Intentionally Building Trust w/ Dr. Sean Pastuch

Sean  00:00

Hey, this is Dr. Sean with the active life and you are listening to the airborne mind show

Misbah Haque  00:35

Hey guys, Misbah Haque here. Thank you so much for joining me today. And welcome back to the show. Before we get started, two things that I would love for you to check out. Number one is all the training resources that we have up at the airbornemind.com, which is the home base. If you head over there, check out what is most relevant to you right now and sign up for the newsletter. Number two, please head over to iTunes and leave a five star review. only take you a couple minutes. And I would love to hear what you think, good or bad, helps me out with the rankings and helps me get more people on the show. And yeah, if you love what we’ve been putting out so far, and you want to keep seeing more of it, I would love to hear your thoughts. So once again, head over to iTunes and leave a review. Now today’s podcast episode is brought to you by audible.com. If you enjoy psychology, if you enjoy learning about how the brain works, how we think, how we process and organize information. I think you’re going to enjoy this book that was recommended to me by a de cashew called Mindset by Carol Dweck. I don’t know what took me so long to get to this one. I’ve heard many other people talk about this as well. But super fascinating if you enjoy learning more about your brain and how you think and how you work. So if you want to head over to the airbornemind.com forward slash reading list, you can grab a free audiobook and 30 day free trial there as well. So today, Dr. Sean from performance care RX is back on the show. Last time he was on, I believe it was episode 11 and 12. We got into a ton of tactical information. If you are somebody who’s experiencing any types of aches and pains, hips, knees, shoulders, ankles, lower back, I highly recommend that you go revisit those episodes because they give away so many tools and tricks that you can start applying pretty much right away. In this episode, we talk about, you know, the open workouts, we talked about what Dr. Shawn has been up to, since the last time around, they’ve been doing workshops all across the nation helping coaches in person and remotely. I actually went through their coach’s program for the lower body assessments and got a ton of value out of that one. They have a podcast that just dropped on iTunes. So make sure that you go subscribe to that podcast, where they’re going to be talking to a ton of people way smarter than me. And so I’m excited to dig into that. If you are somebody who’s a coach, and you are looking to learn more about the shoulders, and want to join the coaches program to get your athletes ready for Murph. And obviously beyond that, as well. We dig into the details in this episode. But he was nice enough to give us a discount code for airborne mind readers and listeners, if you’re planning on joining it is airborne coach for 10% off so Airbornecoach (COACH) so definitely go check that out if that sounds interesting to you. But with that being said, I’ll let you get to the episode. I hope you take away something from this one and more importantly, hope you do something with it. Dr. Sean, welcome back to the show.

Sean  03:34

Thank you Misbah. I love being on the show.

Misbah Haque  03:36

I always love having people back on because you were on for episode 10 and 11. And so  it’s been like 20-23 episodes or so for four months or something like that. So a lot happens in that time. And I’ve been keeping tabs with you guys, you have a lot going on. So how’s everything been going with you? How’s life?

Sean  03:55

Life is good, life is busy. Jeremy has, as you know, I mean, at the time when we recorded last time he had a four plus year old than an infant. Now he still has an infant who’s a little bit bigger, who moves around a lot more. So he’s busier. And his daughter is older and more active. Of course, I have a two year old who at the time was just sitting in a corner crawling a little bit. Now she’s up and running around the house and talking in full sentences and my wife is due to have another baby in about a month and a half. So a lot going on. 

Misbah Haque  04:30

So tell me a little bit about how you feel about the Open Season. This year’s Open Season we saw more dumbbells, we saw some unilateral movements and things like that. How did the Open Season go for you? What were your initial thoughts of going through the workouts week by week?

Sean  04:45

So the Open Season? That is a loaded question. There’s a lot to that question. I’m speaking personally, I have not been keeping myself in the best shape over the last year and that’s not something I’m proud of. Right. It’s not that I tell people to do as I do, and as I say, so I need to do better. But I have been waking up early, working out on my own the last few months to try to get myself back into the groove a little bit. But um, as far as personally goes, I did better than I anticipated doing, I was still able to snatch some weights that I didn’t think I’d be able to snatch, which was cool. I did not do 17.5 Because that was a rough week, I didn’t sleep much. And I didn’t want to throw myself into heavy deadlifts. So I did not do 17.5. But I felt pretty good about one through four. I’m sorry, five was not the deadlift that was four. I didn’t do the thruster as well.

Misbah Haque  05:41

Gotcha. In terms of kind of comparing it to previous open workouts, any initial thoughts, you guys were doing a pretty cool series where you were giving out warm ups and things like that for each workout. And you have a very cool series now that you were kind of wrapping up on why you sucked during each open workout. So tell me a little bit about your thoughts when we kind of look back at previous year’s workouts?

Sean  06:04

So it was why you might have sucked cuz some people didn’t. But you know, the open is interesting. In that. I feel like, unless you finish top 20 You think you did terrible. There’s some people who are like, Oh, I moved up by 100 spots and, and they’re happy about that. And that’s cool. But for the most part, people, for some reason seem disappointed with how they did in the open, right, it’s like, as if they could control the other 300,000 people who were working out at the same time, what they were doing every day in their gyms, you know, in preparation. I loved this year’s Open, I love that there were dumbbells involved that loved it, there were, you know, unilateral movements involved. For me, that was very cool. I still have a little bit of a problem with the mental approach to the open, which is that everybody can do it. It’s universally scalable. And it’s what CrossFit is all about. So if you go to a CrossFit gym, you need to do it. By the way, we have squat snatches in the open when orthopedically. That’s not really scalable for some people. But now we have the psyche of, I need to do this, if I’m not cool. I’m not a crossfitter if I don’t do it, but it’s not so good for my head. So my low back because I don’t have that range of motion. I never do it in the gym during the year. Screw it, it’s open, I’m going to do it. And then they get hurt. So that for me was the one little if I had to nitpick this year, but otherwise, I loved it. 

Misbah Haque  07:27

Me too. It’s a tricky thing, right? Because every year the level of competition is going up and up. And we see that not only at the regionals and the games level, but in the open as well. Like we’ve got more complex skills and movements and the envelope is constantly being pushed little by little. It’s a tricky topic to get into.

Sean  07:46

Well, I feel like they need to keep pushing it because the thing is in 2010 2011, I did my first open, and I couldn’t snatch 135 pounds, not at all. And the second workout was snatching, I had to get, you know, one of those in 2012 and get my years mixed up, man. But but the point is that, you know, back then, seven minutes of burpees was a great workout, and it still would be now but people have evolved past that as as a measuring stick, you know, it’s now it’s okay, we can do complex skills in the open because the bottom 15% have been exposed to this. Um, I think that they need to keep on pushing that envelope forward. It’s just it becomes less inclusive, even though they have this scale division.

I agree with you. How has kind of the athletes that you guys have been working with? And, you know, getting them back to living daily life and resolving, you know, shoulder pain, knee pain, hip pain? Have you noticed any change in their attitude and mindset approaching the open?

Sean  08:51

We try to impart a mindset change before they approach the open, right. So depending on who we’re talking about, if you’re talking about the elite athlete, the guy or the girl who’s going to go to the CrossFit Games, most likely we’re not usually their primary coach, right? So that person has somebody else who they’re working with whether it’s, you know, a brute strength coach, Nick Fowler over brute strength, my casual brute strength, or you know, CJ Martin, from Invictus. We don’t necessarily work with those coaches, but we work with those athletes. And what we do is we give them our little piece, and when we’re working with an athlete at that level, who has a coach at that level, and I don’t know why I said CJ Mark, we don’t have any of his athletes in particular, just names that come to mind. But when we’re working with an athlete who has a coach, who’s that involved in their program, we tried to let the coach take control over that. Right? We don’t discuss so much of the mindset going into the workout. It’s with the athletes who don’t have that coach who’s necessarily paying attention to their mindset, or who don’t have a coach at all, who will start discussing with them? You know, what are you thinking about? Why are you thinking about that instead of how what you’re thinking about make you feel. But we are much, much better suited staying in our lane, which is making sure they can.

Misbah Haque  10:18

Something I’ve noticed, at least in our gym here is people who are coming back from injury, it’s like, you have a new new perspective, because your level of gratitude is now you’ve kind of lowered it, right? Because you got used to doing all these movements, and you were going gung ho and, and, you know, just kind of, in a sense, maybe beating up your body in some ways. And then when you get hurt, whether or you start to get aches and pains, you start to notice, like, Whoa, I can’t, you know, I can’t raise my arm over my head anymore, or I get pain, getting out of my car and things like that. So I feel like you start to appreciate what your body is capable of a little bit more. And that’s been really interesting to see, you know, those people, you know, approaching the open with a bit of a smarter mindset.

Sean  11:04

I think that depends on where you are, who you’re looking at, you know, it’s also the people who were like, oh, hurts when I do this, but it’s the open.  And no, as far as I’m concerned, it’s just march 16. Yeah, it’s not anything different. It’s still your body that doesn’t know, Dave Castro said, you need to do this this week. He just knows he can’t do it. No, not right now. So I think it depends, it depends on how well checked a person’s ego is and how well they’re going to be able to handle that.

Misbah Haque  11:39

So tell me a little bit about the dumbbell snatch workout, right? Why? Why might we have sucked during that workout? There were some unilateral movements going on there. And it’s just something different. Like we’ve definitely done it, you know, day to day, maybe in your class wads. But it’s the first time it was in the open. And it was really interesting to see there was a lot of volume. So what were your thoughts on that?

Sean  12:01

Well, the thing if you watched our why you suck, why you might have sucked video. One of the things that we talked about was that not only was it a unilateral exercise, but it was also what’s called a transverse plane exercise, meaning that you were forced to rotate, right? By reaching down when the single arm is between your legs and grabbing a heavy object from the floor throwing it over your head, you’re basically asked to twist, I’d say huge, but there’s a little bit of twisting, there’s a little bit of resisting rotation there as well. And what we find is that most athletes in the CrossFit space who we work with, are not well exposed to that . If you’re doing it in the gym, it’s once every two or three months, right? They’re not coming in and banging out suitcase deadlift with a single arm doing single arm carries, you know, doing single arm snatches. I mean, we have people doing single arm deadlifts from a sumo position all the time. So for us, it was great, our athletes can hold it really watching this because we’re not prepping them. For CrossFit. We’re prepping them for life. I mean life you need to be anti rotational and rotational. In CrossFit, typically, in the past, you didn’t really need to be so for us, that was like a, this is awesome. As far as we’re concerned, CrossFit is moving the envelope forward to a health standpoint as well.

Misbah Haque  13:20

You can also I feel like with something like that, you can notice which side is weaker, like I was coaching a class the other day, and we had dumbbell thrusters, which I swore was going to show up for 17.5. But it didn’t. But you can see something like dumbbell thrusters if somebody’s left arm is significantly weaker. And they’re going to press overhead, like I can think of one gentleman right now who has the right arms flying up there, and the left arm is like this, right, just halfway. And that’s like whether you like without getting into details, that’s definitely something that needs to be addressed in some way, shape, or form. And so I feel like the dumbbells are able to expose some of that a little bit better. What do you think?

Sean  14:00

Yes, there’s that and there’s, there’s also the idea of, we’re gyms we should have dumbbells, you know, and I, I was absolutely guilty of the contrary.  And my, one of my head coaches, his name is Rob Maloney. He’s been with us now for about a year and three months. And very short into his tenure. He’s like, Hey, I’m gonna buy dumbbells for this gym because we need dumbbells. I was like, why would he? No, no. So he bought him. And I was like, Listen, I’m not gonna let you pay for these. I paid him back for the dumbbells. Now our gym has dumbbells. And he was right. You know, like the gym needs. We went to the gym. Right? Another friend of mine tell me the ride ons cost of 516. And I was back and forth complaining about you know, just just having the conversation about affiliate owners. And how are they going to manage this? You have a small gym or you don’t have any dumbbells, I need to go buy them. And he’s like, Yeah, Just just say out loud, you know, I have to buy dumbbells from my gym. And I can play anyway and see if anyone gives you any sympathy. You know, as a Yes, true. Yeah, it’s 100% True. So when the opens came out, we went out and bought three more three more pair of all the weights that we needed. And we were perfectly well stocked. I love that CrossFit is starting to evolve into a unilateral movement.

Misbah Haque  15:23

I totally agree with you. Could you touch on some things that maybe people could do to include more of that rotation or that the transverse plane into their training, maybe it’s in their warmups, maybe it’s in their cooldowns. But when we think of even, you know, when we see the dumbbells being utilized in the open, a lot of it is, there’s this element of explosiveness, and you’re under timed pressure and things like that. But maybe walking away from that and doing something that’s a little more focused and controlled. What are some things that kind of come to mind for you that people could benefit from?

Sean  15:59

Let’s start with the idea of why it’s important, right? Because the number one cause of a lumbar disc injury, so a lower back disc, which is the the basically the little shock absorber in between the bones, the number one way that you can injure that is with coupled flexion and rotation, what that means is basically doing a dumbbell snatch if you lose your spinal position, right, so if you lose your spinal position, if you saw people rounding their back and reaching down to the ground, and just kind of ripping up, that person is at risk of injuring their lumbar disc. Um, so this starts with the idea of being able to preserve the proper position. So that doesn’t happen. Right? Right. So we have to start there. And then we go to the affiliate owner, or whoever is writing the programming for the gym, because as much as we’re talking to athletes, now, they’re not going to be able to walk into their gym necessarily, like, hey, I want to do this program, it wouldn’t be advisable for them to do that. Right. So I think that when, when you’re an affiliate owner, or you’re a coach, and you’re writing a program, you need to be considering quality days, you know, just general strength days. General conditioning, it doesn’t need to be walking to the gym, doing strength, doing a skill, doing a gymnastic segment, or doing a workout it could just be Let’s work on this until we’re good at it. And then we’re going to do a workout including it. Right. So one of the things that we recommend often is that people carry at least twice a week. Right, and we say carry it doesn’t we don’t really care what kind of carry can be overhead carry could be a yoke walk could be a farmer’s carry two arms, one arm sandbag carry, we just want you moving an object from point A to point B, twice a week. And the reason we say twice a week is because most people are squatting three times a week at minimum, and hinging three times a week. Ideally, that’s the lineup, squat and hinge three, carry, push and pull twice. Grounded shoulder or ground overhead ones. That’s how often we want to see people loading things. So as long as those ratios are in line, we’re good. We like to see those different kinds of movements done both in prep work. So we’ll have people go out and do a heavy carry to start their day, right and say, warm up, and we get them warmed up. There’s no going to warm yourself up, but warm up like this, right? And then grab 40% of your one rep max deadlift with a single arm and take it for a walk as far as you can. Take it rest until you’re fresh and do it again and repeat five times on each side or six times on each side. Right? You don’t start that way. But you start a little bit later. And the nice thing about that for a programmer is that’s a very low skill movement. And I say that there are purists out there who are cringing No, like it’s not low skilled to carry heavy objects from point A to point B. I respect that. I’m not I’m not minimizing that. What I’m saying is it is for a CrossFit gym, giving somebody a farmer’s handle and saying Keep your core braced, try to lean into the weight as opposed to away from the weight and take it for a walk. There’s less to do than there is when you’re teaching someone how to snatch is less to look for from a CrossFit coach’s perspective, right. And people are typically going to be safer doing that in the margins of good versus great than they are a snatch or clean and jerk or even a kipping pull up or a muscle. So building those into the beginning of classes as a high CNS load with relatively low skill is a great way to get people started.

Misbah Haque  19:45

So could you dig into the suitcase carrying what you just talked about? Holding, you know, a farmer’s hand or kettlebell out by your side, one arm and then a waiter’s carry which would be like a front rack position on one side? What’s going on? In those two movements, what’s kind of different about them? What are we targeting there?

Sean  20:05

So if you’re listening, and you’re and you’re trying to figure out what the difference is a suitcase carry would be literally what it looks like you, you grab a suitcase, you pick it up and you walk with it, you’re gonna be able to have to handle a very heavy load in that position, right, as long as you can grip it, you can handle a pretty heavy load. In fact, we’d like to say that people should be able to carry 55 0% of their one rep max deadlift for about 10 meters. That’s the goal, right? Believe it or not, we can do that, then carry out 50% of their 10 rep max deadlift for 100 meters, which we also want to see be able to do, because the time under tension just isn’t had we grabbed something heavy, we like pretty quick. Um, so the suitcase carry is going to be the weight pulling down towards the ground, it wants to pull your body towards it. So you kind of have to lean away, even though you’re not leaning away. Right, your body is having to keep you upright by keeping everything on the opposite side turned on. A waiters carry is similar except the weight is higher, it’s by your shoulder think about a front rack position with a kettlebell or with a dumbbell. That’s a way there’s a position. Now with differences. That way being higher, the center of gravity is different, it’s going to function as a heavier load. Right. So it wants to pull you down, it’s going to compress your ribs and make it harder for you to breathe. And it’s also going to require some active shoulder you know, l elevations around where but some active shoulder flexion and abduction to keep the weight where it needs to be. So your shoulder becomes much more intentionally involved in the movement. So typically, people can’t move as much in a waiter’s carry as they can in a suitcase carry, but we’ve programmed both.

Misbah Haque  21:51

So what would you recommend for gyms that don’t have farmer’s handles yet?  

Sean  21:59

But you know what, it’s, I don’t mean to draw. I mean, I do mean some drug to you. But I don’t mean to offend you by interrupting. We get it all the time. Oh, my gym doesn’t have farmers’ handles. So can I just use a heavy dumbbell? But my gym doesn’t have a barbell, can I just use an actual bar loaded up heavier? It’s not the same, right? You know, a farmers handle is an inexpensive piece of equipment, in terms of industrial scope of what you need for your gym. Right, you can get a farmer’s handle for you can get a 45 pound bumper plate for, yeah, maybe even a pair of them, right. And they don’t take up a lot of room. Put some hooks on the wall, and you can hang three to four sets of farmers handles. If you’re only having people use one at a time. You know, for a single arm farmers carry. They’re more versatile for you to use, then an assault bike, or a rower, which costs $1,000 a piece. Buy one.

I like how you gave the percentages, because that gives people some context as to you said, What 50% of your deadlift is for 10 meters.

Sean  23:07

So take whatever you can deadlift, and let’s say for example, you can deadlift 200 pounds for 10 reps, divide that in half, you should be able to carry that for 10 reps. And for us one rep is 10 meters? Right. So if you can deadlift 400 pounds for one rep, you should be able to carry 200 pounds in a single hand for 10 meters or one rep.

Misbah Haque  23:31

Got it. So you don’t, you don’t really want to be afraid to load this movement up since it’s somewhat low skill. And if you let’s say for now, in the meantime, that you don’t have the farmer’s handles, you want to be kind of leaning towards the heaviest that you can handle. Maybe it’s the 75 pound kettlebell that you guys have, or maybe it’s a 70 pound dumbbell.

Sean  23:51

The problem with the kettlebell dumbbell is that people will grab a kettlebell and have to basically swing it away from their body, right, because there’s a big circle at the bottom, a big sphere at the bottom. And the issue with the dumbbell is that it’s weighted so close to your hand, that it actually feels much heavier than a farmer’s handle with the same weight on. It makes it really difficult. It becomes more of a grip exercise than it does a shoulder and torso exercise when you’re using the dumbbell. And that kind of defeats our purpose.

Misbah Haque  24:24

And I guess when you because you can also take that farmers handle and you can go overhead for an overhead carry, right?

Sean  24:29

We have people use the font so that’s a really good point, right? Because a lot of people like me don’t want to buy a farmer’s handles and just carry them with them. That’s what’s the point there’s so not versatile What are you talking about? So we have people use farmer’s handles for everything from suitcase carries one arm carries two arm carries two waiters carries, right because they need to go heavy that’s a better way than a dumbbell or kettlebell to overhead carries when they need to go heavy. We have them do suitcase demos with them. So they can set them up on one side of their body. Stand up on a riser. Now you’re doing a demo From the floor, that’s anti rotational, we have people doing in place of a hex bar deadlift, right, if you if you want to be able to have people do a deadlift, it’s from the side where they’re better loaded, they can lift more weight. Now you have, essentially a hex bar, only it’s unilaterally loaded. So I’m sure there’s other variations that I’m not even mentioning. But they’re much more versatile than they appear when you just look at them for what they seem to be used for.

Misbah Haque  25:27

I think in the next year, hopefully, we’ll be seeing more and more box owners purchasing that. And we finally hear God, sandbags, which I’m excited about and mess around with them the other day, could you tell us with maybe something like sandbag carries? What’s going on there?

Sean  25:43

So what’s going on there it’s funny. Jeremy and I were making a joke, because he moved and I moved within a few months of each other. And we’re like, we should just write a workout called Moving day. That’s, you know, carrying objects, you know, from place to place, and then doing step ups with them. For you know, 13 to 16 reps long step up. I mean, go back and just do it again, right? Because that’s what, that’s what life is, you know, so what is the sandbag carry doing for you, it’s doing that you’re having to stay on tension, while you move from place to place. And when you’re moving, one of the things that people don’t necessarily realize is that you’re mostly on one leg. Right, so now it’s a single leg exercise, which means that you’re having to balance from lateral stability, to rotational stability to sagittal stability, you have to make sure you’re not falling in any direction.  And now all this, you’re squeezing this heavy bag in front of you like a bear hug, it’s pressing on your diaphragm, you can breathe, right? This is where the mindset of stuff comes into it, right? But there’s the opportunity to panic, right, and to start breathing really heavy, and to put that have to put down how to put that you don’t have to put it down, right, relax your breathing, you’re gonna have to be more comfortable with shallow breathing. Because you can’t get that big diaphragmatic breath because the sandbag is pressing on your diaphragm. Right? So it’s a really versatile way. It’s not a versatile way. It’s an exercise that has a versatile effect on the person using it right. It’s not only just a hard and heavy thing to do, but it also can play mind games, which I think is very cool.

Misbah Haque  27:31

I think you guys mentioned this last time you’re on the show, but for heavy farmers carries at some point, and correct me if I’m wrong here can be used to improve ankle dorsiflexion.

Sean  27:46

Yea. But we’re talking about that in a…It’s not that we wouldn’t prescribe heavy farmer’s carries to improve your ankle range of motion. You know, it’s just that the thought process behind that is that you’re going to be better at farmer’s carries if your ankles move well, okay, so if you’re doing farmer’s carries, your body is probably going to make some adjustments along the way. Right? Hopefully enough, but unlikely enough, by themselves with farmer’s carries. There’s other stuff that needs to be done in conjunction with that.

Misbah Haque  28:24

So I guess what I’m trying to kind of connect here is, once your grip is strong enough, you’ll start to if you load it heavy enough, and depending on how you prescribe it, you will start to feel it radiating through other parts of your body. For example, the sandbag carry, you would think that you’re just gonna feel a burn maybe in the upper back just by bear hugging it. But when it gets heavy enough, you get tired enough, you start to feel you know, your butt on fire with every step that you take. And there’s a bunch of other things that are kind of going on. If you take it, if you go far enough with it.

Sean  28:56

Yeah, so that’s a great point with farmer’s carries. One of the things that people say in the beginning is this is a group exercise. I’m not good at my group is weak. So what’s the point? I’ll say? Well, first of all, that is the point for you right now, you know, your group is weak. How many pull ups do you think you’re going to be able to do until your grip goes, right? So what we tell people is kind of the normal evolution of where you’re feeling a farmer carries it oftentimes, people feel on their hands first. I’d be like okay, my hands that up. Now I’m feeling it outside of my folder. They met when they couldn’t get to that wasn’t good enough first that it’s inside of my torso,  my right below my ribs is released to our midst, and then finally have been punching me pocket.  that’s that’s the sweet spot when you finish doing farmer’s carries. And that day or the next day, it feels like someone punched you in the pocket. Now you’re getting the real true value for the farmers carry can do for you.

Misbah Haque  30:04

Very interesting. I wanted to ask you guys this last time you were on but and we briefly touched on this but you know the overhead hold, I’ve been using that word accumulate two minutes within three minutes of your one rep max strict press, did you dig into why that two minutes within three minutes is is the dosage that you kind of provide to people and why the overhead hold in the first place is is good to kind of implement?

Sean  30:30

Sure the data nerds are gonna love this I get trolls are gonna come out like crazy. Like Greg like raccoons on a summer night to the garbage. It’s anecdotal. For us, it was strictly anecdotal, like we saw that people who are able to do that, typically have been in a lockout, and their jerk typically caught the bar better overhead, and had less shoulder pain when doing those exercises. So we just said, You know what, let’s roll with it. Let’s use it. Right, not everything needs to be empirically studied to work. So So we started with the idea of just this is a metric that seems to be repeatable, that people seem to be able to do, and the people who can lock these things out, what it means is they have good shoulder range of motion, right? Because the people who can’t get their shoulders to full flexion and holding that bar out in front of them, they’re not going to be able to hold that bar over their head for an accumulated two minutes and under three and 100% of their shoulder press, or 110% of their shoulder press. So it wasn’t an anecdotally observed exercise, this works, let’s continue doing it. And what it does is basically how many people do you see who catch a snatch and have to hold the bottom for a second? While they said, well, the wait, put it in the right position, or they catch a jerk, but they’re not quite ready to drag that second foot forward. Right? There’s, there’s so many opportunities where people have to hold that bar over their head. And they’re not conditioned to do so. What’s the biggest thing they’re going to be able to do it when they need to, especially it loads it or their one rep max? Right? So we just thought that it would be beneficial thing to build it for people. And what we find is that people who can do it, there are people who can hold the bar overhead for two minutes straight. Like okay, well, your press is probably too weak. And then we go and we look at their press compared to other stuff. And sure enough, there press me.

Misbah Haque  32:23

You’re saying, if you can hold it for two minutes straight, then your presses too weak?

Sean  32:29

I’m saying oftentimes when we first test people. You get people who come in, they put the bar on their head and be like, that looks really easy. Oh, yeah. It wasn’t that bad. Okay, well, is it really your one? Is that really one right back shoulder press? Yeah, yeah, it is. Okay. Well, let’s see how your presses compare to your pull up or your presses compared to your high pole, your presses compared to your jerk. It stinks. Your press thinks you’re a jerk because you’re tremendous from your hips. Right? So that’s a person who were like, great. So holding the overhead position for you right now is not going to be that beneficial. Right, we’d have to go heavier if we were going to do it, but it’s just not worth it. You need to build up your pressing string. Got it? That’s not That’s not always the case. And of course, the idea is that as people who we work with, they’re able to get closer and closer and closer to that three minute mark with the 100 900 210%. That doesn’t mean their press is weak, it means we become conditioned in both. Right? So it’s never if A then B, it’s just typically when we see somebody come in, and they’re just staring at you like they’re sipping a Slurpee. It’s too late.

Misbah Haque  33:44

This is something I think I’ve heard you guys emphasize with the overhead carry, but something that I never really thought about too, too much, but hugging your shoulder to the ear. Right? So like when you’re carrying overhead, you’re really trying to punch up and reach up. Could you dig into maybe the mechanics behind that and why we’re emphasizing that.

Sean  34:04

So it’s less punching up and reaching up. And if that’s how we’re coming across, want to make sure we’re changing our language a little bit. It’s more just getting your arm as close to your ear as possible, because that’s going to be the stacked position. Got it? Okay, right. So, so what we mean by that is, you know, we don’t want you shrugging overhead so much, we want you putting that bar over your head and letting the shoulder sit where it will, but keeping that arm next to the ear, because that’s going to be the most vertically positioned location for the weight. Now the force can go through the elbow can go through the shoulder, it can go through the spine, where if you’re out to the side a little bit, all of a sudden your shoulder starts to burn red because now it’s not, it’s not a stacked weight. It’s a different exercise altogether. So that’s what we meant by that.

Misbah Haque  34:49

And this is also another one. So in something like this movement, the overhead hold or you also do this with, you know, handstand hold, belly facing the wall. When we start Shake, right? When we start to shake what is what is going on there? What’s our body telling us? You’re tired?

Sean  35:08

So the shaking is a great question. I want to make sure I answered throw away. So I don’t want to answer too fast. The shaking is basically your body saying, Okay, we no longer have access to all of the muscle fibers we previously did. They’re tired. They’re not involved anymore. So what, what are we going to do to create stability here? Where are we going to derive force from what is exactly the best position for us to be in? Right? So physically, everything shakes a little bit, we try to find that perfect location where, okay, I can hold it there. If you watch people who shake a little bit when they’re working with a heavyweight overhead, especially, there’s a moment of Zen for them, where it’s affected. And it’s it lasts five seconds, and then it’s gone. And they typically have to drop the weight. Because they know that was the location. That’s where the weight needed to be. I lost it, I can’t get back to it. I need a break. Right. So that is what we typically are seeing when someone is shaking on an exercise.

Misbah Haque  36:15

Now this one is a bit of a loaded question in a way. But did you guys emphasize this a little bit when I was going through the coaches course, for the lower body assessments? How do you kind of portray the athlete that you’re working with? When something is out of your hands? To get them to go see somebody? Right? Staying in your lane, right? It’s a touchy subject, but how do you kind of view this concept, you know, when somebody is in pain, and maybe we’re trying to solve it through exercise, when in reality, they should be going to go see a practitioner because they need further help?

Sean  36:55

Are you talking about from our perspective, or from the coaches we work with?

Misbah Haque  37:01

Let’s start with your perspective.

Sean  37:03

We have their trust. Right? So often, we’re not going after people. You know, we don’t we I don’t I don’t typically get on the phone and call someone and be like, Hey, I’d love to work with you. It’s usually now people coming to us. So they’re coming to us, because they trust that we’re going to be able to help them. And the first conversation we have with them is let’s see if that’s true. Let’s see if we can help you, right? So once we’ve assured them that we’re going to take you on, we’re going to work with you, we’re confident that we can help you, they trust that we can help them. So when we say listen, part of us helping you is helping you find somebody on the ground who can do things for you in two weeks, that would take us three to four months. So they go right. Um, and I think that that’s really the same thing for a coach working with an athlete in the gym, is they have to start with developing trust with their athletes. I don’t think enough people do that. I think they, I think it happens by accident, but they don’t realize that developing trust is an intentional process.

Misbah Haque  38:13

And I guess this leads into my next one, which is the fine line between, cuz I saw your posts recently on tendinitis, which I would love to dig into a little bit. But when you have these aches and pains that are maybe going away, then coming back going away and coming back, versus we see people going to go see a practitioner when they’re broken down. And it may be that they waited a little bit too long. Right. And it may be if they went a little bit earlier, we could have saved some time that way. So how do you know when is that right point? When is the right point to you know, urge somebody to go see someone?

Sean  38:48

Well, first of all, it’s never the wrong time. It’s never the wrong time. Because what’s the worst that can happen? You waste a few minutes, you waste an hour and a few bucks. It’s never the wrong time to go see a practitioner and be like, hey, is this something real? You know, I’m making a commitment to get my bloodwork done now every year? Why I’m not you know, as far as I know, I’m not sick. How many other people do that you don’t get a physical right. Some people do, some people don’t. But you go to the dentist, hopefully, you know. But so it’s never the wrong time. But again, I think that we should probably go back to trust for a second because I think that that comes down to the coach and the athlete having trust in the practitioner that it’s worth it to go see them. Right because that’s, that’s the next big problem that we run into is Oh, the guy I went to see last time just told me to stop doing CrossFit. Well, that sucks. You know? So, um, I think if coaches ask themselves, if they’re actually intentionally developing trust in their athletes all the time, they’ll probably have to be honest and tell themselves that they’re not.  And we’re trying to make athletes great Okay, how are you trying to make athletes? Not make but how are you trying to influence athletes to trust you, so that you can make them? Great? Right? One of the things that is like a pet peeve of mine is when a coach will say, I can’t help that person, they’re uncoachable.   Are they uncoachable? Or do you lack the skills to coach that person? Is there nobody in the world who could coach that person? There probably is somebody who could coach that person in the world, would you agree? Maybe it’s the environment, maybe that person doesn’t learn well in a group, and you need to then be honest with that person and tell them that you would like to help them more, but you’re not confident that you could do it for them in the group. So you’d like to do it with them one on one, and maybe do that first session for free, right? So that they’re building trust that, okay, you’re not just doing this for money. You’re not just doing this, because you want to tell me how smart you are. But you’re doing this because you really want to help me. Right? But you have to be constantly trying to make sure your athletes understand your intent, which has to be for them, it can’t be for you.

Misbah Haque  41:10

What other ways do you personally build trust with your athletes and coaches?

Sean  41:16

So we have a German I have a coach who works with us, who basically teaches us on like communication skills, and on the, you know, just all all the ins and outs of emotional intelligence and running a business. It’s less about running a business, it’s more about being a good person, which parlays into running a business. But, you know, what he taught us was that, you know, there’s four characteristics to trust there’s need to have propriety, which means you need to look the part. Right? If you show up to a CrossFit gym, and the guy coaching class was wearing a suit, you’re like, This guy’s in the wrong field. Right. But if you show up to your lawyer’s office, and he’s wearing a t shirt, board shorts, it’s the same, right? Like, I’m not here. So propriety is circumstantial, right? And so is, so is credibility, which is next, you know, you need to now know the part. So you need to, you know, if you don’t know the answer, say, I don’t know the answer. So when we have athletes who ask us questions, and they’re like, hey, what do you think of this? What do you think of that? If I don’t know? I’m going to tell them? I don’t know. Because I want there to be value when I tell them what I do know. So it’s having credibility, and always having credibility, always having propriety, so they shouldn’t see you at the bagel shop for breakfast. You know, looking a mess. If you’re the guy who they’re with their friend, do they worth considering bringing to your gym? And then they want to introduce you as the head coach, and you’re like, Oh, hey, I’m the head coach, but you’re hungover from the night before you have a hoodie on your face is a mess. You smell like shit. And it’s like, oh, this is my head coach, I told you is so great. Like, they’re not going to make the introduction, right? Or the friends not gonna come. So propriety is always right. And credibility on the topic is always you have to be learning all the time. Then there’s commonality, right? What do you have in common with that person? So the idea of, for example, one of our coaches, our best athlete in our gym, and then there’ll be a woman in a class who has nothing in common, and she’s 60 years old. She’s jumping up on an 18 inch box, which is a win for right. What does he have in common with her? He’s got to find it. You know, first of all, you’re both into CrossFit. Right? Second of all, does she have kids? Oh, she does? Are they your age? Cool? Are they competitive? CrossFitters? You have that in common? Right? Do you like the color blue? Are you into summertime, you have stuff in common? Find it. So the person feels less uncomfortable talking to you? Right? If they feel commonality, they’re not going to feel difficulty having a conversation with you, right? And the last thing is intent. And that’s the hardest one, that’s what I’ve struggled the most with. Because I have a very fast Go, go go go go go go. mentality. I tend to steamroll people and drag people behind me and pull them to where I need them to be. But they’re exhausted when we get there. And I’m like, let’s go. Let’s start. Now. I’m shot, man, you dragged me here. So I’ve had to slow down and work on other people’s level. But the idea is, you know, if people understand that you’re always doing it for them. What’s not to trust? You look the part you sound the part you have things in common. You’re there for them. You’re not asking what? Why wouldn’t they do what you ask them to do when you say hey, I think you need to go see the doctor. They’re gonna be like, Oh, well, you’ve done everything right until now. So what would make you think that this is the first time you’re going to do something wrong?

Misbah Haque  44:53

That’s really powerful, man. There’s so much more to coaching than just the actual you know, starting the clock and guiding people through the movements, it goes up to a much deeper level.

Sean  45:05

I mentioned before that metalor McBride is a good friend of mine he just ran his first 100 mile race. He was an ultra marathon. I interviewed him for my podcast about a week ago. And, you know, one of the things that he always talks about is your trainer until you’ve had a member cry to you, then you’re a coach. Right? And that’s the difference is it’s like, yeah, you’re a technician, you can anyone can teach somebody how to do a snatch. Anyone can teach somebody how to do a clean. And again, the purists out there like, you can do your snatch like I can. No, I can’t find you when, right. But but but you’re not like, Coach until someone’s talk to you about something that’s unrelated to the gym. Right? Because how much are you really helping that person to approach what they’re going to do when they get there if all you’ve ever talked to them about is what happens once they’ve arrived?

Misbah Haque  46:02

You’re using, and I’ve been saying this a lot recently, but movement is a vehicle to authentic expression, right, you’re using everything that’s going on in the gym as a vehicle to something much greater, something that’s much more, you know, whatever your values are. So, for example, I think mindset is something that you place a high value on, I saw you post something about reading positive affirmations to your daughter every morning. And that’s actually something really powerful that I would love to get your thoughts on? How did you have experience with that? How did you kind of come about that? And do we have, you know, is it beneficial for us athletes to be using something like that?

Sean  46:39

So for me growing up, it was less intentional, as far as I knew, you know, um, I wasn’t really a mindful person until probably a year ago. I mean, I’ve been able to surround myself with some people who are really influential on me. And I had great parents, I have great parents, I have a great family. It’s not something they didn’t have, what they did was kind of they lead by example, they lead by words, it just, you know, my father could be a billionaire, he would still be the dumbest guy in the world, because he’s my father. No, no, I’m never gonna live. I listened to him on some stuff. I go to him for advice on some stuff. But at the end of the day, he’s my father. And I can only take that so far. I need someone to come smack me in the face with reality. Who doesn’t love me? Who can you who I know is telling me the truth? Because you have no reason to lie to me. Um, but so, you know, for me growing up, my father always used to tell me, you know, I don’t know what I can’t mean, I can’t there’s nothing you can. It’s just might be hard. And I believe that, you know, like, for me, I was like, Oh, I can’t be a pro baseball player. He was wrong. Right? Or he was wrong, because of the actions I took, maybe who knows, but, but the point is, it doesn’t matter. I never, I’ve never gone into something thinking I can’t. And just because I failed at things doesn’t mean that I think it was a failed effort. And I’ve learned from it and said, Okay, I need to move on now. But only recently have I been mindful of some of the mistakes I’ve made, why I maybe made those mistakes, and how to move forward from them and release myself from what would otherwise be potentially the shame in the failure.

Misbah Haque  48:17

So I guess, some people think of positive affirmations as like, oh, well, I’m just kind of, you know, tricking myself or it’s blind optimism, when in reality, I think what it is, you created the story around you not being able to do something, right, or whatever your limiting beliefs might be. So it works both ways. You can create the story and the narrative the other way and show yourself you know, why you are able to do something, or, you know, I am x I am y and I guess when you do that enough, it can have a really powerful effect on just the way that you operated think on a daily basis. 

Sean  48:55

The ones we did for my daughter, right? Because we’ve been talking about as I put a video up, and I was I went through the affirmations with my daughter, you know, I’m kind I’m brave. I’m what else was it? I’m kind I’m brave and confident and beautiful and grateful. I feel like you’re missing one. And I can. Right? I’m Mackenzie and I can’t. And the thing about that is, we did the same thing in our job recently with our staff, you know, and we’ve done we’ve done similar things without with our online coaching staff. And it’s the idea of, can we really say these things if we’re not these things? So my daughter’s too, she doesn’t know what those words mean. Right. But by the time she becomes 567, she will and I don’t have experience with a 567 year old. So I don’t know how it’s gonna go when they get there. But what I do know is that maybe those words will change for maybe she’ll say, I’m not that I don’t want to be that I’d rather use this word fine. We’ll plug it in there. But the idea is, we can always come back to that because there’s going to be bad days, right? There’s going to be a day where everything goes wrong. And she’s gonna come home and she’s gonna say, this person picked on me this person did that or I got a bad grade or I didn’t make this team, whatever it’s going to be. And if we can go back to those words and say, Well, are you brave? Yes, I’m brave. Okay. Well, then this is how we’re gonna deal with this. Are you confident? Yes. Well, then, you know, you can write so. And you know, this person told me that I’m ugly. Well, are you beautiful? Yes, I’m beautiful. Okay, then we don’t need to worry about what that person said. So the idea is for the end of the day, to always be able to come back to that, that list of things. That was the idea for my daughter, especially because she’s a young woman, I know that it’s, it’s difficult for women in general not not to minimize what they do. In fact, I feel like I’m amplifying what they do. Because, you know, I’m surrounded by some incredible women in my life, who I’m inspired by. But, um, something I heard that if that’s not for you, I heard something really good on Michael Gervais podcast, then I think it’s chasing excellence. But he was interviewing a retired Navy SEAL named David Goggins. And this guy talked about the cookie jar he made for himself. And basically, what he did is he’s like, I have these he used to have these mental battles himself. And he said, everyone was small, we still have. So he took a cookie jar, and this big mason jar, and he wrote down on a bunch of note cards, things that he had done that he was proud of, he wrote it down, he folded and you put it into the cookie jar. So he’s got a cookie jar full of all these things that he’s done that he’s proud of. And now I’m having bad days, when he’s feeling beat down, and he’s feeling like the world is against him. He’s like, I need to go eat a cookie. You go to the cookie jar, pull out one of the cookies and be like, I ran three 200 mile races on back to back to back weekends. That’s pretty cool. Right? Yeah. And he’s like, You know what, that’s not good enough. I need another cookie, he pulled another cookie. And now you’re talking to yourself and reminding yourself of how great you’ve done, instead of thinking about how crappy things are at that moment? Mm hmm. So that’s a good thing I think people can do also. And our business coach gave us one more, a few more. But when you get home, at the end of the day, a lot of people will say, What would I have done different? Right. And I think that, typically, if I asked you Misbah, what would you have done differently today? You would think of something you did poorly, and how you would have changed it right? So immediately, we’ll go to this negative place of Well, I didn’t do a good job of this. So I guess I could have done it like that instead, that would have been better. I know, you’re either happy and empowered by the opportunity to do it in the future, or you’re pissed that you did it wrong, right? And you’re hoping that opportunity comes back up. He told us when you get home at the end of the day, I want you to write down two things that you did that you’re proud of two things you did that were great, the two things that were awesome that day. And then you’re going to write one thing that if you could have done it all over again, you would have done differently, and how would you have done that. And then what you think maybe the outcome would have been right? So that now you’re not actually lamenting over poor behavior. You’re, you’re telling yourself I did a good job on these things. And I could have done this thing better if I didn’t like this, but you’re setting yourself up in a positive light to begin with. And it’s just a totally different expression of the same question.

Misbah Haque  53:25

That’s powerful stuff. It’s a lot of, you know, getting into the way that you’re wired and the way that you’re programmed the way that you think and then getting out of your own way.

Sean  53:37

And your Michael cashew from brute strength is phenomenal. This also I know, he’s working with Justin Sewer on a mindset project. Actually, he taught me a lot about vulnerability, which is, which is the idea of, you know, there’s no, there’s nothing bad, that can come from any situation as long as you grow from it. But you have to be willing to have that bad come so that you can grow. And so that was for me, that was huge. He sent me the book, Daring Greatly by Brene. Brown. I read some of the book. I’m not a huge reader. I gotta be honest with you. Yeah. But the idea of it resonated with me, and we’ve talked about it like before. 

Misbah Haque  54:19

Yeah, him and (inaudible) when they were on the show. That’s one book that they’ve recommended. And it’s quite powerful. Even if you don’t read the whole book, just search up an interview with Brene Brown. And I think she’s done TED Talks. She’s been on the Chase Jarvis show, just the discussion of the book. And the concept in general could be really useful.

Sean  54:39

So to sum it up, there’s no shame in being wrong. And you have to be vulnerable enough to know that absolutely. Summed up that’s the book.

Misbah Haque  54:49

Alright, so I want to jump because I said I would touch on this tendinitis concept, right? Oh, yeah. Post on this. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about tendinitis. tendinosis is If things start to feel better as you warm up and as you progress throughout your workout, you were saying that that is not tendinitis. 

Sean  55:08

Not likely to have tendinitis. So so we have to put that caveat out there that it’s, there’s no if A then B, there’s no always there’s no never right? But so tendinitis the term itis, I don’t know what that’s what is that a whatever, adding it to the end of a word. The English majors can tell us what that is I’m sure drew kind of arrow can tell us what that is. But um, it means inflammatory, it means inflamed. So what we know about inflammation is that the best way to allow inflammation to go away is to rest. Right there’s, there’s the constant back and forth about ice heat, to to compress, not to compress, I don’t want to go down that road, because there’s evidence to all of it. That all works, and none of it works. So you do what works for you, right, but we all know that rest does work for them. And the more work you do, right, if we exercise in nature inflammatory, low level, right, but increase blood flow, we are left with torn down muscles that need to be repaired, the way we repair them is with inflammation. So there’s my own inflammation following a workout, if you’re already inflamed to begin with, and you and that’s what’s causing your pain, I know you add information to that, all of a sudden, you’re gonna be in more pain. And as the workout goes on, you don’t add last you add more. So you’re adding more and more and more inflammation to an inflamed area, it’s going to become more and more painful. But so many people have the opposite experience where their doctor has told them, You have tendinitis, so you need to rest it, and then they go work out, because they’re like, I’m listening to that schmo. So they go work out, maybe wisely, maybe unwisely. And like the first five or six reps, it really hurts. But by the time I’m done with the warm up, it’s feeling okay, halfway into the workout, I’ve forgotten about it, and I don’t get paid again until I get home like an hour after my workout. So I’m going to keep working out because if anything, it makes me feel better. It’s unlikely that those people are dealing with an inflammatory condition. It’s just not likely, because they’re creating inflammation as they work out. And the inflammation is not causing them pain. Alright, so what’s more likely is that they’re dealing with an osis, or the generative condition. Because if you can picture what an oasis is, you know, we’re looking at a tendon, right? So tendons connect muscles to bone, some physiology of attending, they do not stretch, right? So you cannot stretch a tendon, there’s no reason to mash, if there’s no reason to smash it, to bend it, to pull it, it’s not going to stretch, right? The only way the tendons change their form is by being loaded. So the way a tendon is loaded, is we load the muscle that the tendon is attached to, and we move the joint that is attending classes. So when we’re looking to change the way attended is from the way attended looks, what we need to do is essentially, right and concentric li spend time under tension with that tendon. We need to spend time where we’re saying, Okay, we’re going to load this through movement range of motion. And we’re going to load it out of that range of motion over time, because the body will say, Okay, I need to regenerate this tendon in a different way. So it functions more effectively, if we’re going to be doing that activity.

Misbah Haque  58:40

What are some common areas? I’m assuming the elbow and the shoulder? Like, what are some common areas that you could make this a little more practical for people, if they think they’re experiencing tendon tendinitis in this area.

Sean  58:54

So the knee is probably the best example because I have a great exercise for people who are dealing with that. So if you’re dealing with knee tendon osis, right, or you’ve come off of knee tendinitis, now it’s just a weak knee and you’re worried about coming back. There’s a really good protocol called heavy slow resistance training that was actually taught to me by one of our staff members named Ray Gorman, who owns a company called engage movement out of Reno, Nevada. And heavy slow resistance is basically you would be squatting right to a box or to a target, that is not full range of motion. So just above full range of motion, or as far as is tolerable, but absolutely not below parallel. And that does not mean by the way that I don’t promote below parallel squatting. I’m absolutely all about squatting to full depth. For this particular protocol. We don’t squat to depth power. So we stop just below, we get just above parallel and the eccentric phase. So the lowering phase is a four second phase. You know, Mississippi, One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three minutes Before we tap, and then we turn around, and the up phase is three Mississippi, so Mississippi, One Mississippi, two, Mississippi three, so each rep should take about seven to seven and a half seconds, the load on the bar should be an eight out of 10 at a rate of perceived exertion. Right. So that’s it’s a different way for everybody, it’s a different way to every week, the pain scale that we’re allowed to deal with is you are allowed to experience pain doing this, provided that the pain stays less than a five out of 10. This is absolutely the hardest part of this thing to measure. Because for some people, a five is excruciating for some people, and five is like a paper cut. I got a paper cut last week, it sucked, but so good. So the idea that I give people is if the pain is getting worse from rep to rep, or if it becomes intolerable stop there, if the pain is plateaued staying where it’s at, then stay right there. And it’s a 12 week protocol. People think this is a fast thing that they’re going to get rid of by smashing icing, banding, whatever, it’s not, takes a long time to change this stuff. You can exercise during it. But you know, stuff like the assault bike is awful for knee tendinitis, or tendinosis, any of that rhythmic like, over and over again, flexion extension flexion extension, it’s going to be bad for that tendon. So the first week of this exercise, we’re going to do two to three bouts, heavy slow resistance 15 reps, three sets always needed a 10 RPE by the last three or four reps in the set. And we continue to accelerate that protocol to the point that every week, the weight is getting heavier, the weights are, you know, the reps are getting lower, and the sets are getting higher. So I’m actually pulling up because I don’t have it memorized for you fully. I’m pulling up for you exactly what the protocol is. Give me one second here. So week one, right. And these are, these are considered tendinopathy progressions is going to be three sets of 15. We have two or three sets of 15. Week three is three sets of 12. And remember, they’re all an RPE of eight, which means the weight has to be going up to stay there. If you’re acclimating Right, right? We forest, three sets of 12. Read five is four sets of 10. Week six is four sets of 10. We seven and eight are four sets of eight, and the next four weeks, 9 10 11 and 12 are all four sets of six reps. Okay, so the idea is that you’re doing this two to three times per week. And it’s always at a 10 on the RPE and less than in less than a five on the pain scale. That’s a great way to recover from a tendon issue. If it’s not inflammatory and getting worse with the trip.

Misbah Haque  1:02:56

That’s good stuff. That’s something actionable that people could mess around with right away.

Sean  1:03:01

Yeah, it’s great. And the thing about it, though, to be mindful if you’re a coach, give this to an athlete or athlete trying to for yourself is it’s one thing in your puzzle, right? It’s not like, Oh, great. I heard this thing from Dr. Sean and this Airborne Mind podcast, I’m going to do it, I’m going to be great. If you’re sleeping for hours, and I don’t care what you read. Right? If your diet sucks, I don’t care what you add. This is one piece of everything else in your diet in your sleep and your stress and your behavior. And your programming is perfect. Adding this might be the thing you need. But to add this and say, Great. I’m gonna fix myself because I got this thing from Dr. Sean. Nonsense. You’re not? You’re just not

Misbah Haque  1:03:49

It’s all connected. I don’t think I asked you this version of the rapid fire question last time you were on. But I really love hearing people’s responses with this. So let’s say that you had a billion dollars, a couple billion dollars, actually. And you had a staff of 40 people. And these 40 people were the top performers in whatever craft it is that you recruited them for. And you want to use this to make some type of change or impact. What would you do with it?

Sean  1:04:18

So I have 40 people, I have billions of dollars, and I want to use these people to create a change or an impact. What would I do with it? Is that the question?  Are these people organized? In other words, do I have a hierarchy of what their roles are?

Misbah Haque  1:04:35

Yes, you can, these are the top performers in whatever it is that you’ve gotten them for?

Sean  1:04:42

I think what I would do is I would ask them what we wanted to change as a group. I would provide direction but you mentioned Simon Sinek start with why earlier? I don’t know if that was during the pre show or during the show. But he also talks about you know, leaders talk lacks leaders eat last So I would, I would ask my 40 people what they think we should do, what problem we should solve, you know, and then weigh out the which problem, can we be more effective with using the resources that we have at our disposal? What’s the plan? And let’s do it. That’s the new me. That’s the new me by the way, that’s the Jeremy Todd influenced me, the old me would say, I want to fix childhood obesity. And I would deploy my staff in such a way that we were able to do it, and I would put my money here and I put my money there. And that is the old Shawn passed you just dragging people along. So the new me would make sure that they were inspired by the task at hand.

Misbah Haque  1:05:45

That’s really powerful. So you have a podcast coming out soon, which I’m pretty excited to tap into. Could you give us a sneak peek on, you know, at the direction that you’re kind of going with it when it comes out? Any details you could provide for us?  

Sean  1:06:03

 I’m pumped about the podcast, because it’s, for me, it’s a manifestation of my own evolution, if that makes sense, right? Yeah, I wasn’t, I wasn’t emotionally or mentally capable of producing this podcast a year ago. Even though if you asked me a year ago, are you capable of doing this and be like, Fuck, yeah, I’m capable. Yeah, let’s do it. But I wasn’t, you know, I wasn’t good enough. Listener. I wasn’t good enough. Asker, I wasn’t good enough. Anything to be valuable to people in a podcast forum. I thought it was okay. That people would be like, some people like me off the bat. But some people didn’t. I was like, well, that’s their problem. Now it’s my problem. Getting a better job of that. So long story short, the podcast, as it’s planned right now, excuse me, is going to be three days a week, Monday monologues, where I’m going to talk about stuff that I think is helpful for people like one of the ones I’ve already recorded is you have a disc injury. What does that mean? Right? One of the ones I’ve recorded is you told your doctor that you want to have back pain. So he told you to stop running. And you’re upset about it? Whose fault is that? Right? Is it yours for saying I want to be a pain or the doctor for getting you out of pain? But taking away what you love? And what do you do about it? And then Wednesday’s are going to be Wednesday wise, where we’re basically going to let people ask us questions. I’m going to call those people and answer their questions on the show. So won’t be live. But it’ll be you know, real conversations on edited conversations where people will be able to ask questions, hopefully, I won’t end up getting stumped on anybody. But if I do, again, you’ll hear I don’t know, for me, those I’d expect to be anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes long. And then on Fridays, you can be Fridays with friends, where I’m interviewing, you know, people who are influential who I think people need to hear more from, and talk to him about their process, about their mission about their drive, and hopefully educate people and influence people to understand that they don’t have to have everything now. And most of the people who they think are overnight successes, took years to even consider what success looks like.

Misbah Haque  1:08:17

That’s powerful stuff. And it’s what you were saying about. Essentially, we’re talking about growth, right? Like you feel like you’re at a point now where you’re ready to take this on. But it’s also something once you take it on, and you’re let’s say 3040 50 episodes deep, it is a very cool thing for you, and the listeners to be able to watch your growth, episode two, episode two episode. And I guess it’s the same thing with maybe blogging or Instagram, whatever, like there’s this record of something, you were thinking something you were feeling that’s out there. And you can watch that grow over time, but for some reason, with a podcast, I don’t know, I feel like it’s a little more intimate. And you can get to know, you know, the guests better, you can get to know the host better. And so even when we look at maybe the first episode, you were on Episode 10, to 11 all the way to now, you know, we’ve learned a lot of experience in that time. So it’s just a very cool concept to me, I’m excited that you’re going to be a part of it.

Sean  1:09:13

Yeah, I’m excited and a little bit nervous at the same time too. Because I’m, I have a tendency of really enjoying the chase. I really enjoy the chase. It’s almost unhealthy how much I enjoy the chase. And then when I catch it, sometimes I’m like, alright, well, what’s cool, what am I gonna chase next? Right? So I need to be cognizant of myself that, you know, there’s a constant chase in the podcast world as well, where it’s, you know, what, how are you going to get better The chase is to improve the chances to get, you know, more interesting information out of the same guests. My hope is that I can go back and have all the same guests a year later, and have people be like, Wow, that was a really cool interview where maybe the first time they thought it was cool, but now they’re like, Wow, that was really cool. So that’s, that’s where I’m hoping to be able to go with that. And it’s the same thing with our seminars. And that’s how our workshops are exactly the same. Our first workshop is two hours long for 10 bucks a person or 20 bucks a person at a CrossFit gym for 11 people. That’s changed

Misbah Haque  1:10:24

It’s a man it’s It’s some good stuff, specially I feel like in the podcast world, like it’s still new, you know, it’s still fairly new. Not everybody is listening to podcasts, there’s so much art that is left to be explored. And you’re kind of doing it with that, you know, Monday monologue Wednesday, why and like these different ways to make it a little bit more interesting for listeners. So it’s gonna be really cool to watch. Tell me a little bit about the shoulders program that you have coming out for coaches to get everybody ready for Murph?

Sean  1:10:54

So it’s less his shoulders programming, it’s more a construct that happens to be focused on the shoulders. So out, we kind of feel like our calling now is to move towards educating coaches. And what that doesn’t mean is that we’re gonna stop working with athletes, it just means that we get a lot of higher level questions from people that we really enjoy answering. And we figure what’s the best way to make ourselves obsolete? Because someone else is trying to do it. Right. Yeah, it’s it’s make it some the coaches and the doctors don’t need us. The athletes don’t need us right at the athletes don’t need us. It’s because their coaches know doctors have figured it out. Why don’t we just help them figure it out? Right. But so the, to cut to the chase on your question. We are teaching coaches how to build shoulder resiliency right now, for athletes in their gyms. So when Murph comes along, when they’re asked to do 100 Pull Ups, whether it’s on a band or not, that’s a lot of pull ups, in between 200 Push ups, 300, air squats and two miles of running with a vest in some cases. But if you can’t do a pull up and you’re wearing an investor, you’re misguided. But, but the point is we you know, too often people think the way I’m going to get more pull ups is by doing more pull ups. And that’s just not true. Right, you’re gonna get more pull ups by having healthier shoulders, right? So we’re helping people to build healthier shoulders while they develop more and better pull ups and leaving the skilled portion of it to the coaches, but we’re educating the course on how to know who, what, where, why and when, in their program. So our coach program is ongoing. But what we do is every month, we try to have a new focus so that it stays fresh for people. The depth of knowledge in the coaches program is really deep. I mean, I have immense respect for Dr. Jeremy for putting it together. It is incredible. I mean, to the point of someone in your gym doesn’t have double unders, why not? They’ve been there for six months. Why don’t they have double unders? Oh, they’re not again, that they’re not coachable. Or they’re or they’re not athletic enough? No, that’s bullshit. Are they? Are they strong enough to hold themselves in their tippy toes for 30? seconds? No, what makes you think they’re strong enough to try double unders? Right? Can they hop in place for a minute? Without a rope? No, they can’t even do that in rhythm. And they’re not gonna be able to do double unders, strip away the skill. Build the foundation? Develop the athlete. Right, tell them first. So that’s the point of our coaches program from beginning to end.

Misbah Haque  1:13:38

You know that those concepts go well beyond just the Murph workout that can be carried throughout well into the rest of the year, right.

Sean  1:13:46

Yeah, we’re having a workshop coming up on April 22 23rd of this year, none of this is gonna air before or after that. But we put out an application process, right, because we’re like, you know, what? We’re tired of not being tired. It’s the wrong way to put it. But it’s straining and dreaming to go out and just put knowledge out and put information out and then have people use it the wrong way, even though they’re trying to use it their best way. So we’re like, let’s have a workshop, where we bring in some of the best coaches in the world, and teach them how to do this. So we bounce around ideas, how do we make sure that the best coaches in the world make it expensive? You know, what do you do? And we said after the expense, because it’s really not about the money. It’s about teaching the skills and about making fitness better. So he said for 20 bucks 20 bucks is your application fee is your registration fee? Because people just want no show as high of a rate if they’re gonna lose 20 bucks for not showing, right. So we put out an application, we said we’re looking for the 50 best coaches in the world to come and learn how to assess movement. And we’re going to go through a sliver of what we do. But we’re going to go through that sliver as deep as the silver goes. We had over 125 coaches apply in 24 hours. So now we have 60 coaches coming from five different countries. And I want to say 19 states, all flying out to Island Park, New York, this little town in New York next to Long Beach where I live, to learn how to assess an ankle and knee hip, a low back from a coach’s shoulder, you know, from a coach’s perspective, through a doctor’s direction. Wow. It’s cool, because now those people are gonna go back and impact their athletes. Oh, you every time you squat, you come up onto your toes. Oh, it’s got to be, you know, your ankles are immobile. Maybe not. Maybe what if it’s not? What if we what if your mind is blown that athletes ankles move? Great. Now, what are you going to do? This is now throwing away under their heel is bullshit. It’s irresponsible. It’s negligible, you know better now what? So that’s  what’s exciting for us is just changing the way people think altogether.

Misbah Haque  1:16:06

And so I went through the coach’s program for the lower body assessments. And part of the homework that we had was to actually assess people and get in the game, then go back, watch the videos, and just do that back and forth. And when I put that, you know, out there in our little Facebook group for our gym, the responses were just amazing. Like everybody wanted to get assessed, like, it got to a point where it was out of control. And it was really enlightening for people to see like, oh, wow, this whole time, I thought my, you know, hips were the issue. But really, it’s my left ankle. And it went so deep as like, if you feel tension in the back of your ankle, there’s a certain protocol to follow. If you felt tension in the front, there’s a certain protocol to follow. And that level of depth, I think that members and your clients really appreciate that, you know, when you do your homework, and you can understand things on a deep level, and, you know, curate it to them in that way. It’s it’s another way to build that level of trust.

Sean  1:17:06

To me, this coach program is our legacy. You know, there’s something else that eventually going to be our legacy after this coach program. I and I understand that I’m not I’m not I’m not ignorant enough to believe that this will be the best thing that we ever do. But it’ll be the best thing we’ve done. Yeah. Right. So we wanted it to be something that was profoundly helpful, that there wasn’t a little itty bitty, you know, a little bit of help here, a little bit out there. We wanted it to be thought through and thorough and helpful for people and actionable. 

Misbah Haque  1:17:43

Are you going to be opening up? Are you going to be doing this one again, where you take on another group of 50 coaches, at some point in the future?

Sean  1:17:51

We didn’t know if he would or not, because we knew what the turnout was gonna be, you know, we put out an application process and like, who’s gonna apply? Like, really? Who’s, you know, what do you get 25 people to stupid. And in the beginning, it was a guy, I got four emails the first night. Like, ah, sucks. By the time I woke up, I had over 80 Wow. But by the time lunch hit, I had 120. And I was like, turn it off, turn it off, turn off the link. I don’t even know how to. I don’t know how to go through these. I didn’t really think through it to the point that all these people would want to come. So I turned it off. And yeah, I mean, I think we’ll do it again, we have some interest in places to do it. But this has been an undertaking. I mean, we’re flying, we’re flying out four of our coaches to help us with this. We are, though there should be something like an eight to one, to 10 to one, coach to staff ratio, so that you’ll get a lot of attention. And we’re running it like an event like, like a fit again, like a competition. You know, you show up, you’re going to be at group one, Lane one, and you’re either a coach or you’re a judge, and you started this time. Like it’s right, it’s gonna it’s gonna run like an event, we’re gonna have a registration staff. And it’s all because there’ll be some unexpected love in there. We want people to show up and be like, Wow, I would have paid $2,000 for this. I only paid 20. I better do this thing justice when I go home. So when it’s over, Jeremy and I will sit down. Gazes into each other’s eyes decided not to do it again. But we love it. So I don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t. It’s just it won’t be any time in the next month or two. It will probably be over summer after the games I would bet.

Misbah Haque  1:19:54

That’s really exciting, man. I’m excited for you and good luck with everything. I want to be respectful of your time. What should a coach or athlete take away from this podcast?  We touched on so much. 

Sean  1:20:10

I honestly think as much as I wish that I could say the most important thing we talked about was something technical, you know, like a skill to develop or a lift that we talked about doing more of one assessment that we would teach. I think it’s intentionally building trust. I think that’s the most important thing that we talked about. So I’ll give you guys an activity for those of you who stuck around to the end, because I think you deserve it. Right. So this is an activity that we do with our staff. At the end of every staff meeting, I asked him to rate the staff meeting one to five, right? One meeting was terrible. I want you to tell me why it was terrible. What did we not accomplish? Five being it was perfect. Tell me what was perfect about it. I want you guys to rate yourselves, one to five, and all four categories. So when you look at yourself, and be honest, be objective, and be vulnerable, be willing to tell yourself you suck at that. But don’t be hard on yourself, either. Give yourself credit where it’s due, right? Rate yourself, on a scale of one to five? How high is your propriety? Right? Do you look apart all the time? If I saw you the morning after? Whatever the event the night before was, if I saw you the morning after brunch? Would I be motivated to refer my friend to you? And Will my friend be motivated to come to you one to five? And your worst? How good are you? Ask yourself on a scale of credibility. One to five? How deep is your knowledge in the subject matter that you’re teaching? And how well do you portray one to five? And tell yourself why am I not good at these things? Why am I closer to a woman to a five? What are the things that I need to improve? On the most right? This is why I’m five. communality. How good are you at finding it and discussing it with people and basking in it, enjoying it? One to five, right? And then intent? One to five? How well do people understand that you’re there for them instead of being there for yourself? And that is it goes so deep to somebody like me having to actually talk slower, to have better intent. Right? It goes to me having to break eye contact with people intentionally. Because they’re uncomfortable with the amount of intense eye contact that I make in live conversation in person. So it’s empathetic for me to break from time to time. How good is your intent? Right? On a scale of one to five? Once you have those four ratings, ask yourself Okay, which one was my worst one? Which one was my best one? For my worst one? What can I do to improve it? actionable day to day? Do you measure it? No, I’m improving. For my best one. Who can I help who’s not as good at this? Right? And also seek out someone who’s really good at what you’re worst at. And just be with them? Just don’t even ask them for help. Just be with them. They’re gonna rub off on you. Right? You’re not going to be the guy who’s burping and farting, if everyone around you has their shit together. It’s funny. Yeah, you know that the person who spends all their time with five millionaires does not stay poor for a long time. So that would be my biggest takeaway from this meeting.

Misbah Haque  1:23:44

Love that man. I’m excited for people to dig into that and uncover some of the limiting beliefs and just kind of get to know yourself better. And because that’s if the more you can get to know yourself better and know how you’re wired, how you’re programmed, where your limits are, where you can improve. That’s where the breakthroughs happen and how and how you can show up for other people and how well that you can help them. So I appreciate you giving us that exercise.

Sean  1:24:10

No problem. I love that exercise. I was asked to do it. And I’ve asked my staff to do it. And it’s been phenomenal.

Misbah Haque  1:24:17

So how can we support you? Where can we point people to? Let us know where can we find you?

Sean  1:24:23

If you’re a coach, and you really want to take your knowledge to the next level, head to performancecareRX.com, performancecarerx.com and click on coach, get on the coach program. I don’t toot our own horn, right. It’s easy for me to toot my horn on this one, because I didn’t have that much to do with it. I had the idea for it. And Jeremy has executed the shit out of it. There is no better education system on the market today for coaches to be better coaches than our online coach program. stamping. Anybody who listens to this right. We can do this because we can get you a coupon code for the code of the airborne, okay? So you can put that in the show notes, but AIRBORNE, right? Yep, code is airborne, I’ll make sure we get that job today. Anybody who listens to this, who’s a coach who wants to try our coach program, use the coupon code airborne, will give you 10% off. And if after the first month, you’re not 100% Satisfied that you’re like, This is the best thing I’ve ever done. Cancel, we’ll give you your money back. So you get to keep the knowledge you get to keep the assessments that we taught you. And you get to keep your money, because we don’t want your money if we can bring you the value. So that’s something people can start doing right. If you’re an athlete, it’s the same website performancecarerx.com And you just click athlete and you have a bunch of tools on there for athletes to follow us on Instagram. activeliferx, Facebook Active Life RX, and tell us what you love and hate about us. The way we improve is here the good and the bad, right? We try to do more of the good less than the bad or we tell people we don’t like it to shove it depending on what it is.

Misbah Haque  1:26:11

How about YouTube?

Sean  1:26:13

Yeah, good call super clear. We have a YouTube channel so youtube.com/theactivelife. I have not figured out how to hack a YouTube algorithm yet. So we’re still somewhere around 2000 subscribers and 100,000 views or something but I would love for that to go because all of our there’s nothing really that we post anywhere. It’s not already on YouTube for free. It’s just we haven’t curated it. So head on there and learn.

Misbah Haque  1:26:41

Awesome and once again, I appreciate you taking the time to drop some knowledge and make some lightbulbs go off for us.

Sean  1:26:48

No problem. I hope the labels went on. 

Misbah Haque  1:26:52

Thanks man

Sean  1:26:52

You’re welcome, my pleasure Misbah.

Misbah Haque  1:26:54

Thank you so much for listening, guys. I know you’re probably driving right now. We’re probably eating cooking work now you’re doing something else. But make sure you head over to airbornemind.com check out some of the free coaching videos, warmups guides, checklists, all the things that you can use to make the best use out of your training time. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on iTunes and let me know what you think. I love hearing from you guys. And it would really help me out so I can continue creating awesome stuff for you. And remember, the greatest compliment you can give is by sharing it with somebody else who might enjoy it or somewhere on the web. So once again, thank you so much for being a listener and supporting the show. Until next time!