StrongFirst Podcast

Summary Dr. Kelly Starrett talks about strength and conditioning and moving well with your host Craig Marker. Dr. Starrett is a coach, physical therapist, author, speaker, and blogger, as well as the owner of San Francisco Crossfit and MobilityWOD.com. Show Notes 01:15 – Dr. Dr. Starrett talks about his early work and his relationship with Pavel and StrongFirst. 02:50 – Dr. Starrett talks about the 70-mile bike ride he has coming up and how he challenges himself. 09:15 – What Dr. Starrett is doing for his minimum dose and GPP. 13:36 – Dr. Starrett’s thoughts on the bent press. 21:40 – Dr. Starrett discusses his thoughts on feet being straight forward in squats. 28:55 – Dr. Starrett talks about the need to maintain a good position. 30:30 – Discussion of what Dr. Starrett is working on right now. 33:09 – Dr. Starrett talks about his work with Gray Cook. 35:39 – Dr. Starrett says everyone should work to keep it simple. 3 Key Points: The most important thing is maintaining strength, and elasticity. All good training models have to be explanatory, predictable, and repeatable. You need to train in a position that transfers into other shapes.

Summary: In this episode of the StrongFirst Podcast, your host Craig Marker talks with Dr. Chad Waterbury about strength and conditioning. Show Notes: 00:44 – About Dr. Chad Waterbury, who was trained as a neurophysiologist and Doctor of Physical Training. 3:36 – Dr. Waterbury discusses visualization and its benefits. 04:34 – Dr. Waterbury talks about being a PT and a strength and conditioning coach. 09:44 – Dr. Waterbury discusses how his thinking over the years has changed. 19:06 – Dr. Waterbury discusses undulating ladders. 22:30 – Dr. Waterbury discusses high–frequency training. 27:24 – Dr. Waterbury talks about foot health. 32:40 – Dr. Waterbury talks about calf development. 34:50 – Dr. Waterbury discusses corrective exercise. 41:06 – Dr. Waterbury discusses Pavel and his influence on his career. Resources Mentioned Hftmuscle.com ISSA Corrective Exercise Certification Chadwaterbury.com

Summary: In this episode of the StrongFirst Podcast, your host Craig Marker talks with Pavel Macek, Senior StrongFirst instructor, StrongFirst Accredited Gym Owner, trainer of high-level MMA fighters, and a historian of strength culture. Show Notes: 01:28 – Pavel discusses his background in strength, martial arts, and self-defense. 03:13 – Pavel discusses the hack-squat? 10:20 – Pavel discusses essential equipment for gyms and how old-time strongmen trained. 11:56 – Pavel discusses the usefulness of dumbbells.    17:20 – Pavel discusses his new StrongFirst Resilient course. 21:25 – Pavel discusses the essentials of training. 25:00 – Pavel talks about meditation practice and training. 31:07 – Pavel discusses cold exposure and fasting. 37:35 – Pavel discusses the challenge of consistency in training. Resources Mentioned Simple and Sinister Naked Warrior Beyond BodyBuilding SimplexStrong.com Pavel Macek’s StrongFirst Accredited Gym in Czechia

Summary: In this episode of the StrongFirst Podcast, your host Craig Marker talks with Chris Chapman, Director of Sports Science at Push. Chris discusses strategies to optimize power in your kettlebell swing. Show Notes: 00:49 About Chris Chapman 01:23 Chris talks about his background in tracking motion. 04:52 Chris talks about quantifying movement. 11:45 Chris explains displacement and distance, acceleration. 14:00 Chris talks about deadlifts and Olympic lifts. 16:10 Chris discussing how to find max power. A good place to start would be 50% of your one arm swing. 20:00 Chris discusses velocity-based training. 26:58 Kettlebell exercises generalizing to other athletes. 28:00 Talk about the push band as a way to measure force and power. 38:45 Final thoughts.

Summary: In this episode of the StrongFirst Podcast, your host Craig Marker talks with Dr. Judd Biasiotto about powerlifting and the mindset that helped him overcome many challenges. Show Notes: 00:44 - Craig Marker provides an introduction for Dr. Judd Biasiotto. 01:40 - Dr. Biasiotto talks about his work in baseball. 02:38 - Dr. Biasiotto talks about how he overcame being a “terrible” athlete. 04:15 – Dr. Biasotto discuss his work at the baseball academy and his use of a biofeedback machine to train individual muscles. 10:25 – Dr. Biasotto discusses how to turn a weakness into a strength. 14:00 - Dr. Biasiotto talks about how it is more important to be a good person than a good athlete. 31:41 - Dr. Biasiotto talks about overcoming challenges.

Summary: In this episode of the StrongFirst Podcast, your host Craig Marker talks with Mike Perry, Senior StrongFirst Instructor about training athletes from elite MMA fighters to teenagers. Show Notes: 00:38 - Mike Perry and his wife, Amanda, run a large gym called Skill of Strength outside Boston. 01:30 - He works with 10-12 pro fighters either in the UFC. 03:00 – Mike talks about training short-term vs. long-term planning. Fight camps are generally 8-12 weeks. 05:50 – Mike talks about strength training for fighters. These athletes aren’t power lifters, they’re fighters. The sweet spot is 2x or 2.5x bodyweight for the deadlift. He likes his fighters to do weighted pullups. 07:20 Recovery is the name of the game and his athletes spend a lot of time on heart rate and recovery. 12:55 – Mike talks about flexibility in training. Early in his career, he would try to design the best training program in the world. He learned to work around injuries and recovery needs. 14:38 – FMS for fighters. A lot of the fighters move well, but prevention of injuries is important. 15:47 – Mike’s discusses his emphasis on one leg movement. With mixed martial artists, the single leg training is most important. 16:55 – Mike’s MMA fighters have high VO2 max levels and quick recovery. 20:06 – Training does not need to be like competition. 23:45 – Mike talks about training young athletes. Learning long-term athletic movement. It is organized play while teaching the basics of lifting. For middle school athletes, it’s movement variability. Middle schoolers don’t need to be trained like high school athletes. For high school athletes, it’s skipping variations, running, jump training, basic lifts. 27:20 – Mike discusses training the general population. 29:42 – Mike discusses his push-up program based off Pavel’s Fighter pull-up program. 36:15 – Closing advice and coaching tips.

Summary: In this episode of the StrongFirst Podcast, your host Craig Marker talks with Derek Toshner about endurance and winning the tactical strength challenge. Derek is best known for dominating the TSC. Show Notes: 00:55 Derek’s credentials as an elite competitor. 01:31 Derek and his brother successfully run four branches of TNT Fitness in WI. 02:17 Derek talks about what he’s training for now including rock climbing 03:10 Challenges of climbing. Helps with fear of heights. Work on flexibility. Nutrition and weight management is important. 05:06 Derek talks about his time as a wrestler. 08:00 How he managed the transition from wrestling to 400-meter hurdles. Wrestling is a tough sport mentally and hurdles are much the same. 10:45 Building endurance. Lots of running below the lactate threshold to build a base. Then work on speed with long rests. 16:35 How Derek trains for strength and conditioning at the same time? 21:55 Secret deadlifting training to prepare for the TSC. 25:10 How Derek stays healthy plans for longevity in the future? 27:00 Derek talks about how his brother ran a marathon without any running. 28:14 Derek talks about diet and nutrition? 34:16 General philosophy on training new people. 41:17 Closing thoughts

Episode - 06 Summary: Introducing the StrongFirst Podcast, in this first episode Craig Marker and Brad Kearns discuss the difference between Strong Endurance and Primal Endurance. Brad is the author of Primal Endurance and The Keto Reset. Show Notes: 03:00 - Craig talks about Pavel, his books, and a high-level overview of his programs. 04:25 - How the Soviets trained people for endurance with anti-glycolytic training. 06:35 - How Strong Endurance works with repeat training and recovery. 08:42 - Craig explains phosphates and their importance in endurance training. 09:40 - Brad talks about polarized training and its application to peak performance. 12:00 - Craig explains what anti-glycolytic really is. 13:20 - For an athlete with extremely long duration goals, how do extremely high intensity workouts play into those goals? 17:15 - The importance of practicing perfect is import to efficiency. 24:10 - Craig and Brad talk about the psychological aspect of training sessions. 28:18 - Brad talks about body composition and fat storage. 31:32 - Craig talks about the Strong Endurance movement. 34:58 - Brad discusses how diet affects training. 38:35 - Do you think that healthy things will correlate to peak performance, or do you at some point have to sacrifice your health? 44:00 - Brad talks about what he thinks is important for diet and how it goes along with exercise protocols. We need to escape from carbohydrate dependency. If you’re eating a ton of carbohydrates it begets eating more carbohydrates because of the insulin response. 46:10 - The first step to improve your health is to take a few weeks to tone down your workouts and refine your diet. This benefits both endurance and power athletes. 48:25 - What do you recommend to beginners? Keto is getting misinterpreted right now. You need to take the proper steps to become fat adapted. 53:00 - What does being in ketosis look like from a performance standpoint? 56:32 - What can people do to shorten their intervals in their next workout? Don’t shorten your rest period and work harder in your 10 seconds of work.

Episode #02: Brett Jones Interview with Brett Jones the Director of Education at StrongFirst Summary: Within this 2nd episode of “StrongFirst,” the official podcast of the StrongFirst school of strength. Hosts Craig Marker and Scott Iardella interview Brett Jones, the Chief SFG instructor and Director of Education at StrongFirst. Brett has been teaching kettlebells for over 15 years. Brett discusses the principles of strength, and how it applies to the kettlebell, barbell, and bodyweight exercises. Show Notes: 01:51 – Brett Jones’ job at Strong First is chief SFG instructor and director of education. 02:52 – Bodyweight courses are about how you manipulate your bodyweight and your leverages. 06:17 – “Power to the People” book by Pavel Tsatsouline became key reading to Brett. 08:04 – Move well enough to adapt to the stresses your body will be placed under when training. 11:09 – The kettlebell is good for moves like get-ups, presses, swings, and snatches. 22:28 – Brett’s training with 10 sets of one kettlebell swings. 27:50 – The tools and skills are scaled and customized to the individual. 32:59 – Nothing replaces having a personal trainer. 34:25 – Proper programming should have you recovering from your training. 40:17 – Plan Strong is a graduate-level course in programming—as intensive goes up volume goes down. 44:50 –Brett is reading the “The Spinning Magnet” book. 49:10 – There is a plethora of videos, forum community support, articles, instructors, and courses available on the Strong First website. Tweetable Quotes: -    “Bodyweight courses are really about how you manipulate your bodyweight and your leverages in order to train more of a max strength.” – Brett Jones.  -    “Move well, move often.” – Brett Jones.  Resources Mentioned: StrongFirst – Website for Strong First