S1:E5 - Jeff Serven - Enterprise Fitness Podcast Episode 5

This is the show where we let you inside the doors of a world-renowned personal training studio. Welcome to the Enterprise Fitness Podcast. I'm Mark Ottobre, owner and founder, here to introduce the episode with Enterprise Master Trainer Rhys Adams and our guest Jeff Savan. Jeff is an ex-Navy SEAL. I don't think you guys know what it means to be an ex-Navy SEAL. I mean, I sure as hell didn't. And in this show, Jeff and Reece, well, Jeff gives you some really good insight about the process of actually what it takes to be a Navy SEAL. And the process, quite frankly, is designed to break you, injure you, eliminate you until you give up or you get through, in which obviously Jeff did. And talk about, or I should say, Reece talks about the mentality about, you know, the difference between being a Navy SEAL compared to being just a in the military compared to just being a civilian. And Jeff gives some really good answers and insight. I know I got a lot out of this podcast. It's the kind of answers that I just want to hit the gym after because I'm so pumped and motivated by the wise and uplifting words of Jeff. So it's a really awesome part of the podcast and really special that it's really some special stuff that I think he shared in this episode. As Reece and Jeff speak about the show, it's probably good To give you some background about Jeff, Jeff is an NFL and NHL strength coach and also is the co-author to Thrive, which is a book that was released from Gymnastics Bodies with the co-author with Christopher Summers, obviously from Gymnastics Bodies. Chris Summers is a very smart guy. I had the pleasure of doing a course with Chris and got a lot of great insights in that. So that book, check that one out. Again, this podcast, I think it's some of Reece's best work so far. I know I got a lot out of this podcast. Really, really enjoyed listening to Reece and Jeff speak. I mean, they sound like they've known each other for years, but this is the first conversation that they've had. Reece does a really terrific job on this, on this show. The song in the background, by the way, if you guys like this, is the instrumental version of the official Enterprise Fitness theme song /anthem. I got this track produced by my buddy Jamin, and, uh, yeah, I have on the real track when it gets released— well, I shouldn't say this is the real track, this is the instrumental— but on the song that we released, uh, we have a pretty awesome person rapping on it. It's, uh, Prodigal Son from the Wu-Tang Clan/Sons of Man, and, uh, that's going to be out pretty soon. But I hope you enjoy the instrumental. At the backing of this. And without further ado, let's bring on the show with Rhys.

Welcome to the Enterprise Podcast, Jeff.

Thank you.

Thank you for taking the time out to join us today. Can you please give us a brief overview of how you made the transition of being a Navy SEAL to becoming a sought-after coach?

Yeah, well, that's a long road there. So I joined the SEAL Teams when I was 18 years old. At that time, I was interested in fitness, but interested in fitness like a kid and like a non-professional. I rode my bike, I played baseball, but I wasn't in the gym doing periodized programs or anything like that. When I was 18, I went to BUD/S, and it's predominantly an endurance-based affair. But once you get out of BUD/S, it's, it's, it's really weird in that the things that they do to test you aren't necessarily the physical traits that you need to be successful at the job. So I became more involved in fitness, almost more obsessed with it in a way, and nutrition as well. And being a, being a Navy SEAL is always a competition. Whether it's with your peers, yourself, any, any way you can make it a competition. It's just that kind of community. And over the years, I just never thought good was good enough and just wanted better. And through a ton of trial and error, I learned what sports performance really is. And I think most importantly, even more so than the stuff I learned, is what I didn't learn and what sports performance isn't. And I got so into it that at some point around 2010, my love for the Iron Game shadowed my desire to be a Navy SEAL. And I just saw being in the teams as something that got in my way. They would be, you know, the command would be like, hey, you're gonna go to Iraq. And I'm like, dude, I'm coming up on this intense phase of my cycle. They're like, what? We don't care. You're gonna go eat MREs and you're gonna go do all this. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm tapering it up. They're like, what? We— no, stop. So at some point, you know, it just— there was a paradigm shift of what was the most important thing to me. And being in the SEAL Teams after 10 years, lost that battle in You know, every day since then, just pure fitness. So, how that came to be a coach, well, I had lots of good contacts in the SEAL Teams. You know, one thing they're really good about is hiring really top-level people, and you get the opportunity to meet with the best people, and One of the people I got in contact with was, was Charles Poliquin, and he really opened my eyes to the beginning of what really is training. And I think it was all just downhill from there. Like, I hung out with Charles for a long time, for a lot of years.

And how did you come to become, become in contact with Charles? Was that through the SEAL team?

Indirectly. So I was there for the SEAL Team, lack of a better term, take that very loosely. Um, but I was there personally to, to try and, you know, get some pearls of wisdom at one of his seminars, and I did some consultations with him. And, uh, he went out of his way to consult with me, and we would go out to dinner, go out to lunch for the rest of the week, and, uh, we just stayed in touch. And I've always shot questions at him, taken advantage of his time, flown to see him, and he's hooked me up with other people to learn from. So it was a good learning experience, but I think that's how I came to be into coaching, was I liked what he did so much that I kind of wanted to to follow it and to pursue fitness is— I just use it for a generic term of whether you're a powerlifter, weightlifter, physique, whatever. The only way you can really do it is to own or work in a gym. So to facilitate your hobby, you basically have two choices, and I just chose to own a gym.

Yeah, and for you, I saw that you work in a CrossFit box. With that said, how did you become to choose to work in a CrossFit box rather than say a regular personal training studio? The reason I ask that is the traditional CrossFit way is all about WODs and not much periodization. And you sound to me like a smart guy who periodizes his training, so how did that come about?

So I started with CrossFit because it's one of the things that are heavily pushed in the teams, that randomized fitness, etc., etc. Um, and it's a relatively easy gym to get off the ground, and to be quite frank, most people are far, far less advanced than they think they are. and I think there's a lot of people out there that could benefit from just very, very basic training. And I'm talking about like, I could, I could probably make improvements in a lot of people with just a barbell, just a 20-kilo barbell, no weights on it, nothing crazy. So I think there's a lot of good things you can do with the CrossFit model, and I think it's very easy to get started. The negative of the personal training style gym to start a gym is the huge financial investment. So I just took it one step at a time with starting a CrossFit gym, and then, you know, as I got more and more money, I reinvested in my company. And, you know, the first, I'd say, substantial thing I bought was one Eleiko weight set, and I just kept adding and adding them. And after I think I got to 8 Eleiko weight sets, I bought a set of Watson dumbbells and I just randomly kept adding things. My gym is a CrossFit gym, it's a bodybuilding gym, it's a weightlifting gym, power— I don't care. Do you remember back in the old days when they made the television— or excuse me, not the television show, Arnold's Pumping Iron?

Yeah, the movie.

Yeah, and you see some of the footage in there, but in that era physique guys, weightlifters, and powerlifters. And if CrossFit was invented back then, probably CrossFitters, they all trained under one roof even though they had different disciplines. And in a lot of gyms, um, like York Barbell, they all trained under one roof. And I think just the whole Iron Game culture is awesome, and I think there's stuff you can learn from, from each of those that benefit the other. That's not to say that clean and jerking 200 pounds is going to get you any physique competition wins, but there's principles you can learn from each one. That's really my underlying style, is to kind of try and jam all those different fitness cultures, lack of a better term, into one group, one roof. It just happens to be called CrossFit at my gym.

With that said, who would you say your main clientele are?

Um, for the gym itself, everybody from all walks of life. We have some really cool, uh, younger kids that are, uh, pretty talented track athletes. We got some really good weightlifters. Uh, we got moms, we got everybody. Um, as far as people that I deal with, just right now in the time of year, the Super Bowl just got over, so the NFL offseason's ramping up. It's pretty much NFL players, but that takes my time up until they go to camp in July.

What kind of work are you doing with them at the moment in their offseason?

Well, we start from fairly far away, and in the NFL it's not It's not if you have an injury, it's what injuries you have from last season that are new. So we deal with those. We, at this stage in the game, you could say we do maybe some more hypertrophy work. You know, we're not doing top-end strength work and general preparation strength, not a ton of running. This is probably the easiest time that they have in the gym, but by no means is it easy, it's just, You know, get back in the groove for the year. This month will, you know, you're getting back in the swing of coming in the gym 6 days a week, going to bed at a decent time. Depending on how far they made it into the offseason, they might have had a couple weeks off, or, you know, if they didn't make it into playoffs at all, they've had a little bit of time off, so they're not in tip-top shape right now. So we're not pushing any, you know, PR lifts or anything like that. We're just general preparation, getting them conditioned, because next month it's going to hit hard.

Yeah, and then working into, I guess, strength phases as they come back into the season.

Yes, exactly.

Awesome. What structural balance tests do you use with your clients?

Well, it depends on who it is. For most people that walk through the door, Watching them get out of the car and walk to the front desk is pretty telling. You know, the structural balance tests for lower body, for example, you know, the knee caves in, you're thinking VMO, but trail the leg down when they're walking in the parking lot and look at their ankle. Do they walk on their ankle? Are they flat-footed? Is that why the knee's caved in? Just watching people move when they don't know they're being watched, in my opinion, is the best assessment that there is. With that said, I do a modified version of Charles's Structural Balance that includes most of his stuff, but I would say the most surprising thing is that you're constantly structurally balanced assessing somebody. Anytime you do an agonist-antagonist pair, you can bust out a ratio and you might not have any normative data for that ratio, but you can start with that individual and, you know, go from there. For example, if you do an A1 and A2 bench press dumbbell row with a client and you notice that the ratio is off, one of those you can adjust to do 6 sets on and the other one 5 sets, and then you move on. So you basically just don't do the last set of A2. I mean, that sounds very basic, but that's all strength conditioning is. It's, it's just a series of those really basic adjustments over and over again. But back to your question, so I use every workout for that, and all I ever try to do is just find the weakest link, and I favor movement more than I do anything else. So even if they PR on, say, a back squat, but And they round their back a little bit. Nothing on it, nothing too alarming, but it just doesn't look as crisp as their last PR. I'll still take that into consideration and say, okay, maybe we need to, you know, work on the back more in the next phase or something like that. So I guess I'm always doing it with every lift. Yeah, if that's an answer.

Yeah, there's always the science of training and the art of training.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, I'd love to— and my approach is so pragmatic that people think— I sometimes think I'm probably brain dead, but the science of it is really awesome, and I love reading about it, and I'm just infatuated with it. But after years and years and years in the gym, It's like the more complicated I get with people, the less results I've gotten out of them. And when I walk up to them and I'm like, "All right, man, you ready to go?" And the way you treat them and the psychology of it, you're like, "All right, pick this shit up." It's amazing. You're like, "Wow, this guy's total tonnage is increased by 30% just by the way I personally interact with him during the session." I'm getting off on a tangent here.

No, that's okay. It's always about the basics. Like with supplementation, you're wasting your time if your nutrition's not right. Same with training. If the basics of training aren't right, you can't expect, say for example, your legs to grow if you don't train hard on the back squat, but then you go really hard on the leg extension. Your leg extension is only going to get your legs to grow so much.

Yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah, exactly.

Awesome. Okay. So I want to talk about your nutrition system. So basically, it's a— my understanding is it's a behavior-based nutrition system and you've called it Thrive. Is that correct?

Yep. Yep. That's it. So I collaborated with Coach Christopher Sommers from Gymnastics Bodies. You ever heard of them?

Yes, I have. My boss has actually done a course with Christopher Sommer.

Oh, very cool. Yeah, he's a US national team coach. He's the leader in the kind of that gymnastics realm of fitness training, and he's got a really, really good system to deliver information in a practical fashion that presents it in a way that people will digest it do it and then see results and get accomplished from it. So it was kind of a no-brainer. He's got really good insight and he's doing a lot of things that I just don't see from other online training, for lack of a better term. But I would never call him an online trainer because he was also a national team coach for 30 years. I mean, um, Alan Bauer is an OU guy, and you can Google him, an absolute monster, a possibility for Rio 2016, and Coach Summers coached that kid from 2.5 feet tall. So I just want to put that out there before I call him an internet trainer, but he really has the internet style of training dialed and He kind of took my nutritional advice and put it into a way that would be a step-by-step systematic approach that doesn't let people fail. You know how it is. If you, you know, you tell me when you assess and work with somebody for the first time. For me, half of it's just determining how much is this person actually gonna do?

Yeah, absolutely. There's a few telltale signs, like say for example, we get them to keep a food log. How they present that food log is one indicator of how they're going to be in terms of compliance.

Yeah, and I think a mistake that I made early on in my career is that I would just pour it on people. I thought the more I gave them, the better of a coach I was, and it's I don't know, you tell me. The more I find it's like one thing at a time, and then I see the person in 3 years, or I look back at a picture of a person from a year ago, and I've been training for the full year, and I'm like, wow, that's serious progress.

Yes, some people respond better to, I guess, having direction of where they're going and then giving steps, whereas some people just go, okay, just don't overwhelm me, just give me one step. I do find that You have your range in clientele. But yeah, absolutely, the main objective here is not to overwhelm the client.

Yeah, and you know, whenever we start talking about the overwhelm the client thing, it always registers in people's brains like, ah, this is basic, this sucks, it's not for me. But the basics are the best place to be. Being a beginner is the only place where you can lose body fat, gain muscle, get stronger, get faster all at the same time. The more advanced you become, the harder to do any one of those things by themselves it becomes. So with that said, the whole system isn't based around dumbing it down so much that there's no performance there. It's just distilling it down to get rid of the, the BS. For example, the first step is a water goal. I just don't see any point in spending, you know, $200, $400, however many hundred dollars a month on a supplement protocol if when I find out that you're drinking one glass of water a week and you're a camel or the human equivalent. You know what I mean? There's a lot of people like that. That one particular That particular example I'm using because I think a lot of people resonate with that one, but there's a lot of other examples. You know, throughout the whole course, there's basically 40 steps, and it really has a nutritional step and a lifestyle step that coincide with each other. They're presented in a video with an essay below it, and then if you still have questions, you can jump on the forum that's attached to the course and ask questions. I try to explain everything in the most clear terms I can, but what I found is some things are different in certain countries. And for example, Greek-style yogurt isn't called Greek-style in Germany as it is here in the States. They go by 1, 2, 4, or 10%. So The Germans get on there and they're like, "I don't understand what Greek-style yogurt is." So, the forum's cool as well. But anyways, back to your question. Yeah, Thrive is just laying the groundwork for your nutrition program for the next 10 years. So it's in, maybe a way that you could best understand it, it's the program that you complete over the course of 12 weeks that just keeps you at 10% year-round with putting as little effort into it as possible. That way when it is time to get focused and you're gonna do a comp or you're gonna do something, then your jump point is you're jumping from 9 or 10%, not you did your last comp, you went crazy, and now you don't even want to say your own body fat because you're so embarrassed type deal. Yeah, so it's mastering the basics for sure.

So let's talk about basics. So water, how do you come up with the number that that person needs?

Well, I'm going to be really vague on this one, but that's just because it's part of the course and part of the steps. But there, I'll just address the underlying question is how do I determine what is optimal? So my style of nutrition is all about what is optimal. For example, Paleo is a huge nutritional movement, and Paleo has a lot of awesome principles, and it's probably the single easiest way to explain to somebody in less than 200 words how to eat healthy. But with that said, I think there's a few things in there that, that I just don't agree with, but The principles of the water goal are just to find what's optimal. Sorry, I completely lost my train of thought there. I was going to go down that paleo thing for a minute. I'm like, no, come back to the water goal. Anywho, so what's optimal? I have no allegiance to any one particular type of system. I would be a vegetarian if that was the most optimal way for human performance. But, you know, eating complete proteins and various other things is a little bit tough sometimes on a vegetarian diet. So back to the water goal. What is optimal is very rarely a step that you can give somebody that they're going to go to from exactly where they're at to get there immediately. So there's generally intermediary steps that I find, I don't know about you, for example, if you said I want you to drink half your body weight ounces of water per day, for me that would be 100 ounces of water. And I'm using myself because that's an easy round number. But how many 200-pound guys that just walk into your gym are gonna turn around one day and start putting down 100 ounces of water? Given that that's optimal. I, I don't know, but what I can tell you is not as many that if we break it down into, into manageable steps. So that's kind of the system of Thrive, is breaking it down into those steps that, that things can get done and done effectively at, and then move on to the next step.

How do you decide how much is a reasonable amount of water to increase? Do you sort of just talk about that with the client, or do you have a number in mind?

Well, how I do it in person, you know, when you're dealing with one-on-one in person, you can feel somebody out. It's a whole different animal than if you're thinking about Thrive, because Thrive is a set system that is a little bit different for men and women. But in person, it's really easy. It's very— my approach for the nutrition is very similar to my approach for the structural balances. I constantly never stop assessing. It's not like I'm going to create this 3-week nutrition plan, then we're going to assess you. If I'm doing your nutrition, that means I'm doing your training, which means I probably speak to you every day, or I'm the one training you. So in between sets and in between reps, I can ask just little tidbit questions, not open-ended questions that are going to take a 5-minute answer, but simple yes/no questions, you know, this, that, and the next. And I really just feel people out and try to push them but never take them out of their zone of something that they're capable of doing. Because I think once you set somebody up for failure with implied steps You know, the old healthy cookbooks that are like, "Oh, this is a 15-minute recipe that actually takes 45 minutes." Yeah. I try to stay away from steps like that with people. So I'm giving you a really ambiguous answer because I don't always address it in the exact same way with everybody. But generally, as long as they don't complain, I just keep pushing on them.

Yeah, okay, I'm gonna stop digging at that one with you because it doesn't sound like you want to go too in-depth with it, as well as it's, um, like you said, it depends on the client. So let's move on to males and females. So with them, you said that it differs. So which areas would you say differ for males and females on the system?

The amounts of food differ and the amounts of water differ. You know, we talk about sleep in the course, and that's the same between men and women. But as far as the steps go, men and women are doing the same steps at the same time. However, there's different water goals, different amounts of this and that that you have to eat.

Cool. How frequently do you assess clients' nutrition? You were saying that you assess them ongoing, like asking them questions and things like that, but how often would it be that you— say for example, I saw you do BioSignature— how often would you do their BioSignature?

Given that they've made good performance, like they were focused, they were on it, every 2 weeks is about average. Sometimes I go a little bit longer, but that would probably be the average amount of time.

Yeah, I agree with that. I find it's enough time to see a difference, but not so long that they can go off track.

Yeah, it kind of, kind of keeps them, you know, wrangled in. I think every week there's, there's not a big enough difference and then it becomes monotonous as well.

Yeah, they become psychotic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, very much so.

So you obviously use calipers because you use the Body Snatcher. Do you use girth measurements or anything like that, or just skinfolds?

Just skinfolds.

Yeah, same as us.

And I like to do the pictures with it because people are very receptive to skinfolds, but a picture of somebody that's gone from, you know, 15% to 10% body fat, that just— there's just no words or there's no numbers for that. That resonates with them.

Yeah, and some of them will say I don't feel any different. You do their body measurements and they look like worlds different, but to them it's like, oh really? Those people that are always underestimating themselves.

Yeah, that's—

do you get those?

Yeah, yeah, no, I get them. I think you probably get them more than I do because you probably do some really extreme transformations down to that comp prep. And I, I can only imagine if someone told you when they were comp ready that I don't really feel any different. That I'd be like, are you kidding me? But yeah, I hear it from time to time and it makes me scratch my head sometimes.

Yeah, and then you dig deeper and go, are your clothes fitting differently? And they're like, yeah, I've dropped 3 pant sizes.

Yeah, I had to get a whole new wardrobe, but I, you know, nothing's changed.

Moving on, what would be the 3 most important behaviors of the system that you believe are important in developing a healthy mind and body?

I would say the single most important of the three is an accurate self-perception. I think a lot of people don't accurately assess where they actually are. For example, you had mentioned I own a CrossFit gym and I think that CrossFitters get the brunt of this self-perception of just because you can train for the Games doesn't always mean that every individual should. And if you're 45 years old and you haven't worked out since college, today is not the day to start training twice a day to get ready for the Games in a couple months. It's like, You just really gotta be aware with yourself and, and know where you are and start from that step because the fastest way to get to where you're going is to be aware of exactly where you are and start at your current level. Number 2 is discipline. I think people don't always have the best discipline. Within the individual training session, dropping a set off the end, or I should say dropping effort put in, you know, like, ah, it's 5th set, okay. Or just little things like that, or missing sessions over the course of 12 weeks. What's your attendance like? You know, you missed 2, 3, 5, 6, that's a discipline issue. And then discipline when they're not at the gym. That's probably the biggest of the 3. The whole nutrition game of it. And I just think those two points are so big that I rarely ever look past that, even for the third. And it's really hard to get people to agree to think that they're maybe one or two steps back from where they really are. So That whole accurate self-perception thing is probably where I spend most of my time with people.

Yeah, yeah. How do you know when someone's ready for the next behavior? Is there like a set amount of time that you expect them to be doing that behavior for, or is it you wait for them to come to you, or how do you determine that?

Um, in the Thrive course, you get a new task every Monday and Thursday, and then there's an iPhone app that you log into, and at the beginning of each day it'll say you have to do this, you have this, this, don't forget to drink your water. And as you complete those tasks, you check them off. When you get a task, you have to complete it for 1 week consistently before you get the next one. So you gotta show that you can do it for 6 consecutive days in a row, and the steps are compounding. So when you get a new task every Monday and Thursday, it's tasks added onto, not taking the place of. So step number 1, as I told you, is water goal. You— on Thursday, you're now gonna have a second step Then on Monday you're going to have a third step, fourth, and so on until you get to the top. And just through my years of BioSig, that's kind of the pace that I found that most people do really well at, is people that train and take the training seriously. If you, if you try to get them to change two fairly significant things a week, that's, that's, that's pushing pretty hard, and you can make pretty good change over the course of 12 weeks.

Yeah, I agree. With your system, I get the impression that you're quite the innovator. Do you have anything in the pipeline that you're currently working on, Jeff, or is this top secret?

Well, no, it's not top secret. I'm going to add on to Thrive Level 1. So Thrive's been available for a few weeks and I mentioned that we had a user forum where people can go and ask questions. We've had a fairly significant demand. People want an extreme fat loss course. So I'm gonna make an extreme fat loss course probably next, and then I'm also gonna make a level 2 of Thrive future down the road for people that just want to take it even one step further. Than where Level 1 ends up. Other than that, I have no idea what's after that.

Who would you say the system is best suited to?

Well, you know, I based the system off the work I've done with professional athletes, and their meals are made for them, but there's still great info to be collected from that, all the way to women who have recently given birth that want to get that weight off and want to get back to working with what they are. So I've done a really thorough job of trying to make it apply to everybody out there and just strip it down to the bare essentials of human performance and nutrition and not go down any specific roads that don't apply and don't have the most bang for your buck. So I think everybody can benefit from it. And again, it's a sustainable plan that once you're completed with it, you should be able to stay on it for, for 10 years. And that's your, that's your base plan. If you want to jump off and do comps from it, then you get focused down and you start, you start getting after it, or If you're going to do a specific extreme sport that requires dietary change, then you go do that for a focused amount of time, but then you come back to this home plate kind of style of eating so that you never slide and your health never deteriorates.

I like that you say that, Jeff, because what I find a lot of competitors try to do is they try to get healthy by competing. You need to be healthy first before considering competing. So to do your system and be healthy sounds to me like a great idea, and then consider doing a competition.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Because unfortunately, the way your physique does basically look doesn't mean that you're healthy. It doesn't represent that. Just because you're shredded doesn't necessarily mean you're healthy.

Yeah, but as long as you're shredded, that's all that matters, right?

How can our listeners find your nutrition system?

It's on gymnasticsbodies.com and it's called Thrive. It's on the top column there. You can just click on it. There's some information on it and you can sign up for the course right there.

Awesome. Easy. So I want to get stuck into some mindset stuff with you.

Okay.

What was it that made you think it would be a good idea to be a Navy SEAL? Deal? Like, what went through your head to think that was a good idea?

Well, one, I was young, so, um, no, all jokes aside, um, I was a really active kid and a competitive kid. And, you know, right around that time, 9/11 happened, and I had always wanted to be like really good at something. Like, I thought it would have been so cool to be world-class at something. And the way all those events came together, Navy SEAL just spoke to me, and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I went and signed up and told my dad. He's like, "Uh, alright, cool." He didn't— I don't know if he believed me the first time, but yeah, I was just young and full of energy, and you couldn't tell me nothing. Um, it was a blast.

If you could do it again, would you?

Absolutely. I, I think I learned so many things. Um, I don't even know where to begin. I got the opportunity to travel the world and just see some things that you just don't get to see, be in some opportunities and some experiences that are just one of a kind, and make some friends that are my best friends still to this day and will be until the end of time.

Yeah, my brother's in the military and he's much the same.

That's awesome.

He just recently got back from Kabul.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

That's cool.

Can you give us a rough idea of what tests you had to face to become a Navy SEAL?

Well, the most notorious one of them all is BUD/S. Probably the most challenging thing of BUD/S is what's called Hell Week. So you stay up for a week straight and you basically do all things miserable for that one week. You're cold, you're wet, you're sandy the whole week, and you carry around these boats on your head or you drag them. I don't remember how heavy the boats are, but they're heavy. It is absolutely miserable and it's a week long. I mean, you just keep going and going and going, and at some point you just become delusional, you're so tired. And I think you just check out of your own brain.

We're talking absolutely no sleep, not even a, a nano nap?

You probably can sneak a nano nap because if you're not cheating, you're not trying, but You're certainly not laying down at night, that's for sure.

How did they keep you awake? Did you have to drink coffee or take any stimulants for that?

No, they don't give you any of that stuff. So they, they, they keep you so miserable that you pretty much can't fall asleep. You're in the surf zone, you know, you're out in the ocean, you're getting sandy on the beach, you're paddling these inflatable boats around, which is pretty hard work, you know, after you do it for hours on end. They have you, you know, swimming around in the water, doing various obstacle courses with fairly significant style obstacles. You know, you have to scale things. I think one of the obstacles that you have to scale is almost 3 stories tall. And it's just never-ending stuff. That they constantly have you do. It's completely plotted out perfectly and systematically timed, but from the student perspective, you have no idea what's going on. You are just checked out, crazy, on cruise control. Just, it's hilarious when you watch it from, from the outside in, but that was by far the hardest of all the training.

What would you say is the successful completion rate of that? Like, how many people would you say drop out?

Oh my goodness, the, the true attrition rate, I don't even know, because when I went to boot camp, they give you this really cool slideshow, and you'd have to be crazy not to sign up to want to be one of these guys because they make such a good video presentation. So you get in the pool, you have to swim, uh, 500 meters, and you have to do some push-ups, some sit-ups, some pull-ups, and then do a mile and a half run. And you have to complete the whole thing in a minimum amount of time and a minimum amount of reps for everything. But it's fairly reasonable, like you don't have to be a world-class athlete to get it done. And we were in a full Olympic pool. Not, not your usual 25-meter pool, but a full Olympic pool. And it was so packed when I did that test, it was literally like being at a concert, just like shoulder to shoulder in the pool. And when I got out of just the swim, the first event, there was only one guy left. That one guy, that one guy went to BUD/S with me, which is the first part of SEAL training, and 215 other guys just like him and I showed up, and over 3/4 of those people were gone at the end. So just to produce 2, it required, you know, I don't know, a couple hundred people to get in that pool that day. And then of the couple hundred of those that went to BUD/S, you know, a couple dozen made it through. So I don't know what the attrition rate is, but it's not good.

Was that just because they couldn't make the distance, or was that a case of in the pool there was a bit of nonsense? Some guys not wanting others to get through?

I think it was probably both, because I'm not going to lie to you, I swam extra fast because I just grabbed on the person's ankle in front of me and pulled myself along. So—

Less thinking.

Yeah, hey, if you're not cheating, you're not trying, right? But after a while it got out that, you know, part of those people just watched this really cool motivational video. You know, it's like we referenced Pumping Iron earlier. You watch Pumping Iron, all of a sudden you want to go to the gym. You know, same deal.

Yeah. What was it that got you through testing? Was there any thoughts that were going through your head or anything like that?

You know, this is a question I get asked a lot, and I've never come up with a good answer for it. I think the ability to make it through those challenging things is the ability to not have to have those conversations with yourself. You know, if you're in a negotiation with yourself, you've kind of already lost. You know, to reference it back to a workout, if you're like, ah, you know, I don't know if I should do this last set. If you're already, you know, kind of on the fence, it's only a matter of time before you're just not gonna do it. So I think I was lucky in that I was pretty hard-headed, but I think you've just got to keep those thoughts out of your mind and just shut those things down right away. So any self-doubt comes into your mind, just boom, done, stop. On to the next thing, and you just gotta break things down into manageable sets, if you will, or reps. You know, if you gotta run 10 miles and say you get a break every mile, you just— it's just a series of 1 miles, you get a break, just only focus on getting that next break.

Yeah, I like that thinking. I actually did a course with Tom Platz If you've heard of him, he's a bodybuilder. Yeah, quads with massive quads. Yeah. So his way of getting himself through those sets was, I can do 5 more reps or I can do 3 more reps. And he would just go, okay, yes, I've got a 20-rep set, but I'm just going to do 5. I can do 5. And then you'd go, okay, I've done 5. Let's do another. And then that's how he got himself through.

Yeah, I think the worst thing you can do is view the objective as a whole. Because that just, it almost makes it really easy to quit when you see how much you have to go in front of you. But if you can have the discipline to just break it down into those segments like Tom Platz, I mean, clearly it worked for him.

Yeah, exactly. You can't eat an elephant with one bite.

Yeah, exactly.

So, did you do anything to prepare for it? Like any training preparation or even mindset stuff? Did you do anything like that?

I didn't do any mindset stuff. Just because, you know, you don't know what you don't know. But for physical training, I put a great deal of emphasis on it. But again, you don't know what you don't know. I was doing a piece of paper that I got from a copy machine that I found a workout of that some fit guy at the gym gave me. He's like, "Hey, just follow this." It was like push-up pyramids and sprints and jumping jacks and, you know, have you ever seen the movie Dodgeball?

Yeah.

It's probably the fitness program that they would do for Dodgeball. So I was absolutely lost, but man, did I give it hell and I did my best. And that was one of the things that kind of led me back to doing what I do is that, man, if I knew 1/10 of what I know now as that kid, I could have done so much better. It would have been so much more performance I could have got out of it. BUD/S, Navy SEALs, all that stuff, it's never going to get easier. You can— the most alarming question that you can get from a client or somebody who wants to be in special forces is they want the edge to make it easier. It's never going to be easy. If you want to be good at anything, it's always going to be brutally difficult. You just want the edge to be better. And that's why I do what I do, is that I can now provide that edge to get better. You don't have to walk around lost like I did when I was a kid trying to do these stupid push-up ladders.

Yeah, so there was no warning of what you had to do or anything to prepare for? They didn't give you anything like that?

They did, but it was so vague. And back then there was no internet, whereas I go on some of these sites now and I think there's people that haven't even been to Navy SEAL training that probably know the sequence of events better than I do. You know, just internet dweebs. And there's more information out there, but guess what? Not any more people are making it through. Information isn't anything without action.

So that's a very good way to put it. So Was there times that you felt like giving up, or was that never an option?

I'll give you the cliché answer. No, it was just never an option. It was just never really something in my thought process. I think that, you know, as we talked about breaking that 10-mile run down into 1-mile increments, I think I just was really good at naturally doing that, and I just developed into doing it better. Plus, any, any time anything got hard, We always did a really good job of finding the humor in it. You know, the old statement, misery loves company. We found the jokes in it. And, you know, I was an 18-year-old kid. There was no way I was going to call my father on the phone from San Diego and tell him I'm a quitter.

So good job the last 18 years, you know, so Have you gotten yourself injured with that attitude at all with training?

I think you already know the answer to that question. Yeah, yeah, I've got myself injured on a number of occasions for sure. Most of them doing really stupid stuff and very, very few of them training. But I haven't ever taken any really really bad injuries.

Have you, have you hurt your back at all or anything like that?

Never hurt my back. My back is in perfect health. I've broken hands, wrists, rolled ankles, done things to my knee. I don't know that I had the best medical attention for the couple of those, so I can't exactly tell you what it was, but it was swollen knee type stuff where it doesn't move. Couple of shoulders, but I've been lucky. No hip, no back.

That's very good to hear. For you personally, did you find it hard to train to be a Navy SEAL, or do you find it more difficult being a Navy SEAL?

That's probably the best question anyone could ever ask about Navy SEALs. And I'm surprised you came up with that question, to be honest, because it would almost take an ABC to come up with that question because everybody focuses on the training. And, um, kids contact me, they're like, I'm gonna go to BUD/S in 2 years, I want to prepare now. I'm like, okay, cool, you know, that's great. And 2 years never actually comes. 'cause all they wanna do is train. I'm like, hey man, if you're putting off the training, you're forgetting the job that you have to do. The training only prepares you for the job. It's analogous to going to college and getting an accountant degree, a degree in accounting, to then become an accountant. If you don't like it in college, you're not gonna like it when you go get an accounting job. It's that ultra-competitive, always trying to be better than the next guy culture that's developed in BUD/S, but it never ends. It only gets worse. Now, you don't have to do Hell Week ever again, but you better show up with your A-game every day.

Yeah. So for you, I saw that you were in there for almost a decade. Yeah. So, so continually got worse. Was there a drawing card that you're like, "I've had enough," or was it just purely, "I just want to get stuck into more of my training"?

I think it's— you get used to it to a point where after a number of years of doing it, it becomes easier just because you've got so many reps at it, you've been doing it for so long, and with practice comes perfection. So I think in that aspect it got easier. And I was never in at an age where age affected me. So I was basically in for my 20s, and your recovery through your 20s is always great. So I was never in when I was, you know, like, ah, creaking joints and things like that. But yeah, I don't know, I just, I guess I got lucky. But yeah, that's pretty much it on that one.

If you could do it all again, what advice would you give to yourself?

I think if I could do it all again, the number one thing that I would have changed was my fitness program.

The dodgeball program?

Yeah, I mean, that was the single area that I could have improved in the most. I mean, you just have to show up to training with a good attitude and a never-quit mentality, and the more in shape you are, the more you stand to be the winner of more events. I would have liked to have won more events, but with limited fitness, it requires more exertion, and day in and day out, it grinds you down. So that's probably the one thing I wish I would have done better, or I would go back in time and fix.

With that said, your fitness not being as good as you would have liked it to have been, it sounds like your mindset and your, I guess, drive is what got you through. So that says a lot about that.

Yeah, yeah, that part was there, but you know, you always want the edge.

It's human nature, isn't it?

Always.

Was there anything you learned from being a Navy SEAL that you could transfer to your coaching career?

Oh man, I think everything applies. I think that the concept of being a Navy SEAL is having the luxury, if you will, to put you in the same situations that everybody faces every day in the gym. They just have a great way of taking the motivation of it out of there. For example, if you're fighting for your life, you're never going to wonder like, should I take a week off? Like, you don't have a choice, like just keep going. So you don't ever have to like watch YouTube videos for motivation or any of this stuff. All you got to do is figure out how to do your job and your task and your skills better, and through that process It kind of teaches you something about motivation, setting goals, and really just a perspective on life. I try to set everybody up that trains with me on these perspectives, if you will, of truly what's important and placing things where they are. I think every coach out there that listens to this can relate to every time a client sits in front of you for the first time They are willing to do what it takes to be a pro. 7 weeks later, whole different story. So where did you lose them in there? It's easy. Yeah, you could blame them for that, but you know, that's why we work out. You know, that's why you work out. That's what I— that's why I work out, is we learn all these skills and share them with them. And I think my SEAL Team career was just learning those skills through a fire hose of discipline, that self-awareness that we talked about earlier, life's perspective, what truly is hard and what isn't, and just expectations of your life. I mean, I could go on forever.

Do you find that clients, when they start training with you, they sort of expect you to be like a drill sergeant and they do absolutely everything you say because of that? Or do you get some clients that come to you and haven't done their research?

No, I think everybody knows, and I think most people find it surprising how laid back I am. They think I'm going to be more intense with them than I am, but I'm just a performance-based guy. If we determine and we set these goals for you, well, if you don't meet them, you get one side of me, and if you do meet them, you get another side of me, and I do whatever I can to get my people to meet those goals because if they don't, no matter how much of it's their fault, some of it is still my fault as the coach.

So it's a team effort.

Absolutely, absolutely. It's like you gotta be the mind and they gotta be the muscle. You gotta like do all the thinking and all this stuff for them and they gotta show up. It's quite a pairing.

Yeah. Is there a potential of you to come out to Australia, Jeff, in the near future?

You know, yeah, I love it. I've been there one time. We jumped down there from Southeast Asia. We landed on a military drop zone in the northeast. We did like 3 skydive jumps with your guys' skydive team, and it was super windy, and I thought I was going to die. And then literally after the third one, we got in the plane and flew back to Southeast Asia. So that's, that's the only thing I've ever seen in your guys' country, but I would love to get back there and check it out.

Did you see any kangaroos or drop bears?

No kangaroos, no kangaroos. I saw a little bit of water and a drop zone.

What about drop bears? Did you see any of those?

Nope.

Have you heard about drop bears?

No.

So basically it's just a myth that we tell, I guess, people from overseas that we have drop bears, but basically all they are is koalas.

Well, that's good I didn't answer yes then.

One thing I've been told is with special forces guys, or SAS in the Australian case, basically in terms of their mindset they're in the place that they are because they're either really good at what they do or they'd be in prison because it's just something that they're, I guess, cut out for. But with that said, it was very surprising talking to you because you are so laid back.

Yeah, I agree with both, with both of those points though. I mean, The job cultivates a mindset and a personality type that just doesn't do well with down the middle. You know, most SAS, SBS, SEAL Team guys, they're all very polarizing guys. You know, you meet them, you either love them or you hate them because they don't do anything down the middle. They're either extreme or they're not. I think one thing people misinterpret, and that's what you find surprising about me, is people find to do hard things, I think most people have to rely on the skill of being angry to do them. And I think that, in my opinion, that's a weakness. You should be able to do things with a clear mind without having to add an extra emotion in there, because anger alters your judgment of what you'll do. You know how it is, you're angry, you're gonna respond and snap at somebody, Same thing in a judgment call, in a decision that you can't mistake. So having to be angry in those situations is actually a disservice to you. So you gotta learn how to be tough and do it smiling and be laid back about it so you can keep your mind open and focused for what targets are actually going to approach you.

Yeah, I'm a big believer in not letting your emotions guide you, and obviously anger is an emotion, so that's gonna influence your decision.

Yeah, absolutely. Now, if your training buddy beats you by 3 reps, it's perfectly fine in anger to do an extra set to beat him.

I've got some questions here for you from just basically each time I do one of these podcasts, I put that I'm going to be interviewing whoever it is, yourself this time, and ask your questions. So basically, these are the questions that I got. There's not too many, so let's get stuck into it. I've got one here from former Australian welterweight boxing champion Fred Tukes. He would like to know what food you recommend to clients for sustainable energy and optimal brain function during a tough workout.

Oh, well, for a boxer, let's go with paracetamol. Are you familiar with what that is?

I am. It's a nootropic.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So cell membrane fluidity, you know, the research with concussions, you know, boxing, getting hit in the head. I think that's, that's a really good stay focused, stay energized, increase your cognition throughout the rest of the day supplement for a boxer. For anybody, I'm a fan of, of not only branched chains But essential amino acids, you know, the other 6 of them, I think branched chains do a good job of turning on mTOR, turning on, you know, the signals, for lack of a better term, of anabolism. But what you got to have something to put in the, you know, you get what I'm saying? You gotta have something to put in the muscles. So if you, if you only take branched chains, I think that's, you're doing most of it, But you're not, you're not doing everything you could. And those would— I would say those are probably the most important two that I'd recommend for him.

Yeah. And with piracetam, what kind of a dose do you use? Because there's heaps of different dosages that people recommend. What have you found to work best with your clients?

You know, I will start people off really, really low. And just go up from there because I've had a couple cases of people getting headaches and they're pretty convinced it was, it was from Paracetamol. So I'll even start people with half a capsule and I'll just put it in like a pre-workout shake style of deal with—

Yeah, so if we're talking powder, it'd be like 500 milligrams because the capsule, I'm guessing, would be a gram.

Yeah, so yeah, half capsule. I have powder, so I'll scoop sometimes 100 milligrams. None of the paracetamol I have is in capsules, so I'll just go with you and say that a capsule is 100 grams. But so I give them 100 grams, and then how much on the upper limit? Oh man, I don't know how to answer that question.

I have seen people go as high as like 5 grams. So that would be like if you're having 100 milligram tablets, like 50 tablets.

Yeah, I don't— you know, I think the dose response for people is so ridiculously wild that I don't think 5 grams is that much for some people if it actually works for them.

Yeah, I guess you're looking, we're always taught to look for the bell curve. So say on one, on the left-hand side of the bell, you've got not enough, so it's not causing an effect. Then in the middle you've got optimal, and then on the right-hand side you've got too much. And if you're seeing side effects, what's that a sign of? They're having too much. So you go slightly back from that and you're going to be hitting optimal once those side effects go away.

Yeah, no, I like it. I usually— I like the bell curve thing. How you do it sounds really smart. What I don't like about the bell curve is I think people just rely on it, so they take the median average. The problem is that's the smallest percentage of the population, is the people right down the middle. I usually start at the back end of it and then work up until I get something from them, like beta alanine, they're like itching for 25 seconds in between each set. I'm like, all right, we got, we got the right dose here.

I've got another 2 questions here from my boss, Mark Ottobre. His questions are: what mental factors separate a Navy SEAL from an ordinary Army or Navy personnel?

I don't know what separates them from an Army or a regular personnel. I don't want to say that, you know, somebody in the Army is not as tough. I think as a Navy SEAL, you kind of get a credential. It's like having a PhD in tough guy, right? So everybody's like, wow, you're a tough guy. Like, you know, like we all think, hey, you're a doctor, you're smart. That doesn't mean that you're the smartest guy out there or that you're the toughest guy out there. You know, there's always somebody tougher than you. So as far as what separates, I don't know. I think the commonalities amongst Navy SEALs is they just give themselves options that are only positive outcome options. So it's never, do I stop and quit? It's Okay, I did 5. Can I do 3 more?

Yeah, I do.

You just take it piece at a time, piece at a time. And I think what you'd find is most Navy SEALs encapsulate everything in a joke. So you just got to have a real joker mentality. Otherwise, just the shit is so insane that it'll drive you crazy. There's no way somebody can do this, and it just blows your mind. Where you just got to be able to laugh in the face of it. So, I mean, you really just got to have a sense of humor, as bad as that sounds. That's not real good advice.

So that's why you have such a sense of humor?

Yeah, probably, because I can let anything roll off my back, you know. Like, hey, guess what? We're not going to feed you for the next 3 days. We're going to drop you off in Afghanistan where everybody wants to kill you. And you're like, Sweet.

I've heard stories of the SAS having to dig holes and bury themselves. Have you ever had to do anything like that?

I've never buried myself, no. Nope, never done that. But we have a fun one where we sit in water. So we do this up in Alaska in a river, and they have this, this matrix, so they weigh you, and then they take your height, they put the water temperature in, and it spits out via some algorithm how long you can spend in the water before you get hypothermia. And you go sit in the water for that amount of time minus about 30 seconds, so you're about 1% away from having full-blown hypothermia. And then you're expected to find a way to reheat yourself up in the wild.

So, so they don't reheat you, you're on your own?

Oh yeah, you're on your own. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the funny joke about it is, is you have a little bit of your equipment with you, and because you're so numb, you'll start your little fire. And a lot of times guys would just like stick their fingers practically in the fire, but because their hands are numb, they don't know that they're burning their fingers.

And did that happen to you?

That happened to my boot. So I had my little fire and I was kind of like, you know, Indian crisscross sitting over it, and the toe of my boot was in the fire, so it completely like melted the toe of the boot off.

Were you wondering why you're warming up so quickly?

No, I didn't think anything of it. I was like, ho-hum, ho-hum. And it was before I walked away and I was, I was warmed up, you know, the drill was over and I'm like, oh, what happened to my boot? And my foot was sore, you know, my foot was burnt and it never occurred to me in the moment. I was just like, I'm getting warm.

What mental factors would you say separate a Navy SEAL from an ordinary civilian?

Focus. What I see a lot of people is, and you know, all the new people I meet are people that come into the gym for the first time to work out. It's the majority of the new people I meet. And they come in and they lose focus. I think you got to be able to commit to something or what separates a Navy SEAL from a civilian is the ability to commit to something and see it through to the end. So I don't think you would ever get a Navy SEAL to pay for, for 12 weeks of training and not take advantage of every single second of it, whereas civilians There are those people out there that, you know, don't complete their 12 weeks. So I think it's just a matter of focus. You gotta— Less is More, that's a book, and I think that's just a really good Navy SEAL principle. You're only going to be good at so many things, so focus and drill down on what it is you're going to be good at.

Yeah, another very good answer. I've actually trained a few Army guys wanting to get ready for a show. And in terms of their discipline, it's second to none. They just, okay, what do I need to do? And they'll do it.

Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, that's, that's kind of a military approach. And then just, you know, Special Forces, SEAL teams, SAS, SBS, those guys just take it to a different level of that same thing. But I think that focus is hugely important. And that's what I was talking about, that is one of the things I learned as a Navy SEAL. That's just another one of them, that all that stuff applies to every facet of life.

Yeah, I had one of the guys, he was cooking every day. I'm like, you know, you don't need to cook every day. You can just cook for a week at a time. He's like, no, but this is my routine. I said, okay, I'm not going to mess with your routine.

That's awesome.

So thanks for coming on the show, Jeff. How can our listeners follow you and keep your wisdom coming their way?

Oh man, so let's see here. I stay away from the internet more so than most people. I'm not very good about putting blogs up. If you buy the Thrive course, you can get me in the forum. But my email is jeff@trident-athletics.com. You can drop me an email. Yeah, there's no real places other than Thrive where I get out there on the internet. I just like to spend my time in the gym training people or consulting with people who are trying to produce results. And I just find when I write a blog post and put it out there for free and try to, you know, share some wisdom with people that some little dweeb has to write some comment below that's like, everything you just wrote was wrong, and by the way, I'm 40 pounds overweight, don't know what I'm talking about. Like, I just want to punch this guy in the face, and it takes all the satisfaction out of writing something. So I mean, I enjoy doing what I do, and the more people I can affect and coach and do this stuff is awesome. I just I'm just not a big internet guy in that sense. So yeah, in the trenches, I guess.

That's a good answer.

Yeah, I mean, in the trenches, guy.

So I did some research on you, and in terms of finding stuff on you, it was quite hard. It was almost like you were— it was almost like you're top secret.

Yeah, yeah, I do a pretty good job of flying low.

So in terms of just getting in contact with you, it'd be your website. And do you have Facebook? I tried to find you.

No, I don't have Facebook.

Okay.

Yeah, because all those same weirdos will find me.

And a YouTube channel? Do you have a YouTube channel even for Trident?

It's going to sound really bad. I don't know.

Okay. I appreciate your honesty.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I know email is old school and everybody out there is like, nobody even uses email anymore, guy. But that's my primary form of communication.

That's how I got in contact with you.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's about the only way to get me. And you know, the only reason I've written stuff online is Coach Chris Summers or Charles. I've written 4 or 5 things for Charles. They just bend my arm to write stuff.

I'm like, "All right, all right." When you've written it, did he put it on his Strength Sensei website?

It was on the previous one. I think now those since have been taken down because they were collaborated articles between him and I.

What were those articles on, if you don't mind me asking?

The first one was on a smarter way to do CrossFit. So this was back when, I don't know how many years ago, when CrossFit was quote-unquote the WOD, before CrossFit started looking into Westside Barbell, before they, you know, really started getting heavy into Olympic weightlifting. And the general concept of it was you know, to do your A1, A2, B1, B2, whatever it is at the top half of your workout, whatever your priority is, and the last bit of your conditioning was basically CrossFit. So say you subscribe to a day that you have upper body horizontal push-pull, right? Chest, back, lack of a better term. You know, at the end you could do as many rounds as you could get of perfect set of 5 pull-ups and 5 convergent bar dips and accumulate as many sets as you can in 10 minutes. But that, again, that would be after your primary work. Yeah. And it was like a 4 or 5 part series or something like that. So it got way, way in depth. And I think I put together like a 12-week cycle of how you could go accumulation, intensification all the way through one cycle while maintaining the camaraderie of CrossFit. One of the cool things about it is that you can get a number of people in there. You can get 2 or 3 training partners. One of my pull-up workouts, as a matter of fact, I stole from Tony Parra and JC down in Dominican Republic. They showed it to me one day and I just turned it into a CrossFit workout. Where you just change the grip basically every set. And JC and Tony are monsters. They're doing like 10, 12, 14 reps per set. And, you know, I mean, we're like 6, 7, 8 sets across in 10 minutes, and we're talking perfect pull-ups. We're not talking about, you know, like swinging or kicking your legs. So you can make CrossFit fun in that way with the training partner, add a little bit of, you know, like that SEAL Team competition at the back half of the workout while keeping your primary training objective up on the top 3/4, top half of your workout. And that was the first article I wrote for Charles, and I think the second one, or the second series, was something to do with nutrition. Supplementation and training for Special Forces.

Would it be possible to dig these up and dust them off, or are they long gone?

Well, I might be able to find them for you. I can ride over there and see if they have them, but they were, they were pretty cool articles. You know, the gist of the whole Special Forces thing is Grip strength is the ultimate determiner of how well you shoot, of all things, in the gym. For most people, the trigger pull of 9 pounds, which is, is most double-action pistols or rifles, is more finger-pulling strength, for lack of a better term, than most people have. So the only way you're gonna do it is to pull the trigger with your whole hand, essentially. And you instantly see the whole problem when when your hand rotates 10 degrees one way or the other when you're pulling the trigger. But, you know, again, that was a multi-part series, and I'll see if I can dig those up for you. But I would say the one jewel that you would take out of the whole Special Forces one is that if you plan to hold on to a gun, you better have some legitimate grip strength.

That's a good way to end this podcast, Jeff. All right. It's a great tip. I'm sure we'll have many people needing to have that grip strength for the pistols they own. Unfortunately, it's not the same over here in Australia. It's a little bit stricter with gun rules over here. But some very good advice.

All right. Yeah.

Thank you very much, Jeff.

Thank you.

I'll speak to you shortly, I'm sure.

What an amazing podcast that was with Jeff and Reece. As always, guys, if you want to get in contact with us, it's info@enterprisefitness.com.au. If you want to do a consult with Reece, it's the same email with me. If you want to, you know, inquire about our courses, anything at all, all goes to info@enterprisefitness.com.au. Of course, check out our website at MelbournePersonalTrainers.com and check out the other shows that we've done there. They're absolutely fantastic. Rhys is absolutely dope on these podcasts. So, you know, show support. Leave us a review on iTunes, share it on Facebook, tweet that stuff, Instagram a picture of the podcast that you're watching. All the sharing, all the love is always very much appreciated. And of course, Let us know what you think on Facebook, you know, comment, don't be a stranger to it. We love hearing feedback, that's how we get better. We're feedback machines in that regard. So, 'til the next podcast, folks, train hard, supplement smart, and eat well.