What else did you pick up from Polloquin

if anything comes to mind? Let's start

there and then I'll trade with you.

>> So many gems. H that's a tough question.

>> It is. Sadly Charles is no longer with

us.

>> I know.

>> I actually got the phone call about it

pretty much immediately after

>> after he died which was very sad, very

tragic way too early. But anything else

come to mind?

>> Okay,

>> I can buy you some time if you want.

>> He was trying to master everything from

>> right he was helping bodybuilders,

>> athletes.

The thing he told me so only one time

when I finally had the money and freedom

to go see he came to America did seminar

this was towards the end.

>> Mhm. and he says only regret was not

getting into flexibility sooner and you

know he was a wealth of strength

knowledge a lot of that strength

relating to range of motion that

definitely left an impact on me

>> that had gotten into that sooner and the

conclusions I've come to is you can see

my style of training

the way I stretch wouldn't be how

someone would normally think of

stretching but just the idea of your

strength and your flexibility really

getting those into harmony to where the

positions that you're flexible in you

feel strong in those positions.

>> And so I've really explored that deeply

now compared to let's say look people

are going to have way more experience in

bodybuilding, powerlifting, strong these

kind of things and Charles had way more

experience there than me. So, I think

that was

if someone goes to my pages and sees the

style that I train,

>> I feel like that was the gem that was

just what I needed that gave me now like

the systems that I love.

>> And also getting strength and

flexibility or mobility and harmony can

sometimes mean that you're training both

at the same time, right?

>> Often can mean that. And we were

recording earlier and not that I'm going

to win any gold medals in the split

squat, but like my range of motion's

pretty good all things considered.

>> Mhm.

>> And

I credit that to doing the movement and

also

I gave him a a shout out when we were

recording. Jersey Gregorette, some

credit where credit is due, who holds

multiple world records or did in Mast's

Olympic weightlifting. He is he's got to

be close to 70, if not 70 now. He can

still do he can stand on a balance board

like an indo board with a fully loaded

barbell and do an ass to heels Olympic

snatch at his age. It is unbelievable.

His wife also holds a few world records.

She can do the same thing. Their

sustained athleticism is just beyond

incredible.

And for ankle mobility, he had me doing

basically one or two reps on the minute

overhead squats. So, I'm holding a

barbell overhead, but we're talking bar,

maybe plus 5 lbs on either side, very

light weights, just doing one rep on the

minute for like 10 to 20 minutes. That's

it. And by greasing the groove in that

way, I went from basically zero ankle

mobility, lots of injuries, still a lot

of lateral instability to being able to

do what we did earlier, which is frankly

years after I did that training. It's

been really durable, which is wild.

>> Yeah. So, one of the points that I hear

you making that I see reflected in a lot

of what you do is that you don't

necessarily have to do, you absolutely

don't have to do for most things like an

hour of strength training every other

day plus an hour of stretching every day

or every other day. You just do not that

is not necessary for most people at all.

>> Yeah. like the surface area for injury

goes up also when you're throwing

everything in the kitchen sink with lots

and lots of hours. And certainly, I

mean, I had conversations with Charles

back in the day where we talk about some

of these professional athletes, let's

just say NFL players who have five 6%

body fat. You know, they destroyed the

combine. They're these absolute phenoms.

And I would ask him, "What do they eat

for their diet?" And he'd be like, "Oh,

Wendy's for breakfast, Burger King for

lunch, McDonald's for dinner.

I mean, you have to be very careful that

you're not modeling your training on

mutants, right? I'll just pull out a

couple of things from Charles. So, I

first met Charles because he reached out

to me after reading the 4-hour work

week, my first book, and he had applied

a lot of it to his business and his

productivity. And I think at the time,

he didn't realize this, but I had been

exposed to tons of his stuff, just as

you had through magazines.

>> Nice.

>> Way back in the day. and he reached out

and he's like, "You don't know who I

am." And I was like, "Well, actually,

that's funny because I do know I do know

who you are." And then we connected and

Charles ended up in the 4-hour body. He

introduced me to myofascial release and

active release technique. And there's

some before and after photos with

internal rotation on the shoulder in the

4-hour body that are unbelievable. They

look like they were staged because the

gains in range of motion are so

significant.

He was right about so many things.

Wasn't right about everything, but there

are so many things that Charles did that

ended up being proven out through

studies and data collection later and

exercise science and other fields is

pretty remarkable. I mean, he got a lot

of things right.

>> He was so dedicated. I forget the exact

number, but he learned a bunch of

different languages just so that he

could read

>> essentially everything that had been

written about exercise

>> in the source language,

>> right?

>> What a maniac. Also canankerous as

Oh my god, he was so salty.

You know, part of his charm. One of a

kind. Who else has influenced your

thinking on

exercise and

movement just broadly speaking your way

of training?

>> Well, Charles and then also Charles was

really cool about crediting where he

learned different things.

>> Mhm.

>> And so that's something I've kept in and

it also gave me the idea that like okay

there might be real gems in quite a few

areas. So

>> I know you've talked about gymnastic

rings. Okay, doing rows and pull-ups

with gymnastics rings, I do one set to

burn out of each per week.

>> That saves me so much time and gives me

a pretty balanced upper back for my

goals. So, like there's a gem that

Paulin didn't teach me, but his general

mindset of learning.

>> I'm just going to pause to ask you to

repeat something you told me earlier.

Where did Charles figure out the

backward sled pulling?

>> Oh. Oh, man. Such a cool story.

>> If you want to talk about pulling from

unusual places.

>> Yeah. So, Charles, to the source,

Westside Barbell in Ohio, led by Louie

Simmons, who was creating the strongest

powerlifters in the world. And Louie was

jealous of these Finland powerlifters of

their squats, and they said that their

secret weapon was their day job was

dragging trees. So, Louie invented the

idea of dragging weight as a form of

exercise. And then that became a way of

life at Westside Barbell. One of Louis

Simmons disciples, Dave Tate, who made

the, if you've heard of Elite FTS, they

made the Prowler style sled. All kinds

of amazing stuff. I'm going to see Dave

in in two weeks actually for the first

time.

>> Dave has a quote that's like, "We didn't

have warm-ups. It was Louis Simmons just

telling him, hey, before you train, go

out to the parking lot and drag the

sled."

>> He's like, "We didn't have called

warm-ups. It was called the stuff you do

before you train.

>> And people are like, "How long, how many

sets and reps?" I I don't know. It was x

amount of times down the parking lot.

Oh, how long was the parking lot? Don't

know. So, it was cool the history there.

But it's cool how Charles Polloquin

would just go to the source. He'd go to

the source in Europe or Ohio or wherever

it was. He would go to the source and

then it was like I told you, it was this

article of where he used the backward

sled for knee rehab for this Olympic

athlete that kind of I don't know that

kind of like gave me a stepping stone to

all this stuff. Yeah, if people also

want to look up Louis Simmons and his

writing online, a lot of amazing tidbits

to be found to this day and a lot of his

writing and Westside Barbal for a period

of time, it was just one of those

factories for mutants. And of course,

there's some selection bias if people

are traveling to the Mecca to station

themselves there to train. There's a

little bit of selection bias, but the

results were just so

incredible.

>> Yep. and the number of world records

broken and the number of innovations

whether that's say chains to provide

more resistance as you get into stronger

ranges of motion with whether it's

deadlift or anything else I mean bands

and so on I mean a lot of what you see

that is propagated throughout the gym

universe started there y

>> or at least was codified and sort of

formalized in some way there

>> y So, that was a great one. One that I

think would be inaccurate if we missed.

There was a bodybuilder named Bob Gaida.

G A J D A

>> Bob Ga.

>> Don't know that name.

>> He was Mr. Universe right before

bodybuilding really blew up. And now

these are his words. He worked at the

Chicago YMCA. His passion was helping

get kids off the streets, off drugs,

doing bodybuilding. He's Mr. Universe.

He goes into the lockers one days and

sees people shooting up drugs, steroids.

Like this was the beginning of steroids.

When I say this, people are like, "Oh

no, Bob was on steroids, too." Look,

this is Bob's story.

>> Bob's story. What you can look up is he

was Mr. Olympia when he quit.

>> Not a lot of people are going to quit,

right? When guess what? He was getting

offered the first protein shake deals.

So, there wasn't money in what he was

doing. All of a sudden, there was money

in bodybuilding. Mhm.

>> And guys were doing steroids and he

quit.

>> Mhm.

>> When someone turns down money, I feel

like there's a little, you know,

>> I believe what he's saying.

>> Mhm.

>> And he wound up then getting into sort

of like my passion of helping people

enjoy life without breaking down. And he

invented this device that he called a

dart. D A R D. I think it was dynamic

axi resistance device. Okay.

>> Rolls off the tongue. It didn't catch

on. By the time I was studying this, you

couldn't even buy it anywhere. It didn't

turn into a a business that worked out.

>> But it allowed you to do the opposite of

a calf race and strengthen the front

shin muscles.

>> Oh, got it. Tibialis interior.

>> Yeah. So, one of the things I do that's

really unusual and Charles Polloquin did

calf training, did tibialis training.

Lots of coaches have have done this. Bob

was the creator and really had a big

impact on me and in my workout style,

which I hadn't seen anyone doing. I go

from the resistance forward and backward

like with the sled

to then working my lower leg muscles.

So, with the sledding, you're pushing

through your feet in various ways. I

mean, you're working all kinds of stuff,

but my my mindset was like, okay, move

the body forward and backward, then

start addressing the body from the

ground up. Let's get some extra abil

like before we even get into the knees.

I found extra desensitization

before getting into the knee work by

doing the lower leg work after the sled

work. Maybe it was just because the sled

burns your legs and you get a little

break, but

>> we can't say it's a bad thing to have

some extra ability in the front and back

of our shins.

>> Mhm.

>> And so an equipment company reached out

said like, "Is there anything This is

when the knees over toes guy was

starting to catch on on social media

like is there anything that doesn't

exist that you think should exist?" I'm

like, "Yeah, like there should be these

dard bars, but I told them call it a tib

bar like to make it simple for people

cuz it's the anterior front tibialis

tibia as your shin."

>> Calling something a dart. Also, I'm I'm

going to hell, but I mean it's it's a

hard one to sell.

>> Yeah.