actually mold your own damn Legos so you can put things together. And, that is the fully autonomous athlete that we are trying to build. Right? I mean, you have anything else on a stimulus. I
Joe Courtney: don’t think so.
Jerred Moon: So I think that, okay, the last bullet I had was here. It’s like, yeah, don’t miss, don’t miss the forest for the trees.
That’s, that’s just my main point. You know, that’s a common common saying don’t miss the forest for the trees. don’t get so ingrained that you’re looking at each tree and you’re focused on the bark and the tree limbs when you don’t realize. [00:34:00] There’s this entire forest around you that’s way more important of what you’re trying to do versus a, you know, a specific tree or that tree or whatever.
Like, let’s focus on what you’re trying to do as a whole, your overall goals, things like that. That’s, that’s way more important. All right, man, last part of the day. I dunno, man. I’m not super excited about this one. I’m not gonna lie because a lot of reasons. Yeah. And. This is the first time I’ve ever had to do this.
so we had a Garage Gym Athlete pass away not that long ago. Her name was Anne de Carlo. She was Garage Gym Athlete for several years. You, some of our other programs. And she passed away from leukemia and her husband jumped in the group. And, you know, I talked to him, had some conversations. He was, he said, it’s okay to create a workout and her memory and her honor.
so it’s not. A lot of fun. I’ve never actually never actually done this before. I never had, I have had more than a few friends pass away in the [00:35:00] military, but you know, I’ve never had to write a workout to try and memorialize someone, so hopefully I don’t have to do it again. It wasn’t, it wasn’t very fun.
And, yeah. But this workout is, this is our first, like all of our workouts are just meet yourself Saturday workouts, right? So the, a lot of the CrossFit hero workouts are to memorialize, or in remembrance of a specific hero. This is really our first that does something like that. so when you do this, when think of an think of, her family and yeah, really push yourself on this one.
Now the workout itself. I tried to, my initial thoughts and programming for something of this magnitude was to just make it as hard as humanly possible. and then I had to scale back and I had to make it realistic. And, also I wanted to base it off of, off of an specifically. So I went back and looked at some programming that she had completed and things like that.
And she was a huge fan of our one man, one kettlebell program and also Garage Gym Athlete programming. She, she kinda did both. And [00:36:00] so I wanted to take what we have a lot of, and the one they won’t get about program, which is a lot of body weight movement stuff and a lot of kettlebell stuff and a lot of kettlebell breathing ladders specifically.
So here’s the workout. It is an ascending and descending breathing ladder. And I’m gonna have to explain about every single word I just said there, of one to 15 to one of kettlebell swings, burpees and double unders. So. A breathing ladder. I have entire article in three fitness. You could Google breathing ladders into three fitness if you wanna know how it works.
But essentially you do one rep of the, of a movement, and then you take one breath. Then you do two reps, two breaths, three, three, so on and so forth. But what we’re doing is one to 15 to one, so it’d be one cannabis swing, one burpee, one double under, and then you would take one breath. And then you’re going to do two kettlebell swings, two burpees, two double unders, two breaths, and it sounds really easy, but by the time you get to six and you’re doing six kettlebell swings, six burpees, and six double unders, and you’re trying to take only [00:37:00] six breaths before you get into seven, you’re going to realize it’s starting to get difficult, and then it’s going to compound and, and being difficult.
Each sub, subsequent, set. And so, it’s going to get really difficult really fast. Now, we don’t expect anyone to hold to the breathing ladder. Like if you can, that’s awesome. if you can’t, hold the breathing pattern, we just want for you to Mark down where you failed. So say you fail that 14, like I cannot keep this breathing pattern anymore, just Mark where you failed and then finish the workout.
But it has a 60 minute time cap. So pretty simple. But when we do, we, we often program a one to 20 to one so. Ascending, that’s all, you know, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight all the way to 20 and then back down 2019 1817 1615 1413 all the way down to once. A lot of repetitions. But when we do this with ketubah swings alone, that’s a one to 22 one on kettlebell swings.
It takes me about 40 minutes. Yep. To do that. And you know, everyone’s going to breathe at different pace paces and rates, so it’s not a [00:38:00] for time type of thing. In fact, if you, I prefer that you breathe slowly, take huge belly breaths, so from the diaphragm, not these shallow chest breaths and get back after it.
You want to slow that breathing down. Like, by the time I get up to like 19 on that kettlebell breathing ladder, like the breathing takes a long time. You know, I’m like sitting there doing very controlled breathing. Oh, you know, all the weight, 19 times, 20 times. It takes a long time. and I, the reason I think that you’re.
Your panic mechanism will take over before your and probably not be able to keep that pace. So anyway, a lot of movements keep the breathing patterns, for as long as you can with those three different movements. I don’t know how long this will actually take, but that’s why I put a 60 minute time cap to save you a little bit.
if you finish it, awesome. If you don’t, awesome. Either way, do the fricking workout in memory of one of our athletes and be better for it. So, Joe, any tips, tricks, strategies as someone who has completed many of breathing ladders in your day?
Joe Courtney: definitely don’t [00:39:00] over S there. Whatever you think you can do, like, like weight wise, if everything’s is weight underestimate, go under.
I learned that the very first breathing ladder everyday was cleans and I jacked, I was destroyed from, from cleans. Cause like I could clean a decent amount, but like after six, seven, eight, I was, I was done in, my hands were done too. and it’ll be the same with it, with kettlebell swings wherever you can really be comfortable with for like a long time.
breathing. Definitely the, the, the deeper breasts from the beginning, it’s, it’ll get hard because there’s times where, I remember when I was doing the breast, I would almost feel dizzy. Cause I’m really trying to stick to the breathing. But like that was sometimes the hardest part. and then, funny enough, we get this question every time we, we, we programmed these, but brief normal during the, during the lift, you’re not holding your breath.
Jerred Moon: That question always comes up. Yeah,
Joe Courtney: yeah. You’re not holding the breath during, just do what we’ll do. Whatever you would normally do while you’re actually exercising.
Jerred Moon: Or some people think that you need to get, like if, if you’re on set 14 they think that you need to breathe 14 times during the [00:40:00] exercises and 14 times and so your breath while you’re doing work does not matter.
Breathe as normal. It’s only the rest in between ladder rungs that matter.
Joe Courtney: Yeah. I mean, if you’re efficient, a kettlebell swings, you’re usually breathing as you’re moving anyway. You breathe your canes, but do whatever works for you first for the exercises during, but then do your deep belly breaths counted in between.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. And if I had to attack tag on any advice, I would a foot stomp Joe’s advice on the kettlebell weight cause that’s the only thing that you really have a weight selection. I would go lighter than you think that you need to, especially on this one because there are other movements involved. second, especially with a warming up and a lot of areas right now, chalk
Joe Courtney: I would your hands
Jerred Moon: have some chalk on hand or wear gloves, especially if you’re going to like.
when I do this workout, I will most likely use a two pood kettlebell. and it’s going to Jack up my hands. And so I might have gloves that I can transition to [00:41:00] or just use a lot of chalk, but I normally Jack up my hands when I do the one to 20 to one. And, burpees and double-unders shouldn’t add to that.
Hand thrashing, but a kettlebell swings can pretty easily, especially if you’re not accustomed to, I mean, you could go ahead. If you’re to finish the workout, you guys could do the math on how many it’s going to be, and it’s, it’s quite a lot of repetitions, especially across three different movements. so you’re going to be doing a lot of kettlebell swings.
All right? So that’s it. We got a placebo and supplements believe in yourself over taking a supplement. Supplements aren’t that effective any way. learn the why behind your training and. My, my takeaway for everyone there is just don’t, don’t get focused on like all of a sudden being good at that.
That’s a skill that has to be honed over many years. But as long as you start taking that mindset now, and, especially if you’re following our program, you could look at something and be like. Okay. Why is this program? Because you know, we have, like I said, we have a lot of people go through our coaching course and they, they really say after they look back at garage [00:42:00] gym athlete programming, they’re like, wow, like the curtain has been like unveiled.
Like I understand. What you’re doing, why the hell you’re doing it and why every single thing is programmed. Cause we don’t just make this shit up. We have an actual method that we follow that’s taken a long for a good time to develop. But you, if, especially if you’re looking at our programming, you can kind of start to see a lot of the why.
And I think that should be your goal. And understanding the why somebody programmed something. And if you can’t really figure out the why, if it’s not our programming, Yeah, you might want to ask the person who created it, if they had a Y, at all. Cause I would argue they probably didn’t. And that’s an issue.
and then, DeCarlo guys, this is, this is a, this is a big one. I want as many people in our community to do this workout as we, as we can. And, You know, post about it on Instagram, tag us. you know, I’ll probably write her name on my form with a Sharpie and just get after it and make sure that I remember to push myself as hard as I can.
All right. Other than that, a few resources we have for you guys. [00:43:00] Joe, why should someone sign up for a 14 day free trial at Garage Gym Athlete? Cause it’s free and
Joe Courtney: you get nothing usually lose nothing out of it.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. You really get to experience everything. It’s 100% free. you just sign up for a 14 day free trial and you can join us.
We have plans for military athletes. We have plans for, anybody really in different levels that you can join out. If you, if you need a coach, want to talk to a coach on a regular basis, you can do that too. We also
Joe Courtney: have, the garage where we used to do a whole bunch of past monthly webinars on certain topics like supplements, like warmups, like things like that.
And it’s all on there. So even if you want to hop on and just watch some webinars to see what we, we do and insights like that.
Jerred Moon: Yeah, we actually slowed down on some of that stuff cause we were. Starting to overwhelm people. and so now I’m trying to do one at least once per quarter or once every other month to make sure that we keep our athletes educated.
This podcast is a huge step up in that regard as well. but we have. That’s the only thing I’m, I’m F I’m fearful of people when they get into Garage Gym Athlete. Like all I want you to [00:44:00] do when you first get in is download the app and do a workout. You know, find out where you should be. We have a lot of different resources to see your, you could test your fitness level and anything like that, but just get moving.
And then after you get some workouts under your belt. Log back into the members area and start checking out the resources. Cause we do have a ton of nutrition resources. How to calculate your own macros, a tons of webinars that you can watch, all this stuff. it really is a huge education and resources.
But if you’re like, I don’t want to be overwhelmed by any of that, then don’t be. Download the fricking app and do some work. That’s all that we really want you to do and get better for it. some other resources that I think that you should check out if you go to garage gym, book.com I did write a book back in the day, 2016 is when that book came out.
and it’s really a compilation of a lot of DIY projects and how to get your mind right and then also a tiny bit on programming in the end. Really, it’s, I’m gonna go ahead and say it’s not a ton on programming compared to what we have put together now. but it is a good book to get started. If you want to be a Garage Gym Athlete or you want to learn [00:45:00] more about some of this stuff, go to garage and book.com and you actually get the book cheaper there than you could on Amazon, but you can also get on amazon.com you just search the Garage Gym Athlete.
you can download that book. And I’m actually writing another book right now. more information coming out about that. I have at least like. Three or four books that I want to publish in the next couple of years, and no shit, it’s probably going to happen because I want it to. and there will be one book that specifically, if you’re like all about this programming stuff, there’ll be one book specifically just about our programming methodology.
but that probably won’t be till next year. Right now I’m focusing on the mindset of the athlete. and then last thing, go to garage gym, athlete.com. And in the resources tab. So there’s a little tabs as resources you can go to like frequently asked questions and see all this other stuff. There’s link inside that resources tab called the fitness test.
if you’re wondering, you know, where your fitness stands in comparison to our athletes, we put together a pretty robust test. for our fitness test. And so we have two [00:46:00] different fitness tests. One is one takes about a, we made it about a week now. That’s what we call fit week, where we test all these different parameters.
And we also have another one, a C abbreviated version you can take in one day and evolves a kettlebell. And, you do some max lifts. You could do it in two days if you want to. Anyway, the, the End Of Three Fitness test is great. You will, enter in all your scores. It’ll pop out a number and a color and tell you where you would fit in our programming and that which level and as normally like a huge eyeopener for people.
And then based off of that, if you are one of our athletes, it tells you like. Where you should be in our programming, like which programs you might want to start with or where you could start. so another great resource if you are just looking to get started with us, or maybe you didn’t even know we had this stuff.
you can do that. All of our resources at garagegymathlete.com. But that’s all I have. Do you have anything else, Joe?
Joe Courtney: I don’t think so. just make sure you’re, you’re going at your workouts with the right intent and, don’t. Try to limit as many crutches in your nutrition supplementation as you can.
[00:47:00] Jerred Moon: Thanks for listening to the Garage Gym Athlete podcast. Do 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.